The refurbished category is a scam anyway. Been looking for a particular 4TB HDD and you see all these "Refurbished" HDD's. So you tell me exactly what can be done to a HDD to "refurbish" it? According to ebay: a certified refurbished item means that it's in pristine, like-new condition, and has been professionally inspected, cleaned, and refurbished to original specifications by the manufacturer or a manufacturer-approved vendor. Cambridge: made to look new again by work such as painting, repairing, and cleaning. Sorry but its a scam. They advertise it as it actually means more than clean an item. Good. I am glad thy are phasing it out. It fools people into buying a used item as something else. I dont care how clean it is, if I wasn't the person to pull it out of the original box it's used. Refurbished shouldn't be allowed for electronics. Its not like a vintage anvil or bench vise that has been... well... refurbished. Stripped, sanded and repainted. If you do a board level repair its it then refurbished? Sorry but its still a board that has been repaired. Sorry Louis I'd rather get a used board and swap it out than have it repaired. I'd only go the chip repair route long enough to get the data and wipe the drive. And I certainly in good conscience couldn't sell it without disclosing that the board has been repaired/used. Calling it anything else but used/repaired is a scam. Also to be fair, I wouldn't necessarily exclude an item because it was repaired as long as the seller was honest in what was repaired and if they warrant the repair and how long. As another example outside electronics, I have been looking for a particular intake manifold for a Mopar B engine. I see a bunch that have been "refurbished" which appears to be nothing more than a rattle can silver paint job and they are asking the same as a new one from Summit. For me this actually diminishes the value as Id rather have the natural aluminum finish which could be sandblasted for that satin finish or polished to a mirror. I'm actually going to paint mine blue to match oem. Yeah, refurbished is a scam.
You're welcome to fake apologize as much as you want, it's not an argument, nor does it change the fact that you are wrong. There are different levels of refurbishing, obviously nobody is refurbishing a hard drive for resale at $50, but refurbished electronics are a thing. Just because you would not feel comfortable purchasing and does not mean tens of millions of other people have a problem with it, nor should we allow one person's definitions when they don't even understand basic electronics to dictate what is allowed for the entire country
You don't like it, you don't buy it. End of story. Stop claiming less choices is good for everyone, just because you're uncomfortable with purchasing certain items. You're part of the problem
Ooh, your manly Mopar engine B. Fvck off. If you don't like refurbished items don't buy them. End of story. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it has zero market value. Soon (if people like you have their way) Ebay won't sell *any* used item, and then you can't get your precious Mopar B for your precious old car that you have enough money to waste on, so you don't care about having options on the market for everyone. You: "Yes, I love less freedom because it means I don't have to read ebay listings I don't like"
This has been happening with Etsy. They started out as a place for hand-made items, vintage items, etc. Basically like a virtual craft fair/swap meet. 5-ish years ago they became a publicly traded company. Now they are promoting 3rd party sellers and drop-shippers and "partnered" sellers, these things were against the rules way back when they started. The platform is now flooded with mass produced items, manufactured overseas in bulk, being sold for huge markups alongside the hand-made items, often undercutting the smaller individuals. These mass produced items are being passed off as hand made. They have been forcing sellers to provide free shipping to get higher ranking in listings and searches, they have been gamifying the platform to push sellers to respond to buyers, punishing sellers who don't work 7 days a week.
Etsy, along with eBay, have also been complicit with the damn scalpers who have been selling graphics cards and PlayStation 5 consoles at EXTREMELY RIDICULOUS prices after snapping up those products at their official outlets by using scalper bots such as Bounce Alerts.
This has been eBay strategy for two years: bigger ticket items and bigger sellers over the high volume smaller sellers that made them successful. . that's why both buyers and sellers have been leaving in droves.
@@My_Old_YT_Account it depends what you're selling. I still sell the majority of my books and media on eBay. No other site is currently getting me the buyers, even with sales a lot slower lately.
"Everything is basically a giveaway, until we have 50% or more of the market! THEN we start doing evil shit." - Literally every info-tech company, always.
It takes massive backing to do that. To make a loss for a decade until you've achieved dominance. Totally different to an organic business that makes profit from the start and re-invests to grow.
@@billyhatcher643 Ebay decided they needed my passport after 17 years of trading on their site. They even withheld payment, they waited until I sold something then demanded my passport. I will be sending the buyer the item as a gift once he has his money back. Unless ebay back down this ends my use of ebay for selling.
This is the problem with the corporate business structure. Profit isn't enough. There always has to be growth, and what this does is create a system of incentives and legal regulations that forces companies to constantly be looking to pinch a few more pennies and screw people for bigger profits all the time. It actively disallows companies from getting into a comfortable position and creating a stable service or product offering. There have been untold numbers of corporations that have been _turning a profit_ but that wind up going bankrupt because they aren't experiencing "growth" even when they've completely saturated the market. So every. single. time. We see the same pattern where corporations become compelled to either try to break into a new market with products they have no expertise in that usually wind up being complete dogshit and pissing away money on R&D for _bad products,_ they'll break into a new market and maybe have moderate success but will wind up neglecting the product that made them great in the first place and destroying their own reputation in the process, they try to cut costs and raise prices or create new revenue streams with their existing product lineup and ultimately wind up burning any good will with their customers that they ever had, or they wind up making insane decisions that fucks over absolutely everyone they do business with which completely alienates their customer base. I think that if there are next generation innovators in your comment section that are looking to start their own business, I would really, really recommend that they consider forming an LLC, offering closed investments, and _not going public._ The corporate business model is a trap where good intentions go to die.
Now, now, now I agree with the idea but then having the ability to easily form a business with the help at first is valuable. It actually seems you have a business idea right here. Family business can still be run into the ground. I really dislike the idea that we cannot be a soul proprietor anymore but the attorneys have to be involved with everything the people do.
I agree, there is no situation, ever, where taking a company public is something I would consider, and if I required private investment, getting out from underneath it would be high on the priority list. The perverse incentives are just too much and inevitably ruin everything.
We need another "Ebay" so normal people will be able to buy & sell used devices like how things should be! Ebay & Amazon can be another Blockbuster Video betraying customers that make them become successful in the 1st place.
Whole new platform for the people by the people problem, just when it gets big enough to attract the attention of Amazon and eBay and others hostile takeover will ensue
It's a Re-occurring pattern throughout my whole life. Born in 1983 whenever something is great and works for the average guy (or at least me) someone steps in and ruins it for everybody to make a little more profit. Not funny... Keep up your good work Mr. Rossman!
I love the refurbished PC market. It's allowed me to buy equipment that I can use to play around and make my own homelab situation, learning a lot in the process without breaking my bank account. Without this market, these opportunities would never have come about. Keep doing what you do, John.
@@Jur1_00 : but these people are not doing the sector any justice either. I was also a techie too, and did hardware support, and the whole first line support thing, from hardware to software etc. The point is... the whole point is... We should separate, each party and deal with their contractual obligations, and that is and should be how it is ? There is a niche business model here somewhere, but it is not going to be how they assume it to be. Alas... I have seen SO many competent companies, that have their hardware and kits, entirely outsourced, and people just gave up caring. I know I did. Especially when your customers chase you SO hard... And then use the publishing sector/media to berate you no ends, and have stupid gazillion movies, comedies, TV.. etc etc etc. To berate you. When the ENTIRE WORLD IS AGAINST you and what you do, and what you stand for. What do you ? I gave up. I went hiding, and I went and gave it all up. Cos this... I did not came into this life, to be treated like this. And this is not even on top of my normal personal life. Sure.. I can be the butt of the joke.. sure.. every day... or when it is customer-facing. But not like this. Well.... 15 years... Now we have "chromebooks", and people do not even care when they just have spent like a whopping 150, or 300 pounds per month. Gone down the drain. I'd say karma. People can just "rent" equipments now. I think Apple is doing quite well, with their rental model.... And because there are less people like us around to fix things and to give feedbacks as well. As in quality feed backs. I have heard that the cloud app sector is now in ruins. LOL..... Cos they are chasing their own tails.... Well.... It was going to happen any way.
I quit eBay a long time ago, like 15 years ago when they kept upping their fees for selling. They called to ask what it would take to get me back, I said simple. Lower your fees, and only have one fee.
I have sold just over $1,000,000 on eBay over the years and I can definitely say that eBay does not give a shit about any small sellers on the platform. They only care about buyers and the larger sellers. The fees are now very high and you now have even less power over how you make listings and engage with your customer. I have not been selling any rebuilt Apple gear on there for a while and really do not want to anymore.
Used to love eBay but the fees are so high. Had two crooked buyers of $500+ items who did not pay but eBay refused to refund seller fees. eBay is awful for sellers.
Same issue here. I was a Dell business laptop seller for less than a year because eBay sided with customers when they tried to scam me twice. I was forced to refund all the money and eBay still charged me some fees. I immediately stopped selling there because of this. BTW the items in questions worked perfectly, sold them locally and purchasers still using them daily. eBay is such crap it’s unreal.
I used to shop on eBay for amazing deals especially on electronic devices and I had the eBay and PayPal protection. Now, buying on eBay is hardly cheaper than buying new. And so many scams exist. I don’t use eBay that often.
As a consumer, any “refurbished” item I’ve ever bought on eBay has really been “used” and nobody actually refurbished. I remember buying “refurbished” items that haven’t even been factory reset
I sell on eBay and as much as I try to put the used as used and refurbished as refurbished, to me it makes more sense to put everything as refurbished as I can't possibly know if someone else didn't refurbish it before me, sometimes it's hard to tell. I wouldn't want a charge back or a return for something like this.
I buy from the refurbished dyson store on ebay and they are 100% refurbished by actual dyson people, it's a pretty cool process and I saved a ton when combined with a holiday sale as well.
@@draginator6 I am pretty sure that the conversation here is about 3rd party sellers not official store sellers that also have a shop on eBay and Amazon.
@@ageorgiev89 The video is about third party but I was just chiming in since the comment doesn't specify anything about that and was just a blanket statement about "any refurbished item" they've ever gotten on ebay, and I've gotten plenty of legitimately refurbished products on ebay.
This makes me sad and upset. Back in high school I collected, refurbished, and resold vintage PCs. I would acquire them through friends, garage sales, etc. Then change out bad PSUs, replace HDDs, reinstall OSs, clean them up cosmetically, the whole 9 yards. I had a lot of fun selling and appreciated being able to mark my work as being refurbished
I've been avoiding Amazon for a while now, because of fatigue from having to wade through page after page of low quality products to find something worth spending money on (to the point where "Amazon Grade" has become my term for low quality / counterfeit products in general). Can't say this behavior from them surprises me, and I guess now I have to scratch Ebay off the list as well. It's annoying, but good to know. Keep up the good fight!
Ebay can be the same way. I occasionally look for electronic parts but the Chinese flooded several categories with listings. Even if you add brand names you still have to wade around multiple duplicated listings.
I am fixing an old outboard motor. If I need a part, there is about a 5% chance it will be on Amazon. There is about an 85% chance it will be on eBay. However, I no longer sell on eBay because as others have stated I was getting screwed by buyers.
I had my listing for a USED C64 mini console removed from ebay with this message: Your listing was reported by the rights owner listed below because this software has specific licensing agreements that limit its resale. To sell this product you must first get authorization from the rights owner to resell this product on eBay. - What a load of BS!
eBay sold out its sellers a couple years ago. I use to sell a lot of stuff to get ride of my clutter. eBay would always take the buyer over the seller, I shipped signature required and people would claim they didn’t get stuff and eBay too the money back out of my account. Non paying bidder were not punished and I had to fight to get my fees back from eBay. They knew I hadn’t been paid but still tried to charge me.when eBay started charging sales tax on used stuff and I finally said I’m out
*_eBay would always take the buyer over the seller_* Unless *_I_* was the buyer, apparently. Their guarantee that I'd get what I ordered or THEY would refund me wasn't worth that which goes "whoosh" when I press the valve on the throne. When I _tried_ to get refunded, what happened? They played word games to justify their screwing me out of about eighty bucks, LOCKED me out of responding to them, LOCKED me out of leaving FEEDBACK for the lying seller, and elevated my blood pressure to the breaking point. Ebay does NOT look after buyers. Ebay does NOT look after _sellers._ Ebay looks after Ebay. Period.
I have had a solid amount of sales over the years. And 99.9 percent was a good experience. I made any problem right, and I only got one charge back for a $5 item. Lol.
The main used products website here in the Netherlands is possibly moving this way too. It's called marketplace. And is a site for peer to peer sales. But over the last few years more and more stores have come on their platform selling new products. And from owners selling their cars to more and more brand/general dealers advertising their used (and new) cars.
I learned electronics, built PCs, and worked in IT support before 1998 which was before certifications were required in order to even have any interview. That was a way to push those of us who had experience out so they could discriminate who they wanted. I earned my MCSE due to my experience and studying on my own at the time. I always wondered about the boot camps because of having experience in the industry. Louis is doing a great service to the industry and for many people. Thank you John for sharing so much. This is a great show that many should listen to. Both guys hit the nail straight on about all of the big players.
@@trajectoryunown third party will almost never be able to beat something on services like refurbishing especially when a large company can just subsidize refurb from another revenue stream.
Huh, while this is a step too far perhaps Gamestop should be forced to stop selling "refurbished items" my first 2 PS3s were certified refurbished from them and they both failed to start. Even the insides were not dust-blown. This will hurt people who restore older equipment greatly.
Their "certified refurbished" is probably the worst of any of them, and one of the biggest lies of all time. They don't even plug them shits in, they just buy it for pennies, then put it in a different box and call it a day.
Really annoying seeing them get rid of this. I don't even use E-bay, but there should always be the option to buy refurbished items. I mean, when buying new from some companies they can sometimes sell their refurbished items as "new", so if they can do that why can't independent companies buy things to refurbish and sell?
I don't think its that bad though. Just sell under 'Used', put 'Refurbished' in the description. Any Joe-Blow could call their product 'Refurbished' before, same with New. Only way to validate the claim would be to inspect yourself as a buyer. 0 quality control. I'm not saying them doing this is good, or will result in better quality, but its not going to hurt the buyers or little guy IMO.
@@surewhynot6259 then there is less competition for me to buy retro products. I never use filters because there isn't that much stock for older items. I also don't care if the seller claims it is refurbed. I buy on condition and specs
Sounds like we need a platform where it's much like an "employee owned" business that all who participate own their own space. We all chip in as contributors much like any other Free Open Source platform, etc..... What a great segment Louis. Please do more on this topic as there are many who have become tethered to Ebay, Amazon and others but wish to have other options and are afraid to make the leap.
