I think I'll give up on ebay

[bfitzgerald]

I put the Nikon Metz 58 AF-2 on there auction and it's sold for £122
I've lost over half the price of the unit

The words a bit gutted spring to mind a £250 flash gone for such a low price and ebay will want fees and paypal
Really I think it's a shame, but this completes my Nikon disposal

[mvanrheenen]

I know the feeling. I sold my Nex3 with 2 new original batteries for £81... I bought it for around triple that price a year before.

Mark

[bfitzgerald]

Ouch that's even worse.
I have used the free sites and you can shift things, but much slower it could take weeks sometimes to sell something or longer. But you can avoid any fees and ignore paypal
For flashes I think there is a OEM appeal even brand new I see folks who will not even look at other offerings, I think they know that too.

I did get a BP-200 boxed as new old stock for 99 pence once I guess things even out. Won't be selling on ebay again, it's useful for buying a few bits but with fees and poor auction results I can't afford to lose my shirt like that again.

[NevHi]

Can you not set a reserve?? NZ does not have Ebay We have a much better site called "TradeMe".

[bfitzgerald]

You can but I started if off at £100 it's not a complete wipe out but it's a good £50 less than I should have got.
Ebay is useful for a few things but more as a buyer than a seller.

[Wes Gibbon]

Clearly some sellers find Ebay useful. Photostore seems to sell only on Ebay so he must find it cost-effective. Although Ebay and Paypal take their cut, you effectively get targetted advertising included and with Paypal you don't have to worry about bounced cheques. I also know of dealers who switched to Ebay from advertising in Amateur Photographer.

I doubt if a dealer would have offered you a better price (why would they if they can buy cheaper on Ebay!). The sad fact is that if you buy new you will always risk having to take a hit if you need to sell, and there is no magic formula that guarantees a resale price. Just look at the price of film cameras.

You are probably right that equipment from independent brands is liable to lose more value than Nikon, even when it's just as good or even better - quite a lot of people probably have no feeling for the true value of Metz, though I also suspect that accessories hold value less well than cameras and lenses. Having said that, a friend once saw a Nikon lens cap sell on Ebay for more than the list price of a new one!

A different friend of mine has a high street printing business. He has just had to trash commercial equipment producing prints from film. Two years ago he could have sold it for seventy grand for resale in the third world, but now they've all gone digital too.

[bfitzgerald]

It's not the end of the world far from it..just a bit of a let down. Changing mounts twice has hit me no questions about it. But I don't consider it a complete waste of time I learnt a few things.
Photostore it pretty good used that before not great on prices on some items but you can shop around if you want.
IMO though ebay isn't as good as it used to be from a seller perspective, that's why I mostly now use free selling sites, takes longer, less exposure but you control the prices better.

[pakodominguez]

I put the Nikon Metz 58 AF-2 on there auction and it's sold for £122
I've lost over half the price of the unit

The words a bit gutted spring to mind a £250 flash gone for such a low price and ebay will want fees and paypal
Really I think it's a shame, but this completes my Nikon disposal

1.- you pay higher prices in the UK
2.- Non "original" brands resale price is always lower (even if I do LOVE Metz flashes and I know how reliable they are)
3.- you have to compete with USA and Asia prices on this global world.
4.- Fees: you never believed the internet was free, right? your complain about fees is because you made little money and on top of that you must pay the fees, not because the fees itself, right?

[bfitzgerald]

In general most of the stuff I have offloaded from Pentax and Nikon was sold on the free site I use where I am. There are no fees unless you want to accept paypal which I do sometimes and other times not.
Ebay has been a turn off for fees for some time now, the % they take is IMO too high and they force you to use paypal which some sellers don't like.
I find it handy for small things like the odd remote, memory card and a s/h buy on Minolta stuff. As a seller though even before this I rarely used it.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that, I know some folks earn a living off ebay..but it's a saturated market now..much more of a buyers place than a sellers IMO