Culling the (Atari 8-bit) Herd (on Ebay)

[+Allan]

16 hours ago, phc_joe said:

Hi; I have been a die-hard Atari 8-bit user since buying the snazzy new 130XE when it was first released and gradually acquired a motley collection of hardware. The past 30-40 years have taken me into various new responsibilities and interests and I look at this pile of stuff (along with a bunch of other piles of stuff) and say to myself "I'm not likely to use many of these things anymore, time to get them to someone who needs and wants them". Unfortunately I have forgotten how to use a whole bunch of these things and will have to re-learn a bit in order to test them/get them ready to auction.

 

So, over the next few weeks I will be putting some or all of the following out on Ebay (Ebay name: "Kibbywibbles" (the kitten we had when we started selling stuff there, who passed away about 5 years ago at the age of about 15))

 

Not yet listed:

 

Various game cartridges and 8-bit software mostly on 5.25 disks.

Some old Atari books that I never had time to read/do anything with.

 

If you are looking for any old programs public domain or otherwise, message me and I will see if I have them.

 

@phc_joe. Is it possible to maybe get a few/couple of pictures of your software and books. With the books I have most of them but it is possible you may have something rare that I have never seen or heard of. Sort of the same thing with your software. You didn't mention if your commercial software was original (or not so original . ). I digitally archive software, manuals, books, etc. and put them up on the Internet so I am always looking for un-archived Atari 8-bit archivable stuff.

[oracle_jedi]

14 hours ago, Albert said:

I'd be curious in the breakdown of fees, I have to assume most of this was optional stuff.  Not a big deal, but I was just trying to make the point that most people aren't paying 40% in fees.  No way in hell I would sell anything at all on eBay if I was paying anything near that.  I looked through my history for 2021 and I paid 11.9% total in fees for the entire year.  Which isn't bad, really.  This does include a 10% "Top Rated Seller" discount, and I don't buy any optional listing features, just not worth it in my opinion, especially for lower-priced items (which all of mine are, everything is under $100, and most much less than that). 

 

 ..Al

 

My wife sold an electronic cutting machine on Ebay in December.   The buyer paid a final amount of $169.57.   Of that we saw $109.14.  

 

I am not a regular Ebay seller.  Nowadays I rarely buy.  I do not claim to be an expert.

 

Despite the "free listing", Ebay charged 35c for a "Gallery Plus Fee".  They also charged $37.42 for a shipping label, and $22.66 in selling fees.   Let me break that down:

 

When listing the item, which was large and heavy, I opted for buyer-pays-shipping, and selected UPS Ground as the preferred mechanism.  I measured the box and weighed it.  I entered those numbers into the Ebay interface.  There was no option to specify insurance and/or tracking that I can recall.  Not at the time of listing.  I also elected to allow local-pickup and as @bf2k+ stated there are numerous default options that you need to watch for.  I was not interested in any buy-it-now or accept-offers options.  We had to accept Ebay's payment scheme and we had to link a bank account to do so.  That was new from last time.

 

When the item sold for $110.50 and Ebay told us to ship it.  They then offered the UPS shipping label for ~$30  Despite charging the buyer $59.07.  I was then able to add insurance and tracking at my expense which raised the cost of the label to $37.42.

 

From one angle, we sold the machine for $110.50 and saw $109.14 so the cost was about 2%.  But this is only true due to Ebay charging the buyer $59.07 for shipping which in reality cost $37.42. 

 

If we calculate the $22.66 in selling charges against the $110.50 sale price, Ebay's fees were over 20%.  If you add in the $21.65 in shipping that the buyer was charged over what Ebay charged me, their fees amount to 17%.  And that is the point.  Ebay charges that "12.5%" fee against the total sale cost, including shipping, which in many cases they are providing the shipping label. 

 

But all of this is not the reason I am so reluctant to sell on Ebay.   The reason for me is that unless you are a regular seller, Ebay treats you like shit.  They have the largest group of buyers, and they know it.