No more seller refurbished sucks. Also eBay in July raised the minimum advertising fee to 2% from 1%. I haven't used eBay in almost a year but dumping all my inventory next month. I sold things as seller refurbished too.
They also raised fees for type of seller by %1, added a "new" tax policy which destroys casual sellers and extended the payment withholding time all in between 2020 and now. It's like they're targeting the main userbase of their platform, that being casual sellers, and trying to get them off just because in general they move less money around.
Amazon has done this in many different ways. They wait till others build them up, and then they kick them out. I have been an Amazon seller for 10 years, and they don't give a crap about us.
Have you noticed problems with accessing the used books pages? Whenever I look up a book on Amazon I usually check if it makes sense to buy used, but clicking on the link brings up corrupted pages that are un-useable. It is bugging me. I was thinking it might be a plan to push buyers away from buying used books and towards the new ones that Amazon probably makes more on. Kinda cornering the market, unless it is just me.
@@tomfoolery333 they do the same thing with cheap HQ products I found an awesome set of gaming headphones for $13 ONLY cause my friend shared the link, no searching brought it up. and it didnt show up in my purchase history either so had to paste the link in my webrowser just to see if its still up, wouldnt surpise me.if in addition to shadowing some sellers, if they give bad links on purpose.
Princess Cruises did this to an acquaintance of mine. The acquaintance had a couple horses and took tourists on little trail rides. Wasn't a living or even a money maker, it just helped pay for some of his horse's upkeep and was kind of fun as well. Got booked through Princess a little one year and at end of season, the Princess managers told him they could give him x number of customers the next year if he had the horses and gear to handle that number of guests at least a couple times a week. It was a significant enough number that he borrowed the money to upsize and ended up with a whole herd of horses, truckloads of saddles and gear, etc. That first year was pretty rocky, he had a LOT of unexpected expenses associated with the sharp increase in capacity but he made it through the season and just about broke even. Just about. Next spring he goes to meet with the Princess people to lay out the season and they told him "we won't be booking you this year, we're going to do our own horse ride concession in house." They had let him borrow a bunch of money and drastically upsize his operation just so they could judge demand for trail rides. He basically did their market research for them and when they saw that the rides were popular enough, they shoved it up his ass and left him with all that money to pay off and bunch of horses and equipment he had no use for and could only sell for a small fraction of what he paid for it, them. Fuck all cruise lines but fuck Princess in particular.
This is a fantastic interview with two great guys... John; your experience was invaluable... Noise and NON-SILENCE will not win... Its so unfortunate there is no available avenue outside of filing a lawsuit.. The little guys always get screwed... and no little guy can afford it.
Its crazy how eBay charges people just selling random crap. I thought they just charged the businesses on there but NOPE. I sold an item for $100 with $20 shipping and they legit charged me 20% of the total cost. I contacted customer support who told me that when selling something it doesn't show you those charges... you have to "click on this link" to see what the charges are for... WTF?! They then told me I could cancel the sale but I would be charged a cancellation fee... WTF?!?! EBay is such a disgusting company
I'm a little confused as Ebay has always charged a fee for their service to use their platform to reach a massive amount of people and this has always been for everyone and not only for people who have EBay stores. An average person can list 300? items per mo with no upfront fee and they will charge a .30 cent fee for the listing when it sells and in the categories I sell in it's a 13% fee for the use of their platform on the sale. To use a massive platform to sell on that holds a massive amount of data, have people who do customer service, etc. takes money and I expect any platform to have a fee and the question is if I am comfortable paying this and if I will choose to do business with them. This fee and their policies have changed over the years as have shipping costs. . . .20+ years ago shipping was like $2 and now $6 is cheap and USPS is raising rates again. I have never gone on or heard of EBay being free for sellers to use regardless of how little they sell their personal stuff for. Pretty sure craigslist is the only place for that, but you will only reach local and it wont be national like EBay and there is not the advertising nor the support staff you mentioned.
Ebay's VERO system is also a nightmare, companies will flag authentic stuff from third party sellers just because they can. lots of sellers have been suspended from selling on ebay for selling authentic stuff but the companies don't like their stuff being sold by anyone except approved venders
Explains why I see the exact same picture 100x in a row for nearly any search for a generic term. Might be how those vendors are whitelisted (could be an interesting experiment as a seller). I wish Ebay enforced a policy of requiring original photos of the actual items for sale and removed all of those duplicates before they hit the site.
@@germanjohn5626 thats not at all the case, the manufacturer cannot stop you from selling goods you purchased unless they're stolen, they can however work to stop you from buying said goods in the first place. even Ferrari with their insane ownership models and stupid crap surrounding to whom and when you may sell "your" car only really has recourse to refuse to ever sell you another car in the future.
What didn't help sellers was tax laws. First it was applying sales tax onto things that shouldn't have sales tax. This year it's the incredibly flawed tax reporting system. Those things alone are damaging to small sellers. It's no longer a "Garage sale" type atmosphere. Ebay still has it's place for very specific things I can't get on Amazon. But for most of my regular type purchases, I'm going to buy on Amazon. This started when they reduced and then completely axed things like eBay bucks. When Amazon is giving me 5 percent back, next day shipping and tons of other benefits with prime, I'm just going to take my business to them. No matter how hard eBay tries, they can't duplicate Amazon.
Personally, as I oppose some of Amazon's business practices, I look for prices and companies there, then try to purchase direct. I may not get next day free delivery, but my conscience is clean. We have to stop supporting these monster companies who created the situation.
Something John said around the 33:00 mark there is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, the idea of wanting to bust these retail trusts while somehow persevering the incredible utility they provide. The only solution I could honestly ever think of is something to the effect of democratizing them, literally. Just say once you’re above some market share in an industry as broad as “RETAIL” your actions and board members must be voted on by the people who you most effect rather than being driven purely by profits. Because by the time you’re as big as an Amazon or Apple, your immense wealth gives you immense power, to the point that really you exist as a state within the state.
I used to sell on eBay casually from 2003 to 2020 or so. Nothing crazy just little antiques I'd find or items that I'd make a few bucks on that would allow me to make some side money. As time went on (especially after 2019) the fees went up and up and up until I'd sell an item and basically make no money between fees, paypal fees, the cost of the actual item, etc. Last year I stopped selling altogether after my account was mysteriously banned for selling an item you can find dozens of on the site (an antique fire siren) without any warning. Just gone. So I just said fuck eBay and moved on, in the last few years I was getting scammed by tons of buyers anyway.
@@curlyhairdudeify They'd buy the item, receive it in the mail and then claim they never got it despite the tracking # showing it was delivered but eBay didn't care they'd just freeze my account and take the money out. Another thing they would do is say the item didn't work despite it being thoroughly tested, request a refund, get a refund and then return a different item
Same here, but I gave up 10 years ago. Shame it lost its diversity and now seeks to be just another online shop. Ebay lost its unique selling point a decade ago, leave it to die in peace. RIP. OFF.
As a heavy buyer on eBay, I have always felt that "refurbished" listing were always used items and were falsely listed. I don't know how this change affects the sellers ( I stopped selling a long time ago when I could no longer use PayPal to receive payments for sales) but from a buyer's perspective it really doesn't change anything for me.
Looks like we need Right To Sell laws as well. I am just not amazed that this is happening, rather tired of being outraged about it all. At least we have guys like Louis trying to do something about it.
@Jay Talents Capitalism has rules to prevent cheating, like any game. It works very well when the rules are enforced. Buyers get to chose the best for them and the sellers vi to create the best. If the rules are not enforced or are not fair then the dominant seller shuts down their competition. What's happening is not capitalism but fascism where the mega corps and the government team up to screw the people. "You will own nothing and be happy."
@Jay Talents It's the intelligent harnessing of greed. Not everyone is immoral and trying to rob everyone but without the enforcement of rules capitalism turns into what you describe because those that cheat do better than those who play fair. We can't really have anarchy like you want because people do cheat, as we see from your description of capitalism. Those that don't would soon arm themselves and police those that cheat and then it's no longer anarchy. The problem with our society is we are not permitted to burn down the Apple HQ because Apple cheat, the government support their cheating currently. Capitalism actually encourages people to improve their product or service to be better than their competition. That only works if cheating is prohibited.
@Jay Talents Who is to apply this logic and reason? You say you're against anarchy which would be the individuals doing as they see fit yet someone should burn down Apple HQ. In our current system Apple should be brought to book for deliberately making it hard to repair their products. Mostly market forces solve these things but that's not enough alone. Clearly capitalism does incentivise companies to improve their products or we would simply not have mobile phones but still be expected to pay Apple £500 every 3 years just because they need the money. You say people idolise Apple, which they do seem to but in your system why would that not happen?
This sounds like an opportunity for someone to start up something that looks like what eBay used to be. I hope someone who understands entrepeneurship picks this up.
I've worked for a few companies and managed Ebay and Amazon 3P accounts as well as AMZ vendor accounts. I still do but I used to, too. First job out of college, I worked for a company that sold refurbed computer parts / accessories back in 2012. We would get pallets of Logitech returns from Best Buy and had a guy test keyboards / mouse / speakers / racing wheels and then listed them on eBay. I honestly believe refurbishing is a good thing, because we would often get things where we just had to open up a speaker and reconnect a loose wire due to manufacturing defect. Or we were able to match a speaker to a 5.1 system that was missing a speaker. Simple actions that reduced landfill waste and provided job opportunities. Margins weren't huge, since our volumes were low, since we could only bite so much we could chew (we didn't want to sell things that weren't tested). Honestly with the way the economy is now, refurb market has a great potential. We just need more folks doing it properly. Ebay is by far the worst when it comes to the search algorithm, the marketing / promotion value. The cost of an eBay store front is quite high monthly compared to Amazon 3P, not to mention now ebay's closing fees in most categories are around 12-15% + 0.30 per transaction. For people that sell small components its a real profit barrier, how often do you see USA supplier of electronic components at top rank without paying 10% to be a Sponsored Result within ebay's search. Those that know how the game is played need to waste time scrolling past the first dozen or more listings to find the actual best prices / match. Every time Ebay announces a change is another nail in the coffin. They keep making these bullshit changes that their sellers cannot easily keep up with since the online GUI bulk change system is crap. They don't have a native way to upload these new "required" detail changes by CSV. Few years ago you could make some pretty decent B2B sales on ebay. For whatever reason eBay could not set up a similar system like Amazon Business and got surpassed. Instead of responding in kind (despite having ways to provide credit and billing), they decided to focus on other bullshit. On Amazon you make a good listing, leave it and it gets better and better over time due to product ranking system. Its imperfect since it attracts poachers and counterfitters once the listing becomes somewhat successful. Used to be similar on eBay, but the new search system sucks so now. On Ebay you make a listing hope you make a couple dozen sales, kill it before it gets too popular, and relist it again and hope that it does as good as the previous listing (losing all your sales history). Yes you could take your chances and keep replenishing inventory but after a few A / B tests we found we had to revive and refresh listings. I'm sure some refurbishers like making individual listings but some also like a single listing to show a good amount of sales and a history of sales without issue on a refurbed product. But Louis you're totally right, pulling away eBay store fees / closing fees and throwing it towards marketing your own site / store is for sure the best move in the long run. I mean I doubt they spend even half of our fees on promoting our products on google unless we boost it with additional promoted listings (Which is suggested to be 10.2% last I checked).
I've learned to never trust these large tech companies, even when they start out with good intentions it eventually turns nefarious. I've been on Ebay as a buyer for a very long time and maybe in the last year or two noticed subtle changes that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It just seemed like there wasn't the good deals like in the past, the sellers were becoming real business entities which has spoiled the vibe of finding the true gems.
I am having a lovely day. Thanks for asking Sir. I just recently bought a refurbished headphone of the one I was using but broke. Saved around 100$ personally.
We need to follow a co-op model, where both buyers and sellers must be members, and they buy a share for $5 or $10. That share has one vote, and it means the users of the platform have a say in how it's run. As part of incorporating the co-op, they'd set the intentions behind it and changes would require a majority of shareholders to approve.
In the small engine business, the chinese sell aftermarket parts for a fraction of the price. An OEM part might be $250 and the market is flooded with cheap replacements for $25-$50 with free shipping. It's gotten so bad that I have a sign on my shop door "We diagnose and replace faulty new aftermarket parts that you purchased on eBay or Amazon!"
@@DrDLightful and you know what's extra sad? The people that always buy the least expensive option no matter what never seem to learn. They'll buy some cheap part, break it, and then just get a different cheap part off a different cheap site... Blows my mind
@@DrDLightful For full OEM price I hope. I can picture it now a guy complaining that he only paid 50 bucks for the bad one a new good one cant be that much more...
There needs to be a new website because ebay and Amazon are awful any more and buying used, refurbished, and items from small sellers is still in demand but not allowed on these platforms.
We refurbish dental equipment and I will say there is a super wide gap between refurbished. We go far and above what most companies do but sometimes when I see a listing that a certain company lists a product as refurbished I cringe a little. But a buyer should be able to make there own judgements.. with Ebay's large percentage based fees they are nothing but a bill board for my company. You know "call for details and questions" is pretty much a link to your website.
My personal experience with Amazon’s official “renewed” products has been terrible. Both times, the product was fundamentally damaged or dysfunctional, improperly packaged. In contrast, for 20 years I’ve bought basic used items on eBay (motherboards, GPU’s, AppleTV’s, etc.), from regular sellers with no special program or promotion, without a single return. These special programs from Amazon and, now, eBay are absolutely a scam, and totally unnecessary. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t require binding two-way NDA’s.
Between Amazon Warehouse and Amazon Outlet, I bought 2 heaters and a countertop oven (the oven was definitely "renewed") and those were fine. But the camera was garbage and I won't even consider most of their electronics as I am sure they don't train workers to properly evaluate electronics.
eBay also started a program where if you're selling a valuable trading card you're forced to send it to an eBay facility first. So I sold a PSA graded card and had to send it to ebay first to they can authenticate a card that has already been authenticated and sealed by the most trusted authenticators in the business. What a giant waste of time and money.
that was created to stop scammers from claiming that the cards were fake, getting their money back and getting to keep the card as long as they provided photo of a destroyed card...
@@ochykysh ... Except we already have multiple instances of eBay declaring authentic items (cards, sneakers, etc.) as fake in this process. The only real reason they do this is to earn fees.
eBay probably was forced to do this because authentication is forged in today's society with so many companies selling authentication devices. Our state is plagued by authentic driver license forgeries that look as good as the real thing because they are made on similar equipment made in China. It's too bad eBay's solution isn't perfect as it has disadvantages as @J M said. Is the better solution to do nothing and let the forgers win?
