Why I am no longer selling books on eBay

I have been a member of eBay since 1998. I have bought at lot and sold a few things there, but I will not be doing much more selling.

When I first joined eBay, it was like the world's largest garage sale. People were signing up and selling their stuff to make a little bit of cash. As I buyer, I had to read the feedback of sellers and learned to be careful to choose the ones that seemed honest.

Buyers were allowed to give honest feedback on the sellers, so that other sellers would know if a buyer was dishonest or refused to pay after winning an auction.

Unfortunately, the feedback system has changed. Today, a seller cannot give honest feedback if a buyer is less than excellent. Sellers must give either positive feedback or no feedback at all.

I recently had several auctions on eBay. Out of the dozen auctions that were completed with winning buyers, I had to open cases against two of them for non-payment. That's too many non-paying bidders for me.

When I was reading the eBay forums to get tips on selling, I learned that eBay will ban sellers based on "low" detailed seller ratings (DSRs). I saw more than one former seller who had 99.6-100% positive feedback ratings who had been banned because their DSRs fell. But a huge company like Toys R Us can maintain a presence on eBay despite having a feedback rating of 98.9%

Another factor in my decision to stop selling books on eBay is the high fees. Not only does eBay charge more for books than for any other category, they also charge a percentage of shipping fees.

I'm not willing to pay a fee to eBay and then pay another fee to Paypal just to get rid of my used curriculum. On some items, I wasn't making minimum wage for the time it took to list, review, answer questions, package, and ship off my books.

So, this website is my reaction. I'll be selling my old books until I run out. Then I'll stop. Thanks for your attention.

Please buy my books.

Welcome to My Virtual Used Book Shop!

After homeschooling for 15 years, my homeschool career is coming to an end. I have many, many resources that I've used over the years and it's time to de-clutter and clean out my stash. When my latest set of auctions on eBay ends, I will be listing my homeschool materials here. I'm still figuring out how this will work, so bear with me.

Elizabeth