posted on February 28, 2001 01:08:04 PM new
I won't be able to continue listing on AW. All the fees are not making it worth it. I love AW and wish I could afford it but I can't. I am not a big time seller. Now I have learn to list on Ebay which is going to be a chore...but at least I can list on Ebay as part of the fees that were already hiked a few months ago. Wonder if they will just jerk my items off on March 14th if I haven't signed up and given a credit card number?
posted on February 28, 2001 01:18:36 PM new
I totally agree with you. I too am a full time-ebayer. AW now has to get their piece of the action. So much for free. Why don't they just call it WOW! (whip open wallet). It gets to the point that so many companies want their hand in the pie, that it drives the cost of auctioning to a non-profit activity. First Ebay increases, then PayPal now AW. Where's it end??????
posted on February 28, 2001 01:25:01 PM new
Well folks, I am packing my bags here too......I will be looking for something else. I love ebud..........and they just made it so that you have to buy eposter with ebud..........so I guess that is the first place I will look.
posted on February 28, 2001 01:31:06 PM new
I know what you mean. I just did a rough calculation on fees (very rough) and discovered that on a $20 auction about $2.00 will go to various fees (assuming the buyer uses Billpoint, etc.) This is great if your item only cost you $5.00, but if your item cost you $15.00 there isn't much left when the fee get taken out by everyone who wants a piece of your action. I'm not ready to just ship on AW, but I wasn't expecting this type fee structure either. I was expecting certain services to be fee based (storefront, for example - which I had about decided I would pay a monthly fee for.) The problem with the auction business is that you cannot just ratchet up your starting bid to keep covering additional fees. The closer your opening bid gets to retail price the less likely buyers are to bid.
I am concerned with the .05 listing fee as in my category you often have to list an item two or three times to get a sale. That makes it a 15 cent listing fee for the item when it sells plus the FVF. For close margin items every penny lost to fees is felt.
I'm going to take a wait and see attitude. I've been with AW ever since they were just an image hosting and counter provider. They've been more than helpful with auction tools and so on. I think I'll just give it a go and then decide. Heck, I'm only doing this as a hobby and to beat the interest rate on a savings account at the bank anyway.
I will add this caveat to the AW people reading these posts, however. You have raised the bar of my expectations. You will become a PAID service provider. There will no excuse for auctions scheduled to launch at 10:00 PM launching at 10:30, 11:45, or 3:30 AM because they got stuck in processing. There will be no excuse for images not showing up in an auction. These kinds of things cost us money in missed sales. If you want the money you'd better be perfect - on time, every time.
[ edited by gk4495 on Feb 28, 2001 02:03 PM ]
posted on February 28, 2001 02:01:18 PM new
As long as Ebay continues to provide Mister Lister, I will use that to upload my Ebay auctions, and instead of doing relists of sold auctions to save time, I'll just have to re-upload a fresh auction - which REALLY bites... relisting puts a link on the old auction, which is good, but 1/2 the time, my picture would disappear when using Ebay's picture service - but looks like I'll have to resort to that because I can't afford another nickel.. *sigh*
posted on February 28, 2001 02:05:32 PM new
I will also be leaving AW.... I will no longer be reading these message boards if it's gonna cost me 5 cents to read each post!
"My possessions are causing me suspicion." - Neil Finn
[ edited by waspstar on Feb 28, 2001 02:06 PM ]
posted on February 28, 2001 02:06:25 PM new
I do this for hobby gas for my car, clothes for the kids and all the rest of the little extras . With all of the hands in our little baskets now . Its not worth it for me to use auction watch any longer .
Farewell I just hope you dont bite the dust with all the other .com companies ..
A fee I could handle but a peice of the pie is out of the question ..
