Howdy all!

I just was looking into selling some other stuff after not getting quite the results I wanted on craigslist, I started setting up some eBay auctions (I'm glad I never got to the point of posting anything.) Since this summer's buffoonery (quick recap: no more negative feedback for buyers, higher final value fees, confusing changes to shipping) looks like there have been some more changes!

If you want to do flat shipping, you now HAVE to offer a $3 shipping option (at least for DVD's). (If you don't do megavolume, this is impossible to do without eating some shipping, as non-bulk packaging will cost you at least a buck or two).
The final value fee has now gone up to 12%.
There is now a detailed feedback which gives you four feedback ratings per transaction--something like packaging, speed, accuracy, whatever whatever.
The consequences of negative feedbacks are now stricter, and paypal will sometimes hold your payments for a time period (forced escrow), and your listing fees may go even higher, or you may not be able to list anything else at all.
And there are rampant horror stories presently about smaller sellers having their auctions randomly changed to free shipping! What a joke!

Rumors of things coming soon:

No more auctions at all. It will all be buy-it-now.
Positive buyer feedback will be automatically left as soon as the buyer clicks "buy" (seems weird to me, why not just eliminate it).
Neutral feedback will be eliminated.
Eventually you will have to be an ebay store to sell anything.

Basically they appear to be trying to get rid of anyone other than megasellers and be another overstock.com or sort of an amazon lite that only has 3rd party sellers. The rare & unique knicknacks are long gone. I read that one guy did about $15k of business a month and spent about $5k a month on fees--he just said to heck with it and rented a physical space in his town, and did better with a real store. It's not financially worth your while to sell less than several thousand items a month (at least) anymore. They want to chase out the little guys. Worked for me! I'm late getting off this boat but what the hey. I'm definitely done now.

Been selling since 2000, had lots of fun selling off wargaming, video game, record, and other collections. But now it's undeniably not worth it anymore, financially speaking.

So at any rate, I might be interested in a new venue, and I checked out onlineauctions.com but had reservations about it, but maybe I could be swayed. I would be interested in opinions on what the good auction venues are these days.

Thanks!

Welcome to PSU futureink! You may be a "latecomer" this year, but you are an "early adopter" for the wave from next year.

There are not yet any truly "good auction venues" if by that you mean comparable to eBay, but there are some with potential, and there are other ways to handle e-commerce than auctions. However, sellers are getting better every year at making a living off of ebay with less stress after a learning period.

You might want to download my spreadsheet (link in my signature) and search for words related to your items. There are niche sites for several you mention, though I doubt I have found them all yet.

A google search for your items with keywords might lead somewhere more.

If you find you get a lot of international sales, ebid.net might be worth looking into. They may eventually rival ebay (in years, not months), and I, personally, like the way they are set up. I don't know how well onlineauction might work for your items, but they do have a sold items area that you can browse through. If you do choose OLA, be clear with yourself that you are "buying" the tools currently available, and not any anticipated upgrades - they are sometimes more optimistic than realistic - and try the back-end at $8/month first to see if it "fits" you.

It seems that some sellers go in to various venues with, ummm, "inflated" expectations and suffer severe let-down and bitterness as a result. It also seems that some go out of their way to exacerbate these emotional assessments of the value of various online venues, to what purpose I have still not understood.

I strongly suggest you concern yourself with how a venue might fit your business and make your own decisions based on your own research. There are a great many other viable choices besides those I mentioned. There is certainly a lot of information available here and elsewhere on the internet.

Best wishes in your adventure!

Hello and welcome