Sell games on eBay or amazon?

david12795

david12795

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Lately, i been hearing about how eBay jacked their fees up. So should I resort to amazon? i hear their fees isnt so bad and i would like some feedbacks on that..
 
Keep in mind with ebay you also have PP fees. I sell stuff on Amazon all the time. I look on ebay, see what the going rate is for an item, then I make sure that I get that much on Amazon. Amazon tells you how much you will make before you list, so you can tell. If the going rate on a game is $15 shipped, I will price it around $13 +$3.99 shipping so after fees I will make around $15.
 
You could try half.com. A larger chunk of the pie gets taken out, but no PayPal to take some more.

Depending on what you're selling and if you're patient, there's always Craigslist.
 
I've sold a lot of games, systems, movies and books on both Amazon and ebay. Amazon is my venue of choice at the moment because I can specify my price and then let it sit there for however long without needing to pay or do anything until it sells.

Also, of the fourteen items I have sold on Amazon in the past month, all but two sold within 24 hours of listing. Some sold within hours. Games tend to go very quickly.
 
Depending on the price of your games, Amazon fees can vary from 20% - 50%.

Here's a breakdown:
15% off the sale price
+ $1.35 Variable Closing Fee
+ $.99 Fixed Closing Fee

Amazon screws its sellers over BIG TIME. Not only are the fees exponentially higher than eBay (which is never more than 18%), Amazon is also much more buyer-friendly and is willing to throw sellers into the furnace for their buyers. They also penalize you for giving refunds (of any value), as refunds count towards your item-defect rate (you're only allowed to give a refund for 1 out of every 100 orders if you don't want to get banned). On top of that, if you get a buyer that files an A-Z dispute against you (and believe me Amazon buyers are morons and pull the trigger on disputes as quickly as possible), Amazon will hold your money for 90 days before giving it back to you (even if you reach an agreement with your buyer). Paypal, on the other hand, will release your funds as soon as a dispute ends.

Amazon is a terrible place to sell and the only people who can really succeed on there are the big guys like goHastings and Piece of Mind Media.

If you sell there prepare for non-stop penny wars, lower selling prices on games, and many MANY headaches before you inevitably get banned for some inane reason.
 
thanks you guys and i was trying to get rid of my sealed metroid prime trilogy.

guess ill go back to ebay :p

and thanks chewbacca. ill look at that.
 
[quote name='Doomstink']Depending on the price of your games, Amazon fees can vary from 20% - 50%.

Here's a breakdown:
15% off the sale price
+ $1.35 Variable Closing Fee
+ $.99 Fixed Closing Fee

Amazon screws its sellers over BIG TIME. Not only are the fees exponentially higher than eBay (which is never more than 18%), Amazon is also much more buyer-friendly and is willing to throw sellers into the furnace for their buyers. They also penalize you for giving refunds (of any value), as refunds count towards your item-defect rate (you're only allowed to give a refund for 1 out of every 100 orders if you don't want to get banned). On top of that, if you get a buyer that files an A-Z dispute against you (and believe me Amazon buyers are morons and pull the trigger on disputes as quickly as possible), Amazon will hold your money for 90 days before giving it back to you (even if you reach an agreement with your buyer). Paypal, on the other hand, will release your funds as soon as a dispute ends.

Amazon is a terrible place to sell and the only people who can really succeed on there are the big guys like goHastings and Piece of Mind Media.

If you sell there prepare for non-stop penny wars, lower selling prices on games, and many MANY headaches before you inevitably get banned for some inane reason.[/QUOTE]

I've been selling on Amazon for years and have yet to encounter a serious problem. On ebay you get screwed with listing fees if your item doesn't sell, plus you get socked with a paypal cut on top of the percentage that ebay demands. Say you have a game which is prone to market fluctuations. Right now say it's at $22--so if you ebay it for either auction or buy it now you can't expect to get more than that. Yet if you go over to Amazon and list the same game for $37 you can wait until the market goes back up and (often) make the sale.
 
[quote name='Indigo_Streetlight']I've been selling on Amazon for years and have yet to encounter a serious problem. On ebay you get screwed with listing fees if your item doesn't sell, plus you get socked with a paypal cut on top of the percentage that ebay demands. Say you have a game which is prone to market fluctuations. Right now say it's at $22--so if you ebay it for either auction or buy it now you can't expect to get more than that. Yet if you go over to Amazon and list the same game for $37 you can wait until the market goes back up and (often) make the sale.[/QUOTE]

On eBay, unless you're high volume or are doing fixed price (Buy it Now), there are no listing fees. Your fees at the end are either 9% on an auction sale price (S&H not factored) + 2.9% Paypal (whole price of sale).