I purchased a pair of Bose S1 pro's a few months back - directly from Bose (from their own website, NOT from any 3rd party marketplace, etc). In the spirit of saving a few bucks, Bose offered the same speakers through their "Bose Factory Refurbished" program - almost $300 cheaper for the 2 speakers! The speakers arrived in absolutely mint condition (could not tell they had ever been used physically)... but once I connected to them with the bluetooth app, I was surprised to see all the previously connected devices in the speakers history. Nothing a factory reset did not clean up. It was nothing as bad as Louis has likely seen, but was still surprising to me that Bose likely did not do any actual "refurbishment" other than just testing the speaker to ensure it worked and maybe wiping it down.
The same thing Apple is currently doing blocking apps to be published on iPhone store, because they "think" your business model needs Payment Buttons to be implemented, even when all business is done outside of the app. They're killing the market for small custom apps and self employed developers trying to build a business.
@@quadsnipershot but for apps they are just after their 30% cut, even forcing small players to implement that into the app or blocking it's updates, they keep adding terms and conditions, even when they lost many times in big court, they cannot force anyone to implement payment buttons, but they still do!
@@dannydaw59 They get the glory of hosting the app which makes their phone more useful. The PC has plenty of free programs and no one is able to prevent them.
Sad to see but most of the times I've seen refurbished items on places like Amazon or Best buy, the majority of reviews complain that either the item is faulty or is just hells dirty, scuffed, like the seller doesn't even bother "refurbishing" the item smh
I read some comments on Amazon of people complaining the the PCs were dusty af inside. They buy from recyclers, wipe and reload Windows and call it refurbished.
That electronic marketplaces, which hold so much lower risk than a physical one, gatekeep like this, is infuriating. Also, vote Louis Rossman for chair of the FTC.
FTC Louis would then become impeached by the House members protecting the criminals' rights. Until convicted, criminal suspects have rights, and if the federal prosecutor refuses to prosecute the criminal, that leaves Louis with a "wrongful action" blot on his record. Gather a bunch of blots, and he will be removed. The position is filled with politics, and if he doesn't have prominent House and Senate members protecting him as a "patron", it will be tough. But Louis won't compromise on his ethics, so his refusal to perform favors will get himself fired as he posts the announcement "dear consumers, i have enjoyed my time at an FTC commissioner, but need to spend more time with my family, so I must resign".
When it comes to buying online I trust used over refurbished descriptions. Typically a refurbished product from an online seller has been haphazardly slapped together at the lowest cost possible. If I can go to the store physically and be face to face with the person who sold me the refurbished device I'm more likely to go that route.
As an Amazon 3rd party seller, I can confirm that more and more brands are being gated. Some brands are pretty easy to get approved to sell, and others such as Nike require the seller to pay Nike a pretty large sum of money to get approved. Amazon continuously makes business decisions for me, such as mandating that I offer free return shipping for returned items regardless if the return is due to an error on my part or the customers. I have over 5,000 items of various brands and have seen 1,000 of my listings get "search suppressed" or flat out removed entirely without notice which I discovered while doing inventory. If eBay goes this way, the small retailers will not have an outlet to sell their goods unless a new platform emerges to fill the void left by Amazon and eBay. The expense of building, maintaining, advertising, and processing credit card payment portals is much greater than the profit from whatever meager sales can cover, and that is with me doing the coding and maintenance.
The era of the personal site is nigh use fb and other social media to advertise it and have a few alt payment processors as options. We need to accelerate the parallel economy to stop this stuff. Its no longer just political opponents the wealthy despise its now also small business trying to compete.
I just got some nike's, for the first time in my life as a gift. Worst Sneakers i've ever worn. Unbalanced, unbreathable and weird inside material. New balance is so much better it's ridiculous. I guess when all your money goes to marketing the product suffers.
This is the reason that they loosing market dominance. People say theyre getting bigger. Theyre getting bigger in some ways. But amazon is just one stop on the train these days. Only really good for small trinket stuff.
I've seen the refurbished label on eBay items for years and I always assumed it meant very little, that anyone could mark them as such even though they basically just turned them on and did a quick wipe.
If someone has taken the trouble to clean and repair the item then refurbished is fair. You can see from the photos if it's clean and if not then you know it's not refurbished. You also know if they say used then it's not refurbished.
@@wayland7150 i refurbish items and i distinguish between refurbished and used by whether or not i had to replace parts. seems fair to me but that’s just me
@@cwilliams6884 That makes sense. I've repaired GPUs and replaced fans and thermal past. I mark those as refurbished. However if I pull it out of a working system as sell it as is then that's used. I'll show photos of it working if I can. I'll leave the dust on it so you can see it's not been tinkered with. If something is not working I won't say it's untested. I'll say what tests I did and what happened. Someone can then judge if they think they can fix it or use it for spares.
Now I know why a few years ago I was able to get excellent refurbished Macintosh products at an extremely reasonable price, but now I don’t see any deals for quality Mac products on Amazon anymore. Thank you for the video
Excellent video. Covers so much good info that tech & consumers need to be aware of! I.E: Ebay has started a practice where they CHANGE your search method without asking. The message is "STREAMLINING YOUR SEARCH RESULTS". What they are doing is locking out the lowest priced items and replacing the search with higher priced sponsored results - often with insane shipping. Then they make it hard to find a way to change the search format back so that you can actually sort by price, etc! The site made the mistake of asking for my feedback & I let them have it 4-letters at a time. EBAY is turning into a rip off! And having used it for over 2 decades - I don't say this lightly or in a callous manner. eBay is becoming a rip-off site! BTW: Stunning background thru that windows compared to your NYC set. Very best wishes!
I love the story about becoming an MSCE. In the mid-90s I had already become a Novell CNE that I'd funded out of my own pocket. I went to work for a company that was building a turn-the-crank MSCE program. They took full-page ads in newspapers worldwide inviting anyone to join and become an MSCE. I was stunned when I realised that well over 90% of my classmates had virtually no server experience. One of my colleague's jobs before he joined and popped out as a certified server engineer 10 weeks later? He had been a tank commander in the British army! In the company's program, they allowed students to do an unlimited number of exams. So there were people who would sit the exam, then that afternoon re-sit their exam. There were some people who did the same exam 5 or 6 times.
Paper MCSEs are the worst. They are always preaching “Best Practices” but have zero real world experience. Tell me again how this company with 6 total servers needs to create an identical setup as a “Test Environment” to test all backups and updates before pushing to the production environment? I agree that’d be swell, in theory, but I think you’re going to have a hard time selling the idea of doubling their IT infrastructure just for “Best Practices.” Ditto incremental backups that increment for over a month before reseeding, and you’ve never tested them - I know it’s a valid strategy, it’s just a stupid strategy. Spending money & Data loss are the two things businesses [Especially small businesses] hate the most. But there’s no +I or +$ Cert for looking out for your customers best interest financially. I was MCSE+i from Server 2000 through 2008, and got some of the 2012 certs while I was working for Microsoft. We were using RC1 of server 2012 back in 2008/2009 is the only reason. I used to joke the best way to get the job was to already have it, as almost nobody outside would have the required experience on the newest OS’s, even if they’d implemented it company wide on launch day [Which I’d probably consider reason enough not to hire someone]. That brings me to my great epiphany: the system is rigged. It’s not about ensuring competency so much as building a sunk cost fallacy in the tech force “Well, I’be already got the first 4 certs, might as well get the last 2” or “There’s only a 2 test roll up to update your accreditation to the next version? And it’s only $6,500 for a 5-Day bootcamp? I can take the camp, pass the tests, and then study like a crazy person for 2 months on a VM lab setup at home to become proficient in the thing I’m already certified on….” That feels super sketchy, but to stay competitive it’s all but required. But there’s enough shitty techs who take a bootcamp that teaches just the test answers who never bother to become proficient and make the 5% of us who do give a shit look bad. And we’re back to square one. Cheers!
reminds me of when indeed added some certifications thing where you did the test on their site. i got some in stuff i’d never touched before, just because i either knew enough to guess well or because i could guess the right button to press.
when i was told to use testking to pass certifications because everyone does it, i knew there was something wrong with the whole certification systems for IT related jobs
Back when I got my MCSE in the NT 4.0 days, a photographer had passed the tests even though she barely knew how to use a computer. At this moment I knew that the certification did not certify ability... it just raised the price of incompetence. I have always examined and exercised additional scrutiny against anyone certificated, especially degrees. People with passion are always a better fit than people with an expensive receipt. Look for their passion.
Your channel has educated me on so many issues, some of which I knew in general existed but never knew just how bad it is. I've been taking steps to retake my property and protect my privacy as much as I can. Thank you for your informative content, keep up the great work.
I have sold on ebay for many years and it is HORRIBLY mismanaged by corporate and the CEO, it is dying a slow death and has been for a long time, the coof gave it a little boost because people rushed to shopping online but now that everything is open again ebay is back in it's death spiral, they are throwing their loyal sellers under the bus by focusing on shoes and playing cards, cellphones and cheap china made WISH type stuff and focusing less on the used and vintage collectables. ebay's search function is so bad I have to google stuff to find it on ebay because searching the same keywords will get a "no items found" on ebay. their fees keep going higher and higher as more sellers leave, they even take their fees out of the sales tax, and if you don't pay even more for promoted listings they will bury your listings so nobody sees it. They are trying to become a wish/amazon hybrid and failing at it while they try to squeeze more and more money out of fewer and fewer sellers
@@majstealth Exactly, Ebay changed their search to optimize for google search and now you gotta fill out all those stupid item details they make you fill out to make it easier for google to find it and in doing so they ruined their on site search. and you can search for something and go lowest price first and then click on the cheapest one and there will be even cheaper ones advertised in the listing "which is so full of ads now it's unusable" not to mention you can search for something and it will bring up different ones every time, I will look somethin up to sell and think I can make money and then when I get it home and look it up again it will bring up tons of cheaper ones
@@TheSimba86 Search functions used to be logical like they are in a word processor or database. We still instinctively think they work like that but they don't, we don't know how they work at all or what to expect. I notice on ebay it's best to keep searching for the same or similar things over and over. Also clicking on the suggested items. Eventually ebay will show you what you've been asking for. It's like they want you to buy some expensive thing that's not really what you want but when you don't buy that they give in and reveal the thing you were seeking. Once you do buy it they then suggest to you the same item or better at a much better price as a special F.U.
As a buyer only, I find all the recent changes very frustrating. Like you say the searches aren't always great these days, but even when you have a list to trawl through, they now make it difficult. When you look at one item and then return to the list, the list has re ordered so you are not in the same point to therefore move to the next item of interest. Everything you have already looked at are now spread all over the list. Wastes a lot of time now, and don't get me started on the checkout which seems to operate in a different way every time. You don't even know if your being scammed on occasion because it is so different from the last time you used it.
I sold on Amazon for years. I specialize in vintage toys and had virtually no competition. But then I had to provide proof of purchase from the manufacturer... Let's just say, none of those items can be purchased on Amazon now.
I think there's more to this than you're putting forward. Especially if you actually sold vintage toys. You would not need proof of purchase from the manufacturer. They were wanting proof of purchase from the previous owner most likely showing that the items were not stolen.
This wasn't always the case. Seller fees used to apply only to the purchase price and sellers would constantly list for 1 dollar and hundreds for shipping.
@@B-RollTape Yes, so I was glad when they changed their policy to include all the fees when considering the fees the seller pays. It was ridiculous how listings were. I've not bought on Ebay in years but I follow many resellers as I think the idea is super cool - and I love the idea of finding other people's trash and turning it into money.
What an eye opener, I've been using ebay since its inception but over the last few years I have noticed a difference without knowing what it is, now I do, cheers
Those saying in comments claiming third party refurbishers shouldnt be allowed to sell refurbs are downright insane for few reasons: 1) it removes competition. Half the reason why manufacturer generally provides higher quality refurb goods is because they have complete control over their parts supply, so they get the best margin. 2) Coupled with the fact that they receive good condition phones (mostly because people tell them they are in good working condition, or just because they have not been used much), they dont have to do as much work / spend resources refurbing a phone, compared to third party. 3)also tied to first, and mentioned by John, it removes niche markets where improvements could be made through competition. Trade in programs are death of us all. The entire process is basically problem free when you dont have to deal with problems that comes with selling high value electronics. Even if right to repair laws are passed and third party/users have legal way of sourcing parts, majority of people who will benefit from this bill (i.e. third party refurb companies) won't even be around to take advantage, and most people dont fix electronics themselves.
As the world is right now some new equipment like commercial network switches and even patch panels are "unobtainium". So used network equipment that's just a few years old has now increased in price quite a bit. So at the moment the refurbished market could be quite important when there's a 200+ days delivery on a relatively simple 24-port network switch with PoE+. That's what I' waiting for at work. I have worked around it temporarily, but that's still not ideal.
It seems eBay has totally removed the filter option for item location when searching. Last week I tried searching for a bluetooth amplifier in German eBay and was greeted with a ton of China -based products, then some from USA and UK and maybe a few from Germany/EU. The search results seem to be maybe a bit better at the moment (for the that particular search term). Though if you search from cheapest, there is nothing but China stuff... As I usually search for items inside EU, this new development pretty much killed the whole platform for me. Last time I was this devastated by their actions (maybe even more, back then), was when they decided to remove wildcard (*) searching, which was a KEY factor when searching for collectables, spare parts etc.
I stopped using eBay because everything became "approved" Chinese companies. It used to be regular Joes where I could get really good deals on used and refurbished items, but now, that's not a thing. I moved to Facebook Marketplace for my CraigsList style of used orders, but the eBay made up of regular Joe companies is gone.
Btw: Not sure you are aware also the unlocking with the bootloader: - Bootloader is no longer the only limitation - Google Safety Net (most banking apps are on it, depending on the lvl it's impossible to provide an alternative), and it's linked to google play services Companies are doing A LOT to artificially vendor lock their software, hardware, etc.
