Ebat seller Shrive Cars

[Zetomagneto]

If all the cherished suppliers were to embrace the marketplace there, then the sacrifice of the occasional 10% ebay plus 2 or 3% paypal fees on a sale would far outweigh the positive advertising space for promoting the business subtly to new people outside of this hallowed circle.

If it were done on high value or specialist items (like say, a steering box or Sports steering arm), then people see the ad but don't necessarily buy. Many businesses DO promote their contact details rather than being invisible, known only to to people by their ebay name.

And there is no reason why 'special ebay prices' have to be low.  If the 12-3% is added on, then you still get the free advertising. i.e. you don't necessarily want to encourage the sales occurring there, as people will quickly see if they do go direct they can get a better price as they cut out the middlepeople.

What is irritating is those orgs (I'm not referring to Austin 7 related) who do sell new/common things on ebay at their lowest price, as they are plainly netting less per item when selling there after costs, than if people make direct contact.

Cherished suppliers are well known to seasoned Austin Seven owners, so why use eBay as a platform,that way we would all be paying an extra 15% or our cherished suppliers would be making a loss of the same amount.Not good for any of us.
Ebay is perhaps ok for a new Seven supplier to get themselves known and established, I notice Flying Sevens are doing this very thing
There is no excuse for new Seven owners, 1st thing to do is join one of the many clubs, plenty of adverts in the back of my monthly PWA7 magazine for Austin seven parts at fair and reasonable prices.

[Tony Betts]

Why do suppliers use ebay as a platform.

I take it you only voice an opinion and don't read the forum.

There are three austin parts suppliers selling on eBay at the moment under there own name. And a fourth selling for a supplier under another name.

There must be a reason for this.

Can you work it out.

[Nigel was in Brittany]

Intresting what Tony says , but I suppose moonfacelesleyann for example either buys in bulk from a cherished supplier and sells it on or waits for an order to come in and then orders it and has it sent to the customer (without purchase advice showing the cost ) another couple are obvious, Roy4167 is Willie and Russ4899 is Jamie,s friend Ian who is going to manage Jamie,s Ebay sales when he retires.

[Martin Prior]

Intresting what Tony says , but I suppose moonfacelesleyann for example either buys  in bulk from a cherished supplier and sells it on or waits for an order to come in and then orders it and has it sent to the customer (without purchase advice showing the cost ) another couple are obvious, Roy4167 is Willie and Russ4899 is Jamie,s friend Ian who is going to manage Jamie,s Ebay sales when he retires.

We - Martin Prior and Son's Motor Works - use Ebay as a shop window for our A7 woodwork, although we don't use the name on the listings.  We only list one or two specific products, but it's a very effective way of generating leads.

[merlinart]

Unless the seller is asking silly money at the start of the bidding you cant really blame them if the bidding goes sky high, the trouble is people jump on the bandwagon and the price of the item tends to stay high and that is bad for everyone in general and forces prices up. As most A7 spares are fairly easy to obtain it is always worth checking the sold and completed listings before bidding and that applys to everything on E-bay if you are buying or selling.
There is not much you can do against a couple of I must have it bidders, but if more people did their homework we would see more reasonable prices for all, also it pays to know what you are buying or selling, I did not know for example that there are at least two versions of the Source Book, the reprint is not as good a quality as the original, this was pointed out to me when selling one of each and the difference is quite noticeable when you compare them, the guy who bought them both paid the asking price for the original and got the reprint at a lower price, both cheaper than the E-bay prices at the time, when I pointed out how much they sold for on E-bay, his reply was yes but this aint E-bay!

The Source Book is about to be reprinted, so the high prices asked of current ones will plummet!

It happens everywhere, foolishy, though not at the time, I bought 2 copies of Jet Planes of the Third Reich for over £200 each just over a decade ago...now they are worth £50 each if you can get it! They have been superceded, by much better books.

Arthur