Gumtree, Ebay, any others?

[jonnyboy666]

i'm guessing that like me some of you are getting annoyed with the costs these days of selling on ebay, i know i am, i sold a frame via ebay a while ago, advertised at £120 plus 15 for post, it sold for £120 posted, the post cost was £15, but after paypal and listing fees i only got £85 for the frame, to me this is not acceptable any more.

so i looked at gumtree, i'll be honest, i don't understand it, it seems so random and disorganised to me and spammed to hell.

so are there any other sales sites you can recommend? i prefer to sell here first, not just to avoid charges but also to keep stuff in the family as such but if stuff doesn't sell here i then usually move on to ebay.

thoughts? recommendations?

 

[technodup]

Gumtree is good for local sales but Ebay nails it for a bigger audience. Of course Ebay owns Gumtree so I'm not sure it'll be free forever- they're certainly bigging up the paid for listing options all the time.

It's quite straightforward, find your city, the category and away you go. Best thing is buyers turn up with cash.

There are always local sites as well but the smaller or more local the site, the smaller the market and it follows the lower the sale price. Which brings you back around to Ebay's nationwide audience and their fees for helping you reach it.

 

[RadNomad]

Maybe a case of "you get what you pay for"? Ebay isn't cheap but it's a very well structured platform, the item is marketed globally to a huge number of potential buyers and is well presented, traceable, payment options imbedded etc and it works. Gumtree cheap but maybe inferior as you suggest. I get your point but there are other considerations, for example the huge reach of ebay may well mean the bidding goes higher because you've reached more people some of whom are willing to bid higher. Your frame might've sold on a lesser platform with lower fees but the bidding might've reached only 50 quid. We call it evilbay, fleabay etc but it's pretty good really i reckon. Auctioneers would likely take as big a cut and more.

 

[RadNomad]

the smaller the market and it follows the lower the sale price. Which brings you back around to Ebay's nationwide audience and their fees for helping you reach it.

Yup agreed. I basically repeated this sentiment, we were posting simultaneously!

 

[technodup]

To quote the Shamen, Ebay is 'very much maligned and misunderstood'.

You only need go back 10 years to see how different is was to sell stuff. Newspaper ads, phone calls, bouncing cheques etc etc. I bought a coat from Italy last week and it arrived the next day. Nothing to do with Ebay but the point is the same, worldwide marketplace, instant money transfer, next day delivery. What a world we live in.

10% to those who make it happen isn't unfair imo.

 

[brocklanders023]

Ebay is getting far too expensive. I think what gets up my nose the most is that it never used to be. They've sown up the market so will now charge what they want knowing buyers have very little option, just like the energy companies. :evil:

Do you sell on the other bike sites? Pinkbike and singletrack world seem to have active FS forums.

 

[jonnyboy666]

yeah that's my main issue, the price has gone up, regularly, over the years, for no real improvement as such, i mean other than a subtle look change to the website every now and then so i struggle to understand the price increases.

i tend not to use many other bike related websites, i am a member on a few but rarely check in on them and even more rarely post on them. but lets face it, flogging retro stuff, here is the 1st place to try, then the whore that is ebay, any other site they would just tell you to use retrobike so it's a catch 22 i suppose.

didn't know ebay owned gumtree though, free listings will change then. :roll:

 

[technodup]

yeah that's my main issue, the price has gone up, regularly, over the years, for no real improvement as such, i mean other than a subtle look change to the website every now and then so i struggle to understand the price increases.

I'm no Ebay fanboy but I'd imagine you'd be surprised if you could see the site now as it was in 2000. The changes are designed to be incremental so as not to scare people off. An analogy would be the BBC site, find an archive page from 2003 and it will be essentially the same product but you'd sure notice the difference.

That, and the bit you can't see is the number of users. I don't have numbers but we can safely say they have vastly more buyers now than then, which is why they can charge more for the privilege of selling to them.

There have been plenty of competitors; QXL; Ebid; Discogs for music etc but as an all rounder? Ebay wins hands down every time.