<p>Okay, I understand now.</p>
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<p>There are many reasons why a seller lists/sells an item for 99c on ebay.
- They charge extra on shipping to make up the item price.
- Their cost is 10c or even 1c, so they still make out if they sell a lot of them.
- They want to bring up the feedback count so they can sell more expensive items later. ppl normally will not trust sellers with low feedback counts.
- It is advertising, so they can collect email addresses for props they send out in the future.
- In an auction style listing. a 99c item is just the starting bid. Normally it will go higher. In a bidding war, the item could sell for very high price. Experiment tells us that if you start an auction with 1c, the end results maybe more than if you starts an auction $100, if the item is worth $150 for example.</p>
<p>artloversplus, okay, but I was thinking about ONE item for these low prices. For email addresses I guess it makes sense, or for building feedback. I also have seen people with lots of sales behind them selling things for these low prices, so those people are not looking for the feedback.</p>
<p>nem, </p>
<p>So how can the 99c stores survive? Actually they are the most profitable stores in the current economy.
Here is how I see this seller sell this one item for 99c and make money.</p>
<p>In large warehouse closeout auctions you can buy the content of a trailer for lets say $1000. Long long time ago, when I was young :), I had the opportunity to buy the inventory of a stationay store, so I have some experience in that. When you bought the truck load, you have to try to sell EVERYTHING otherwise you will have junk all over the place in your basement or warehouse. So I think the guy maybe is in the predictment of getting rid of inventory at fire sale prices to make room for next load. </p>
<p>In a 99c BIN for one item case, there is NO profit to the seller. A study was made long time ago when Ebay was only charging 25c for the first $9.99 selling price. You need to sell an item for $7 to break even, that is for one of the kind collectibles.</p>
<p>I understand the $1000 bulk buy.</p>
<p>I also see there is no profit to a seller for 99 cents on ebay. I was just curious about why people do this anyway. Thanks.</p>
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<p>nem,</p>
<p>to answer youre question… Had I been 20 years younger :), I would seek out web sites that can sell my stuff. But I have retired from that rat chase. I found that on a one man operation, it is not profitable to sell junks on Ebay or elsewhere, especially if you have no slant or specialties. I have been there and done that, I have gave up selling small priced items, it is not worth the efforts. At one time, I was lucky to have bought a very good load of inventory(whatever it was). It took me ONE month of time to get rid of it, I carefully described everything and offered it in auctions starting $1. I received many bids and some items went off the chart for $100+, but at the end, when everything is accounted for, I made $4,000 not counting the labor. When I was not lucky or not pay much attention, my return was minimal.</p>
<p>I thought that was not good business, so I decided to sell big ticket items that have transaction values in the millions. I may only get 1% of the transaction value, but it is worth my while to spend a whole year of time to facilitate that transaction.</p>
<p>Another thing that’s changed is that sellers cannot leave negative feedback on buyers. If there’s a problem with a buyer there is basically no method of fixing the problem or warning others. </p>
<p>DH sells a lot on ebay. He left a package for me to mail when he went out of town. He didn’t tell me it hadn’t been paid for yet, and I mailed it for him. Buyer never paid for item. Buyer got away with it because there’s no way for a seller to do anything about a bad sale. Granted it should not have been mailed (communication issue for us) but there is really no protection for sellers, only for buyers.</p>
<p>That along with all the extra fees is making ebay less attractive and more expensive.</p>
<p>just got an email from ebay, they have the gall to ask for my opinion. At the beginning of the survey, it says the process will take 4 to 5 minute. When I gave them all negatives the survey soon ended in less than 15 seconds…:)</p>
<p>^^ Kind of funny. I guess they do not want to hear negative news from seller…not on a survey and not the whole story told when a buyer gives a negative opinion. Everyone knows that a story has 2 sides. VAMom, I surprised to learn that a seller can no longer respond to negative feedback from a buyer.</p>
<p>As I understood,</p>
<p>A seller can respond to a negative feedback from buyer, but cannot leave negative feedbacks to a buyer. It is like landlord tenant laws in the States, to evict a non-paying tenant could take many months. I am sure Ebay has to do this because of different lawsuits.</p>
<p>Well at least a seller can at least give their side of story in response to negative feedback from a buyer. Artloverplus, thanks for clarifying.</p>