I do like the idea of having my own website, 2 problems though, 1: the new sales tax collection laws are a nightmare, you have to track your sales to every state and city in the USA that has sales tax and when you hit the threshold "they're all different" you have to get a tax license in that state and then collect and remit sales taxes to them. 2:Nobody really wants to go down the google rabbit hole looking for my website, they all go to ebay and amazon knowing that ebay and amazon will forcibly take my money and give it back to the buyer for any reason they see fit just to keep the buyer happy as opposed to buying from a random website, so it's hard to drive traffic to your own website. Louis can do it because he is in a niche and he has 1.74 million subscribers and millions more viewers to visit his website and buy supplies and equipment
Er... That's not really fair. He built his house himself from scratch. Louis didn't make the rules. So, why take a bite at him instead of your state and federal government, that seems to be run for the benefit of corporations than small businesses? There is no reason not to have a centralised Sales Tax system. Not only would it make your life simpler, it would also increase trade. It's time to start talking to people who can change things like this, and that's your congressman and your senator. It's the Digital Age for goodness sakes, and if you are making out of state sales, you should have a CRM platform that links into your accounting software. That would automatically calculate the sales tax due based on the customers Zip Code, and be able to arrange payment via bank transfer every quarter. You should be able to deposit your sales tax collections from your receipts and place those in an escrow account. Leaving it upto Amazon and Ebay, when they are not interested in low volume sellers like yourself, is just setting yourself up for disappointment in the long run. You have to be realistic and have a plan B if the trend for dumping low volume sellers continues, because no platform is your friend. Taking it out on Louis isn't going to help you. So, take some time out and think about what are you going to do if platforms like Ebay and Amazon no longer want your business in the next 5 years or so. It can be changed, but you can continue to shout at the moon, or you can figure out a way to change things. Louis did that. It didn't take 5 minutes, and doing is TH-cam no cakewalk, so as the setup is basically Uber for content creators. And it's not how many subscribers one has that works. It's how many people watch the videos, when they watch them, and for how long. And Louis grafted for every single one. It's a challenge, which you can take up, or find another solution. It's your business.
Sales tax is even an international nightmare now. We had to restrict sales to customers in the UK because they will reject incoming parcels valued under 135 GBP where VAT has not been collected and we are too small for VAT registration to make sense. Besides, I am not a UK resident, why should I be collecting tax for them?
@TruthOrDie777 com2 and yet they do it anyways. They make the laws. Remember OBiden’s constant constant refrain “no constitutional right is absolute”. Well then he is God.
I stick to selling through local marketplaces now, and it's such a pain...constant "is this item still available?" messages, people asking questions that I've already listed in the description, people saying they will buy and then not show up. Not to mention the local marketplace is a much smaller customer base. But it's still better than dealing with modern eBay. eBay back in the day was fantastic. Accountability, both buyers and sellers could leave feedback, less nickel-and-diming with fees.
In FR we have issues with the largest "local" refurbished marketplace website, BackMarket. They treat their sellers just like the other big US corps, sometimes retaining enormous amounts of money for obscure reasons.
Freedom is taken from you one piece at a time... clientele too Luis. I used to be an Ebayer selling and buying (I stayed away from Amazon like a pledge). I stopped Ebaying last year.
There is no truly free market. To be truly free it would have to lack any laws prohibiting child labor or slavery, any workers' rights laws (40 hour work week, breaks, holidays, parental leave) and any regulation telling companies what they can and can't sell, what standards their products must meet and what dangerous products are banned.
Selling or buy on eBay is a nightmare now. I was charged $500 just to list my car. I paid that again to relist it after the listing ended without selling. I sold off of ebay. I later sold an item on ebay that cost the buyer about $2200. After shipping and fees, I only got $700. I hate ebay.
@@nogodsnomasters666 i did underestimate shipping a bit but ebay charges a percent fee on both purchase price and shipping. I am pissed about being charged a fee on legit shipping costs making it so i didn't have enough calculated for shipping. I'm pissed about being charged tax on a private sale. I'm pissed ebay charges insane fees just to list a vehicle then puts a time limit on the listing. Im pissed ebay has listing options available to dealers that i don't have access to no matter what i pay. I am pissed at the whole ebay system. I hate ebay as a buyer and a seller. The unreasonable fees they charge mean either the seller is screwed or the buyer is. Ebay can go f itself.
@@PremiumFuelOnly If I remember right, my car did sell from Craigslist, not eBay. I still had to pay the stupid fees just to have the listing on eBay for the car. As for the other item mentioned, I didn't list it on Craigslist because I didn't have the time or energy to deal with the constant scams that start the instant a listing is live on Craigslist. There were several reasons but mostly, I have had less than ideal experiences trying to sell on Craigslist.
I wonder what that means for people like myself who never used eBay as a business, but sometimes randomly sold some item of value that we had. I kind of thought that that was what eBay was for. Like I sold an antique silver cigarette case, a vintage Singer sewing machine, a couple books, a watch, etc. I've used eBay since it very started, and I have a total of 10 reviews I've received as a seller. Usually when I buy something off eBay it's a weird random thing as well like a spare part to repair something, or a vintage clothing item.
I’m gonna play devils advocate here. I’ve seen A LOT of people abuse the “refurbished” for electronics over the years. People think they “refurbished” a laptop because they reinstall Windows, yeah no. “Refurnished” should be reserved for like new condition products which includes battery replacement. I get so tired of “battery is good it turns on” but it has 65% battery health.
I agree, when i think refurbished, i think recapping, replacement of button membranes, batteries, thermal paste, usb ports, ect., Not hitting the restore to factory settings option or reinstalling windows
But that's not what's being discussed here. Ebay is not creating a fair and safe system to certify what's refurbished. Ebay is creating a system where people who do the refurbishing will be contractually obliged to the manufacturers of the products they're refurbishing. I agree with your argument, but that's really not the point here.
That's sad. I love Ebay specifically because it isn't the nightmare that Amazon has become. Ebay has niche items / parts that you can't really find anywhere else on a single "platform". If they end up doing this I don't even know what I'm going to do.
I worked at a repair shop that was Apple certified basically it was 40 hours of useless annoying e training that on the job no one followed. Pretty much they jumped the hoops to get access to apples troubleshooting tools ast2 and gsx. They totally ignored the terms of the certification and used the cheapest aftermarket parts straight from mobile defenders. Apples phone repair training literally tells you to throw away all the screws out of the device and replace them with new ones. It's comdey the strange practices apples training pushes for.
This same advice goes for people who do things like deliver for Doordash or Uber Eats. They are NOT your friends or even on your side. They will replace you as soon as they can make more money doing so. (ie robot delivery)
Ebay also makes it difficult to sell any type of higher value item also, to the point where they will restrict your account until you can show them receipt for all the items your listing. Simple way is to just edit a Amazon invoice in HTML/Photoshop and just do that for every item, works perfectly. Theres also a lot of sellers that are selling refurbished items as new with fake original packaging as new and its crazy common already with phones, i suspect we will see even more of this now. You can also just list it as used but say its refurbished in the description.
I can truly say that the current equivalent of MCSE exams and courses are *NOT* the way described in here! They're actually quite tricky, and you do genuinely learn how to use the products. Source: I've done 'em!!
I'm one of the ones that shies away from "refurbished" or "renewed" unless it's coming directly from the manufacturer. I'd rather buy straight-up "used", because a person selling something used will tell you what's wrong with it (or at least what's not working). They'll provide pics. They'll answer questions. I have no way of knowing what each vendor's version of "refurbished" means, and so it connotates "we did just the bare minimum to get it to the boot screen and called it good" in my mind. You don't get a photo of it, you get a photo from the manufacturer or a photo of a different unit with a note saying "You won't get this exact unit, it will be one just like it." It can still have tons of stuff wrong with it, but as long as it powers on and/or starts booting, they ship it out the door. Chips on the corner? Mega scuffs all over? Scratches on the screen? Speakers not working? Ports all blown out? Hinge pins falling out? Dead roaches in the fan? Not our problem. It turns on, therefore it "works", and no you cannot have a refund. You agreed to buy it refurbished. Nope, nope, nope.
As per this video though, the 'original' maker (some tendril of Apple) and Lenovo and Asurion are sus above all. Makes you want to join a CSA that also deals in Battlestations.
Interesting. I actively avoid "refurbished" and "pre-owned" and instead look for "used". My thinking is that these other terms are really just scammy ways to describe used and I will just pay a higher price for the same thing. When doing searches on Ebay, I select "used" and not the other terms. But I also carefully watch for anything which is "sponsored" and make sure to not buy that item (same idea, I know that I will be paying for the ad with a higher price). I am a bad consumer.
For me, if possible I just select "supports charity" because that's basically the "Goodwill" filter. I've bought a bunch of old games from them and they always look way better than they describe it (anecdotally anyway).
Their "Promoted" listing feature for sellers has really flipped. It used to be fairly good, the promotion percentage reflected a decent turnover rate, however now I'm doubling and even tripling the promotion rates and not seeing ANY impressions on some of my products. It really sucks. I'm looking into alternate sites currently.
thank goodness im now retired? to a degree im still working with my own small garage shop in northern Canada with at least 3 hr drive to my next competition. many things are out of date. i will be always working in repairs. Good luck all involved. My local scrap yard is my walmart.
I finally quit selling extra personal items on eBay and I’ve been a seller since 2003. EBay policies and the new law passed in 2021 selling anything including personal items and going over the $600 threshold being reported to the IRS for tax purposes. One has to show the profit margin at tax time, as we had to buy them, but who keeps receipts from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s???
The refurbished category is a scam anyway. Been looking for a particular 4TB HDD and you see all these "Refurbished" HDD's. So you tell me exactly what can be done to a HDD to "refurbish" it? According to ebay: a certified refurbished item means that it's in pristine, like-new condition, and has been professionally inspected, cleaned, and refurbished to original specifications by the manufacturer or a manufacturer-approved vendor. Cambridge: made to look new again by work such as painting, repairing, and cleaning. Sorry but its a scam. They advertise it as it actually means more than clean an item. Good. I am glad thy are phasing it out. It fools people into buying a used item as something else. I dont care how clean it is, if I wasn't the person to pull it out of the original box it's used. Refurbished shouldn't be allowed for electronics. Its not like a vintage anvil or bench vise that has been... well... refurbished. Stripped, sanded and repainted. If you do a board level repair its it then refurbished? Sorry but its still a board that has been repaired. Sorry Louis I'd rather get a used board and swap it out than have it repaired. I'd only go the chip repair route long enough to get the data and wipe the drive. And I certainly in good conscience couldn't sell it without disclosing that the board has been repaired/used. Calling it anything else but used/repaired is a scam. Also to be fair, I wouldn't necessarily exclude an item because it was repaired as long as the seller was honest in what was repaired and if they warrant the repair and how long. As another example outside electronics, I have been looking for a particular intake manifold for a Mopar B engine. I see a bunch that have been "refurbished" which appears to be nothing more than a rattle can silver paint job and they are asking the same as a new one from Summit. For me this actually diminishes the value as Id rather have the natural aluminum finish which could be sandblasted for that satin finish or polished to a mirror. I'm actually going to paint mine blue to match oem. Yeah, refurbished is a scam.
You're welcome to fake apologize as much as you want, it's not an argument, nor does it change the fact that you are wrong. There are different levels of refurbishing, obviously nobody is refurbishing a hard drive for resale at $50, but refurbished electronics are a thing. Just because you would not feel comfortable purchasing and does not mean tens of millions of other people have a problem with it, nor should we allow one person's definitions when they don't even understand basic electronics to dictate what is allowed for the entire country
You are correct. Used devices are not "refurbished"
You don't like it, you don't buy it. End of story. Stop claiming less choices is good for everyone, just because you're uncomfortable with purchasing certain items.
You're part of the problem
Ooh, your manly Mopar engine B.
Fvck off.
If you don't like refurbished items don't buy them. End of story. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it has zero market value.
Soon (if people like you have their way) Ebay won't sell *any* used item, and then you can't get your precious Mopar B for your precious old car that you have enough money to waste on, so you don't care about having options on the market for everyone.
You: "Yes, I love less freedom because it means I don't have to read ebay listings I don't like"
I'm going to paint mine blue..
Uh, we don't give a shit.
This has been happening with Etsy. They started out as a place for hand-made items, vintage items, etc. Basically like a virtual craft fair/swap meet. 5-ish years ago they became a publicly traded company. Now they are promoting 3rd party sellers and drop-shippers and "partnered" sellers, these things were against the rules way back when they started. The platform is now flooded with mass produced items, manufactured overseas in bulk, being sold for huge markups alongside the hand-made items, often undercutting the smaller individuals. These mass produced items are being passed off as hand made. They have been forcing sellers to provide free shipping to get higher ranking in listings and searches, they have been gamifying the platform to push sellers to respond to buyers, punishing sellers who don't work 7 days a week.
Etsy went to hell. I only look it over for ideas now. Sometimes I manage to track down the artist by other means. I won’t give Etsy a penny.
the mass produced items are likely handmade. just done so at huge scale in sweatshops. and likely to be of lower quality
Etsy, along with eBay, have also been complicit with the damn scalpers who have been selling graphics cards and PlayStation 5 consoles at EXTREMELY RIDICULOUS prices after snapping up those products at their official outlets by using scalper bots such as Bounce Alerts.
@@Kitten-Master with this logic most things are handmade
@@Numb_ Look, someone at some point had to draw up the plans for the plastic injection molds.
This has been eBay strategy for two years: bigger ticket items and bigger sellers over the high volume smaller sellers that made them successful. . that's why both buyers and sellers have been leaving in droves.
Where should we go though?
Ebay always side with the buyer.. BS!! as a seller when someone tries a stupid little scam and ebay makes them give me money back, thatys just bs
@@My_Old_YT_Account That's what I'd like to know
@@My_Old_YT_Account maybe Swappa?
@@My_Old_YT_Account it depends what you're selling. I still sell the majority of my books and media on eBay. No other site is currently getting me the buyers, even with sales a lot slower lately.
"Everything is basically a giveaway, until we have 50% or more of the market! THEN we start doing evil shit." - Literally every info-tech company, always.
Well put.
@@bigfennec I'd highlight or heart that comment, if I could.
ebay is dead now since theyre getting rid of the refurbished market
It takes massive backing to do that. To make a loss for a decade until you've achieved dominance. Totally different to an organic business that makes profit from the start and re-invests to grow.
@@billyhatcher643 Ebay decided they needed my passport after 17 years of trading on their site. They even withheld payment, they waited until I sold something then demanded my passport. I will be sending the buyer the item as a gift once he has his money back. Unless ebay back down this ends my use of ebay for selling.
This is the problem with the corporate business structure. Profit isn't enough. There always has to be growth, and what this does is create a system of incentives and legal regulations that forces companies to constantly be looking to pinch a few more pennies and screw people for bigger profits all the time. It actively disallows companies from getting into a comfortable position and creating a stable service or product offering. There have been untold numbers of corporations that have been _turning a profit_ but that wind up going bankrupt because they aren't experiencing "growth" even when they've completely saturated the market.
