My experience with eBay...

[Originalsin]

We all know that eBay is great for selling miscellaneous items and things in small quanity, but when you try to make a true business model out of it, you're pretty much screwed unless you have a unique and self made item.

The competition on eBay, Amazon, etc are way too stiff to make any real profit without a great connection to wholesale. Plus, eBay is taking down everything with a designer or brand name due to the VERO program and comapnies whining that they don't want their product sold on eBay.

I tried to sell my girlfriends old Chanel purse, and I had my auction removed and was kicked off of eBay even though my product was authentic with a reciept. I understand that there are those that try to pass off fakes as real, but ours was authentic. I contacted eBay who gave me the contact infor to Chanel's lawyers. They wanted info to where I bought, the original reciept, and the purse to be sent to their office in Beverly Hills so that they could authenticate it. They didn't cover shipping either.

Plus, by the time you pay ebay's rediculous amounts of fees and percentages, you have nothing left, not to mention if you use paypal, then they get to double dip into your profit.

My realization is that your best bet is to buy from ebay and Amazon, etc and sell to brick and mortar or real lif consumers. You get great rates on everything becasue the competition is so stiff. You avoid the fees associated with selling online, and you increase profits.

The older generation is still leary about shopping online, so they shop retail. If you can bring them better products and more choices at a lower price it's a win win situation.

So the bottom line is that you will make money buying on eBay, not selling.

[kebenarans]

I tried to sell my girlfriends old Chanel purse, and I had my auction removed and was kicked off of eBay even though my product was authentic with a reciept. I understand that there are those that try to pass off fakes as real, but ours was authentic. I contacted eBay who gave me the contact infor to Chanel's lawyers. They wanted info to where I bought, the original reciept, and the purse to be sent to their office in Beverly Hills so that they could authenticate it. They didn't cover shipping either.

Wow... they threatened to sue you? that is quite extreme... i've never heard of this case before... maybe it's for certain brands only... maybe Chanel is one of those more stringent company... not sure about gucci, LV etc... coz i'm still seeing lotsa fake stuffs on ebay

[Muddy]

Wow... they threatened to sue you? that is quite extreme... i've never heard of this case before... maybe it's for certain brands only... maybe Chanel is one of those more stringent company... not sure about gucci, LV etc... coz i'm still seeing lotsa fake stuffs on ebay

yeah you can't read either.

[kebenarans]

yeah you can't read either.

well... thanks for your blunt assessment muddy
upon reading them again... i might have misunderstood his sentences...
the 1st thing that comes to my mind when i see the word lawyer was that he's being sued by chanel... well... i'm wrong

[Originalsin]

They do threaten legal action whether they have a basis for it or not. They just pull auctions left and right with no proof. Checkout xebayer.com to see all of the people who have been booted for no reason at all. It's rediculous.

Many people on that site that once made a full time living on ebay were kicked off permanently for no reason. eBay has been playing God more and more lately, and it's pissing many people off. If you could come up with a competitive sight with lower fees, I think you would be in business.

Anyways, I called the Chanel store in Chicago to see what I ecould do to authenticate it so that I could sell it. I got the response from the manager... "Great another one of you eBay people. We don't sell Chanel on eBay. When have you ever seen Chanel at a garage sale. If you want Chanel, then you're going to pay retail for it." Click.

So basically they are pulling stuff down, because they don't want to lose profits on the second hand market. This seems unfair, becasue once you purchase a product, it's yours. No you're telling me I can't resell it when I'm done with it.

That would be like ford saying sorry, you can't sell your car on ebay becasue we don't sell fords from the factory other than at the dealership. SO we're going to pull your ad from eBay. How is this fair?

[shawnman19]

There has got to be another auction site out there that you could use. I bet there are is even a trading post of some sort that you could put an ad on. Or just put up a free ad on Craigslist.com.

[Originalsin]

Does anyone have any suggestions.

[Quaker1234]

Does anyone have any suggestions.

Relist the auction and hope for the best.... keep in mind though that after 2 or 3 vero's your account will be suspended...

Other than that your pretty much screwed only because there really isn't any other site like ebay at the moment.

You can try yahoo auctions / craigslist / local newspaper / Gbuy (google version of ebay was launched i think).