MP3 from ebay question

Dr. Nick

Who here has bought one from the Far East/Isreal etc.?

Happy with your purchase? I'm thinking of a 1gb which seems to come in just under €100 Incl. shipping.

Advice?

pissed

I bought one the same as this but still waiting to receive it,(the 512meg version) seller said he posted it around the 24th feb so im expecting it any day now, its coming from israel, he has a good feedback rating... so fingers crossed think it cost about €78 including postage (€61 + €17)

peckerhead

Not meaning to hijack Dr Nick's thread, but can anyone recommend a seller that'll combine shipping? I want to buy three of them (512Mb, preferably with FM radio) as pressies, but all the HK/Far East sellers I see are charging really marked-up prices on the p&p, and won't combine shipping...

You can 'snipe' a player for well under Stg£20, but the p&p is as much again...

carbsy

peckerhead wrote:

Not meaning to hijack Dr Nick's thread, but can anyone recommend a seller that'll combine shipping? I want to buy three of them (512Mb, preferably with FM radio) as pressies, but all the HK/Far East sellers I see are charging really marked-up prices on the p&p, and won't combine shipping...

You can 'snipe' a player for well under Stg£20, but the p&p is as much again...

That's because their profit is hidden in the shipping.

CuppaCocoa

Bought 2 of them, 1 with a radio from China. Arrived pretty quickly and well packaged as a gift so no customs duty. Seller wouldn't combine postage though. Still cheaper than at home and nice little pieces. Got them on Ebay. Very easy to use (much better than the crappy iPod!).

kmart6

Don't mean to be a killjoy but a friend of mine nearly got stung for €250 while buying an mp3 from china. The only reason he saved it was the fact he was lucky enough that eBay had coped on to the seller being a con and just taking people's money.

peckerhead

carbsy wrote:

That's because their profit is hidden in the shipping.

Yup. Had an interesting exchange once with a guy from Singapore who explained to me that he sold 2,000 of these things per week... :eek:

Bidding starts at 99p and - usually - market forces drives up the final bid to £20 or more. But he needs to sell them for £30 to turn a profit. So you might think you've 'stolen' it for £15, but then you read the small print and find that you've to pay another £12-£15 p&p, plus obligatory 'insurance' @ £6.50 or so... (whereas in fact the guy can post it registered for £4-£5...)

So you Paypal the guy £36.50/Eur55 for a thing that costs over Eur100 in Dixons (Irl) Ltd.

Kinda an exercise in global capitalism, really... :rolleyes:

ozmo

peckerhead wrote:

So you might think you've 'stolen' it for £15, but then you read the small print and find that you've to pay another £12-£15 p&p, plus obligatory 'insurance' @ £6.50 or so... (whereas in fact the guy can post it registered for £4-£5...)

So you Paypal the guy £36.50/Eur55 for a thing that costs over Eur100 in Dixons (Irl) Ltd.
:rolleyes:

Ebay charge a % of the final selling price as commission. Then paypal charge a % of selling price as commission also. But neither ask for a % of the postage or packing costs.
So cheap selling price and high postage is best for seller.
Ebay are aware of this(most talked about thing in their forums) and dont seem too bothered about it - only asking to report it to them if its exessive and you wasnt clearly mentioned in the description.
I sell on Ebay myself- but only ever charge real postage costs.

Flinty

I bought one of those 512mb mp3 players from Asia. I love it. It cost me about €56 Euros all in. The postage was expensive, but even still, it's cheap as chips!

alc

any chance of some eBay seller links from those who had good experiences?

peckerhead

OK, 'global capitalism' is a bit grandiose-sounding... thanks for pointing out the simple maths of the thing, ozmo. The eBay/Paypal % on the selling price hadn't occurred to me - I've only ever bought stuff, so far.

