eBay have removed Animation/Anime from their genres

Blaize

Blaize

Hunter
So around a decade ago eBay used to actually have a Anime genre, separated entirely from Animation. It was fantastic. Then of course they changed it so it was Animation and Anime with a sub genre for just Anime. Instantly it made Anime much more of a chore to find as most wouldn't bother with the sub genre so enjoy scrolling through thousands of baby/kid cartoon dvds trying to find a good deal on a horror Anime lol.

But eBay's great wisdom didn't end there because they then followed that up by making the sub genre also be Animation and Anime. Logic!! /s

Well NOW eBay have completely lost the plot and removed Animation as a genre completely. So if you want Anime someone could be listing a great deal under Sci-Fi or Horror or Fantasy or Action etc etc etc.

Complete clusterf**k and a decision I simply don't understand. Surely if you are eBay you want people to be able to find things they might want to buy as easy as possible. And with a search engine that actually means giving the user more options not less.

As a collector of Region 1 releases mostly I now have just that for my saved search now. So that is every single Region 1 DVD listed on eBay I now have to sift through on the off chance I find an Anime release I might like to get. I mean it would be great if I could rely on people being smart enough to put ANIME in the title of their listings but they don't more often than not.

I so wish a decent competitor came along for eBay but somehow nothing ever has.
 
eBay have become an absolute joke. Not only can you not search through a particular seller’s inventory on the mobile app now, but their “Global Shipping Program” has pretty much stopped me using them altogether, so ludicrously has it increased shipping costs. And the last time I remember looking, it was also charging people 20% VAT on ZERO RATED printed material, which they are presumably just pocketing. Screw eBay.
 
ayase said:
eBay have become an absolute joke. Not only can you not search through a particular seller’s inventory on the mobile app now, but their “Global Shipping Program” has pretty much stopped me using them altogether, so ludicrously has it increased shipping costs. And the last time I remember looking, it was also charging people 20% VAT on ZERO RATED printed material, which they are presumably just pocketing. Screw eBay.
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I keep finding this with toys. I often hit eBay for things that are effectively US exclusive which can be expensive in itself. Annoying to decide you do want the item that much, add to basket...and then eBay slaps $20+ of import charges on it.

Sometimes even sellers are stupid. Recently found a Japanese seller selling a pair of Gundam Cafe pins for £60. Used Buyee to find them on Yahoo Auctions where they only wanted £20.
 
ayase said:
eBay have become an absolute joke. Not only can you not search through a particular seller’s inventory on the mobile app now, but their “Global Shipping Program” has pretty much stopped me using them altogether, so ludicrously has it increased shipping costs. And the last time I remember looking, it was also charging people 20% VAT on ZERO RATED printed material, which they are presumably just pocketing. Screw eBay.
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I have noticed the exact same thing. No excuse for it when the import taxes only apply over £135 now but I see it applied on almost everything regardless of price.
 
I think it goes along the lines of, we've made our site so irritating and confusing that people are no longer spending as much as they used to with us, so we will have to increase our charges and the percentage we take from the remaining buyers and sellers to keep our profits up, meaning more people leave and the charges have to go up again to ensure the people at the top continue to get their dividend, ad infinitum

Plus it looks like 90% of the sellers on eBay (and Amazon) are now based in China, mostly selling dodgy versions of products. While most of the cheap anime is from Malaysia (or Germany. Why is half the anime on Amazon UK now German products with no English translation?).
 
RonJB said:
I think it goes along the lines of, we've made our site so irritating and confusing that people are no longer spending as much as they used to with us, so we will have to increase our charges and the percentage we take from the remaining buyers and sellers to keep our profits up, meaning more people leave and the charges have to go up again to ensure the people at the top continue to get their dividend, ad infinitum

Plus it looks like 90% of the sellers on eBay (and Amazon) are now based in China, mostly selling dodgy versions of products. While most of the cheap anime is from Malaysia (or Germany. Why is half the anime on Amazon UK now German products with no English translation?).
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I listed an auction item, it sold for £62 with postage & I only got £50 out of it. First and last time I'll sell on ebay. No fancy addons etc, just a basic 5 day auction.

Anime from Malaysia is the worst, most outdated & poorly compressed pirate shi*te I have ever seen. Bootlegs were better quality in the 90's. They use a heavily compressed, very old mpeg2 standard that means the moment there's any significant movement on the screen it becomes a patchwork quilt of unidentifiable colour.

China I have learnt to hate since having children & I used to love China.
There's so much dangerous &/or misleading tat out there & even if you manage to largely avoid buying it yourself you still end up with tonnes of stuff from other people for your kids because no matter how many times you tell them, it doesn't sink in. Amazon & ebay etc don't care at all & take no responsibility; it's a wonder no children have died yet.

