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Comment by hnav | Hacker News Reader

There's friction though, if the process is under one roof end-to-end, ebay can take 30-40% (15-20% today) of every transaction by just letting you dump your old stuff. Might even eat FB marketplace and CL.

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It's hard to get lower friction (register a new account) and lower fee (0%) than Craigslist.

People trying to sell their used junk aren't going to accept a 30-40% cut. It's why they aren't using eBay these days in the first place.

Not exactly, the biggest annoyance with eBay (in my experience) is dealing with shipping, disputes and returns. If I could recover even 50% of the value of unused items without dealing with the ridiculousness of p2p transactions (flakes, tire-kickers, scammers) I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Exactly this

Don't pawn shops already solve this problem? Make your way there, dump your stuff, get peanuts for it in exchange (but might still be worth it if you truly don't need said stuff).

When your bright new business-saving idea is to be a pawn shop I might wonder is this the most efficient place for me to keep my capital in

People regularly give businesses >50% cut to get cash immediately and this isn't even counting resellers who low ball people who don't know what they have.

I would. I don't sell on eBay because it's a hassle to manage all the rest of it. So I end up taking it to a place like Half-Price Books instead and get hardly anything, but at least it gets out of the house. 30-40% cut would be a significant step up compared to what I get from those places.

Speak for yourself. There's a reason places like Once Upon a Child and their parent stores exist. There's even other entirely digital stores on the sell for pennies instead of donating market.

People are broke. Just not everyone.

Spending days of negotiating on eBay with annoying strangers and packing it all up for a few lousy hundred is not my idea of a good time.

Let the workers at the recycling center sift through the stuff they are welcome to it.

Checkout the insane amount of money Goodwill makes because of people getting rid of their "junk". There are 151 independent Goodwill organizations and all of them have a CEO, usually making 6 figures a year.

https://paddockpost.com/2025/02/14/executive-compensation-at...

If people are giving stuff to Goodwill with no compensation, I'd say they definitely would give eBay stuff for a 30-40% cut.

"Goodwill Industries was established in 1902 and is widely known across the country as the place where we all donate clothing and household goods to help others."

That's the first sentence from your link. Clearly people don't treat this org, literally called "good will", the same as they treat freakin eBay.

I don't think this is true, because people are often willing to spend a bit of extra time to do something good, like make a donation, but wouldn't be willing to take that same time to make $10.

I regularly accept a 40% cut or more at “Hard Off” (a chain store that buys and sells used electronics in Japan). Why? Because I don’t want to deal with the hassle and risk of selling the items myself.

I’m able to bring in a box of items that I don’t use and are taking up space, and they pay me cash on the spot. It’s very convenient.

I think eBay buyers would also have more confidence buying from eBay/Gamestop than direct from other users.

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