Thank you cobby, well put. Completely matches my feelings, too, I wish I could click on the little heart below your post more than once.
– Markus
I am completely ok to pay this fee, I even think it is a very low one considering the value we get and we always gotten with GS.
I used it for so many years now, and I rarely had troubles, even when I did, I got help within hours, which you can’t find easily today. From 5 years before until recently, I was often wondering, GS team, how you survive on such a low, one time fee. I am in business long enough to tell you, every other option is very pricey and can’t give you the comfort of GS, that’s for sure. As a non-stop, 24/7 user of GS, I cherish the flexibility, the convince and the mobility it gives me every day, I worked with many different softwares during those years (covering different fields), this one is flawless to me.
Only the ones, that can image what kind of hard work is required to create and maintain such a platform, will understand the reasons behind this pricing decision. I also got scared of subscription plan, didn’t want to involve in such a thing, but that lasted a second.
Ilja said it right, Ebay website is not as bad as it used to be ,the app is ok, so for a low volume user, this option is complete ok, in my opinion. And as a business model, I am learning it the hard way now, it is better with few good sales, less troubles and time, than with thousands smaller.
P.S The GS 8 is great so far, amazing! 
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Sorry to disagree… I have a background in software development, too, I know the amount of work that is required.
The discussion here is not about the price increase. In fact, in my understanding no one questioned that the current low one-time fee no longer offers enough income to run a sustainable business.
It’s about the dev teams decision to offer only one kind of pricing that, as the discussion here shows, does not match every current users demand.
Otherwise, I fully agree: yes, GS 8 looks great and amazing. Just honestly not amazing enough for me to spend money on it monthly.
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I truly understand you, but I think you will appreciate it at the end, and you will see in time that this is not a high fee to ask, and you will become one of the happy, demanding customers 
I don’t know where are you based, but at some places this tax is two large, fancy coffees, here is around two burgers and two colas (and we are a country with terribly low salaries), a family subscription to Spotify etc. You won’t find anything cheaper, not discussing the quality of the product, so don’t be in a hurry to leave.
I understand your point and I see your effort, but please accept that I will not subscribe, no matter what equivalent in food or coffee or any other service the requested subscription rate is. I don’t see the value of the subscription rate, because it mostly covers costs for services I am not going to use. So, for me, there are cheaper options, for sure. They will not be as convenient, which is unfortunate, but they will save me 15 EUR every month. Which indeed I might prefer to invest in having a meal or any other kind of good time with my son instead.
This topic, however, was never an issue of cost for me. It was more about the feeling of not being valued as a (current) customer, whose needs and requests were simply turned down. I feel even stronger about this now than before I expressed my concerns. And the reaction I got here completely contradicts the way that I use to run my own business(es). Or actually handled any job I have had so far (even when I was employed).
I am not in a hurry to leave, in fact I will just stay with what I have (GS 7) as long as I can, or until I have set up my alternative solution.
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I understand your point.
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Sad to get this news. I have used GS fir years, paying for upgrades, but I am not a business user, so the new pricing leaves me out in the cold. Is thus the best link for the last version of GS7?
Thanks and good luck to all.
Disappointed, but Dev has thought it though, so that’s the way it goes…
“ The Beta 3 of GarageSale 7.0.17 is available for you to download from the URL below:
https://downloads.iwascoding.com/downloads/GarageSale_7.0.17b3.dmg
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Have you seen that the subscription pricing only applies when you are listing more than 50 items per month?
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I followed this discussion for a while now. And I can understand every point, even of those who do not want to subscribe and therefore leave GS and use other tools.
I don´t like subscription licensing models, too, but it seems they are the future for many companies.
But I subcribed without hesitating, and I won´t even have a problem if the beta-time won´t be kind of refunded. I simply want GarageSale stay alive, because at this time it seems the best option for my business to set up ebay auctions - point. I am coming from a time, where specialized software simply costed MUCH money, 1000.-Euro, 2000.-Euro or more. And as I know about the development process, I think that were and are valuable prices for software.
I support the point of Ilja to stay at the model they started now. If they change any of the conditions, there will always be users that are not confident with those.
I am o.K. with whatever they do, it is worth the money, they offer good support. In my opinion they simply made the mistake to be way to cheap in the past…
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I fully agree with you Markus. After the initial shock I now realise that FOR MY PURPOSE this is still really good value for money.
However, I would favour lifting the limit from 50 to something a bit larger for the casual users. Why lose those clients who have supported you for many years and would still continue to subscribe but under a different model.
It has been quite difficult at times over the last X months whilst testing 8 Beta but the improvements in speed have been massive.
David
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So, I’m late to the party here. I’m a very small business & being a Mac user have used GS for many years, I regularly have an average of 250/270 listings in total & all individual items, no bulk quantities. What is the cost to me annually for GS8 or, can I just stick with GS7 ? other than listing new items I don’t use the vast majority of tools it provides currently so other than hitting me hard in the pocket loads of pro tools will not benefit me at all.
