@jkrk said:
1% Ebucks didn't motivate us to buy anything on E-Bay. Giving us a $20 discount for a $2000 coin doesn't cut it.
Bonus e-bucks might work but we haven't received an offer in a long while. If premiums on $20 gold shrinks there will be little motivation to remain on E-Bay, as a seller.
I've never thought it was worth it for current premiums on gold. Unless you get the Apmex special rate, wholesale/retail spread isn't more than 5% typically.
IN the past most of my buying was done when I received a bonus & Apmex had a special. Thus, you were buying gold with the low premiums at spot or below. I was buying graded double eagles. I did build up a fair sized inventory over the years thanks to E-Bay so I have a good supply of coins to sell. In this environment I'm offering/selling coins with the largest premiums to spot and buying the ETF GLD. If the premiums shrink my selling days will wind down.
There have been times when I spotted a coin on E-Bay that I believed to be relatively well priced. In the past I would pull the trigger when I received the bonus offer which put the coin within my buy range. Without that inducement of Bonus bucks I cease to be a buyer.
I get that. But what's the wholesale price if you just flipped them to a dealer or market maker? The fees on a $20 DE on eBay have to be $150 to $200. I don't know of many common date DE's that have a $150 bid/ask spread in 64 or under.
I had to dig in the virtual trash can to get that eBay email once I realized we're all being told different stories. I got told no more 1%, bucks offers will still come my way, and I get 12 months to spend the bucks. No credit-card stuff was pitched to me. I gotta say that I think that corporate "segmentation" and "targeting" of customers has gone too far. I can't tell anyone how infuriating it is to see other members get sent an eBay bucks offer when I get nothing -- because if I did say something about that, I would sound like a crybaby, and no one would care -- and then somehow I get my own arbitrary invite to an offer two weeks later. I've never liked eBay.
Maybe the bonuses will be bigger and more meaningful now that they aren't dishing out 1% on everything. The piddly 4% and 5% bonuses of the past couple years have not been enough to move the needle on purchases. If it was something I was already going to buy, then I was happy with the extra, but it was never enough to make a Buy/No buy difference. I'm mildly excited to see what the first bonus is under the new rules...
@jkrk said:
1% Ebucks didn't motivate us to buy anything on E-Bay. Giving us a $20 discount for a $2000 coin doesn't cut it.
Bonus e-bucks might work but we haven't received an offer in a long while. If premiums on $20 gold shrinks there will be little motivation to remain on E-Bay, as a seller.
I've never thought it was worth it for current premiums on gold. Unless you get the Apmex special rate, wholesale/retail spread isn't more than 5% typically.
IN the past most of my buying was done when I received a bonus & Apmex had a special. Thus, you were buying gold with the low premiums at spot or below. I was buying graded double eagles. I did build up a fair sized inventory over the years thanks to E-Bay so I have a good supply of coins to sell. In this environment I'm offering/selling coins with the largest premiums to spot and buying the ETF GLD. If the premiums shrink my selling days will wind down.
There have been times when I spotted a coin on E-Bay that I believed to be relatively well priced. In the past I would pull the trigger when I received the bonus offer which put the coin within my buy range. Without that inducement of Bonus bucks I cease to be a buyer.
I get that. But what's the wholesale price if you just flipped them to a dealer or market maker? The fees on a $20 DE on eBay have to be $150 to $200. I don't know of many common date DE's that have a $150 bid/ask spread in 64 or under.
We haven't bought any DE's in a year. With the discounts all in we were buying them at spot or below. They're gold bullion essentially. We aren't selling those on E-Bay. We just like to own gold at spot. Currently, there is nothing to buy that meets our requirements so yes, the costs eat the spread and there is nothing to do.
A year or so ago we were buying 65's at maybe $200 over. We bought a fair number. We are slowly offering those. In addition we are selling $10 Indians (mainly CAC). We bought a 75-CC a short time ago in AU58 so we offered our 50. We sold an 1861 that we upgraded, etc.
@jkrk said:
1% Ebucks didn't motivate us to buy anything on E-Bay. Giving us a $20 discount for a $2000 coin doesn't cut it.
