E-bay Slowing Down?

[CARRERA 0]

Is it me or has anyone else noticed that e-Bay seems to have less and less Tamiya items listed lately? Is the hobby in decline?!!

[4wdmt 2]

That is very true. Maybe it is just slow season? They say, it is the new "search" thingy they are doing. But however I check for Tamiya stuff. It always ends up in 1 or 2 pages only.

Before, a search for Tamiya clod alone reach 4 to 6 pages. Now...down to 1...lucky if 2.

[taliesin 260]

maybe they switched to microsoft vista?

[T.C~Tamiya 2]

Maybe it's the eBay seller strike taking affect ?

[amp0873uk 0]

yes i noticed ebay slowing down on many things like corgi trucks and tamiya stuff i have been searching ebay for tamiya 1/14th trucks and theres only 2 pages on there i think its the season where it all slows down then picks up again in the late summer it happend before i remember it a couple of years back when i was selling loads of stuff none of it sold its just the wrong time i guess it will pick up again soon hopefully

[Origineelreclamebord 45]

Until two weeks ago you could find at least one Renault Clio on ebay (for example), whenever you looked... The same was for some other stuff, and it indeed seems like there is less and less... I haven't seen a clio on ebay for a week now (boo-hoo, I start to miss them )

[stulec52 50]

happens every year after the Christmas rush has ended.

next few months are normally a great time to be a buyer, until about mid September when thigs historically ramp up again.

[Wireless 34]

eBay is also seeing sellers leaving by the bucketload. Bullish talk around soaring profits forecasts etc can't hide the fact that a lot of eBay users are getting fed up of opaque pricing models and high margin charges. The Seller strike confirms this.

With eBay and PayPal one and the same, getting bigger by the day, increasing charges year-on-year, doing nothing to improve their pricing transparency and continuing to provide poor customer service it won't be long before the EU steps in and demands they 'sort it out', to the benefit of all of their users. Amen to that, I say...

[kontemax 1725]

Maybe re-releasing is breaking the business of the speculators...

Max

[Wireless 34]

Maybe re-releasing is breaking the business of the speculators...

Max

I know of one particular UK based TC member (who shall remain nameless) who threw their toys out of the pram big style because they couldn't make money out of us lot anymore...!

[ChrisB 0]

I think its a combination of the two factors - ebay tightening the thumbs screws on sellers by gouging them for higher fees as they themselves are losing revenue / market share, and also the time of year.

Makes you wonder what sellers are using instead though - not everyone has their own online store they can use as an alternative to ebay.

[HunterZero 76]

Tamiya auctions on eBay definitely appear to be slowing down, and it's not just seasonal. I think that the eBay craze is dying for one thing, and it's not being helped by eBay's extortionate seller fees and appalling customer service. That, and the US economy heading towards recession.

I can't help but think that there's limited stock of these old cars sitting out there in people's storage, and a declining number of nostalgia freaks wanting to buy them as most already have all the cars they ever wanted.

- James

[WillyChang 1814]

How about ppl having less $$ ?

Oil over $100/bl, stockmarket in bear territory, US banks foreclosing on NINJA homebuyers, bank borrowing credit ain't as easy/cheap anymore.

[acprc 1443]

There is always more on Ebay than I can afford

Adam

[Tamiya1/10 382]

I recently sold some of my RC's on ebay and the results were good not because I made money meaning I had to sell around 14 transactions and the sum didn't even equal to the single Hilux sold recently for over $2000.00++++.

The end result, I may have just break even given time value of money / inflation. The positive side with Ebay if it did not exist in the first place I would not have acquired some of the older Tamiya's model nor will I be able to sell it to the world market.

At first, I thought the fees were high but if you stop and think ebay bring your goods to the WORLD market not just your local garage or boot sell. Think of advertising a 10, 20, 30 second spot on national TV how much does that cost? So is about market exposure and ebay has turn a lot of "household junk" to cash and I think is hash to bash ebay as it has it good points and bad points and the market will decide in the long run.

Another point I would like to add is ebay has increase revenues for Post Office. I think the 14 ebay sells I did generated around HK$4,000.00 to the post office and guess how many letter the Post has to process inorder to make $4K.

