relic

Hi all,

Well during my research of what sell I've been looking at certain items. I few of these items appear to sell for more on Ebay then they do on amazon and other places - which is good news!

However;

Things seem to go great until people from Hong Kong and China suddenly jump in with the same products but at half the price????? The only way the seem to make anything is on the postage - about 2 quid!

I don't understand these numpties? If a product on ebay is selling for the majority of the time at say ?40 then why do people from the far east jump in and kill everyone's profit margins? Including their own? Surely if they had more then one braincell they could actually sell their own gear at the same markup as the competition - at least that way everyone is happy!

I'm not suggestion for one minute that a cartel should be formed. I do remember my Economics lecturer telling me that selling at marginal profit to beat your competitors is not good because a) it's unsustainable b) it harms your competition and yourself (unsustainable price war) and c) it destroys the market value of a product, for instance, buyers will always expect the item(s) at that price!

He did say that price competition is healthy i.e. 10% price difference. But slashing the value of a product to near it's cost price for the sake of getting more sales is a short term view and cannot be sustained in the long term! A great idea for bricks and mortor i.e. where one would hope that customers buy additional products whilst purchasing the item in question. But not for an online world where it's near impossible to tempt a buyer to buy other stuff to offset your loss - especially on ebay!!!

Sorry guys...just had to rant!

thanks for listening!

Assasiks

That's eBay for you!

They key to success if highlighting your strengths against your competitors weaknesses. So for example if sellers from HK are cheaper than you advertise the fact that your a UK seller and your items will arrive faster than them.

It's a very tough venue but I know sellers who are expensive in comparison to their competition but they succeed because they highlight their Customer Service.

Hatrea

The problem is eBay often does not follow expected economic ways, it is its own little world but you can learn its ways and as people have posted before learn what customers want and play to that. If all else fails though sometimes if you know you are getting your product at a good price its good fun to make sure non of your competitors gets a sale for a couple of weeks ; )