How much does it cost eBay to host your listing? 1/20th of a penny? One Penny? Ebay is charging sellers 100 to 1,000 times that for listing and final value fees and sellers have bought into this nonsense like mindless sheep. A one week boycott would have eBay bending over backwards to bring sellers back. A mass exodus would put an end to this insanity. The internet was never meant to be dominated by big corporations. Have some self respect. Bite the bullet for a week or two. You have the power to shape the future of online sales for independent sellers. Or you can laydown and do nothing and let eBay continue to exploit you. BOYCOTT 18th to ???....until ebay gets the message. Sellers put up 99% of the work to produce the items listed on eBay. Sellers pay eBay to host their auctions. Not to be exploited. Ebay is a WEB HOSTING SERVICE. The typical web host offers 500meg-1GB storage with 25GB-50GB bandwidth for $7.95/month. If the typical web host charged eBay's rates we would be paying $8,000.00/month for the same storage and bandwidth. Ebay is an overpriced WEB HOST. Nothing more. Spread the word. Post to every newsgroup and forum you can find. BOYCOTT EBAY. ------------------------------------------------------ Web Host Comparison Chart: IPOWERWEB - 500 MEG/30 GIG........$7.95/mo STARTLOGIC - 1000 MEG/40 GIG.....$7.50/mo LUNAR PAGES - 500MEG/20 GIG.......$7.95/mo GLOBAT - 1000 MEG/50 GIG..........$7.50/mo EBAY - 500 MEG/30 GIG............$8,000.00/mo
Actually, I think there should be someway to undermine eBay's "virtual" monopoly. PayPal's also. But I've learned the hardway that it's very difficult to organize people. It's far easier to divide and conquer. mass posting to newsgroups I don't think will do the trick. The casual buyer has no awareness of eBay's predations. Sellers have learned that eBay is the best way to sell. www.paypalsucks.com doesn't seem to have affected PayPal's business on whit. Even the class action lawsuit was nothing but a beebee off the armour.
X-No-archive: yes ============================== That is because most users of eBay are very happy with the service.
So, it would seem, you should start your own "Ebay". If it is as easy as you say, you should be making money hand over fist. What's stopping you?
I can understand using ebay to buy dvds if you live in some remote town or if you are housebound and cannot get out to do shopping or if th e dvd title in question is very rare. But using it to buy commonly available dvd titles when in most cases you can go down to the local store (like Walmart or Best Buy) and get a NEW dvd title for LESS than what you would likely pay for a used one on ebay (especially when you factor in S&H)is just plain crazy!
I can understand using ebay to buy dvds if you live in some remote town or if you are housebound and cannot get out to do shopping or if th e dvd title in question is very rare. But using it to buy commonly available dvd titles when in most cases you can go down to the local store (like Walmart or Best Buy) and get a NEW dvd title for LESS than what you would likely pay for a used one on ebay (especially when you factor in S&H)is just plain crazy!
wrote in Right, and the cost to the vendor is the only determining factor when deciding on price, right? Don't worry, I'm sure you'll take basic economics in your senior year, if not before. Right, because eBay is a charity and has no right to any of the profit for sales that they made possible. Also, sellers are forced against their will to list auctions on eBay... they would have much rather put up free auctions on Yahoo, which no one ever visits. Or, maybe they'd just use the downtime to do some system upgrades. No, it was meant to make communication in the US possible, even if several major cities were obliterated in a nuclear war. I'm guessing you don't mind that we've found other uses for it. And they've done, what, exactly? Charged me for auctions that made me money? Sellers pay to put their auctions in a place that will generate sales. If you want to put up an index card on the supermarket community board, be my guest, but I'd rather get noticed and sell for a good profit. Ummm... no. eBay is a marketplace. It's set up to attract buyers and sellers, with search features geared to math the right buyers to the right sellers. Web hosting services let you edit your material any time you wish-- eBay doesn't. Web hosting services charge you extra if you generate excessive traffic-- eBay doesn't. -- Aaron J. Bossig http://www.GodsLabRat.com http://www.dvdverdict.com
They are nothing of the kind. Does the average webhost bring millions of visitors to your doorstep? No. If you don't like Ebay, don't use them, and go find an alternative service. There are plenty of them. Simple as that. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mike Kohary mike at kohary dot com http://www.kohary.com Karma Photography: http://www.karmaphotography.com Seahawks Historical Database: http://www.kohary.com/seahawks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They're a business, they need to make money. Charging 3cents to host your auction wouldn't exactly allow them to stay in business. That $0.35 must really break your bank. -Otter
It's pretty clear to most that items sold for under $25 or so are not worth the effort on Ebay. Unless you do what many retailers on Ebay do an horrifically pad the shipping costs! -Rich
eBay can be cheaper, especially if you don't mind getting a used (and possibly copied by the seller) DVD. But as long as I'm getting the original (not the copy) and it plays without skipping then I don't care if it's used or if the seller has broken any copyright laws. - -Jon Purkey - <) For a quicker reply by email please use the address found here: http://tinyurl.com/o8ka
Both eBay and Amazon Marketplace are awash in import DVDs and the sellers usually don't disclose that what they are selling are imports. I don't mind imports sometimes, if I'm getting a substantial discount over what a US release would cost, but when I buy what I think is a US release and it turns out to be an import, I want to hang the seller for fraud. Unfortunately neither eBay or Amazon seems to care about this and both expect the buyer to return the DVD at their expense in order to get a refund.
I've seen plenty of bootlegs, but the one's I'm talking about look like authorized releases to me. The artwork is perfect and they have good UPCs, as well as subtitles in different languages--not just Asian.
So they're good quality bootlegs. If the DVD is region free and has Asian subtitles, and if the seller is selling a large volume of them at a substantive discount, then they're likely bootlegs. The quality of the pressing or packaging aren't as much a consideration anymore, as pirates have gotten better at this. Now, there are a lot of legitimate Asian releases. However, the majority of them never show up on eBay, and if it's a Hollywood release, are very likely to cost the same or more than an R1. There are exceptions, but especially if the seller is trying to pass it off as an R1, it's probably a bootleg. -Jay
He is right about one thing I have not purchased any dvds on Ebay lately but other than that... In fact to give you an example this morning I purchased "The Man in the Moon" for $6.64 at Walmart which, if you go look on Ebay you will see that most of the "Opening Bids" are almost all greater than what I aldeady paid, and that is before you factor in the S&H! And then you gotta wonder and worry(like you pointed out) about things like is this the "Real Deal"or some pirated crap put out by some chinese bootlegers who a decade ago might have been making rubber dog doo. Heck just keep your eyes on the sunday flyers from Best Buy and Circut City and Walmart and Target (and doxens of other stores big and small)and you will find most all the dvd deals you want, and then some!
He is right about one thing I have not purchased any dvds on Ebay lately but other than that... In fact to give you an example this morning I purchased "The Man in the Moon" for $6.64 at Walmart which, if you go look on Ebay you will see that most of the "Opening Bids" are almost all greater than what I aldeady paid, and that is before you factor in the S&H! And then you gotta wonder and worry(like you pointed out) about things like is this the "Real Deal"or some pirated crap put out by some chinese bootlegers who a decade ago might have been making rubber dog doo. Heck just keep your eyes on the sunday flyers from Best Buy and Circut City and Walmart and Target (and doxens of other stores big and small)and you will find most all the dvd deals you want, and then some!