In previous years I have sold the same play structures that I sell on the Garden Playground Equipment web site on my Ebay store. However, I've decided to stop selling on Ebay and have closed the Ebay store. People buying on Ebay seem to have the belief that if something is for sale on Ebay then it HAS to be sold at a big discount. However, the margins on the products are pretty small, which means that there is little scope for selling at a discount. And the fact is, that selling on Ebay can be an expensive business! Ebay's fees have gradualy crept up and with listing fees, final valuation fees, and then the percentage that Paypal (part of Ebay) take it all adds up to a significant amount of money.
I don't know how best to make this next point without running the risk of potentially offending some people, but I'll have a go. Another reason for me dumping Ebay as a selling platform is down to the quality of the customers on Ebay and their perceived expectations. Customers that I get through Ebay are often problem customers, whereas customers I get through my web site are usually good customers. I suspect that this is maybe down to the same sort of mentality that people on Ebay have regarding prices, thinking that Ebay=cheaper. I often feel that the customers I got through Ebay were expecting problems and were actively looking to find something wrong.
The play structures I sell are excellent quality and problems are extremely rare, but that doesn't stop Ebay buyers from anticipating problems and emailing me far more than any non-Ebay customer would. So I ended up spending a large amount of time dealing with non-problems.
Dumping Ebay has definitely been a good move!
Labels: ebay, garden playground equipment, play structures
