Re:Better question (Score 1)

I find a lot of these posts are from people who do not use/enjoy eBay and there for do not understand it as well as say...me. I manage a company (currently) that sells vintage Asian motorcycle parts. We only sell/advertise our parts on ebay. Why? Because there is no other way we can reach such a huge customer base (hell, we went global :) ). If you want to sell your ipod on ebay your right, yours is not going to sell unless its the cheepest. However, if you have a clutch cover for a Honda C110, you might be surprised what people will pay... Why do we do so make so much money? Because we have what people can't find anymore, old, vintage, NOS, parts. It's the same with anything. If I open an electronics store in downtown detroit, im not going to make any money becuase Best Buy is going to under sell me, but if I supply something that has a high demand that no one else is selling, I win. Yes, the fees can be painful if you use upgrades (bigger descriptions/more pictures/blinking crap...), buy why would you? The ebay descriptions will take html code. So what do you do? For $30 a year you buy hosting from Dreamhost and then host everything there and then just link everything to your auctions. Want 10 pictures in your listing, $3.50. Linking them? Free... Yes you have to pay for the hosting, but we list enough auctions a day to save the $30 every day. It's all how you push your items. You just have to know "the tricks." Shipping supplies? All free from usps. We ship everything priority through paypal. That allows us to track all of your shipmest (for free through ebay/paypal). We are very minimal. Warehouse, computers, shipping supplies. Seller status? That's all crap as far as im concerned. Yes we are on a pretty high teir of "Power Seller" but that does not really mean much to us. We do not get anything for it except a pretty little logo next to our feedback. It does not cost anything, and if we lose it, it doesnt cost anything. It's more of a way for ebay to make more money, you can get health insurance and stuff through it, for less...more stuff...blah...but, if you do not want it, you don't have to pay. EBay can be a great place to make money, done correctly. If you do not think people can make good money on eBay you should see our debt/profit ratio...