Plus, the eBay/Paypal marriage gets dicey as well. Paypal can hold funds for 21 days at their discretion or limit you asking for information such as ID verification (and they ask for things that banks would i.e. SS#, proof of address).

Lastly, eBay is catered to buyers at the moment. I sell games on a weekly basis. On average, out of 20 listings, 2-3 people never buy or contact me.

But on the flip side, eBay is good with some things. I've had games go into bidding wars where I was smiling the whole time because I had 2 of said item. An example; sold Call of Duty WAW for $25 & 24 when I paid less than $10 for each. List your items between 8-10pm, with a 7 day listing on any day except Monday, Friday & Saturday.

Hope this helps.
 
[quote name='Indigo_Streetlight']I've been selling on Amazon for years and have yet to encounter a serious problem. On ebay you get screwed with listing fees if your item doesn't sell, plus you get socked with a paypal cut on top of the percentage that ebay demands. Say you have a game which is prone to market fluctuations. Right now say it's at $22--so if you ebay it for either auction or buy it now you can't expect to get more than that. Yet if you go over to Amazon and list the same game for $37 you can wait until the market goes back up and (often) make the sale.[/QUOTE]

I guess I'm just prone to getting some really stupid buyers. I had a guy accuse me of sending him a CD-R instead of the game he ordered. Amazon sided with him because I didn't have any proof I sent the actual item. Amazon is a safe-haven for scammers. Most of the time, selling on Amazon means following market fluctuations and engaging in penny wars daily on almost every item. It was very headache inducing for me and caused a lot of facepalming (idiots would come in daily and drop the values of items by several dollars for no reason).

On listing fees over at eBay, I haven't had to pay more than $0.05 to list an item (per month) in the three years I've sold there. That will change in the fall when the new pricing scheme kicks in, but even then I think it is only $0.50 (or less). To me, $0.05 (and even $0.50) up front kicks the crap out of paying an additional $2.35 per item when it sells plus the other 15% they take over at Amazon.

As a side note, I have an eBay store, so that is why I haven't had to pay much to list. I'm unsure what listing fees are without a store. I know for a fact they aren't $2.35, though.

I've also had more luck selling higher priced items on eBay thanks to the international market there. TONS of Canadians and Brazilians use eBay and they buy a lot of games from the USA (and usually are willing to pay higher prices for them).

I'm just very bitter towards Amazon, I would never recommend it to anyone unless you really needed to sell something quick.
 
I'm bitter towards amazon too. My account was banned because i refunded a buyer for an item. Listed the eye of judgement game without the camera for a very reasonable, lower price. It was the lowest price of the item and more than half of what the closest listing with camera was. The description stated in BOLD CAPS NO CAMERA NO CAMERA

Well, some dipshit bought it and then filed a complaint that the camera wasn't in there. So i refunded him and then amazon bans my account saying excessive returns.

Then they banned my gf's account she uses to sell textbooks as well when they found her to have logged in under my IP at my house. For no reason other than the IP address connection. Bullshit.

Oh yeah and the penny wars. List an item for $15.00 and it will be counter-listed at 14.98 within minutes. You cannot possibly keep up and someone else will buy the slightly cheaper item.
 
[quote name='Doomstink']I guess I'm just prone to getting some really stupid buyers. I had a guy accuse me of sending him a CD-R instead of the game he ordered. Amazon sided with him because I didn't have any proof I sent the actual item. Amazon is a safe-haven for scammers. Most of the time, selling on Amazon means following market fluctuations and engaging in penny wars daily on almost every item. It was very headache inducing for me and caused a lot of facepalming (idiots would come in daily and drop the values of items by several dollars for no reason).

On listing fees over at eBay, I haven't had to pay more than $0.05 to list an item (per month) in the three years I've sold there. That will change in the fall when the new pricing scheme kicks in, but even then I think it is only $0.50 (or less). To me, $0.05 (and even $0.50) up front kicks the crap out of paying an additional $2.35 per item when it sells plus the other 15% they take over at Amazon.

As a side note, I have an eBay store, so that is why I haven't had to pay much to list. I'm unsure what listing fees are without a store. I know for a fact they aren't $2.35, though.

I've also had more luck selling higher priced items on eBay thanks to the international market there. TONS of Canadians and Brazilians use eBay and they buy a lot of games from the USA (and usually are willing to pay higher prices for them).

