On 24 Aug, 07:04, Bill wrote:
I've been wondering why the last two things I bought from ebay charged
postage at below cost. Now I know.
I went to advertise a decent external soundcard for a low start price
auction, weighed it and worked out the postage cost, got to the final
stage only to be told that for this item the maximum postage I could
charge was £0.00. As postage was going to be about £3.00, I naturally
went back and put the price up by a bit more than that.
That will work for the next few days while they have their bizarre no
listing fees offer, but after that it looks like the end of ebay for me
for small value items.
My son, who buys and sells better stuff than me, tells me that he is
almost always now losing money on p & p, and so adjusts the price
accordingly.

I appreciate that people 'made a bit' on the postage, but only the
terminally stupid would not add postage and auction price before
bidding, and this now seems to mark the end of "99p" starting price give
it a punt offers.

No doubt they have brought in a bunch of business graduates to advise on
their model.

What is the most likely to succeed ebay as the most viable on line
auction outfit? If I were younger, I'd be seriously thinking of starting
one up.
--
Bill

I hear ebid is a growing one. Whether it will ever have the pulling
power of ebay remains to be seen. I'm much more comfortable using
Amazon & Playtrade but there is a limit to what you can sell on there.