 

A few years back (~4) I sold a brand new never-opened FitBit on Ebay.  The buyer paid.  I shipped.  I got positive feedback.  So I left positive feedback.   And then the very next day I get a message from the buyer, expletive laden, claiming I cheated her and that the FitBit was not NIB.  She claimed the charging cable was missing.  Before I was even able to respond Ebay had refunded her the sale cost, and charge me for a shipping label to return the FitBit.  I send an email to Ebay stating that the unit was new which was brushed off.  When it arrived back, the FitBit package had been ripped open, and the USB charging cable was exactly where it was supposed to be in the bottom of the package.  I emailed Ebay again and got another brush off.  

 

I was basically charged $50 to have a NIB FitBit destroyed by some moron.

 

And having done more research I realize I was probably fortunate to even get the FitBit back at all.  I have seen numerous posts, some even right here on AtariAge, where buyers have stated something they bought turned up damaged, and they got not only their full purchase price back, but also got to keep whatever-it-is they bought.  And unless you are a power seller it seems Ebay couldn't give a crap.

 

I have had an Ebay account since 1998.   They used to be a great company.  I don't see them that way anymore.

 

As for @phc_joe - you've got some great Atari pieces there.  Some super rare.  Most people in the 8-bit community are straight up but do yourself a favor and familiarize yourself with common Ebay scams.  Some of those pieces I imagine are worth a fair bit to the right collector, and you deserve their full value.

 

Good luck!

  

Edited January 13, 2022 by oracle_jedi
spelling and grammar

[Albert]

3 minutes ago, oracle_jedi said:

When the item sold for $110.50 and Ebay told us to ship it.  They then offered the UPS shipping label for ~$30  Despite charging the buyer $59.07.  I was then able to add insurance and tracking at my expense which raised the cost of the label to $37.42.

 

From one angle, we sold the machine for $110.50 and saw $109.14 so the cost was about 2%.  But this is only true due to Ebay charging the buyer $59.07 for shipping which in reality cost $37.42. 

eBay uses the package weight and size you enter when you setup the auction to calculate the shipping that is shown to the buyer (or potential buyer), based on the user's zip code (if they are in the US) or destination country (if they are outside the US), and you can set different values for domestic and international shipping.  If these values are entered properly, eBay should show the correct retail shipping costs from USPS and other carriers.  Sounds to me it was a bit off if eBay charged $59.07 to the buyer and then you only paid $37.42.  Not bad for you in this particular case, but certainly not good for the buyer. 

 

It is a pain to properly gauge the weight and packaging size for items when you are listing them, no doubt about it.  Especially for larger, heavier, and more complex items.  For AtariAge-related items that I sell, it's not too bad as most of what I sell are boxed games where the boxes are uniform sizes, and loose games with manuals which, again, are fairly consistent in size (with some variations, such as 2600 vs. 5200 vs. Atari 8-bit carts, for instance).  I do not purchase postage from eBay, I use third-party software to do that, since I sell across multiple platforms and it's much easier for me to do the shipping in one place.  And easier for me to keep track of if I need to later looking up shipping / tracking information down the road.  The software will also update the tracking number on eBay and Etsy automatically (which also marks the item as shipped), so that's helpful. 

 

I agree with your overall assessment of eBay.  It was a lot better a long time ago when eBay was young.  Over time, the site has gotten more complex, listing items is more complex, fees can be confusing (especially now with the Managed Payments program that I'm not fond of, even though it saves me maybe a 1/2 percent versus the 10% final value fee and 2.9% PayPal fees I used to pay), I don't like how eBay holds your funds for multiple days before sending it to your bank account.  Etsy does the same thing, but at least with Etsy you can override the default behavior and have the funds deposited the same or next day (or something like that). 