So every. single. time. We see the same pattern where corporations become compelled to either try to break into a new market with products they have no expertise in that usually wind up being complete dogshit and pissing away money on R&D for _bad products,_ they'll break into a new market and maybe have moderate success but will wind up neglecting the product that made them great in the first place and destroying their own reputation in the process, they try to cut costs and raise prices or create new revenue streams with their existing product lineup and ultimately wind up burning any good will with their customers that they ever had, or they wind up making insane decisions that fucks over absolutely everyone they do business with which completely alienates their customer base.
I think that if there are next generation innovators in your comment section that are looking to start their own business, I would really, really recommend that they consider forming an LLC, offering closed investments, and _not going public._ The corporate business model is a trap where good intentions go to die.
Now, now, now I agree with the idea but then having the ability to easily form a business with the help at first is valuable. It actually seems you have a business idea right here. Family business can still be run into the ground. I really dislike the idea that we cannot be a soul proprietor anymore but the attorneys have to be involved with everything the people do.
I agree, there is no situation, ever, where taking a company public is something I would consider, and if I required private investment, getting out from underneath it would be high on the priority list. The perverse incentives are just too much and inevitably ruin everything.
We need another "Ebay" so normal people will be able to buy & sell used devices like how things should be! Ebay & Amazon can be another Blockbuster Video betraying customers that make them become successful in the 1st place.
Facebook marketplace, craigslist, OfferUp, etc... Basically any platform where all they do is put the two of you in a chat room.
@@RobertManzano Facebook Marketplace is the most popular for indie markets rn. Craigslist is just... cursed.
There is ebid easy and clean interface, but needs traffic to be able to sell.
craiglist?
Whole new platform for the people by the people problem, just when it gets big enough to attract the attention of Amazon and eBay and others hostile takeover will ensue
It's a Re-occurring pattern throughout my whole life. Born in 1983 whenever something is great and works for the average guy (or at least me) someone steps in and ruins it for everybody to make a little more profit.
Not funny...
Keep up your good work Mr. Rossman!
I'm older than you and I'm here to tell you it's been working that way long before you were born...unfortunately.
@@truth2power463 oh man...
It is always like that, provide a great service cheap so no one can compete then when you own the market, make it more profitable for yourself
I know how you feel, yet I'm only half your age...
Car companies tried it, watch companies did it, tesla is pretty much doing it. Capitalism.
I love the refurbished PC market. It's allowed me to buy equipment that I can use to play around and make my own homelab situation, learning a lot in the process without breaking my bank account. Without this market, these opportunities would never have come about. Keep doing what you do, John.
I’m fine with refurbs, and eBay can have a program if they want, just let us talk about it! Silencing your customers is insulting and evil
So that must be why Amazon calls their refurbs as Renewed Items on their site. Noticed that a couple weeks ago for the first time myself. Good video
Now the best market is actually facebook MP, because it's basically better craigslist that you can do shipping over.
@@thegrandnil764 it's basically a worse Craigslist because of its' monetization.
@@thegrandnil764 well for both buyers and sellers FB is a royal pain for the scams alone
@@jaykoernerI'm in England and each time I try to sell or buy things 90% of people are trying to scam me
@@Jur1_00 : but these people are not doing the sector any justice either. I was also a techie too, and did hardware support, and the whole first line support thing, from hardware to software etc. The point is... the whole point is... We should separate, each party and deal with their contractual obligations, and that is and should be how it is ? There is a niche business model here somewhere, but it is not going to be how they assume it to be. Alas... I have seen SO many competent companies, that have their hardware and kits, entirely outsourced, and people just gave up caring. I know I did. Especially when your customers chase you SO hard... And then use the publishing sector/media to berate you no ends, and have stupid gazillion movies, comedies, TV.. etc etc etc. To berate you. When the ENTIRE WORLD IS AGAINST you and what you do, and what you stand for. What do you ?
I gave up. I went hiding, and I went and gave it all up. Cos this... I did not came into this life, to be treated like this. And this is not even on top of my normal personal life. Sure.. I can be the butt of the joke.. sure.. every day... or when it is customer-facing. But not like this. Well.... 15 years... Now we have "chromebooks", and people do not even care when they just have spent like a whopping 150, or 300 pounds per month. Gone down the drain. I'd say karma. People can just "rent" equipments now. I think Apple is doing quite well, with their rental model.... And because there are less people like us around to fix things and to give feedbacks as well. As in quality feed backs. I have heard that the cloud app sector is now in ruins. LOL..... Cos they are chasing their own tails.... Well.... It was going to happen any way.
I quit eBay a long time ago, like 15 years ago when they kept upping their fees for selling. They called to ask what it would take to get me back, I said simple. Lower your fees, and only have one fee.
I think I remember the old days of eBay or Feebay. I think even the buyers had to pay a fee and didn't eBay get a commission on the sale too?
@@rjmaxx1258 Buyers have NEVER had to pay a fee to eBay. . . .
@@z50com yes but no, buyers pay all the fees, the money always comes from the same part
Ebay bought out my employer last year. What a mess it’s been haha
I have sold just over $1,000,000 on eBay over the years and I can definitely say that eBay does not give a shit about any small sellers on the platform. They only care about buyers and the larger sellers. The fees are now very high and you now have even less power over how you make listings and engage with your customer. I have not been selling any rebuilt Apple gear on there for a while and really do not want to anymore.
Used to love eBay but the fees are so high. Had two crooked buyers of $500+ items who did not pay but eBay refused to refund seller fees. eBay is awful for sellers.
Same issue here. I was a Dell business laptop seller for less than a year because eBay sided with customers when they tried to scam me twice. I was forced to refund all the money and eBay still charged me some fees. I immediately stopped selling there because of this. BTW the items in questions worked perfectly, sold them locally and purchasers still using them daily. eBay is such crap it’s unreal.
I used to shop on eBay for amazing deals especially on electronic devices and I had the eBay and PayPal protection. Now, buying on eBay is hardly cheaper than buying new. And so many scams exist. I don’t use eBay that often.
Only time I go eBay now is for free shipping on single items if I don't need to spend 35$as Amazon n Walmart have put in play
As a consumer, any “refurbished” item I’ve ever bought on eBay has really been “used” and nobody actually refurbished. I remember buying “refurbished” items that haven’t even been factory reset
I sell on eBay and as much as I try to put the used as used and refurbished as refurbished, to me it makes more sense to put everything as refurbished as I can't possibly know if someone else didn't refurbish it before me, sometimes it's hard to tell. I wouldn't want a charge back or a return for something like this.
Yup used with noticeable wear
I buy from the refurbished dyson store on ebay and they are 100% refurbished by actual dyson people, it's a pretty cool process and I saved a ton when combined with a holiday sale as well.
@@draginator6 I am pretty sure that the conversation here is about 3rd party sellers not official store sellers that also have a shop on eBay and Amazon.
@@ageorgiev89 The video is about third party but I was just chiming in since the comment doesn't specify anything about that and was just a blanket statement about "any refurbished item" they've ever gotten on ebay, and I've gotten plenty of legitimately refurbished products on ebay.
This makes me sad and upset. Back in high school I collected, refurbished, and resold vintage PCs. I would acquire them through friends, garage sales, etc. Then change out bad PSUs, replace HDDs, reinstall OSs, clean them up cosmetically, the whole 9 yards. I had a lot of fun selling and appreciated being able to mark my work as being refurbished
I've been avoiding Amazon for a while now, because of fatigue from having to wade through page after page of low quality products to find something worth spending money on (to the point where "Amazon Grade" has become my term for low quality / counterfeit products in general). Can't say this behavior from them surprises me, and I guess now I have to scratch Ebay off the list as well.
It's annoying, but good to know. Keep up the good fight!
Ebay can be the same way. I occasionally look for electronic parts but the Chinese flooded
several categories with listings. Even if you add brand names you still have to wade around
multiple duplicated listings.
I will be using your term - Amazon Grade from now on. Thank you.
It’s pretty sad how often this is happening and people who were making a living following the rules are now out of business.
Thats why you start your own business.
@@PremiumFuelOnly well there is alternative called ebid that need one thing customers.
why would they ever give up their niche to directly compete with Amazon? They will never be as good and they will lose
Because greed causes stupidity.
This is America, companies don't really compete anymore. They collude and copy off each other.
because Amazon is a stealth seller on their platform... how long until Ebay and Amazon have the same shareholders?
I am fixing an old outboard motor. If I need a part, there is about a 5% chance it will be on Amazon. There is about an 85% chance it will be on eBay. However, I no longer sell on eBay because as others have stated I was getting screwed by buyers.
@@Akriashi That's one way to not have a monopoly.
I had my listing for a USED C64 mini console removed from ebay with this message:
Your listing was reported by the rights owner listed below because this software has specific licensing agreements that limit its resale. To sell this product you must first get authorization from the rights owner to resell this product on eBay.
- What a load of BS!
eBay sold out its sellers a couple years ago. I use to sell a lot of stuff to get ride of my clutter. eBay would always take the buyer over the seller, I shipped signature required and people would claim they didn’t get stuff and eBay too the money back out of my account. Non paying bidder were not punished and I had to fight to get my fees back from eBay. They knew I hadn’t been paid but still tried to charge me.when eBay started charging sales tax on used stuff and I finally said I’m out
That's been a thing for so so long
*_eBay would always take the buyer over the seller_*
Unless *_I_* was the buyer, apparently. Their guarantee that I'd get what I ordered or THEY would refund me wasn't worth that which goes "whoosh" when I press the valve on the throne.
When I _tried_ to get refunded, what happened? They played word games to justify their screwing me out of about eighty bucks, LOCKED me out of responding to them, LOCKED me out of leaving FEEDBACK for the lying seller, and elevated my blood pressure to the breaking point.
Ebay does NOT look after buyers. Ebay does NOT look after _sellers._
Ebay looks after Ebay.
Period.
I have had a solid amount of sales over the years. And 99.9 percent was a good experience. I made any problem right, and I only got one charge back for a $5 item. Lol.
thats fucked up man. there are thieves everywhere
That's been a thing for over a decade. I stopped selling on ebay as a result of this as well.
The main used products website here in the Netherlands is possibly moving this way too. It's called marketplace. And is a site for peer to peer sales. But over the last few years more and more stores have come on their platform selling new products. And from owners selling their cars to more and more brand/general dealers advertising their used (and new) cars.
I learned electronics, built PCs, and worked in IT support before 1998 which was before certifications were required in order to even have any interview. That was a way to push those of us who had experience out so they could discriminate who they wanted. I earned my MCSE due to my experience and studying on my own at the time. I always wondered about the boot camps because of having experience in the industry. Louis is doing a great service to the industry and for many people. Thank you John for sharing so much. This is a great show that many should listen to. Both guys hit the nail straight on about all of the big players.
Time to launch a new site only for refurbished goods, parts and tools, cmon u can do it Louis 💪
I'd shop there if the price is right.
@@trajectoryunown third party will almost never be able to beat something on services like refurbishing especially when a large company can just subsidize refurb from another revenue stream.
to late i started one already
Just come to Europe. We got many of such websites
I applaud e-bay and Amazon, time to move those junk sellers some place else.
Huh, while this is a step too far perhaps Gamestop should be forced to stop selling "refurbished items" my first 2 PS3s were certified refurbished from them and they both failed to start. Even the insides were not dust-blown. This will hurt people who restore older equipment greatly.
Their "certified refurbished" is probably the worst of any of them, and one of the biggest lies of all time. They don't even plug them shits in, they just buy it for pennies, then put it in a different box and call it a day.
Gamestop never refurbishes equipment lol.
@@ared18t Yea, I learned that the hard way and through other YT videos. I remember they even charged more for the "refurbishment."
Got two broken "refurbished" ps2 slims IN A ROW from gameslop years ago.
Really annoying seeing them get rid of this. I don't even use E-bay, but there should always be the option to buy refurbished items. I mean, when buying new from some companies they can sometimes sell their refurbished items as "new", so if they can do that why can't independent companies buy things to refurbish and sell?
I don't think its that bad though.
Just sell under 'Used', put 'Refurbished' in the description.
Any Joe-Blow could call their product 'Refurbished' before, same with New.
Only way to validate the claim would be to inspect yourself as a buyer.
0 quality control.
I'm not saying them doing this is good, or will result in better quality, but its not going to hurt the buyers or little guy IMO.
@@ViolentMLG What if buyers are searching for a refurb product and apply a filter?
@@surewhynot6259 then there is less competition for me to buy retro products.
I never use filters because there isn't that much stock for older items. I also don't care if the seller claims it is refurbed. I buy on condition and specs
'renewed'
@@ViolentMLG Yeah, actually it doesn't do anything. They'll just sell under used... stupid change is pointless.
Sounds like we need a platform where it's much like an "employee owned" business that all who participate own their own space. We all chip in as contributors much like any other Free Open Source platform, etc..... What a great segment Louis. Please do more on this topic as there are many who have become tethered to Ebay, Amazon and others but wish to have other options and are afraid to make the leap.
Definitely agree.
I like how apple and others can do this but somehow stopping scalpers is just a bit too difficult
And the government's allowed to have lotteries. Cronyism sure is neato.
No more seller refurbished sucks. Also eBay in July raised the minimum advertising fee to 2% from 1%. I haven't used eBay in almost a year but dumping all my inventory next month. I sold things as seller refurbished too.
I stopped selling on eBay ages ago, now I just buy on it now and even then it's very rarely.
They also raised fees for type of seller by %1, added a "new" tax policy which destroys casual sellers and extended the payment withholding time all in between 2020 and now. It's like they're targeting the main userbase of their platform, that being casual sellers, and trying to get them off just because in general they move less money around.
@@callowaysutton Agreed. The next question is where are the smaller sellers going.
@@MBisFrenchy Facebook marketplace, local groups etc. Or just don't sell stuff.
@@MBisFrenchy Bankrupt 😎
Amazon has done this in many different ways. They wait till others build them up, and then they kick them out. I have been an Amazon seller for 10 years, and they don't give a crap about us.
Have you noticed problems with accessing the used books pages? Whenever I look up a book on Amazon I usually check if it makes sense to buy used, but clicking on the link brings up corrupted pages that are un-useable. It is bugging me. I was thinking it might be a plan to push buyers away from buying used books and towards the new ones that Amazon probably makes more on. Kinda cornering the market, unless it is just me.
Its been happening for at least a week on many different books, everyone I check. Is this happening for anyone else?