You missed one key group that I have the utmost contempt for though: dropshippers!
They do very little and their entire business hinges on screwing over the buyer.
The ones I hate the most are the lazy tykes that use software to profit from amazon.
I had a lot of run-ins with those ebay parasites when I tried to avoid amazon for a year & sent back so many goods because they turned up via amazon couriers.
 
serpantino said:
I listed an auction item, it sold for £62 with postage & I only got £50 out of it. First and last time I'll sell on ebay. No fancy addons etc, just a basic 5 day auction.
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Unless you list during a promo (like £1 max fees) you pay 12.8%. Not sure why you find that surprising.
 
I think eBay started with about 8%, then 10%, then they included the postage in the calculation (why they should get a cut of the postage charge is seriously beyond my understanding) and now it's 12.8%.

Cuddly caring sharing company? Bah!
 
RonJB said:
I think eBay started with about 8%, then 10%, then they included the postage in the calculation (why they should get a cut of the postage charge is seriously beyond my understanding) and now it's 12.8%.

Cuddly caring sharing company? Bah!
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They got the postage wrong with mine as well. I gave all the details but they generated the wrong label & I had to pay the difference. When I initially listed it, it was a £1 listing but it relisted which I think is why I got hit with a much higher charge. I am really starting to hate ebay nowadays, I only really do buy it now on there as auctions irritate me when someone comes in with a ever so slightly high bid in the dying seconds & their mobile site is utterly broken hot garbage that doesn't let me do a lot of things such as checking messages. I at least thought their fees looked reasonable but personal experience now shows they're not at all & the lack of even having contactable human support makes me feel their fee is unjustifiable.
 
RonJB said:
I think eBay started with about 8%, then 10%, then they included the postage in the calculation (why they should get a cut of the postage charge is seriously beyond my understanding) and now it's 12.8%.

Cuddly caring sharing company? Bah!
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It's 12.8% now since they no longer use paypal which used to take a 3.4% meaning in total its technically cheaper than it used to be by 0.6%
 
RonJB said:
I think eBay started with about 8%, then 10%, then they included the postage in the calculation (why they should get a cut of the postage charge is seriously beyond my understanding) and now it's 12.8%.

Cuddly caring sharing company? Bah!
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I believe they started to charge on postage, solely to catch those sellers who would try and bypass the fees by listing something at say 99p but charge £10+ postage (where the true cost of postage would have been £2 if that).

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@serpantino the problem with auctions is that some buyers will use sniping software which will only bid on an auction in the dying seconds in an attempt to win it
 
PayPal is optional, but eBay is making it harder to select (at least for me). I've had times when I couldn't get the link to work when buying something. Not saying it's deliberate, but....
 
It works most times, but in the last few weeks about one in four just refused to connect when I click the payment button and I'm forced to use a different method.
 
'Tis a good thread, highlighting the farce that is being an aficionado of Japanese disc-based material weeb and looking to get bargains. When eBay first made that category edit, I stopped looking - which was a good thing, being a hoarder when young and unlearned; Dears and Happy Maid Mai cause me many sleepless nights, still~ - and lost all hope of getting money for 99.8% of my DVDs.

It sounds foolish, for more fool the fool that still tries to use eBay for anime, but if you search for 'anime' in the anime sub-genre you mostly get insert GASP... anime. Also helps if you narrow down search by location, to avoid *** sellers and whatnot. And even more so if search based on import region coding, as Burazu wisely suggests. So it is still possible, in an unwieldy sense. Does this work? Yes? Good, very good. And what about this?

The good news is, manga still has a section. And people pay stupid amounts for yellowed pages.

As for Global Shipping, I take great delight in my foreign buyers having to pay £70-100 on top. But, alas, eBay also charge sellers for currency exchange. 5% for USA dorrah, if memory serves as it should. eBay always find a way. Ever since I sold a manga series for £180 and was charged around £30-40 in fees, a harsh lesson was learned: only sell on eBay via promotions. 80% off fees are regular...ish. That's 2.something%, rather than 12.something%. And never buy to avoiding stacking to ceiling.
 
Magillanica Lou Mayvin said:
As for Global Shipping, I take great delight in my foreign buyers having to pay £70-100 on top. But, alas, eBay also charge sellers for currency exchange. 5% for USA dorrah, if memory serves as it should. eBay always find a way. Ever since I sold a manga series for £180 and was charged around £30-40 in fees, a harsh lesson was learned: only sell on eBay via promotions. 80% off fees are regular...ish. That's 2.something%, rather than 12.something%. And never buy to avoiding stacking to ceiling.
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I think its like an extra 2-3% fees if its a international sale. Never use ebay/paypals conversion rate if you can avoid it.

And yes I've sold some high priced stuff, and never ever list a high priced item outside a promo.
 
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