Ebay servers crashed
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| penguinist Dec 11, 2011 9:38 PM EDT |
I tried to buy a couple of these and clicked on the order button about 5 seconds after the sale price went active. However, the ebay servers were so overloaded that it took over 15 minutes to get a response from the checkout servers and by that time the product was sold out and the items were removed from my cart. Huh... |
| BernardSwiss Dec 11, 2011 10:30 PM EDT |
Thanks for the info. Here I was, wishing I used Paypal, after all. Now I feel better again. |
| helios Dec 11, 2011 10:57 PM EDT |
Using paypal is like owning a pit bull. Sure, it treats you good and seems harmless, (sans a huge appetite for your money in service fees) But one day, for reasons only it understands, it will turn around and bite the cr@p out of you. We run an EBAY store and I walk on eggshells every time I list or post something, in fear of violating some obscure part of their TOS and getting our money locked down for 180 days. |
| BernardSwiss Dec 11, 2011 11:22 PM EDT |
All that -- plus they seem uncomfortably comfortable with deciding who I should be able to give my money to. |
| tracyanne Dec 11, 2011 11:30 PM EDT |
I won't touch PayPal with a barge pole not even while wearing a Hazmat suit. I appologise to all you people who feel you have no choice but to use PayPal as the payment service for your products and services, but if that's all that's available I'm afraid I won't purchase or contribute. |
| helios Dec 11, 2011 11:44 PM EDT |
Unfortunately TA, they are the standard for Internet payments. Sure there are alternatives but they remain obscure and lack features that makes PP viable. Our Ebay sales outpace our Amazon and Google Checkout sales just over 4 to 1. So if we had to rely upon selling our non-critical excesses through one of these alternatives, we'd be in trouble. Of course, when you go through the h#ll that regretsy.com just went through, it makes you wonder why someone else hasn't at least tried to match paypal's services. Then again, the unholy alliance between Ebay and Paypal has a stranglehold on much of the internet purchasing going on world-wide. |
| tracyanne Dec 12, 2011 12:38 AM EDT |
Standard Credit Card Gateway supplied by bank of your choice. That's what I set up for all my clients. Maybe it's different in the US and the banks are more interested in scamming, but over here that's all it takes. No big deal nothing obscure, just contact your bank of choice and get access to the API. |
| Grishnakh Dec 12, 2011 2:25 PM EDT |
@helios: Where do you get the idea that Paypal charges high fees? Citation needed. Paypal only charges 2.9% (less for higher-volume accounts), and only 1% for currency exchange. If you know of another payment processor that charges less than this, I and millions of other people would love to hear about it. The only places I've seen with lower fees are merchant accounts that have all kinds of added fees (monthly fees, etc.), and even then you need to have high volume, and as I said before, Paypal has high-volume discounts on their percentages too. And 1% for currency exchange is downright cheap. I've been running a business for years now selling parts using Paypal and never had any problems with being locked out for 180 days. They're not perfect, but compared to the competition, I don't see the problem. It seems like people are comparing them to an abstract ideal, rather than the actual real-world alternatives that actually exist for their services. I do offer Google Checkout as an alternative for my business, but no one has ever taken me up on it. The handful of people who didn't want to use Paypal sent a money order. Google Checkout seems to offer the exact same services as PP, and has the exact same fees last time I checked, but they just don't seem to get any usage among buyers. As for this "unholy alliance" between Ebay and Paypal, who buys on Ebay any more? I still get a few things there, but I'm usually scratching my head as to why those sellers don't just set up their own website store like I did. It's not hard, and then you don't have to pay all those stupid final value fees (which massively dwarf Paypal's fees). Ebay these days is mostly only good for buying cheap junk shipped directly from China or Hong Kong. If you have a real quality product to sell, make your own website. It's a lot more professional than using Ebay, and costs less too. @tracyanne: What country are you in? I've never heard of any "credit card gateway" offered by any banks here. The banks here are all a bunch of scammers anyway; this is a country where you're not even allowed to send money to other people's bank accounts without waiting a week and paying $35 for the privilege. A lot of people don't seem to realize that the USA is, in many ways, a third-world country, and the banking system here is about as advanced as those you'd find in someplace like Columbia or El Salvador. |
| tracyanne Dec 12, 2011 4:55 PM EDT |
@Grishnakh, the only first world country that desperately wants to become a 3rd world country by aping all thing US. Australia, where the banks are still controlled by our governement, and forced to actually provide semi decent services and may gamble with their clients money only under tightly controlled conditions. The above is subject to change, depending on which US corpoate interests are currently whispering in out MP's ears. |
| BernardSwiss Dec 12, 2011 6:19 PM EDT |
@tracyanne Actually, that sounds awfully like Canada, too -- or at least the current governing party. |
| helios Dec 12, 2011 6:46 PM EDT |