Bonus e-bucks might work but we haven't received an offer in a long while. If premiums on $20 gold shrinks there will be little motivation to remain on E-Bay, as a seller.
I've never thought it was worth it for current premiums on gold. Unless you get the Apmex special rate, wholesale/retail spread isn't more than 5% typically.
IN the past most of my buying was done when I received a bonus & Apmex had a special. Thus, you were buying gold with the low premiums at spot or below. I was buying graded double eagles. I did build up a fair sized inventory over the years thanks to E-Bay so I have a good supply of coins to sell. In this environment I'm offering/selling coins with the largest premiums to spot and buying the ETF GLD. If the premiums shrink my selling days will wind down.
There have been times when I spotted a coin on E-Bay that I believed to be relatively well priced. In the past I would pull the trigger when I received the bonus offer which put the coin within my buy range. Without that inducement of Bonus bucks I cease to be a buyer.
I get that. But what's the wholesale price if you just flipped them to a dealer or market maker? The fees on a $20 DE on eBay have to be $150 to $200. I don't know of many common date DE's that have a $150 bid/ask spread in 64 or under.
We haven't bought any DE's in a year. With the discounts all in we were buying them at spot or below. They're gold bullion essentially. We aren't selling those on E-Bay. We just like to own gold at spot. Currently, there is nothing to buy that meets our requirements so yes, the costs eat the spread and there is nothing to do.
A year or so ago we were buying 65's at maybe $200 over. We bought a fair number. We are slowly offering those. In addition we are selling $10 Indians (mainly CAC). We bought a 75-CC a short time ago in AU58 so we offered our 50. We sold an 1861 that we upgraded, etc.
I'm not saying that you aren't making money. I'm wondering if you are making less money than you could if you just wholesaled the.
I used to do the same thing: Buy DEs when they were $40 over spot to get the eBay bonus bucks. I never sold a single one on eBay. I wholesaled them at 98% of spot and pocketed the difference. With 10% eBay bucks - remember those - and 2% cash back, I was getting $135 per coin in bonuses and I was losing $60 on each coin for a net $75 per coin.
Using your example. If you buy 65s at $200 over, you have to get $400 over to break even after eBay fees. Now, sure, gold went up. But if the bid/ask spread is $100-ish, you are costing yourself $100 per coin even if you are making money. You could be making $100 more by not selling them on eBay.
We have very limited experience selling anywhere but on E-Bay. The few times We asked for dealer quotes the bids were about what we could receive net on E-bay (which makes sense). Less work, etc selling to dealers. On E-Bay we were buying more than generics. There were considerable deals on somewhat harder to obtain DE's a year or two ago. The 12% discount you speak of made the deal. While Selling On E-Bay we had to beat the dealer numbers or we wouldn't want to make a sale. In addition, unless we're buying a quantity of coins in one sitting and unless we believe we have too much inventory we wouldn't sell, this past year, We made a couple of very small sales to the Bullion Exchange and Heritage (both top notch-no games) on generics. As of now, we have little interest to sell more than 1 at a time. We can't find attractive coins to purchase. We're happy with our inventory position. How great is the demand from dealers to buy 1 coin?
Clearly, the answer to your question is yes.... we pay all costs (10%+) while selling and beat the dealer bids. The asking prices reflect our costs built in. The model doesn't work for high / medium volume sales. If it stops working for us the store goes.
I still own all the DE's that are generic as they represent a portion of our gold holdings. It is a waste of time to offer those coins on E-Bay since, as you say, you can save time and effort and move those coins directly to dealers. I assume that was your point?
The best "bucks" offered where the ones from Microsoft. I can't remember the details, but for a period of time they where up to 25% promoting Microsoft's web browser???? That was over 10 years ago.
"Bongo drive 1984 Lincoln that looks like old coin dug from ground."
@OPA said:
The best "bucks" offered where the ones from Microsoft. I can't remember the details, but for a period of time they where up to 25% promoting Microsoft's web browser???? That was over 10 years ago.
That was the inane Bing program they ran in 2007-2008. If you searched on Bing and clicked the URL listed on Bing to bring you to ebay you could then buy an item on ebay if you logged into ebay through the Bing link and then purchased something on ebay within one hour after following the Bing link.