If it's not too nosey of me, what kind of stuff do you sell? I once searched to see what Irish-based sellers were selling. Seemed to be a lot of olde Irish 'Limerick' lace / Guinness beer towels / bits of pottery / original artwork, the odd Irish-produced CDs, sets of Irish Euro coins, etc... Most of their buyers seemed to be from the US.

alc, I bought from http://stores.ebay.com/HK-CCTV-Store No problems, and pretty quick delivery (about 8 or 9 days)

CuppaCocoa

Here's the guy I bought from on Ebay: flashmaker003. He charges £9.99 postage + £4 insurance. He does wrap very well though and delivery is very quick.

yop

Ya got the 1GB with radio for 90 euro delivered to Ireland, got it from Ebay, no bother at all, took maybe 3 weeks to get here but happy out

Flinty

peckerhead wrote:

alc, I bought from http://stores.ebay.com/HK-CCTV-Store No problems, and pretty quick delivery (about 8 or 9 days)

Yup, bought from this guy too... took a little while to get here, but all else was great.

Altheus

eBay do care about high postage!

A. It means the true value is misrepresented so the person is less likely to go through with the sale.

B. Less money through eBay means less money for eBay.

It's a pain in the ass, especially with all the Hong Kong sellers, but fact is that it's next or near impossible to nail them down, they just open a new account, on a new credit card and start over and over again.

digitaldr

I've bought lots of stuff from various different Hong Kong sellers on Ebay. Usually arrives within about a week. An MP3 player I bought developed a fault after about a week, sent it back and got a full refund by PayPal.

If you're keen to find out more about a particular product/seller try sending a message to a previous buyer via the sellers feedback page. They're usually pretty helpful not to mention unbiased!

dcarroll

Is there any mp3 player forum here

rubadub

Altheus wrote:

eBay do care about high postage!

A. It means the true value is misrepresented so the person is less likely to go through with the sale.

If you don't know to read all the small print on ebay and sellers remarks you have only yourself to blame.

Ebay must care but what can they do? if they are really upset about misrepresentation they should FORCE all sellers to reveal the true postage and include it in the search, when sorting by price.

A US seller can say $10 post within the US and "will ship worldwide" they should be forced to quote the maximum worldwide rate (since they claim it can vary) I am pretty sure there is a standard rate to european countries from the US. I would use ebay more if they did this, I am sick of having to filter through pages of 99cent items with $70 postage, and also having to email sellers to find out the extortionate rates they are going to charge.

What really pisses me off is US sellers who ship "free" within the US but charge up to $50 to europe even though I know the postage will cost $6.50 airmail (exact same items I got from the same state). The cannot claim it is packaging since it was offered "free" to us buyers.

[/RANT]

parsi

ozmo wrote:

Ebay charge a % of the final selling price as commission. Then paypal charge a % of selling price as commission also. But neither ask for a % of the postage or packing costs.
So cheap selling price and high postage is best for seller.
Ebay are aware of this(most talked about thing in their forums) and dont seem too bothered about it - only asking to report it to them if its exessive and you wasnt clearly mentioned in the description.
I sell on Ebay myself- but only ever charge real postage costs.

The Paypal percentage is of the total amount received (incl.postage) - it's a pain in the neck for sellers but saves some hassle.. high postage only benefits you in avoiding ebay fees but can make a bit of difference.

Ro-76

How's the FM quality on these?

Does it have a digital display of the frequency, or is it one of those autoscan types?

Thanks,

Ro

rubadub

parsi wrote:

high postage only benefits you in avoiding ebay fees but can make a bit of difference.

It benefits the buyer and seller, since the seller can charge less and hence sell more. Any commonly sold items I have bought usually have high postage but always work out cheaper than those with low postage. The seller is probably making the exact same profit on both but can offer one at a lower price if the postage is high.
Everybody wins! except ebay, which breaks my heart since I hear the founder of ebay is destitiute, living on scraps.

Flinty

Ro-76 wrote:

How's the FM quality on these?

Does it have a digital display of the frequency, or is it one of those autoscan types?

Thanks,

Ro

The FM quality on mine is pretty poor to be honest. It has a display of the frequency (I think)...well, it has a bar that u can scroll along with 87 on one end and 108??? on the other. i only really wnated it for MP3s and the odd listen to Newstalk in the mornings, but I just use it for mp3s as the radio quality is in and out.

clearz

On the topic of rip off postage prices on ebay. I rececntly bought a new color screen for my nokia phone. It was 14 sterling for the screen and 7 sterling for the postage to Ireland when I got it there were stamps on it to the value of 1 pound sterling. Although I couldnt complain to much the total was 30 euro where phone shops in Ireland were quoting me 100 euro for the same screen.