"Ebay vs. Wargames Market vs. ?" Topic

This isn't an "E-bay is evil" post, but an attempt to determine whether a perception I have is true.

Despite E-bay jacking up fees and making selling more painful, they still deliver the customer base. My impression is that the 20% hit is more than made up by the number of potential buyers (and theoretically higher final value achieved). At least, for occasional sellers such as myself.

Wargames Market certainly offers a reduced price structure but obviously has fewer buyers cruising its pages. My impression here is that few people are willing to set up yet another account unless they find something they were looking for. For my part, while I am registered on there, I have not been able to get an answer why I should have to pay to be verified nor have I been able to figure out how not being "verified" limits me. E-mails asking for explanation have not been returned so I gave up.

Lastly, it appears that there are a couple of others, including RPGmarketplace, but they look more sparse than BME's product line-up.

So, are my perceptions accurate, or am I out of line?

Wyatt

Didn't Ebay change thrir shipping policy? I thought I had read that somewhete.

I think you're pretty close to the mark. I signed up specifically to bid on an auction, only to be denied because i wasn't "verified". It seemed ridiculous to me to narrow an already small venue by requiring something that only benefits the site. I declined to participate further, and the items never sold, but at least the seller didn't have to pay an ebay fee!

I think you're partly right. A lot of people don't want to put the effort into using WM while they still have Ebay as a "sure thing". Until that happens there's going to be lower numbers of sellers and bidders on the WM site.

The "verification" thing leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, like you I didn't see the value of it for auctions. On the other hand, most people go through the PayPal verification process at some point, without complaint.

I gave WM a chance this spring and did pretty well selling paints. It would have cost me too much in fees to sell them on ebay, and I'm not sure I would have gotten that many bids. I didn't verify my account and my bidders had no problems with that. I took the time to learn the interface and was able to set my auctions so bidders did not have to be verified either.

If people want to make WM work and are willing to put the effort in, it will be a success. If they continue to believe Ebay is a better choice and don't put serious effort into WM, it will remain as poorly used as they think it is.

I've watched the handmade crafts community move from Ebay to Etsy over the last couple years. Now there's a group of people who want to make the alternative work for them.

Hopefully soon a competitor will come along to challenge Ebay. At the moment it has complete domination and can do what it likes.

Rumours abound that google are thinking about having an auction site…