Top 10 reasons to use our website to purchase items from us instead of EBay auctions:
1. Combined Shipping.
Because EBay fees are high, and because there is a technology limitation of EBay listings, combined shipping is only available through our website.
2. Lower cost.
Aside from combined shipping, we make a great effort to always keep our website pricing lower than our EBay pricing. Once you consider the higher handling fees for EBay auctions, website pricing is almost always lower.
3. Security.
We accept Paypal through our website. It is a myth among EBay buyers that EBay protects you. Aside from the feedback system, EBay does very little to protect anyone. However, Paypal does do a great deal to protect buyers in all transactions. Our website is also secure - as soon as you begin checkout, all data is sent through a secure SSL connection (look for the HTTPS in your address bar to verify this with any website.)
4. Better service.
We view our website customers almost as business partners. Did you know that customer loyalty is almost double with website customers over EBay customers? Partially this is because it is cumbersome to find the same seller on EBay, and partially it is because of the enhanced service available through our website.Because our website customers are statistically more loyal, we think it is only fair to treat them even better than our already delighted EBay customers.
5. More shipping flexibility.
EBay's new shipping setup is even more confusing than before! We only offer standard shipping through EBay in an attempt to decrease the confusion, however you can order Express Mail or FedEx through our website, and we have a separate, much lower rate table for Canadian orders.
6. More product availability.
We have hundreds of items that can only be ordered through our website. EBay does not have a useful method for tracking inventory. Therefore, to prevent people from ordering things that we can not deliver immediately, we only list items on EBay that we have a TON of in stock. Even then, we only list a small percentage of the actual quantity that we have available.
7. Faster shopping.
Just try our website, you will find it ten times faster than wading through our EBay store. We even have a special listing page that makes shopping for pool cues a joy..
8. Helpful articles.
We often run articles on our website that we can't display in EBay.
9. Constant improvement.
Whenever we make an improvement to our business, our website is updated with the changes months before our EBay auctions.
10. EBay: Bad for sellers.
If you think EBay is great, you should try being a seller. As you know, EBay only charges fees to sellers, not buyers. This is just fine (in fact that's how it has to be), however what is NOT fine is that EBay is constantly increasing fees for no good reason. What's especially bad about this is that they actually claim the increase is to 'improve the EBay community' - All they are doing is putting more money in their pocket and driving up prices for buyers. Seller fees are also too high to begin with. Seller fees, depending on listing strategy, can vary from 10% to 20% of the total cost of the item. Did you know that the average power sellers monthly EBay fees are higher than the average home mortgage payment? This is excessive for a company that does almost nothing - all of our auctions combined probably take less than one megabyte of server space. EBay also engages in questionable techniques to extract more money from buyers. For example, have you noticed the new EBay feedback system? You can rate sellers based on specific qualities instead of just an overall feedback rating, which seems great at first glance. However, notice that the last criteria on which sellers are rated is Shipping and Handling Charges. This makes absolutely no sense, since the shipping and handling charges are AGREED UPON between the buyer and seller before the auction is ended. If the seller violates this agreement, it is fraud - legal action could fairly be taken. If the seller does live up to the agreement, how could anything but a perfect score be given? You have to examine why EBay did this - it's because they don't get a percentage of the shipping fees as EBay fees, only a percentage of the selling price. Therefore their strategy was to drive prices up to increase their fees collected by tying feedback to shipping rate. This is the only reason they put the new system in place and the scheme is very transparent, to the extent that it insults our intelligence. It is our hope that if more people catch on and start ordering through sellers websites instead of EBay, EBay will have to clean up their act, allowing us to lower our EBay pricing. UPDATE 01/29/2008 - EBay has now tied this distorted feedback tool to Power Seller status. Sellers now lose their power seller status if this shipping/handling rating drops below 4.5 out of 5. We did a quick search of all the power sellers we have purchased from in the last year, and out of 15 sellers randomly sampled, 7 stand to lose their power seller status immediately and 11 will be in danger of losing it soon, and so will we! EBay has changed the rules again to be even less fair to buyers and sellers alike!
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