I think you can stay on GS7 as long as you want - and as long as ebay does not change things that are not available in GS7.
so long as GS7 works it’s more than enough for me, have no need at all for tools etc. I create a basic template & drag over images, whilst I’d happily pay double what I paid for GS7 & I appreciate all the hard work that goes into keeping GS going I’m simply not getting enough out of it to justify paying $15 a month as mentioned, guessing many would but for me it’s a basic tool to get my listings from a Mac to eBay
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Ok it is fair 
Hello @fedege96
I need to sell @ eBay, I need to pay my bills, that is why I bought a GS 8 upgrade license, the problem is I am starting to sell again, my last sale was a long time ago…
I usually sell vintage toys, but I am very worried about professional sellers have gone away. Where I can learn more about the reason these seller are not selling anymore @ eBay? maybe a group @ eBay?
Thank in advance for any help you can provide me
I probably will not upgrade to GS8 as I am winding down my eBay sales moving to other markets that GS does not work on. I mostly sell collectibles, glass, pottery, porcelain, antiques, art and unique previously owned items. GTC has killed my sales. Not even half of what I had one year ago.
GTC is great for sellers with multiples of an item. The more they sell and the cheaper the price, the more views they will get as Cassini will determine that it is a successful item that buyers want to see.
However, with one off used item sales, if the item does not sell right away, Cassini will still treat it like the multiple quantity items decide that it is a stale item that buyers should not see at the top of lists and will drop it down to the bottom of the search results. Or even hide it. You all have seen where a search where it tells you that it found say 120, but only shows you say 67. The unseen ones may be your stale listing. With fixed time listings, you get a better chance to be seen as they gets better placement with “New Listing” and “Ending Soon” and they do not wind up in the Cassini black hole of stale listings. GTC gets a “New Listing” the first time it lists, but not when it relists. And it does not get an “Ending Soon” to create some urgency in the buyer.
So, while GTC is great for sellers of 100 same widgets, it is terrible for sellers of unique items that may take a few months to find a buyer for that special item. The longer it sits unsold, the more likely, it will not show in search results. I have switched about 100 GTC to 7 day auctions to see if I have any better luck. However, I am looking at other sites and have been having more luck elsewhere.
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Hello @jedikeeper ,
eBay situation is no longer the one of years ago, and this is especially tangible in many categories for many different reasons: better competitors sites, expensive eBay fees compared to restricted turnover, terrible indexing, which is now far worse thanks to GTC policy (@CAL explained everything), and so on… If you give a look to any ebay community forum, you will find tons of similar complaints. What’s worse for us, is that eBay does not yet understand there is a huge gap between industrial and multiple quantity goods and one-of-a-kind collectibles. If you sell toys or antiques as @CAL, you really should start giving an eye to other sites.
I found myself in your situation during 2018. I had to stop listing in eBay at the end of 2017 and restarted only at beginning of 2019. When I restarted, I felt a huge gap between the past. During 2018 I followed active listings (about 5000 at that time), but didn’t list anything new and this is never a good choice because it’s hard to obtain again the previous visibility since Cassini hide your single-item-listings if they do not sell. In 2018 years I went with other marketplaces (e.g. Catawiki) and fairs, and the gap was enormous compared to eBay. If you have time and well worth goods, don’t leave ebay but start trying somewhere else. If you have hundred thousands goods of little worth (postcard, photos, paper ephemera), eBay is unfortunately still the only leading solution, but due to new policies, as explained above, the only way to survive is listing new items from morning to evening and/or investing huge % of your income in promoted listings, but it might be not enough…
This is just a little fast explanation, tell me if you need any other suggestion from my side.
Federico
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What other markets would that be?
Thank you @CAL and @fedege96, Of course I have tons of question but first I will try to list some items in eBay to see with my own eyes, If I am selling or not
If I have a further question or If I need a suggestion I will post it for sure
Once again Thank you very much
Hi everybody,
I followed this discussion for quite a while now and it appears that there are basically two kinds of sellers using GarageSale: volume sellers, for which the subscription model and price increase doesn’t seem a major problem and those selling unique items, like collectibles or spare parts, for which the price increase is more problematic, because they have many (> 50) unique (quantity = 1) items.
I belong to the second category.
Like Neal, and others, I am “old-school buy-it-own-it for software” and basically more a Windows guy than a Mac one. So, I had bought a second hand MacBook especially for using GarageSale, because after the end of TurboLister it was the only standalone that I could find as a user without an eBay monthly subscription plan (at the exception of another one that I knew: etope lister).
Recently, I carried out a study comparing eBay and Amazon margins.
I was wrong, because I missed that eBay also takes its 10% margin on shipping costs.
Example: for an item at 5$ with 15$ shipping cost, Ebay’s 10% margin is calculated on a 20$ value.
Given that PayPal takes 4.4% on cross-border sales (vs 2.9% on domestic sales), and assuming that the fixed fee of PayPal is 0.30$ (assumed same as for a domestic sale because not mentioned), Ebay+PayPal margins would be 70.6% for the cross-border sale of a 5$ item with 15$ shipping costs.
Marketplaces-and-payment-processor-fees-for-American-individual-seller_v3.zip (10.5 KB)
Paypal margins are even much higher in my country than for an American user.
