Shill Bidding

M.D.

Data centers are never bought and paid for. Equipment constantly has to be refreshed (and believe me, a TB of high end storage is extremely expensive), cybersecurity costs are huge, cooling is expensive, redundant fiber lines, etc. I'm sure they could charge less and still be profitable, but just like anything else, they're the 800 pound gorilla in the room and therefore get to dictate the rules. I'm not defending them by any stretch though. For what they charge, they should be doing more to weed out the scam artists.

mokofoko

The buildings and land are bought and paid for. Servers should be good for 10 years. No comment on storage costs, but I wouldn't be shocked to find out that the cost is expensive and never-ending. Fiber lines should be a one-time cost--even phone companies generally never do maintenance on their fiber. Certainly paying a good deal for electricity to power equipment and cool server rooms. I'm sure there are plenty of costs I'm not considering.

I'm still of the opinion that they're charging sellers way too much for facilitating a sale, considering that it's really paypal that does the heavy-lifting when individuals need protection--and they only take a 3% cut.

mozartman

In the collectibles world generally, many well-established dealers with their own web sites and even their own well-appointed and well-stocked brick and mortar stores, put items up for sale on ebay that could easily be bought from them directly. I think they do this as a form of advertising because some customers, especially first-time buyers who are not experienced collectors, don't know about these dealers or realize that they might be better off going to them directly rather than to random unknown sellers on ebay.

arkstfan

Buy it Now non-auctions they are there because the traffic is on ebay. True auctions or auctions with a buy it now are often just trying to move inventory. I have a friend who has a flea market space and when something hasn't moved within 90 days to 120 dumps it on ebay to get something else in the space that might move.