I'm just very bitter towards Amazon, I would never recommend it to anyone unless you really needed to sell something quick.[/QUOTE]

What I do is insure any item of value before sending it out. That way if somebody tries pulling a scam, it's not just ripping me off--it's committing mail fraud against the USPS.

*grins* I would tell that buyer "Are you sure you didn't misplace the game disc after opening the package?" When selling on Amazon it always helps to have a host of creative responses designed to make the customer think that a problem is their fault before it is your fault XD

I got wrapped up in the "low price game" too when starting out, but I soon realized that I only really needed to compete with games of a similar condition or better. Also, more description can sometimes make the sale over a generic listing (for instance I sold a Like New Super Mario Sunshine recently for $14 + shipping right under the nose of warehousedeals who had the game Like New for $14.99 shipped. What could cause this? Well, for one thing, they use a form letter in their description, whereas I do not... Another factor I considered was that I set the price pretty much equal to what somebody would pay at gamestop, while keeping in mind that gamestop has no guarantee of completeness or condition--unless, you go out to one, and even still, they may not have exactly what you want).

I don't know, I think if you listed an item in four seven day periods at 50 cents a pop (and it failed to sell each time) you wouldn't be doing so hot in terms of cost and aggravation. Ebay might be the better choice for no brainer games that fly off the shelves, but for any game that needs to sit and find the right buyer, that seven or ten day window might not be enough.

Different strokes for different folks...
 
[quote name='Doomstink']Depending on the price of your games, Amazon fees can vary from 20% - 50%.

Here's a breakdown:
15% off the sale price
+ $1.35 Variable Closing Fee
+ $.99 Fixed Closing Fee[/QUOTE]
Thanks for that. :applause:
 
[quote name='jer7583']I'm bitter towards amazon too. My account was banned because i refunded a buyer for an item. Listed the eye of judgement game without the camera for a very reasonable, lower price. It was the lowest price of the item and more than half of what the closest listing with camera was. The description stated in BOLD CAPS NO CAMERA NO CAMERA

Well, some dipshit bought it and then filed a complaint that the camera wasn't in there. So i refunded him and then amazon bans my account saying excessive returns.

Then they banned my gf's account she uses to sell textbooks as well when they found her to have logged in under my IP at my house. For no reason other than the IP address connection. Bullshit.

Oh yeah and the penny wars. List an item for $15.00 and it will be counter-listed at 14.98 within minutes. You cannot possibly keep up and someone else will buy the slightly cheaper item.[/QUOTE]

You made the mistake in giving that guy a refund. Even though Amazon says you must accept returns, as a seller you're also allowed to determine your own return policy. In my lingo that means I don't give refunds for things that are definitely not my fault, like buyer's remorse, or the fact that a customer bought something from a Gamecube listing when they really wanted a Wii game. Tough beans, I say.

The part about getting banned sucks though; it seems like these monolithic moderator types are everywhere on the internet, just snapping and slobbering in eagerness to lay down some unfair law or another. The dog metaphor would be appropriate if this type wasn't so rigid. If I were you I would seriously consider pulling a Mr. Smith goes to Washington on their asses, get the names of the persons who banned you and your girlfriend and write it up all eloquent-like. Fan the stink wide and far so that everyone can smell it.
 
I, personally, have never had any trouble selling things on Amazon, but it's definately easier on eBay. (a bit more costly)

Amazon is a lot better to buy through, though
 
ebay is jut a lot easier for me, and they sell faster.

Especially if you use fixed auctions, $.05 to list and it pretty much always sells within the 30 day limit, at least for me.
 
eBay sucks, but after everything I have heard on this site, I would never even bother with Amazon. I'm sure some people haven't had problems, but more than enough have for me to never want to give them any of my business.
 
The one time I thought about selling an item on Amazon, I think I would have had to price it at least 50% above my cost to make it break even for what I paid for it. Between shipping costs, Amazon's cut and the like, it just wasn't worth the hassle.
 
[quote name='david12795']ahh so ebay=amazon. haha

so bruce how do u sell your games?[/QUOTE]

I really don't sell many games. If I do, I generally use Glyde.com for cheap stuff, and I use eBay for more in-demand items.
 
[quote name='iKilledChewbacca']www.glyde.com is your friend[/QUOTE]

This site looks neat. How quickly would you say a sale gets made on here? I noticed theres no way to see pics or anything though. Was interested to find lots of Cube titles here.
 