However, when the program started you had to pay full price for your purchase and then wait something like a month for Bing to send you a redemption code and then you would submit the redemption code into Bing and they would take another few weeks to send you a check. When the program started they were doing 40% cash back checks of up to $200 per item. At the beginning of the program they also limited the number of times you could use the program to something like a half dozen times. As the program sputtered along, Bing expanded the number of times over and over again until they made it unlimited, but they also reduced the percentage cash back incrementally until it was something like 15% per item. They eventually did away with the redemption codes and the wait for a check and just took the money off the top when you paid on PayPal.
I would search ebay and place all the potential buys in my watchlist and then go to Bing and type in the exact wording that was in the ebay title and it would bring me to ebay where I would login and then make my purchase. I bought a ton of gold that was listed at just over spot on ebay (about $700 an ounce at the time) and would get $140 off each modern $5 gold commem that was listed at $350. I also bought quite a few pre-1933 half eagles and eagles as well as one or two terrific type coins. It was an awesome program for me.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
Thank you, eBay. I used every big ebucks promo to buy inventory.
My ebucks have compounded over the years for a huge financial gain to my business.
Last year was the first time I got hundreds of dollars a couple times on both accounts. I have quite a bit of bullion and coins I managed to snag with points.
I've had a few ebay problems the last few months. I see now why people say not to buy there. It's gotten exponentially worse. It's just not worth the hassle anymore and apparently not worth the money anymore either.
Saving $20 buying from a no-name seller used to be worth a minor headache or bump in the road to snag a deal. Now it takes weeks for some stuff to arrive, and those headaches turn to huge issues with people who couldn't care less.
Managed payments was enough for me to dip out. I'm not selling anyway so it was an easy decision.
@JimTyler said:
I just got it too and my first ever coupon 15% off a $2000 or greater watch WTF. Do people still wear watches or look at their phone. When you think ebay can’t get worse they do.
I still wear watches and love them! I have 5 or 6 different ones I wear consistently.
I would never spend $2k or even close to that on one though.
Comments
I get that. But what's the wholesale price if you just flipped them to a dealer or market maker? The fees on a $20 DE on eBay have to be $150 to $200. I don't know of many common date DE's that have a $150 bid/ask spread in 64 or under.
The eBay Mastercard is not turning out great either. The free point value redemptions can not be used on coins or other collectibles.
I had to dig in the virtual trash can to get that eBay email once I realized we're all being told different stories. I got told no more 1%, bucks offers will still come my way, and I get 12 months to spend the bucks. No credit-card stuff was pitched to me. I gotta say that I think that corporate "segmentation" and "targeting" of customers has gone too far. I can't tell anyone how infuriating it is to see other members get sent an eBay bucks offer when I get nothing -- because if I did say something about that, I would sound like a crybaby, and no one would care -- and then somehow I get my own arbitrary invite to an offer two weeks later. I've never liked eBay.
Maybe the bonuses will be bigger and more meaningful now that they aren't dishing out 1% on everything. The piddly 4% and 5% bonuses of the past couple years have not been enough to move the needle on purchases. If it was something I was already going to buy, then I was happy with the extra, but it was never enough to make a Buy/No buy difference. I'm mildly excited to see what the first bonus is under the new rules...
mbogoman
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/classic-issues-colonials-through-1964/zambezi-collection-trade-dollars/7345Asesabi Lutho
We haven't bought any DE's in a year. With the discounts all in we were buying them at spot or below. They're gold bullion essentially. We aren't selling those on E-Bay. We just like to own gold at spot. Currently, there is nothing to buy that meets our requirements so yes, the costs eat the spread and there is nothing to do.
A year or so ago we were buying 65's at maybe $200 over. We bought a fair number. We are slowly offering those. In addition we are selling $10 Indians (mainly CAC). We bought a 75-CC a short time ago in AU58 so we offered our 50. We sold an 1861 that we upgraded, etc.
I'm not saying that you aren't making money. I'm wondering if you are making less money than you could if you just wholesaled the.