In the end ebay has allowed you to buy model that you would not have been abled to find locally (but at a higher price) and has allowed you to sell at a much higher price that before. If Ebay was a bad idea it would not have last and profitted.

Ebay brings the world to you and you to the world.

[Chris Harte 0]

I have found that a lot of the items have been taking off ebay because they have contained other company brand names. Somewhere it says it is against the rules to post an item with views to increase publicity.

[CARRERA 0]

Yeh, and they always seem to remove them at the last minute! 0 minutes to go tot he end of the aucton and bang!....e-bay end it! Soooo frustrating.

[tupers 0]

I've noticed that there's been a lot less of the older tamiya stuff over the past six months. I think the bubble has burst for older cars or anything of a high spec or decent quality. Personally I think that because most of the old nib tamiya stuff has be bought the whole market for older product has gone. It's all about cheap nitro cars and trucks now .

[pedromondo 0]

I'm with Willy Chang. I think people just have less cash at the moment.

I have Tamiya cars but I also have HPI, XRAY, Associated, Gmade, Traxxas so I watch the Ebay RC car auctions generally, not just the Tamiya stuff. Over the course of this year there's been less and less for sale as the year has gone on. Also, other than exceptional items and the odd one off, it's been a buyers market and stuff hasn't reached the prices it would have reached say this time last year. There just hasn't been the traffic in terms of the number of views of items and the number of watchers when selling stuff. There will always be people say "I just sold my TEU101BK esc for 50" or whatever. But generally I think it's a personal disposable income thang. Dissatisfaction with Ebay and fees and so on and the new rules coming in in a few days won't be helping. But I see this as a general downward trend over the past 12 months or so.

Ebay is dead, long live the proposed Tamiya Club version of Ebay ;-)

[ryanbored 3]

Ebay is dead, long live the proposed Tamiya Club version of Ebay ;-)

I must say I'm getting rather tired of the cost of selling on ebay (this subject has been beaten to death so wont flog it harder) But I still find ebay usefull for cheap stuff from Asia, like hop-ups, spares etc. Also if you save a couple of critria, it helps you save time by sifting out the "tat".

My search engine is geared something like this;

Tamiya--> Auction--> Paypal Available--> Items located in Europe--> USED items-->

That way I don't have to look at all the 39.99 'Toys' and new Durgas etc from Asia. If I get time/ Can be bothered I do scroll thru the whole lot though, just incase I'm missing a bargin!

[macmeniac 3]

I noticed this slowing too. From spring to late summer there is def. a seasonal effect. I tried to sell something which was really cheap but no one was buying the stuff during the last two weeks. It is the right season to buy cheap but not for selling if you want a good price.

[HereBeMonsters 9]

I think it's the changes to the search function, each evening I check it a couple of times, and get wildly varying results.

[ChrisB 0]

From a UK buyers perspective the only upside I have found is that anything priced in USD is currently very good value, especially if sellers are willing to keep the values on the customs declarations low. I've used the opportunity to move over to LiPo with some very cheap packs from HK. Also the price of Jason's stuff is looking even more of a bargain than usual... I doubt I can resist one of those ABC genetic BRE Datsun saloons for much longer

The whole sellers not being able to leave feedback thing is making me reluctant to put stuff up for sale until the dust settles. I don't buy and sell much on ebay, but have kept 100% feedback score over the last couple of years. Not too keen to jeopordise that just to sell off some small items at the mo.

Dilemma is I have one higher value item I was going to put on, but sounds like I may be better waiting. Does the ebay slowdown on RC cars/trucks reflect the pattern for other RC items like boats and planes?

[macmeniac 3]

I think it's the changes to the search function, each evening I check it a couple of times, and get wildly varying results.

I cant agree with that in common but I noticed strange search results too.

[amigamad 0]

The way ebay keeps getting more expensive and ripping people off i am not surprised there is less to buy, the paypal only policy is one of the worst .I have had my ebid.co.uk account far longer than ebay and they have no fee,s to list and do not take anything out of your final fee in more than 4 years i have bought a few cd,s and sold 1 Blackfoot shell due to the fact there are not any where near the amount of people to buy as ebay sometimes finding or selling certain items is harder and the layout takes a bit more time to get used to .