[quote name='Indigo_Streetlight']

I don't know, I think if you listed an item in four seven day periods at 50 cents a pop (and it failed to sell each time) you wouldn't be doing so hot in terms of cost and aggravation. Ebay might be the better choice for no brainer games that fly off the shelves, but for any game that needs to sit and find the right buyer, that seven or ten day window might not be enough.

Different strokes for different folks...[/QUOTE]

Just a quick FYI, eBay has increased listing times to up to 30 days for one fee.
 
[quote name='Indigo_Streetlight']You made the mistake in giving that guy a refund. Even though Amazon says you must accept returns, as a seller you're also allowed to determine your own return policy. In my lingo that means I don't give refunds for things that are definitely not my fault, like buyer's remorse, or the fact that a customer bought something from a Gamecube listing when they really wanted a Wii game. Tough beans, I say.

The part about getting banned sucks though; it seems like these monolithic moderator types are everywhere on the internet, just snapping and slobbering in eagerness to lay down some unfair law or another. The dog metaphor would be appropriate if this type wasn't so rigid. If I were you I would seriously consider pulling a Mr. Smith goes to Washington on their asses, get the names of the persons who banned you and your girlfriend and write it up all eloquent-like. Fan the stink wide and far so that everyone can smell it.[/QUOTE]

Problem is, if you tell the buyer you aren't going to grant a return, they'll just go and file an A-Z dispute and most likely win it.

What makes me hate Amazon so much is that they penalize sellers for practicing good customer service. Giving a refund to a dissatisfied customer to make their experience better is a good thing, not something that should be a banable offense.
 
If the item you are selling is brand new or like new, it would be a quick sale on Amazon provided you price it comparable to other sellers. The only thing I haven't been able to sell lately on Amazon is a 250GB Xbox 360 hard drive with transfer kit. Everything else I have listed has sold quicker then 30 days, often within hours of me listing it.
 
the few items (most vg related) I sold on ebay were fine. 9% final value and paypal fees is not that bad actually. I was thinking about Amazon until I saw those ridiculous tax rates fees.

isn't half.com affiliated with ebay? if the fees are higher and no paypal fees, than I'd still think ebay is cheaper for the seller.

glyde.com looks good. is there a thread here on CAG?
 
I've used both and personally, I find Amazon's to be better, in large part because I'm not hit twice (first, eBay and then by PayPal). Amazon takes one layer off the top.

Also, unlike eBay, I can put something up and let it sit until it sells. If you're not in a rush to sell something, Amazon makes more sense.
 
[quote name='Doomstink']Just a quick FYI, eBay has increased listing times to up to 30 days for one fee.[/QUOTE]

Hmm, thanks, I'll have to check that out.
 
If you are doing high volume I would honestly stay away from Amazon. The 1% defect rate is a KILLER if selling used items. It is literally impossible to keep that low when selling high quantities of used products such as games. Just think about how hard it is out of 1000 to only have 10 not work properly. On used items such as games it is literally impossible. I got my account suspended because of a 1.6% defect rate. That isn't even 2 items out of 100 and they won't let you sell anymore. It is crazy. This was literally after a year of selling with no problems. One month it rose above, they sent a warning and I couldn't get it back down in the next 30 days. Boom suspended. They are now holding $500 of mine for 90 days and I have already shipped the product.

Though from my Amazon experiences the items go much quicker than setting buy it nows on ebay.
 
[quote name='schuerm26']If you are doing high volume I would honestly stay away from Amazon. The 1% defect rate is a KILLER if selling used items. It is literally impossible to keep that low when selling high quantities of used products such as games. Just think about how hard it is out of 1000 to only have 10 not work properly. On used items such as games it is literally impossible. I got my account suspended because of a 1.6% defect rate. That isn't even 2 items out of 100 and they won't let you sell anymore. It is crazy. This was literally after a year of selling with no problems. One month it rose above, they sent a warning and I couldn't get it back down in the next 30 days. Boom suspended. They are now holding $500 of mine for 90 days and I have already shipped the product.

Though from my Amazon experiences the items go much quicker than setting buy it nows on ebay.[/QUOTE]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that happened to. It also doesn't help that a lot of buyers return items that do work, but they simply do not want them. Even though the item isn't defective, your ODR still rises. Amazon currently has $300 of mine and I can't get it out until the beginning of September.
 
My defect rate is 1.72 so I'm worried. Getting banned would really suck as I've made probably 1k from Amazon in the past month.
 
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