Hello friends. My name is Todd and I am a knife dealer in the great state of Michigan. I wanted to take a few moments of your time to talk about this wonderful world we have come to know and love as Ebay. If you build it, they will come. And come they do. Everybody looking for the best possible deals on everything from scotch tape to automobiles. The problem. It's nearly impossible to get something for nothing. If it's quality that you are looking for, then there is a price that goes with that. Let's take knives for example. Something that I know about. To be point blank honest with you, it's impossible to make a living selling knives on ebay. There is a fee for everything and to offset those fees one must sell at a higher rate. Insertion and listing fees, gallery, final sale, shipping and handling, paypal, and storefront fees just to name a few. If you have sold anything online then you know where I am coming from. It seems all cut and dry until you really look into it. Let me give you an example. Ka-bar knives for instance. A name that is known throughtout the world by military and civilains alike. These are great knives of the best quality with the price tag to go with that. They make a line called "Warthog folders." These are awesome little cutters that handle all jobs put infront of them. They retail for around $17. That's a great price your thinking, right? For the buyer it is a good price. For the dealer, me. Not so good. My cost on this is around $12. For me to make any kind of profit at all, someone needs to buy this knife for more than it's worth! And let me be the first one to tell you that it rarely happens that way. If this knife were to sell for $15, which is $2 under retail and still more than I paid for it. I break even or lose money. It's all those underlying fees that everyone seems to forget about which I touched on earlier. Sure it's fun and quite the adrenaline rush to watch your item being upbid in the last few moments of an auction. I myself have become addicted to this. But after the sale is over and reality sets in. I sit back and look to see how I could have improved my listings. To no surprise of mine, not much else could have been done. The changes need to come from higher up. I understand that business is business and the point is to make money. We all know that. Ebay started from nothing and has grown into the most visited web site in the world. How did they do it? From people like you and me. We list our first iem in the hopes that it will sell and it finally does. We are happy. We have conquered the web and put cash in our pockets. Until your "fees" email comes saying that funds have been deducted from your paypal account. I probably shouldn't be so hard on the corporate types that keep this site running but sometimes I feel that I can't keep quiet anymore. This happens to be one of those times. I do realize that certain fees have been lowered. But certain perks have also been taken away. "No more accepting money orders" they say. "We are trying to make ebay a safer place to shop by going completely electronic." No more paper trails. No loose ends. They are now in total control. I have to ask myself have much money will be lost due to the fact that alot of people pay with money orders. Not everyone wants to set up an account. Not everyone has a credit card. Some people still like to pay with CASH!! I personally think this is a move in the wrong direction, but that is only my opinion. If I were in charge I would be looking to reach more people not less. Start losing you customers and start losing your profits. That's the way I see it and I think you might too. So too sum it all up, here's what I am asking. The next time you log in to buy or sell an item, take a moment to review what the bottom line is and always remember your corporate friends who have their hand in your cookie jar! Then ask youself, "where's the deal?"
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