@@tomfoolery333 they do the same thing with cheap HQ products I found an awesome set of gaming headphones for $13 ONLY cause my friend shared the link, no searching brought it up. and it didnt show up in my purchase history either so had to paste the link in my webrowser just to see if its still up, wouldnt surpise me.if in addition to shadowing some sellers, if they give bad links on purpose.
Princess Cruises did this to an acquaintance of mine. The acquaintance had a couple horses and took tourists on little trail rides. Wasn't a living or even a money maker, it just helped pay for some of his horse's upkeep and was kind of fun as well. Got booked through Princess a little one year and at end of season, the Princess managers told him they could give him x number of customers the next year if he had the horses and gear to handle that number of guests at least a couple times a week. It was a significant enough number that he borrowed the money to upsize and ended up with a whole herd of horses, truckloads of saddles and gear, etc. That first year was pretty rocky, he had a LOT of unexpected expenses associated with the sharp increase in capacity but he made it through the season and just about broke even. Just about. Next spring he goes to meet with the Princess people to lay out the season and they told him "we won't be booking you this year, we're going to do our own horse ride concession in house." They had let him borrow a bunch of money and drastically upsize his operation just so they could judge demand for trail rides. He basically did their market research for them and when they saw that the rides were popular enough, they shoved it up his ass and left him with all that money to pay off and bunch of horses and equipment he had no use for and could only sell for a small fraction of what he paid for it, them. Fuck all cruise lines but fuck Princess in particular.
This is a fantastic interview with two great guys... John; your experience was invaluable... Noise and NON-SILENCE will not win... Its so unfortunate there is no available avenue outside of filing a lawsuit.. The little guys always get screwed... and no little guy can afford it.
Here's a Nugget for you: The goal has ALWAYS BEEN control and consolidation of markets.
Its crazy how eBay charges people just selling random crap. I thought they just charged the businesses on there but NOPE. I sold an item for $100 with $20 shipping and they legit charged me 20% of the total cost. I contacted customer support who told me that when selling something it doesn't show you those charges... you have to "click on this link" to see what the charges are for... WTF?! They then told me I could cancel the sale but I would be charged a cancellation fee... WTF?!?! EBay is such a disgusting company
It was great 10 years ago. Now it's just another Amazon to folks. Jus an easy place to pay
I'm a little confused as Ebay has always charged a fee for their service to use their platform to reach a massive amount of people and this has always been for everyone and not only for people who have EBay stores. An average person can list 300? items per mo with no upfront fee and they will charge a .30 cent fee for the listing when it sells and in the categories I sell in it's a 13% fee for the use of their platform on the sale. To use a massive platform to sell on that holds a massive amount of data, have people who do customer service, etc. takes money and I expect any platform to have a fee and the question is if I am comfortable paying this and if I will choose to do business with them. This fee and their policies have changed over the years as have shipping costs. . . .20+ years ago shipping was like $2 and now $6 is cheap and USPS is raising rates again.
I have never gone on or heard of EBay being free for sellers to use regardless of how little they sell their personal stuff for. Pretty sure craigslist is the only place for that, but you will only reach local and it wont be national like EBay and there is not the advertising nor the support staff you mentioned.
Ebay's VERO system is also a nightmare, companies will flag authentic stuff from third party sellers just because they can. lots of sellers have been suspended from selling on ebay for selling authentic stuff but the companies don't like their stuff being sold by anyone except approved venders
Explains why I see the exact same picture 100x in a row for nearly any search for a generic term. Might be how those vendors are whitelisted (could be an interesting experiment as a seller). I wish Ebay enforced a policy of requiring original photos of the actual items for sale and removed all of those duplicates before they hit the site.
If you are not an authorized reseller, you have no business selling quantity and the manufacturer has every right to stop you.
@@germanjohn5626 no. Ebay is intended to serve as a second hand market
@@germanjohn5626 The manufacturer does not own my stuff. If I want to sell it then that's my right.
@@germanjohn5626 thats not at all the case, the manufacturer cannot stop you from selling goods you purchased unless they're stolen, they can however work to stop you from buying said goods in the first place. even Ferrari with their insane ownership models and stupid crap surrounding to whom and when you may sell "your" car only really has recourse to refuse to ever sell you another car in the future.
This is just more of the same - eBay has been taking more and more dumps on small sellers for years now.
What didn't help sellers was tax laws. First it was applying sales tax onto things that shouldn't have sales tax. This year it's the incredibly flawed tax reporting system. Those things alone are damaging to small sellers. It's no longer a "Garage sale" type atmosphere.
Ebay still has it's place for very specific things I can't get on Amazon. But for most of my regular type purchases, I'm going to buy on Amazon.
This started when they reduced and then completely axed things like eBay bucks. When Amazon is giving me 5 percent back, next day shipping and tons of other benefits with prime, I'm just going to take my business to them.
No matter how hard eBay tries, they can't duplicate Amazon.
Personally, as I oppose some of Amazon's business practices, I look for prices and companies there, then try to purchase direct. I may not get next day free delivery, but my conscience is clean. We have to stop supporting these monster companies who created the situation.
@@erinmcdonald7781 exactly, a clean conscience matters more.
Something John said around the 33:00 mark there is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, the idea of wanting to bust these retail trusts while somehow persevering the incredible utility they provide. The only solution I could honestly ever think of is something to the effect of democratizing them, literally. Just say once you’re above some market share in an industry as broad as “RETAIL” your actions and board members must be voted on by the people who you most effect rather than being driven purely by profits. Because by the time you’re as big as an Amazon or Apple, your immense wealth gives you immense power, to the point that really you exist as a state within the state.
That's an amazing idea! Sounds like one of the simpler ways to make these behemoths more user friendly. ✌️😎
I have never seen you so well rested!! The bags under your eyes have mostly gone away! So happy for you and your new journey to Texas 🥰
I used to sell on eBay casually from 2003 to 2020 or so. Nothing crazy just little antiques I'd find or items that I'd make a few bucks on that would allow me to make some side money. As time went on (especially after 2019) the fees went up and up and up until I'd sell an item and basically make no money between fees, paypal fees, the cost of the actual item, etc. Last year I stopped selling altogether after my account was mysteriously banned for selling an item you can find dozens of on the site (an antique fire siren) without any warning. Just gone. So I just said fuck eBay and moved on, in the last few years I was getting scammed by tons of buyers anyway.
How were the buyers scamming you?
@@curlyhairdudeify They'd buy the item, receive it in the mail and then claim they never got it despite the tracking # showing it was delivered but eBay didn't care they'd just freeze my account and take the money out. Another thing they would do is say the item didn't work despite it being thoroughly tested, request a refund, get a refund and then return a different item
Same here, but I gave up 10 years ago. Shame it lost its diversity and now seeks to be just another online shop.
Ebay lost its unique selling point a decade ago, leave it to die in peace. RIP. OFF.
You may not want to say here, and I respect that, but where do you resell now, if you still do? Thanks!
I'm also interested in knowing where you sell now
As a heavy buyer on eBay, I have always felt that "refurbished" listing were always used items and were falsely listed. I don't know how this change affects the sellers ( I stopped selling a long time ago when I could no longer use PayPal to receive payments for sales) but from a buyer's perspective it really doesn't change anything for me.
I get it. I’m even weary of new items. I’ve heard of people refurbishing with original packaging and selling that as new.
I prefer to go for custom refurbishments when I can. The seller had to have put at least some work in to customize the product.
not to mention the non-existent warranties they advertise lol. good on ebay for finally taking action on these scumbags.
Then ebay certification program for sellers is good because sellers were abusing the word "refurbished".
Yes the overwhelming majority of the seller refurbished items were simply items that have been cleaned.
Looks like we need Right To Sell laws as well. I am just not amazed that this is happening, rather tired of being outraged about it all. At least we have guys like Louis trying to do something about it.
Already exists, just not enforced
You have that it's called the first sale doctrine but companies found a loophole with trademark law.
@Jay Talents Capitalism has rules to prevent cheating, like any game. It works very well when the rules are enforced. Buyers get to chose the best for them and the sellers vi to create the best. If the rules are not enforced or are not fair then the dominant seller shuts down their competition. What's happening is not capitalism but fascism where the mega corps and the government team up to screw the people. "You will own nothing and be happy."
@Jay Talents It's the intelligent harnessing of greed. Not everyone is immoral and trying to rob everyone but without the enforcement of rules capitalism turns into what you describe because those that cheat do better than those who play fair.
We can't really have anarchy like you want because people do cheat, as we see from your description of capitalism. Those that don't would soon arm themselves and police those that cheat and then it's no longer anarchy. The problem with our society is we are not permitted to burn down the Apple HQ because Apple cheat, the government support their cheating currently.
Capitalism actually encourages people to improve their product or service to be better than their competition. That only works if cheating is prohibited.
@Jay Talents Who is to apply this logic and reason? You say you're against anarchy which would be the individuals doing as they see fit yet someone should burn down Apple HQ. In our current system Apple should be brought to book for deliberately making it hard to repair their products. Mostly market forces solve these things but that's not enough alone. Clearly capitalism does incentivise companies to improve their products or we would simply not have mobile phones but still be expected to pay Apple £500 every 3 years just because they need the money.
You say people idolise Apple, which they do seem to but in your system why would that not happen?
This sounds like an opportunity for someone to start up something that looks like what eBay used to be. I hope someone who understands entrepeneurship picks this up.
Mercari
It will circle back to the same model as some point. Backmarket is great tho
Mecari is hands down my favorite
Facebook already did that
And if you threaten amazon or ebay the credit card companies will shut you down.
I've worked for a few companies and managed Ebay and Amazon 3P accounts as well as AMZ vendor accounts. I still do but I used to, too.
First job out of college, I worked for a company that sold refurbed computer parts / accessories back in 2012.
We would get pallets of Logitech returns from Best Buy and had a guy test keyboards / mouse / speakers / racing wheels and then listed them on eBay. I honestly believe refurbishing is a good thing, because we would often get things where we just had to open up a speaker and reconnect a loose wire due to manufacturing defect. Or we were able to match a speaker to a 5.1 system that was missing a speaker. Simple actions that reduced landfill waste and provided job opportunities. Margins weren't huge, since our volumes were low, since we could only bite so much we could chew (we didn't want to sell things that weren't tested). Honestly with the way the economy is now, refurb market has a great potential. We just need more folks doing it properly.
Ebay is by far the worst when it comes to the search algorithm, the marketing / promotion value. The cost of an eBay store front is quite high monthly compared to Amazon 3P, not to mention now ebay's closing fees in most categories are around 12-15% + 0.30 per transaction. For people that sell small components its a real profit barrier, how often do you see USA supplier of electronic components at top rank without paying 10% to be a Sponsored Result within ebay's search. Those that know how the game is played need to waste time scrolling past the first dozen or more listings to find the actual best prices / match.
Every time Ebay announces a change is another nail in the coffin. They keep making these bullshit changes that their sellers cannot easily keep up with since the online GUI bulk change system is crap. They don't have a native way to upload these new "required" detail changes by CSV.
Few years ago you could make some pretty decent B2B sales on ebay. For whatever reason eBay could not set up a similar system like Amazon Business and got surpassed. Instead of responding in kind (despite having ways to provide credit and billing), they decided to focus on other bullshit.
On Amazon you make a good listing, leave it and it gets better and better over time due to product ranking system. Its imperfect since it attracts poachers and counterfitters once the listing becomes somewhat successful.
Used to be similar on eBay, but the new search system sucks so now. On Ebay you make a listing hope you make a couple dozen sales, kill it before it gets too popular, and relist it again and hope that it does as good as the previous listing (losing all your sales history). Yes you could take your chances and keep replenishing inventory but after a few A / B tests we found we had to revive and refresh listings. I'm sure some refurbishers like making individual listings but some also like a single listing to show a good amount of sales and a history of sales without issue on a refurbed product.
But Louis you're totally right, pulling away eBay store fees / closing fees and throwing it towards marketing your own site / store is for sure the best move in the long run. I mean I doubt they spend even half of our fees on promoting our products on google unless we boost it with additional promoted listings (Which is suggested to be 10.2% last I checked).
I've learned to never trust these large tech companies, even when they start out with good intentions it eventually turns nefarious. I've been on Ebay as a buyer for a very long time and maybe in the last year or two noticed subtle changes that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It just seemed like there wasn't the good deals like in the past, the sellers were becoming real business entities which has spoiled the vibe of finding the true gems.
I am having a lovely day. Thanks for asking Sir. I just recently bought a refurbished headphone of the one I was using but broke. Saved around 100$ personally.
We need to follow a co-op model, where both buyers and sellers must be members, and they buy a share for $5 or $10. That share has one vote, and it means the users of the platform have a say in how it's run. As part of incorporating the co-op, they'd set the intentions behind it and changes would require a majority of shareholders to approve.
That's a great idea!
I can see a problem with that if a majority of chinese or dodgy sellers/buyers get shares though
I wish ebay instead would do something about the Chinese sellers selling completely fake parts that catch on fire as soon as you solder them in
Me too they need to go yesterday
In the small engine business, the chinese sell aftermarket parts for a fraction of the price. An OEM part might be $250 and the market is flooded with cheap replacements for $25-$50 with free shipping. It's gotten so bad that I have a sign on my shop door "We diagnose and replace faulty new aftermarket parts that you purchased on eBay or Amazon!"
@@DrDLightful and you know what's extra sad? The people that always buy the least expensive option no matter what never seem to learn. They'll buy some cheap part, break it, and then just get a different cheap part off a different cheap site... Blows my mind
@@DrDLightful For full OEM price I hope. I can picture it now a guy complaining that he only paid 50 bucks for the bad one a new good one cant be that much more...
There needs to be a new website because ebay and Amazon are awful any more and buying used, refurbished, and items from small sellers is still in demand but not allowed on these platforms.
We refurbish dental equipment and I will say there is a super wide gap between refurbished. We go far and above what most companies do but sometimes when I see a listing that a certain company lists a product as refurbished I cringe a little. But a buyer should be able to make there own judgements.. with Ebay's large percentage based fees they are nothing but a bill board for my company. You know "call for details and questions" is pretty much a link to your website.
My personal experience with Amazon’s official “renewed” products has been terrible. Both times, the product was fundamentally damaged or dysfunctional, improperly packaged. In contrast, for 20 years I’ve bought basic used items on eBay (motherboards, GPU’s, AppleTV’s, etc.), from regular sellers with no special program or promotion, without a single return.
These special programs from Amazon and, now, eBay are absolutely a scam, and totally unnecessary. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t require binding two-way NDA’s.