I did’t count the additional exchange rate margin that the buyer supports.
I don’t know if Amazon also has similar practice of charging on shipping costs.
So, trying to answer Ilja’s question:
Knowing this, you should ask yourself if the value/time saved that GarageSale provides to you really isn’t worth those $15/month we are asking for.
… let’s make a little math.
Assume the seller has 100 unique items listed (spare parts or collectibles), with a mean value of 50$ per item. Shipping costs: 15$/item.
Total value (including shipping): 65$ per item (for the computation of fees)
Margins of Ebay+PayPal for a cross-border sale (as reffered to the 50$ item value) : 20% (see attached Excel spreadsheet.)
Assume that this user sells 10% of his inventory every year.
So, 10 items sold per year, for a turnover of 500$ (without shipping costs).
Price of GarageSale Pro subscription : 15$/month, so 180$/year.
180$ / 500$ = 36% of the sale volume (10 items sold at 50$ each)
So, the total cost of GarageSale subscription + Ebay (without subscription) + PayPal (cross-border) in this situation would be 56% (36%+20%). Leaving 44% of the sales price for the seller …
I think iwascoding’s team is missing a very important element : eBay’s strength (as compared to Amazon) is still for “garage sales”, i.e. for collectibles and spare parts.
Keep in mind, that GarageSale is a niche application, with only a few hundred active users (some of which a very demanding). That means the cost of maintaining GarageSale has to be split among only these few users. Naturally, you might need to pay a little more compared to non-niche mainstream applications
GarageSale addresses a specific need, but there is no reason for it being a niche application.
It should be a mass market application. (Or killer app if you prefer !)
It is difficult to find stats about the number of sellers on eBay.
Let’s assume it is 50 millions (https://www.quora.com/How-many-sellers-are-on-eBay)
If 10% use a Mac, it is still 5 millions.
If half of them speak either English, German, French or any language in which GarageSale is available, it is still 2.5 millions.
So, there is still potential for a huge growth of the consumer base.
Even without subscription, you could segment the market.
With an entry-price limited software (e.g. 19$) and more expensive software variants (with more modules or allowing more items). Let’s say 70$, 150$, 250$ or some prices like that.
Don’t forget that in countries with lower income than Germany, even a 40$ expense for a software can be important.
Growing the user base massively, you could then possibly rewrite the interface with Qt and reach even more millions of Windows users.
At night and during weekends with been working on GarageSale: continuously integrating eBay’s and Apple’s changes, handling user support, fixing bugs, etc…
(…)
PS. It’s 10.30 PM now. Arrived at the office at 9 AM this morning.
For sure you have been working hard on the software but I believe you should focus on the core (integrating eBay’s and Apple changes) and outsource some tasks like :
-
translations - : I know a developper that for instance offers a free license in exchange of a free translation. This is a win-win deal for growing your user base for a almost null translation cost.
-
community support - Not closing the topics after 10 days would avoid new threads being constantly opened for matters that were already treated. Amongst your multi-years users, some could possibly provide help for newcomers, so that you have more time for coding.
-
templates : Since I’m familiar with (X)HTML markup, new templates are totally useless for me.
A few templates as examples are always useful, but building templates is not essential and can be left to users / partners. -
special features : features like “Send with Endicia” are totally useless to me. Maybe could they commercialized as optional modules and provide you additional source or revenue. This would also help you to see which modules your consumers are ready to pay for (and worth maintaining) and which are not.
You could possibly also give up some “gadget” changes like:
- adds support for ‘Dark Mode’ appearance on macOS 10.14 Mojave.
One more thing:
… betting the company on our ability to ship a major upgrade in time before the money from the last upgrade runs out
Major upgrades are sometimes necessary, but reading you it seems you’re facing a working capital issue. Aircraft manufacturers know very well this situation, because developing a new (serie of) aircraft(s) can last 15 years before the first plane is ready for sale. If they minimize their need for working capital or something goes wrong and is delayed, they can very easily go bankrupt.
But with software you could commercialize minor upgrades to your existing user base.
For instance “upgrade from GarageSale 8.1 to 8.2 for the amount of …”.
The users who upgrade would benefit from new features before those awaiting the next major release.
When I see how many new features you coded, this is awesome. You may have commercialized less ambitious versions meanwhile.
As you understood, altough I understand your need to massively increase your turnover, I mostly agree with Freedolin and others that there might be better options than your new subscription model.
Don’t take it bad.
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I didn´t read your complete post (have no time at the moment) and you may be basically kind of right, but: In your example, if someone onlysells about 10 items per year with 100 items listed: Why would he need a tool like Garagesale to set those 100 items up? You may then also simply start them within ebay and don´t need an additional tool. That should not be so hard to do I think.
It is easy to make examples where the subscription model and the 50 items limitation would seem bad. But: What do we all have as a benefit if iwascoding rethinks their subscription model and they have to stop working on GS because they can´t get enough money from GS to live from? I think they have calculated and thought about how to work on, and the may have been calculating that some users don´t use GS anymore then. But for those who will use GS in the future, it will be good if GS still exists in 2 years.
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