eBay these days...

[BertBeagle]

I think the values or deals on ebay today for buyers are there but they are in specific categories. Maybe the attraction for a seller today is that in most cases you will sell the item – you will have turn over. Some categories are good for sellers (for instance genuine collectables) and some good for buyers. For instance high quality brand used tools are good to buy. I thought about getting into the drilled brake rotor game very early on when they started showing up on ebay. There was money to be made there. However because I knew the auctions for these were misstating the value of holes in rotors and that they were basically a fashion statement, I resisted. I occasionally check the drilled rotor thing on ebay and today I think most of those vendors are selling for nickels. It is whored out like most of the new in the box products on ebay. I have known people who have found a niche on ebay with, for instance, baby clothes and have made good money. We sell some obsolete or old stock on ebay and price it to move. We could sell the stuff with the many local racing industry auctions around Charlotte but the ebay auction is easy and you don’t have to touch the inventory until it is sold.

I am a buyer on ebaly also. I buy most of my shop tools there and have made many company purchases. For instance the last replacement business phone I purchased was on ebay – new and for $100 less than the Bellsouth price. There are sellers who specialize in very high quality air tools and other tools. These sellers typically have a connection to some local large plant or industry and the brands they are selling attract a smaller group of buyers who know the brand – two examples are Jiffy air drills and Dotco air tools. I have gotten good deals on air tools, tool holders and tooling for my machining centers, etc. I purchased with one bid an almost new cnc turning center on ebay 4 years ago. I had a machine go down and it was not worth repairing. Found a turning center in Canada like I wanted. Called my local dealer for that brand and he hooked me up with the dealer in Toronto who sold the machine new. He went out and did an inspection and agreed to crate it in an original crate and handle shipping for a fee. It arrived 4 days after the auction ended and the local dealer here had it uncrated and running in my shop the day it arrived. The smoothest ebay transaction I have ever had. I got the machine for a very good price that far out weighed not having a factory warranty for a top line machine that rarely breaks down. In my opinion at the time it was a risk worth taking.

My first ebay sale was in ‘98 and was several listings of golf clubs that the local schools would not take as donations to the golf program. I was surprised that the sale of several sets plus some old clubs totaled over $2500. Then it became a game for a while with my wife and daughter being amused that I could turn throw away stuff into my typical goal of $500 / group of listings. Fees were low. Also I would by old Ping putters with misplaced or misspelled titles and relist for a profit. It is not as much like that today and I find myself taking more stuff to the Goodwill and Habitat (and feeling better about it too). A while back I read the book Paypal Wars (I think that was the title) and it gave an interesting look into the start of it all. When I started selling and buying you could find deals by looking for listings with mis-spellings or titles with the wrong description. I don’t think that opportunity is as common today. There are millions more items listed today and that makes it more time consuming to search for those opportunities.

Today I think the buyers best friend is the snipping software.

For my junk cleaning sales today (outside of Habitat and Goodwill) I like Craigslist. But it is a buyers site also for the categories I like, for instance, tools. I still enjoy looking around on ebay but not as often as I used to. Buyers on some ebay categories could use Yogi Berra’s restaurant commit – “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”.

[CJFusco]

When I abandoned my engine project, I went and sold the parts I had accumulated on eBay (I should have kept the 951 exhaust manifolds!). I had bought quite a few of the parts on eBay, including an engine block (local pick-up) and all the turbo hardware/pipes.

I turned around and sold all the parts for a substantial profit. It's all about how you list the product, what you put in the title line, etc.

For me, eBay (and Amazon's used stores) is where I wll pick up a secondhand book or CD that I had been curious about for cheap - or where I would look for used car parts hardware that would cost a fortune elsewhere. That's why it doesn't seem like eBay really compares to Pelican for me - I would buy from Pelican stuff like gaskets and sensors, filters and brake hardware, gears and belts, the stuff you would want BRAND NEW, and I would buy from eBay stuff like a used-but-perfect crossover pipe.

[herr_oberst]

I've been burned and I've been lucky on ebay. I would never buy a car or anything like that, but I just "bought it now" a lot of 50 wax pads for 35 bucks, that seemed reasonable to me. If the pads are as advertised, I'll be happy, and I'll have enough of them to last many years. The seller has 99.8% Pos. feedback, so I will gamble my 35. Stuff like this is why I am glad ebay exists.

I recently looked at 911 test pipes on ebay and ended up buying a Fabspeed from Pelican. No substitute for reputation.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I find ebay to be marginally useful. You can find specialty items (i.e. 944 parts, particularly used/hard-to-find ones) there for a heck of a lot cheaper than anywhere else (usually a dealership). The downside is like Wayne said, the fees and listing procedures are terrible. The "feedback" system is absolutely worthless and not worth trusting.

You can find prices on a lot of things much cheaper than from a brick-and-mortar retailer, but not always cheaper than you could find elsewhere at online retailers. I was a user of ebay way back in 1995 when it was new/innovative but since then it's really become a haven for scammers, red tape, high fees and the same sort of problems that plague "want ads" magazines, just in an electronic format.

Try craigslist. At least it's free. Still get a lot of the same problems (unresponsive buyers/sellers, too many non-serious "tire kickers" for certain things, etc., but at least it's local and free for sellers).