 

I like eBay because they have a huge audience, so I primarily sell on eBay to attract more people to AtariAge who might not otherwise be aware that we are publishing new games for various classic consoles.  And to that end, it works fairly well.  But outside of that, I'm not a fan of many things they do.  It is also more work for me versus just selling items in the AtariAge Store, and sometimes you do have buyers who try to take advantage of you one way or another.  I've had the AtariAge eBay account since 2001, but before that I did have a personal account that was created in 1998 or 1999.  I remember having to go to the Post Office to get money orders to buy items.

 

One thing that helps on my end is not listing items directly on eBay, but using third-party software to do that.  I'm using software called Garage Sale on the Mac, and without something like that, it would take considerably more time for me to setup, list, and maintain auctions.  I'm pretty certainly I would go out of my mind if I had to do all that on eBay.  But not really viable for people randomly listing items every once in a while. One thing that's nice about that is the software I'm using (and I'm sure this is true of any or most listing software) is that it won't magically enable any optional features when I'm listing items.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not really trying to defend eBay here at all, I know eBay is full of tons of warts, I consider it a kind of "necessary evil" as it is useful for me from the AtariAge perspective.  I was just trying to state that people are not paying 40% fees on eBay in general, and it's fairly easy to avoid paying more than the final value fee.  Also, it's definitely crap that eBay includes shipping in their final value fee calculation.  This wasn't the case for some time, but then sellers decided they would put a low value for the item and then a high shipping cost as a means to greatly reduce eBay's final value fee.  You can mostly blame those sellers for that change, and while I don't like it, I can't really fault eBay for doing it given what was a common practice at the time.

 

 ..Al

[phc_joe]

16 hours ago, Sugarland said:

Thanks for the link to the store.  $150 as an opening bid for a non-working and heavily yellowed and used 130XE with upgraded 3way OS Omnimon switcher...

I think that's a fair criticism. Perhaps I did start that one a bit high (but there are 6 watchers at the moment, probably "lurking" until the last 5 seconds before trying to slam in a bid). But we will see.  I was just shocked at how quickly the 65XE got snapped up, with all that was wrong with it.  From what I've been reading on various sites, the green screen thing may not be a difficult fix for a good diagnostic/hardware person.

[gilsaluki]

I don't know about all the Ebay selling in and outs, but that Navajo serving dish is calling my name.....

 

[mimo]

17 hours ago, phc_joe said:

but there are 6 watchers at the moment, probably "lurking" until the last 5 seconds before trying to slam in a bid

More likely they are AtariAge users seeing if it sells before putting their kit up for sale at the same price

[Goochman]

When I sold a bunch of my jag stuff in 2019 I calculated about 22% in fee's I paid between ebay and paypal.  Once ebay wanted all my personal info and switch to their pay service I stopped using it.

[phc_joe]

FYI: Books I have/available to sell if interested.

 

Compute's First Book of Atari

SAMS Programmer's Reference Guide for the Atari 400/800 Computers

Your Atari Computer (Poole/McNiff/Cook)

Atari Basic: A Self Teaching Guide (Albrecht/Finkel/Brown)

Atari Basic XL Edition: A Self Teaching Guide (Albrecht/Finkel/Brown)

[phc_joe]

8 hours ago, mimo said:

More likely they are AtariAge users seeing if it sells before putting their kit up for sale at the same price

Ha! You're probably at least partially right. But I did have 4 watchers before I mentioned it here.

[phc_joe]

On 1/13/2022 at 5:05 PM, gilsaluki said:

I don't know about all the Ebay selling in and outs, but that Navajo serving dish is calling my name.....

 

?...mostly stuff my wife (veteran thrift store/rummage sale/flea market addict) deals with.

[gilsaluki]

6 minutes ago, phc_joe said:

?...mostly stuff my wife (veteran thrift store/rummage sale/flea market addict) deals with.

really cool items.

[+x=usr(1536)]

@phc_joe: Just curious: sent you a PM about the 800XL a couple of days ago - did you get it?