LeftyBassist.com

Not that it didn't suck royally before, nickel and diming sellers at every angle, but I haven't sold anything on it in years. I've noticed there are fewer and fewer actual auctions now, as most listings are straight up BIN prices or best offers, but with the majority of listings not indicating reserve prices anymore. Now I know why, so take note if you plan on selling anything on this crooked site soon:

I listed two items for my wife at the beginning of December, a quilt and a pocket book. I put a reserve price on both. The quilt sold for $24.99, but the pocket book didn't. I got charged a $3.00 reserve fee + all the other BS fees for the quilt. Whatever. It didn't amount to much overall. The reserve on the pocket book was $250 with a BIN of $799. Long story short: the pocket book automatically relisted 3 times and never sold. Every time it relisted, we were hit with a $9.98 reserve price fee, so I just got a bill for $35.34, EVEN though it never sold, for what they now call, "Advance listing upgrade fees"! And you get hit with them regardless of whether or not your item ever sells! So it basically cost me over $40 in fees to sell a $24.00 quilt.

Try doing the math before you list anything. There are pages and pages of convoluted laundry list fees and links to additional pages of hidden costs.

I will never sell anything with these scumbags ever again.

Ouch, damn.

I think the brutal fees hurt the buying experience as much as the selling experience. If the seller will be lucky to clear 60% of the selling price after shipping and fees, they can't afford to risk a weak auction result. And they can't offer items at discounted prices because the fees eat up all the wiggle room.

I've had a nice wireless keyboard in mint condition listed at $55+free shipping for several months. I will probably clear about $20 on that sale, if it ever sells. I get occasional offers for $45 (or less!), and I have to thank the offeror but explain that, at that price, it isn't worth the time to print the mailing label and tape the box shut. I'd be better off just recycling the thing.

I'm sure eBay employs dozens of economists and engineers to make sure that the fees achieve maximum shittiness without being too shitty.

At least musicians have options like Reverb (Who I've had very good results with). But for any other goods, good luck.

Agree on Reverb. None of the low ballers of eBay or the flakes of Craigslist.

For anything non-musical I just let my wife put up a listing in her "Buy Nothing Cambridge" facebook group.

Well soon ebay will buy reverb and you can watch the nickle and dimming start....they already own gumtree.

So that's why they have a lot of ebay advertisement on it, huh?!

If you list an item for a traditional auction on eBay, whatever it sells for, just deduct 13%... that's the standard these days, and that's before anything else they can upgrade you for... So - say you sell a $1000 bass - you just gave eBay $113 for the privilege, and that's because they own PayPal (that's where the extra 3% comes from....)