Between Amazon Warehouse and Amazon Outlet, I bought 2 heaters and a countertop oven (the oven was definitely "renewed") and those were fine. But the camera was garbage and I won't even consider most of their electronics as I am sure they don't train workers to properly evaluate electronics.
eBay also started a program where if you're selling a valuable trading card you're forced to send it to an eBay facility first. So I sold a PSA graded card and had to send it to ebay first to they can authenticate a card that has already been authenticated and sealed by the most trusted authenticators in the business. What a giant waste of time and money.
that was created to stop scammers from claiming that the cards were fake, getting their money back and getting to keep the card as long as they provided photo of a destroyed card...
Thats to stop Rolex watches made in China :)
@@ochykysh ...
Except we already have multiple instances of eBay declaring authentic items (cards, sneakers, etc.) as fake in this process. The only real reason they do this is to earn fees.
Because scammers can forge the authentication process
eBay probably was forced to do this because authentication is forged in today's society with so many companies selling authentication devices. Our state is plagued by authentic driver license forgeries that look as good as the real thing because they are made on similar equipment made in China. It's too bad eBay's solution isn't perfect as it has disadvantages as @J M said. Is the better solution to do nothing and let the forgers win?
I purchased a pair of Bose S1 pro's a few months back - directly from Bose (from their own website, NOT from any 3rd party marketplace, etc). In the spirit of saving a few bucks, Bose offered the same speakers through their "Bose Factory Refurbished" program - almost $300 cheaper for the 2 speakers!
The speakers arrived in absolutely mint condition (could not tell they had ever been used physically)... but once I connected to them with the bluetooth app, I was surprised to see all the previously connected devices in the speakers history. Nothing a factory reset did not clean up.
It was nothing as bad as Louis has likely seen, but was still surprising to me that Bose likely did not do any actual "refurbishment" other than just testing the speaker to ensure it worked and maybe wiping it down.
I just went to eBay to check your claim about not selling used tools. You're right. The power tools were all new. Nothing was used.
The same thing Apple is currently doing blocking apps to be published on iPhone store, because they "think" your business model needs Payment Buttons to be implemented, even when all business is done outside of the app. They're killing the market for small custom apps and self employed developers trying to build a business.
@@quadsnipershot but for apps they are just after their 30% cut, even forcing small players to implement that into the app or blocking it's updates, they keep adding terms and conditions, even when they lost many times in big court, they cannot force anyone to implement payment buttons, but they still do!
@@GeomancerHT oops that was supposed to be posted as a general comment…. Not a reply my bad
Should Apple get nothing for having a small developer's app on their platform?
@@littlejackalo5326 The phone could be like the PC but it is not. Why did they open up the PC market yet keep the phone market closed?
@@dannydaw59 They get the glory of hosting the app which makes their phone more useful. The PC has plenty of free programs and no one is able to prevent them.
Sad to see but most of the times I've seen refurbished items on places like Amazon or Best buy, the majority of reviews complain that either the item is faulty or is just hells dirty, scuffed, like the seller doesn't even bother "refurbishing" the item smh
I read some comments on Amazon of people complaining the the PCs were dusty af inside. They buy from recyclers, wipe and reload Windows and call it refurbished.
That electronic marketplaces, which hold so much lower risk than a physical one, gatekeep like this, is infuriating. Also, vote Louis Rossman for chair of the FTC.
FTC Louis would then become impeached by the House members protecting the criminals' rights. Until convicted, criminal suspects have rights, and if the federal prosecutor refuses to prosecute the criminal, that leaves Louis with a "wrongful action" blot on his record. Gather a bunch of blots, and he will be removed. The position is filled with politics, and if he doesn't have prominent House and Senate members protecting him as a "patron", it will be tough. But Louis won't compromise on his ethics, so his refusal to perform favors will get himself fired as he posts the announcement "dear consumers, i have enjoyed my time at an FTC commissioner, but need to spend more time with my family, so I must resign".
When it comes to buying online I trust used over refurbished descriptions. Typically a refurbished product from an online seller has been haphazardly slapped together at the lowest cost possible. If I can go to the store physically and be face to face with the person who sold me the refurbished device I'm more likely to go that route.
As an Amazon 3rd party seller, I can confirm that more and more brands are being gated. Some brands are pretty easy to get approved to sell, and others such as Nike require the seller to pay Nike a pretty large sum of money to get approved. Amazon continuously makes business decisions for me, such as mandating that I offer free return shipping for returned items regardless if the return is due to an error on my part or the customers. I have over 5,000 items of various brands and have seen 1,000 of my listings get "search suppressed" or flat out removed entirely without notice which I discovered while doing inventory.
If eBay goes this way, the small retailers will not have an outlet to sell their goods unless a new platform emerges to fill the void left by Amazon and eBay. The expense of building, maintaining, advertising, and processing credit card payment portals is much greater than the profit from whatever meager sales can cover, and that is with me doing the coding and maintenance.
Goal to focus you to work for others
Were you selling new Nike items that you marked up?
@@dannydaw59 I wasn’t selling Nike at all, I was using that as an example of a gated brand and the requirements to sell it.
The era of the personal site is nigh use fb and other social media to advertise it and have a few alt payment processors as options. We need to accelerate the parallel economy to stop this stuff. Its no longer just political opponents the wealthy despise its now also small business trying to compete.
I just got some nike's, for the first time in my life as a gift. Worst Sneakers i've ever worn. Unbalanced, unbreathable and weird inside material. New balance is so much better it's ridiculous. I guess when all your money goes to marketing the product suffers.
This is platform suicide. If you kick off the value, then competing platforms will be able to beat you in terms of product.
maybe espionage?
This is the reason that they loosing market dominance.
People say theyre getting bigger. Theyre getting bigger in some ways. But amazon is just one stop on the train these days. Only really good for small trinket stuff.
I've seen the refurbished label on eBay items for years and I always assumed it meant very little, that anyone could mark them as such even though they basically just turned them on and did a quick wipe.
If someone has taken the trouble to clean and repair the item then refurbished is fair. You can see from the photos if it's clean and if not then you know it's not refurbished. You also know if they say used then it's not refurbished.
@@wayland7150 i refurbish items and i distinguish between refurbished and used by whether or not i had to replace parts. seems fair to me but that’s just me
@@cwilliams6884 That makes sense. I've repaired GPUs and replaced fans and thermal past. I mark those as refurbished. However if I pull it out of a working system as sell it as is then that's used. I'll show photos of it working if I can. I'll leave the dust on it so you can see it's not been tinkered with.
If something is not working I won't say it's untested. I'll say what tests I did and what happened. Someone can then judge if they think they can fix it or use it for spares.
Now I know why a few years ago I was able to get excellent refurbished Macintosh products at an extremely reasonable price, but now I don’t see any deals for quality Mac products on Amazon anymore. Thank you for the video
Excellent video. Covers so much good info that tech & consumers need to be aware of! I.E: Ebay has started a practice where they CHANGE your search method without asking. The message is "STREAMLINING YOUR SEARCH RESULTS". What they are doing is locking out the lowest priced items and replacing the search with higher priced sponsored results - often with insane shipping. Then they make it hard to find a way to change the search format back so that you can actually sort by price, etc! The site made the mistake of asking for my feedback & I let them have it 4-letters at a time. EBAY is turning into a rip off! And having used it for over 2 decades - I don't say this lightly or in a callous manner. eBay is becoming a rip-off site! BTW: Stunning background thru that windows compared to your NYC set. Very best wishes!
I love the story about becoming an MSCE. In the mid-90s I had already become a Novell CNE that I'd funded out of my own pocket. I went to work for a company that was building a turn-the-crank MSCE program. They took full-page ads in newspapers worldwide inviting anyone to join and become an MSCE. I was stunned when I realised that well over 90% of my classmates had virtually no server experience. One of my colleague's jobs before he joined and popped out as a certified server engineer 10 weeks later? He had been a tank commander in the British army! In the company's program, they allowed students to do an unlimited number of exams. So there were people who would sit the exam, then that afternoon re-sit their exam. There were some people who did the same exam 5 or 6 times.
Paper MCSEs are the worst. They are always preaching “Best Practices” but have zero real world experience.
Tell me again how this company with 6 total servers needs to create an identical setup as a “Test Environment” to test all backups and updates before pushing to the production environment? I agree that’d be swell, in theory, but I think you’re going to have a hard time selling the idea of doubling their IT infrastructure just for “Best Practices.” Ditto incremental backups that increment for over a month before reseeding, and you’ve never tested them - I know it’s a valid strategy, it’s just a stupid strategy. Spending money & Data loss are the two things businesses [Especially small businesses] hate the most. But there’s no +I or +$ Cert for looking out for your customers best interest financially.
I was MCSE+i from Server 2000 through 2008, and got some of the 2012 certs while I was working for Microsoft. We were using RC1 of server 2012 back in 2008/2009 is the only reason. I used to joke the best way to get the job was to already have it, as almost nobody outside would have the required experience on the newest OS’s, even if they’d implemented it company wide on launch day [Which I’d probably consider reason enough not to hire someone].
That brings me to my great epiphany: the system is rigged. It’s not about ensuring competency so much as building a sunk cost fallacy in the tech force “Well, I’be already got the first 4 certs, might as well get the last 2” or “There’s only a 2 test roll up to update your accreditation to the next version? And it’s only $6,500 for a 5-Day bootcamp? I can take the camp, pass the tests, and then study like a crazy person for 2 months on a VM lab setup at home to become proficient in the thing I’m already certified on….”
That feels super sketchy, but to stay competitive it’s all but required. But there’s enough shitty techs who take a bootcamp that teaches just the test answers who never bother to become proficient and make the 5% of us who do give a shit look bad.
And we’re back to square one.
Cheers!
reminds me of when indeed added some certifications thing where you did the test on their site. i got some in stuff i’d never touched before, just because i either knew enough to guess well or because i could guess the right button to press.
Honestly buy mostly refurb tech products from ebay because I've had better experiences doing that than amazon warehouse or even some new products.
The value of ebay is in their buyers and sellers. Ebay itself is crap.
when i was told to use testking to pass certifications because everyone does it, i knew there was something wrong with the whole certification systems for IT related jobs
Back when I got my MCSE in the NT 4.0 days, a photographer had passed the tests even though she barely knew how to use a computer. At this moment I knew that the certification did not certify ability... it just raised the price of incompetence.
I have always examined and exercised additional scrutiny against anyone certificated, especially degrees. People with passion are always a better fit than people with an expensive receipt. Look for their passion.
Your channel has educated me on so many issues, some of which I knew in general existed but never knew just how bad it is. I've been taking steps to retake my property and protect my privacy as much as I can. Thank you for your informative content, keep up the great work.
I have sold on ebay for many years and it is HORRIBLY mismanaged by corporate and the CEO, it is dying a slow death and has been for a long time, the coof gave it a little boost because people rushed to shopping online but now that everything is open again ebay is back in it's death spiral, they are throwing their loyal sellers under the bus by focusing on shoes and playing cards, cellphones and cheap china made WISH type stuff and focusing less on the used and vintage collectables. ebay's search function is so bad I have to google stuff to find it on ebay because searching the same keywords will get a "no items found" on ebay. their fees keep going higher and higher as more sellers leave, they even take their fees out of the sales tax, and if you don't pay even more for promoted listings they will bury your listings so nobody sees it. They are trying to become a wish/amazon hybrid and failing at it while they try to squeeze more and more money out of fewer and fewer sellers
you could literally enter a sku number from an running auction or solid placement, and it wouldnt find it...
@@majstealth Exactly, Ebay changed their search to optimize for google search and now you gotta fill out all those stupid item details they make you fill out to make it easier for google to find it and in doing so they ruined their on site search. and you can search for something and go lowest price first and then click on the cheapest one and there will be even cheaper ones advertised in the listing "which is so full of ads now it's unusable" not to mention you can search for something and it will bring up different ones every time, I will look somethin up to sell and think I can make money and then when I get it home and look it up again it will bring up tons of cheaper ones
@@TheSimba86 Search functions used to be logical like they are in a word processor or database. We still instinctively think they work like that but they don't, we don't know how they work at all or what to expect. I notice on ebay it's best to keep searching for the same or similar things over and over. Also clicking on the suggested items. Eventually ebay will show you what you've been asking for. It's like they want you to buy some expensive thing that's not really what you want but when you don't buy that they give in and reveal the thing you were seeking. Once you do buy it they then suggest to you the same item or better at a much better price as a special F.U.
As a buyer only, I find all the recent changes very frustrating. Like you say the searches aren't always great these days, but even when you have a list to trawl through, they now make it difficult. When you look at one item and then return to the list, the list has re ordered so you are not in the same point to therefore move to the next item of interest. Everything you have already looked at are now spread all over the list. Wastes a lot of time now, and don't get me started on the checkout which seems to operate in a different way every time. You don't even know if your being scammed on occasion because it is so different from the last time you used it.
Don't forget that eBay also charges sales tax/fees on the shipping costs. It's ridiculous.
I sold on Amazon for years. I specialize in vintage toys and had virtually no competition. But then I had to provide proof of purchase from the manufacturer... Let's just say, none of those items can be purchased on Amazon now.
I think there's more to this than you're putting forward. Especially if you actually sold vintage toys. You would not need proof of purchase from the manufacturer. They were wanting proof of purchase from the previous owner most likely showing that the items were not stolen.
@@LainK1978 I seriously doubt they would actually accept a proof of purchase from someone who is not a big manufacturer company
@@LainK1978 you’re seriously proposing that this person was selling stolen vintage toys?
@@haedrichowenNo, he’s suggesting that’s what Amazon requested proof for, likely as a standard
EBay charges a selling fee on shipping. That tells you everything you need to know about EBay.
Not only on shipping, on tax too.
This wasn't always the case. Seller fees used to apply only to the purchase price and sellers would constantly list for 1 dollar and hundreds for shipping.
@@B-RollTape they still do
Probably why when I browse ebay they mostly say free shipping.
@@B-RollTape Yes, so I was glad when they changed their policy to include all the fees when considering the fees the seller pays. It was ridiculous how listings were. I've not bought on Ebay in years but I follow many resellers as I think the idea is super cool - and I love the idea of finding other people's trash and turning it into money.
Thank you for this video, I was wondering why secondhand items appeared to have vanished off amazon.
