is e-bay worth it or not?

Answer 1

I haven't personally had any problems with people not paying, or not receiving items. In my opinion, the factors that make Ebay worth it or not really depend on several things:

1. Shipping costs. You need to ask yourself - as a buyer or seller - how heavy is the item and is it worth the price you are paying or selling it for when you add in the shipping cost? Some sellers charge unbelievable amounts for shipping, even for relatively light items. And if you are going to sell a heavy item, you have to think about whether a buyer would be willing to pay an extra 5 - 20 dollars for it. If your item's only worth $2.00 and shipping would be an extra $4.50, it's probably not worth selling it through ebay. Better to have a garage sale or try http://www.craigslist.org. Likewise, as a buyer, think about whether you could buy the item at a retail store for about the same amount as the bidding price plus shipping.

2. As far as buying new or nearly-new products on Ebay, you really have to do your research as to how much a product is worth on the retail market. I've found that many items selling on Ebay could be purchased new through Amazon.com or at Target for about the same price. Even if the price on Ebay would be a couple bucks cheaper, I would probably go the retail route just to avoid shipping and/or payment problems.

3. Building a reputation. If you're interested in doing business online, it can be worth building a reputation on Ebay as a responsible buyer and seller. So you may try selling things here and there, making sure you provide good service, and buying items you need or as gifts on Ebay, and paying quickly for them, simply to build a good reputation online.

4. Local flair. A lot of items could be worth more locally than they are globally. Where only a handful of local patrons may be viewing your handcrafted pottery on ebay, there may be many more people in your immediate area willing to shell out good money for a locally handcrafted item.

Hope this helped!
Coral

Answer 2

I have only had 1 problem with it, I didn't get my purchase. E-bay has piss poor costumer service! They expect you to resolve the problem with the seller. The seller would not message me back so I got screwed and it was only 12$ and not worth the hassle of dealing with those ebay idiots! Other than that, most people on there are honest. Look at their feedback from other buyers. They rip you off if you are trying to sell somethin, but all auction houses do that!.

Answer 3

It has it's place, but seems to have a lot of problems, due to EBay being very lax with rules and allowing a lot of fakes to be sold. If you know your items there is less chance of problems. To me though, the hassles are not worth it. If I have a problem, I have little recourse and even if it is fixed, I lost time and money for shipping. At my age I need as little headaches as possible and I like dealing with my local coin dealers, or ones that have ads in the coin papers. Coin World as well as Numismatic news help their readers if they have problems with advertisers and Coin World even helped out a guy that had a problem with the U.S.Mint. A lot of coin as well as other clubs are not to happy with EBay. I have used Yahoo auctions a few times for some medals and tokens and the people seem to be more honest at least so far. I think EBay's problem is it is to big, with too much on it. You don't really save if you figure out your labor in finding something you want and pray it is described right and the photo is correct also.

Answer 4

I have made MANY purchases from Ebay sellers and have only had a problem once...I emailed the seller and he was very apologetic and rectified the oversight immediately. My son has sold several items on Ebay and has had mostly honest buyers who paid promptly. All the purchases I made were real bargains compared to what I would have paid in a store so if you buy from someone with a good track record ( positive feedback ) you should have a good experience.

Answer 5

I ordered a small laser-permanent hair removal electrical appliance, I read the purchases comments, all of them were positive, they wrote that the delivery was on time and with no delay, as for the hair removal results, there weren't any comments. I live in Europe, but I was interested by the advertisement of permanent laser-hair remover, and I believed the advertisement, paid by credit card, and got my order delivered by plane from the USA to my European country. I was so happy that I received my order from overseas, that I left my positive comment concerning the delivery success. Then I tried my laser epilator, and to my frustration its results were almost zero. It means that the hair I was working with didn't fall off, or if I was successful it was burnt at the root and fell off. The idea was, that even if the hair remains, wouldn't fall off, then it means that it would fall off in 2 weeks. I decided for myself that in 2 weeks an old hair would fall, and the new hair would grow instead. There was one rule also- that the laser epilator works only on black hair, my hair is black. I e-mailed my laser seller,David by name, asking him what happens with the hair falling off when treating them with laser, he said that he is blond and didn't try that epilator. By the way David is a Jewish name, who usually have black hair.
In the end I can say, that the delivery was OK, the laser epilator doesn't remove hair at all.