who buys on Ebay any more? I buy on Ebay...just bought an OEM battery for a Dell laptop for 22.00 US, as they have a ton of them to sell. No junk, American seller, great deal. But others buy on ebay as well. Enough to bring in about 1.5K a month to run HeliOS, which is roughly half of our monthly operating costs. I don't particularly care "who" it is that buys on Ebay. Enough do to help us raise the money for us to operate. Now, as far as the costs? I suppose when you take PayPal's fees into consideration they are only marginally higher than others but when you combine those fees with the Ebay fees, then the cost starts adding up. People sell on Ebay because there is already a massive customer base there. If you don't have the time or ability to set up a personal website, build your SEO and do your own marketing, then the PayPal/Ebay solution is pretty much what you have left. Paypal now takes their percentage out of the total cost, to include the shipping costs. So if we weren't an honest seller, we would bump our shipping fees to make up for Ebay dragging off their new cut of the shipping fees. But PayPal isn't the only consideration...Ebay takes a substantial amount as well. That's why I referred to PayPal and Ebay as the unholy alliance....Since one is owned by the other. Here is a breakdown of their fees. Our items sell anywhere from 25.00 to 500.00. Total cost to seller: Insertion fee up to .50 cents depending upon item Electronics 7.0% of the initial $50.00, plus 5.0% of the remaining balance ($50.01–$1,000.00) 10.0% of the initial $50.00, plus 8.0% of the remaining balance ($50.01–$1,000.00) 13.0% of the initial $50.00, plus 5.0% of the remaining balance ($50.01–$1,000.00) 11.0% of the initial $50.00, plus 6.0% of the remaining balance ($50.01–$1,000.00) $1000.01 or more 7.0% of the initial $50.00, plus 5.0% of the next $50.01–$1,000.00, plus 2.0% of the remaining balance ($1,000.01–total cost to buyer) So yeah, combined fees can run as much as 12% of the total amount when you are done. That is too high. I am pleased to hear though that PayPal has never frozen your account. There are thousands of complaints against them for arbitrarily freezing accounts for 180 days and the final disposition shows that the account owner did nothing wrong. They draw interest on that frozen account for the entire 6 months. Of course, they got their a$$es kicked (happy gus? ;-) when they tried that on regretsy.com http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/07/9280... I hope a "citation" from MSNBC satisfies your need. And grish, this is a forum, not an article. If I don't supply a "citation" then consider it an opinion and not a fact. If you disagree you can go Duck it and correct me on my findings if you wish...other than that, I'll supply citations at my pleasure. |
| Grishnakh Dec 13, 2011 5:00 PM EDT |
helios wrote:I suppose when you take PayPal's fees into consideration they are only marginally higher than others Citation needed. I haven't found any place with lower fees than Paypal (in the USA of course; I'm sure the Europeans are laughing at us with their no-fee bank transfers), unless you're doing some huge volumes. Quoting:but when you combine those fees with the Ebay fees, then the cost starts adding up. Irrelevant. Just because Paypal is owned by Ebay doesn't mean 1) that Ebay's high fees are Paypal's fault, or 2) that you even have to use Paypal, though they don't make it easy to use any alternatives. Ebay's fees are their own; if you don't like them, then you can use a different auction site, or better yet, make your own website. People sell on Ebay because there is already a massive customer base there. If you don't have the time or ability to set up a personal website, build your SEO and do your own marketing, then the PayPal/Ebay solution is pretty much what you have left. Depending on what exactly you're selling, building your own website is pretty trivial these days. Even if you're selling tons of items, it's pretty easy to download osCommerce for free and get it installed on a web host account. (And if you're selling tons of items, you'll need some kind of specialized software to deal with Ebay anyway, as it's impossible to use Ebay's interface for selling thousands of items.) Quoting:Paypal now takes their percentage out of the total cost, to include the shipping costs. So if we weren't an honest seller, we would bump our shipping fees to make up for Ebay dragging off their new cut of the shipping fees. If you're not bumping your shipping fees to include the PP and Ebay fees, then you're screwing yourself for no good reason. On my own little website, I already add 2.9% to my shipping fees to cover the Paypal fees, and I throw in an extra fee if the order is international, to cover the 1% currency exchange fee. Then I throw in a little extra to cover packing materials too ($0.15). Even with all this, my shipping is still dirt-cheap since I use USPS First Class Mail for most shipments. There's no good reason not to charge the customer what you're getting charged for shipping. Also, I thought Ebay had some kind of free insertion fee thing going on these days; I got some spam from them recently saying 50 free listings per month, and another saying something about 1000 free listings. I haven't checked the details. And grish, this is a forum, not an article. If I don't supply a "citation" then consider it an opinion and not a fact. If you supply something stating it's a fact, then it's not an opinion, it's either a fact or an error or falsehood. "Paypal's fees are higher than others" is either a correct fact or an incorrect one; there's no room for opinion there. If you can't post facts without bothering to make sure they're right, and someone calls you on it, then you need an attitude adjustment if you're going to be offended about that. Maybe I should just say that Helios's Ebay prices are much higher than others, and their reputation is horrible at 10% positive, and add "I'll supply a citation at my pleasure", even though I've never looked at your prices or feedback profile. |
| jdixon Dec 14, 2011 1:01 PM EDT |
> Maybe I should just say that Helios's Ebay prices are much higher than others, and their reputation is horrible at 10% positive, and add "I'll supply a citation at my pleasure", even though I've never looked at your prices or feedback profile. And maybe we'll all laugh at you. |
| gus3 Dec 14, 2011 1:17 PM EDT |
helios walks on water. How do we know? Because he'll say he doesn't. |
| kennethh Dec 14, 2011 9:58 PM EDT |
I had used ebay/paypal for quite a number of yrs. That is til this year. But, my reasoning for quitting is not just a one lump response over xyz issue or another. It's a culmination of issues that have annoyed me over the years despite the semi-great service that I had, I just decided to broaden my purchasing experience and move on. The issues are all well known I'm certain and the latest issue was some new electronic agreement I was not interested in. Whether it be the TOS, frozen funds, towing the line of the elite and shutting down funds of xyz organization (wikileaks, diaspora), etc.. And so much more. There are alternatives and I've been doing quite well w/out ebay & paypal without inconvenience. As for selling I've always used blujay.com no fees, none. |
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