What an eye opener, I've been using ebay since its inception but over the last few years I have noticed a difference without knowing what it is, now I do, cheers
Those saying in comments claiming third party refurbishers shouldnt be allowed to sell refurbs are downright insane for few reasons:
1) it removes competition. Half the reason why manufacturer generally provides higher quality refurb goods is because they have complete control over their parts supply, so they get the best margin.
2) Coupled with the fact that they receive good condition phones (mostly because people tell them they are in good working condition, or just because they have not been used much), they dont have to do as much work / spend resources refurbing a phone, compared to third party.
3)also tied to first, and mentioned by John, it removes niche markets where improvements could be made through competition.
Trade in programs are death of us all. The entire process is basically problem free when you dont have to deal with problems that comes with selling high value electronics.
Even if right to repair laws are passed and third party/users have legal way of sourcing parts, majority of people who will benefit from this bill (i.e. third party refurb companies) won't even be around to take advantage, and most people dont fix electronics themselves.
As the world is right now some new equipment like commercial network switches and even patch panels are "unobtainium".
So used network equipment that's just a few years old has now increased in price quite a bit. So at the moment the refurbished market could be quite important when there's a 200+ days delivery on a relatively simple 24-port network switch with PoE+. That's what I' waiting for at work. I have worked around it temporarily, but that's still not ideal.
I think Tommy Boy said it the best: "I could take a crap in a box and label it certified... and all you bought was a certified piece of crap"
It seems eBay has totally removed the filter option for item location when searching. Last week I tried searching for a bluetooth amplifier in German eBay and was greeted with a ton of China -based products, then some from USA and UK and maybe a few from Germany/EU. The search results seem to be maybe a bit better at the moment (for the that particular search term). Though if you search from cheapest, there is nothing but China stuff... As I usually search for items inside EU, this new development pretty much killed the whole platform for me. Last time I was this devastated by their actions (maybe even more, back then), was when they decided to remove wildcard (*) searching, which was a KEY factor when searching for collectables, spare parts etc.
I stopped using eBay because everything became "approved" Chinese companies. It used to be regular Joes where I could get really good deals on used and refurbished items, but now, that's not a thing. I moved to Facebook Marketplace for my CraigsList style of used orders, but the eBay made up of regular Joe companies is gone.
Yes
The problem is Facebook-err-Meta lost my trust a long time ago.
The world kinda sucks right now, doesn’t it?
I too have moved on to Facebook marketplace and pass by ebay and craigslist.
Facebook has a lot of scammers.
Btw: Not sure you are aware also the unlocking with the bootloader:
- Bootloader is no longer the only limitation
- Google Safety Net (most banking apps are on it, depending on the lvl it's impossible to provide an alternative), and it's linked to google play services
Companies are doing A LOT to artificially vendor lock their software, hardware, etc.
I do like the idea of having my own website, 2 problems though, 1: the new sales tax collection laws are a nightmare, you have to track your sales to every state and city in the USA that has sales tax and when you hit the threshold "they're all different" you have to get a tax license in that state and then collect and remit sales taxes to them. 2:Nobody really wants to go down the google rabbit hole looking for my website, they all go to ebay and amazon knowing that ebay and amazon will forcibly take my money and give it back to the buyer for any reason they see fit just to keep the buyer happy as opposed to buying from a random website, so it's hard to drive traffic to your own website. Louis can do it because he is in a niche and he has 1.74 million subscribers and millions more viewers to visit his website and buy supplies and equipment
Er... That's not really fair. He built his house himself from scratch. Louis didn't make the rules. So, why take a bite at him instead of your state and federal government, that seems to be run for the benefit of corporations than small businesses? There is no reason not to have a centralised Sales Tax system. Not only would it make your life simpler, it would also increase trade. It's time to start talking to people who can change things like this, and that's your congressman and your senator. It's the Digital Age for goodness sakes, and if you are making out of state sales, you should have a CRM platform that links into your accounting software. That would automatically calculate the sales tax due based on the customers Zip Code, and be able to arrange payment via bank transfer every quarter. You should be able to deposit your sales tax collections from your receipts and place those in an escrow account. Leaving it upto Amazon and Ebay, when they are not interested in low volume sellers like yourself, is just setting yourself up for disappointment in the long run. You have to be realistic and have a plan B if the trend for dumping low volume sellers continues, because no platform is your friend. Taking it out on Louis isn't going to help you. So, take some time out and think about what are you going to do if platforms like Ebay and Amazon no longer want your business in the next 5 years or so. It can be changed, but you can continue to shout at the moon, or you can figure out a way to change things. Louis did that. It didn't take 5 minutes, and doing is TH-cam no cakewalk, so as the setup is basically Uber for content creators. And it's not how many subscribers one has that works. It's how many people watch the videos, when they watch them, and for how long. And Louis grafted for every single one. It's a challenge, which you can take up, or find another solution. It's your business.
@@BigHenFor TL;DR
Sales tax is even an international nightmare now. We had to restrict sales to customers in the UK because they will reject incoming parcels valued under 135 GBP where VAT has not been collected and we are too small for VAT registration to make sense.
Besides, I am not a UK resident, why should I be collecting tax for them?
There are companies like Avalara that take care of tax calculations across all 50 states. Plug in to most ecommerce platforms.
@TruthOrDie777 com2 and yet they do it anyways. They make the laws. Remember OBiden’s constant constant refrain “no constitutional right is absolute”. Well then he is God.
I used to side hustle on eBay to make some extra spending money. Not really possible when they take a %30 cut as they do now.
That's why I stopped selling years ago, Ebay and PayPal take too much between all of the fees. It's sad to see what's happening.
Wow. I thought 10% with no max was high.
I stick to selling through local marketplaces now, and it's such a pain...constant "is this item still available?" messages, people asking questions that I've already listed in the description, people saying they will buy and then not show up. Not to mention the local marketplace is a much smaller customer base.
But it's still better than dealing with modern eBay. eBay back in the day was fantastic. Accountability, both buyers and sellers could leave feedback, less nickel-and-diming with fees.
In FR we have issues with the largest "local" refurbished marketplace website, BackMarket. They treat their sellers just like the other big US corps, sometimes retaining enormous amounts of money for obscure reasons.
John Bumstead, your website's background is trippy as hell & I love it!
Freedom is taken from you one piece at a time... clientele too Luis. I used to be an Ebayer selling and buying (I stayed away from Amazon like a pledge). I stopped Ebaying last year.
profit margins are too thin to be able to cover shipping, fees, repair costs, and other stuff. it’s easier to make money by selling locally imo
When I listen to you guys, it seems to me that we are witnessing the “free market” to be destroyed
The free market was only ever free for the corporations. That's what happens when a society prioritizes profit over people
I guess you don't know what is called the system that people don't profit, so here goes slavery, extortion and theft...
@@ThickpropheT True, this is also part of the push towards socialism. Its just taking bigger steps and becoming more noticeable today.
There is no truly free market. To be truly free it would have to lack any laws prohibiting child labor or slavery, any workers' rights laws (40 hour work week, breaks, holidays, parental leave) and any regulation telling companies what they can and can't sell, what standards their products must meet and what dangerous products are banned.
Selling or buy on eBay is a nightmare now. I was charged $500 just to list my car. I paid that again to relist it after the listing ended without selling. I sold off of ebay. I later sold an item on ebay that cost the buyer about $2200. After shipping and fees, I only got $700.
I hate ebay.
So you didn't know what the shipping or fee's would be? Sounds like you're blaming EBAY for your mistake
@@nogodsnomasters666 i did underestimate shipping a bit but ebay charges a percent fee on both purchase price and shipping. I am pissed about being charged a fee on legit shipping costs making it so i didn't have enough calculated for shipping. I'm pissed about being charged tax on a private sale. I'm pissed ebay charges insane fees just to list a vehicle then puts a time limit on the listing. Im pissed ebay has listing options available to dealers that i don't have access to no matter what i pay. I am pissed at the whole ebay system. I hate ebay as a buyer and a seller. The unreasonable fees they charge mean either the seller is screwed or the buyer is. Ebay can go f itself.
Why didnt you just sell on Craigslist?
@@PremiumFuelOnly If I remember right, my car did sell from Craigslist, not eBay. I still had to pay the stupid fees just to have the listing on eBay for the car. As for the other item mentioned, I didn't list it on Craigslist because I didn't have the time or energy to deal with the constant scams that start the instant a listing is live on Craigslist. There were several reasons but mostly, I have had less than ideal experiences trying to sell on Craigslist.
Saint patron of independent technicians grade things you've been doing over the years! Thanks, Louis!
I wonder what that means for people like myself who never used eBay as a business, but sometimes randomly sold some item of value that we had. I kind of thought that that was what eBay was for. Like I sold an antique silver cigarette case, a vintage Singer sewing machine, a couple books, a watch, etc. I've used eBay since it very started, and I have a total of 10 reviews I've received as a seller.
Usually when I buy something off eBay it's a weird random thing as well like a spare part to repair something, or a vintage clothing item.
I’m gonna play devils advocate here. I’ve seen A LOT of people abuse the “refurbished” for electronics over the years. People think they “refurbished” a laptop because they reinstall Windows, yeah no. “Refurnished” should be reserved for like new condition products which includes battery replacement. I get so tired of “battery is good it turns on” but it has 65% battery health.
I agree, when i think refurbished, i think recapping, replacement of button membranes, batteries, thermal paste, usb ports, ect., Not hitting the restore to factory settings option or reinstalling windows
"Refurbished" should mean "works like new." The item might have cosmetic imperfections, but the stuff inside is good.
But that's not what's being discussed here. Ebay is not creating a fair and safe system to certify what's refurbished. Ebay is creating a system where people who do the refurbishing will be contractually obliged to the manufacturers of the products they're refurbishing. I agree with your argument, but that's really not the point here.
That's sad. I love Ebay specifically because it isn't the nightmare that Amazon has become. Ebay has niche items / parts that you can't really find anywhere else on a single "platform". If they end up doing this I don't even know what I'm going to do.
I worked at a repair shop that was Apple certified basically it was 40 hours of useless annoying e training that on the job no one followed. Pretty much they jumped the hoops to get access to apples troubleshooting tools ast2 and gsx. They totally ignored the terms of the certification and used the cheapest aftermarket parts straight from mobile defenders.
Apples phone repair training literally tells you to throw away all the screws out of the device and replace them with new ones. It's comdey the strange practices apples training pushes for.
except replacing screws is good practice? would rather lose a few cents than deal with a stripped screw.
Replacing screws on a phone likely a good idea those are incredibly small screws and very easy to be stripped or the threads damaged.
Glad you're giving others your platform to discuss issues that concerns everyone.
As a consumer, this stuff is so incredibly important. Thank you for talking about it.
I have personally had this problem with eBay, as I refurbish E-bike motors and I build Li-on batteries etc, they have become a joke.
This same advice goes for people who do things like deliver for Doordash or Uber Eats. They are NOT your friends or even on your side. They will replace you as soon as they can make more money doing so. (ie robot delivery)
Can't wait for drone delivery, more junk for the rivers and lakes, just like all the bird lime scooters I toss in.
Ebay also makes it difficult to sell any type of higher value item also, to the point where they will restrict your account until you can show them receipt for all the items your listing. Simple way is to just edit a Amazon invoice in HTML/Photoshop and just do that for every item, works perfectly. Theres also a lot of sellers that are selling refurbished items as new with fake original packaging as new and its crazy common already with phones, i suspect we will see even more of this now. You can also just list it as used but say its refurbished in the description.
They do this to prevent the sale of stolen goods (not that it always will).
Good, that stops the sale of stolen goods, something that was getting out of hands.
This is a trend all thru business. No compete or disclosure, mergers all over:banks, insurance, phone, etc. Less choices and freedom. Thanks for video
I can truly say that the current equivalent of MCSE exams and courses are *NOT* the way described in here! They're actually quite tricky, and you do genuinely learn how to use the products. Source: I've done 'em!!
I'm one of the ones that shies away from "refurbished" or "renewed" unless it's coming directly from the manufacturer. I'd rather buy straight-up "used", because a person selling something used will tell you what's wrong with it (or at least what's not working). They'll provide pics. They'll answer questions.
I have no way of knowing what each vendor's version of "refurbished" means, and so it connotates "we did just the bare minimum to get it to the boot screen and called it good" in my mind. You don't get a photo of it, you get a photo from the manufacturer or a photo of a different unit with a note saying "You won't get this exact unit, it will be one just like it."
It can still have tons of stuff wrong with it, but as long as it powers on and/or starts booting, they ship it out the door. Chips on the corner? Mega scuffs all over? Scratches on the screen? Speakers not working? Ports all blown out? Hinge pins falling out? Dead roaches in the fan? Not our problem. It turns on, therefore it "works", and no you cannot have a refund. You agreed to buy it refurbished.
Nope, nope, nope.
As per this video though, the 'original' maker (some tendril of Apple) and Lenovo and Asurion are sus above all. Makes you want to join a CSA that also deals in Battlestations.
Interesting. I actively avoid "refurbished" and "pre-owned" and instead look for "used". My thinking is that these other terms are really just scammy ways to describe used and I will just pay a higher price for the same thing. When doing searches on Ebay, I select "used" and not the other terms. But I also carefully watch for anything which is "sponsored" and make sure to not buy that item (same idea, I know that I will be paying for the ad with a higher price). I am a bad consumer.
Shhh!!! ;)
Same here on sponsored. I look for the first product that seems to be a good price that isn't sponsored.
@@ptb1ptb2 i thought everybody did that, most sponsored stuff is scams like fake hard drives with an 8gb sd card inside them
Sponsored products is ebay's way of weeding out sellers that don't like giving ebay extra bribe money for a platform they already pay to sell on.
For me, if possible I just select "supports charity" because that's basically the "Goodwill" filter. I've bought a bunch of old games from them and they always look way better than they describe it (anecdotally anyway).
Their "Promoted" listing feature for sellers has really flipped.
It used to be fairly good, the promotion percentage reflected a decent turnover rate, however now I'm doubling and even tripling the promotion rates and not seeing ANY impressions on some of my products.
It really sucks. I'm looking into alternate sites currently.
Promotion is a scam. If they had integrity they would put effort into selling without promotion.
thank goodness im now retired? to a degree im still working with my own small garage shop in northern Canada with at least 3 hr drive to my next competition. many things are out of date. i will be always working in repairs. Good luck all involved. My local scrap yard is my walmart.
I finally quit selling extra personal items on eBay and I’ve been a seller since 2003. EBay policies and the new law passed in 2021 selling anything including personal items and going over the $600 threshold being reported to the IRS for tax purposes. One has to show the profit margin at tax time, as we had to buy them, but who keeps receipts from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s???