I used to do the same thing: Buy DEs when they were $40 over spot to get the eBay bonus bucks. I never sold a single one on eBay. I wholesaled them at 98% of spot and pocketed the difference. With 10% eBay bucks - remember those - and 2% cash back, I was getting $135 per coin in bonuses and I was losing $60 on each coin for a net $75 per coin.
Using your example. If you buy 65s at $200 over, you have to get $400 over to break even after eBay fees. Now, sure, gold went up. But if the bid/ask spread is $100-ish, you are costing yourself $100 per coin even if you are making money. You could be making $100 more by not selling them on eBay.
We have very limited experience selling anywhere but on E-Bay. The few times We asked for dealer quotes the bids were about what we could receive net on E-bay (which makes sense). Less work, etc selling to dealers. On E-Bay we were buying more than generics. There were considerable deals on somewhat harder to obtain DE's a year or two ago. The 12% discount you speak of made the deal. While Selling On E-Bay we had to beat the dealer numbers or we wouldn't want to make a sale. In addition, unless we're buying a quantity of coins in one sitting and unless we believe we have too much inventory we wouldn't sell, this past year, We made a couple of very small sales to the Bullion Exchange and Heritage (both top notch-no games) on generics. As of now, we have little interest to sell more than 1 at a time. We can't find attractive coins to purchase. We're happy with our inventory position. How great is the demand from dealers to buy 1 coin?
Clearly, the answer to your question is yes.... we pay all costs (10%+) while selling and beat the dealer bids. The asking prices reflect our costs built in. The model doesn't work for high / medium volume sales. If it stops working for us the store goes.
I still own all the DE's that are generic as they represent a portion of our gold holdings. It is a waste of time to offer those coins on E-Bay since, as you say, you can save time and effort and move those coins directly to dealers. I assume that was your point?
guess we have to wait until may 1 to see if another one is issued. generic bucks link
bump? don't see this on the first page despite my last post.
The best "bucks" offered where the ones from Microsoft. I can't remember the details, but for a period of time they where up to 25% promoting Microsoft's web browser???? That was over 10 years ago.
By giving up the everyday 1% rewards, they can concentrate on driving buyer behavior they really want.
That was the inane Bing program they ran in 2007-2008. If you searched on Bing and clicked the URL listed on Bing to bring you to ebay you could then buy an item on ebay if you logged into ebay through the Bing link and then purchased something on ebay within one hour after following the Bing link.
However, when the program started you had to pay full price for your purchase and then wait something like a month for Bing to send you a redemption code and then you would submit the redemption code into Bing and they would take another few weeks to send you a check. When the program started they were doing 40% cash back checks of up to $200 per item. At the beginning of the program they also limited the number of times you could use the program to something like a half dozen times. As the program sputtered along, Bing expanded the number of times over and over again until they made it unlimited, but they also reduced the percentage cash back incrementally until it was something like 15% per item. They eventually did away with the redemption codes and the wait for a check and just took the money off the top when you paid on PayPal.
I would search ebay and place all the potential buys in my watchlist and then go to Bing and type in the exact wording that was in the ebay title and it would bring me to ebay where I would login and then make my purchase. I bought a ton of gold that was listed at just over spot on ebay (about $700 an ounce at the time) and would get $140 off each modern $5 gold commem that was listed at $350. I also bought quite a few pre-1933 half eagles and eagles as well as one or two terrific type coins. It was an awesome program for me.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
July 1st if still quarterly
Last year was the first time I got hundreds of dollars a couple times on both accounts. I have quite a bit of bullion and coins I managed to snag with points.
I've had a few ebay problems the last few months. I see now why people say not to buy there. It's gotten exponentially worse. It's just not worth the hassle anymore and apparently not worth the money anymore either.
Saving $20 buying from a no-name seller used to be worth a minor headache or bump in the road to snag a deal. Now it takes weeks for some stuff to arrive, and those headaches turn to huge issues with people who couldn't care less.
Managed payments was enough for me to dip out. I'm not selling anyway so it was an easy decision.
I still wear watches and love them! I have 5 or 6 different ones I wear consistently.
I would never spend $2k or even close to that on one though.