Quokka fees introduced

I don't know about the rest of Australia or other Quokka distributed countries, but I emailed in an ad last friday  morning to Quokka Western Australia (WA) to list a grille in the quokka that had been sitting around the garage for a few months, this morning I received a call from the Quokka lady saying they are now charging $12.95 for any commercial type ad.

First impression was like I was having a heart attack or some kind of shock, where for a moment everything went still around me until the voice on the other end of the phone broke the silence, "do you still want to place the ad". Ehhh NO stick it up your arse!!! was what I wanted to say, but all I could mutter was a disillusioned no

To the jerk off in the West Australian who came up with this great idea the reason the quokka is so big is because the ads are free, start charging stupid prices like $12.95 (or call it for what is it $13) and the sellers are going to disappear instantly and when 97% - 100% of the sellers drop out you no longer have anything to sell.

Again to the above mentioned, does this mean the quokka is now going to be free in the shops instead of $2.50, I didn't think so, you greedy bastard!

The unfortunate part in all this is that the consumer is now going to get double penetrated in the arse. This is clearly giving ebay an opportunity to capitalize and price hike their fees.

Australia Post costs to high

In this lucky land we live in, when it comes to shopping we are not so lucky our vastly separated country means transportation costs are far greater, we have less competition because our neighbouring cities are to far apart that we can't jump in the car and drive to the next city coz it it cheaper and thus force prices down in our own cities.

When it comes to ebay it goes hand in hand with postage and while the consumer might get a good taste of competitive trading it is still leaves a bad taste in their mouth by the shear cost of sending parcels in this country and on top of that the time factor.

With population increases comes more flights, more trucks and therefore you would think make it quicker to stick a parcel on the any number of flights, trucks or trains moving about the country. You would think so anyway however it still takes a minimum of 5 working days to get a parcel from the centre of Perth to the centre of Sydney, if it takes 1 day to get it delivered locally where the hell does it sit for 4 days?

The Hong Kong ebayers now flood ebay.com.au offering things at prices we can not make with delivery times that are not far off ours. Whats more because the cost of goods are more expensive in this country they give us a higher price, if you don't believe me go and price match buying an identical item ebay.com vs ebay.com.au with international postage you will find we are paying more for the same item from the same place.

Oh and top of the Australian ebay seller get shafted by all these things, an Ebay Australia does not offer any discounts whatsoever to its powersellers, so whether they sell 1 item a week or 10,000 items they will always pay top dollar for fees unlike Hong Kong, US, UK, France..

Australians just don't want to leave feedback

When it comes the WWW Australians are still in the dinosaur age compared to all other 1st world countries. After moving to this country 18 months ago from the UK I have sent follow up email after followup email requesting the buyer leave me feedback and I might as well be talking to a tree.

Why is it so hard to understand/ignore the basic principle of ebay it is a feedback based selling system, buyers give feedback so that other buyers can trust the seller.

Feebay strikes again!

As an avid user of Auctiva, a free auction management tool, I was mortified to receive an email on Friday from Auctiva telling me and every other user that they will no longer be offering a free service.

My first thought was back to the last email I got from them, which they announced they had upgraded their servers and employed a high paying tech guy to see them into the future and I had a thought then that it wouldn't be long.

Alot of starting out internet companies offer free services whilst in the beta stage they use feedback from the forums to develop the site and also build up their customer base by word of mouth about free service. They make money though advertising and partner programs once the software or site is developed to a standard of other sites that currently charge fees they turn into a commercial paying site.

As it turns out eBay responded to a media question that Auctiva's desicion would have primaly been made to start charge fees due to eBay charging it partner referral scheme which pays sites who traffic people to eBay the new system cuts Auctiva out of the loop and given Auctiva hosts around 20% of ebay sellers around the world that is alot of money lost and for eBay alot of money saved.

I have looked around at a couple of the auction management sites I think I will be switching to inkfrog, Auctiva is okay and does the job but if I have to pay the same fees as I pay elsewhere than Auctiva service is not good money for value.

Recycled ebay postage materials

I have been buying stuff off ebay as well as selling for a number of years now, but only last year I recieved a package that was in a re-used packaging which first triggered me to think "cheap-skate". 

The next day I found myself packaging an item I had sold and got me thinking of the package I received the day before and how much packaging I stuff into my recycle bin each week and how I constantly complain that the rubish bin should be picked up every 4 weeks and the recycle bin every 1 week instead of the other way around which discourages recycling.

The result of one persons "cheap-skateness" or "stance" on packaging has made me change my ways and to pass on the message I put a little card in each package I send saying "packaging is recycled", hopefully the message will spread and the ebay community can do it's bit for the environment.