slight OT - help with selling on ebay

[Piper]

Hi All

Sorry for the slight ot posting. I have accumulated various tools which came in sets that I have duplicates of. Just bought a socket set as it was cheaper to get the whole thing but don't need the ratchet sort of story. I've contemplated selling on ebay but have never looked into it. For those of you that do, can you enlighten us newbie ebay sellers about being a seller?

I know I can look at the ebay site and see costs, ... but I'm just wondering from a regular guy point of view what it's like to sell on ebay. I'm not going to get rich for sure but what are your general experiences like.

Piper

 

[Junkman]

I have been selling for a number of years on eBay, and the most important thing to do is to provide a good description, post a picture, and be honest about condition, etc. I usually use fixed shipping based on what it cost to ship to the furthest distance from my home to the other side of the country. I weigh the item, and then go to the www.usps.com website and put in the zip codes and weight. It will tell you how much it costs to ship. Then I add a few cents to round it up to the next dollar. Using this method, the bidder will know exactly how much it will cost on top of the bid. If you accept PayPal, then you can figure that your total auction costs for both eBay and PayPal will be about 6 10 % of the auction total. This figure varies because of what auction services you pick. I usually just start everything at $9.99 for the basic listing fee. I only use a reserve if I know the item is going to be valuable and there is a chance it might not get one bid. Listing fees can get expensive quickly. Occasionally, they have listing "sales" where no matter what the starting price is, the fee is lower. This past week they had this for one day and the listing fee was a flat 15 cents. They want to bolster the auctions so they are hoping that the more listings, the more that will sell. They collect a final value fee on all auctions, and that is where they make the bulk of the money. Feedback is also important, so make sure your customer is happy and leave good feedback for the buyers. I usually wait till the buyer leaves the feedback, so I don't get zinged by a stupid buyer that makes a negative feedback after I have said how good he is. There are a lot of stupid and mean people on eBay. Just be leery of them. If you have a problem with a buyer, try to work it out, because in the end, if you get a lot of negative feedback, it will hurt you. If you presently have a good feedback as a buyer, you might want to start another user name for selling. You might also try selling some of those tools here. It will save the fees and might be just as profitable in the end.

 

[wythors]

I've had really good luck selling on eBay for several years. Take good pictures, give thorough and honest descriptions, price your shipping appropriately and do what you say you're going to do. I start all of my auctions at .01 with no reserve and I've done really well that way. I think people are a lot more likely to bid on an auction like that than one that's started too high. Also, it can be difficult when you first start out to get people to bid a lot on your products. Most people are wary of folks with little or no feedback. Your feedback rating is your credibility on there. I'd recommend that you make four or five small eBay purchases before you start selling so you've got something in your feedback file.

Other than that, good luck! Selling on eBay can be a great way to offload that stuff that's cluttering up your house and your toolbox.

 

[The Super]

Ebay is a great way to get rid of extra treasures, but selling on ebay can be a hassle.

You will get weird messages from bidders. If the messages get really weird, I just ignore them.

Shipping is a pain. Find a good source of boxes and packing materials. You do not want to pay the crazy fees charged by the UPS Stores. Whenever possible, I use US postal service priority mail as the post office gives you free boxes for priority mail and the cost to ship is less than UPS.

For shipping heavy tools, look into the Flat Rate Prirority boxes. For $9, you can ship whatever you can fit into the box.

You will also need to choose a way to get paid. I require everyone to pay me via paypal.com because it is fast.

You will also get lots of requests to ship items out of the country. Unless you are a customs expert, avoid this mess.

 

[GTS225]

From a (exclusively) buyers viewpoint, the others are right. ACCURATE descriptions, and good pic or three will tell most of the story.

I cannot agree with "The Super" concerning Paypal only as a payment method. I, (personally), have a hard rule to NOT send my credit card, or other financial info over the net, so I pay exclusively with USPS money orders.
If you limit payment to Paypal only, you also limit your customer base. I would strongly suggest you DO NOT accept personal checks.

I hate seeing "reserves" listed. I figure if you want X dollars out of the item, have the bidding start at that, and let it go from there. It's an auction forum....sometimes you have to take your chances with the final outcome.

Communicate with the buyer. I send a message to the seller asking for a mailing address, I follow up with emails the day I send the payment, along with the money order number, and the day I recieve the item. I don't think it's too much to ask that that seller let me know when payment gets recieved, and when the item gets shipped out.

I'm not a huge user of Ebay, and have only about 140-150 transactions. Of those, I have left one negative, and one neutral. The negative was 1.5 years ago, but the neutral was about a week ago. The seller had a badly inaccurate description, but was excellent in communication and shipping/packaging, and I allowed credit for the latter two qualities. I will post honest feedback, and will not attempt to scam a seller out of his offerings, but I'm reasonably honest, and there's a lot of scammers out there.

If you're willing to let Ebay have access to your financial info, and make youself familiar with good "people skills", I suggest you'll do ok.

Roger

 

[The Super]

USPS money orders

If buyers ask nicely enough, I will let them pay with USPS money orders. Do cash the money orders at the post office without giving the post office your name so they cannot come after you if somebody sends you a funny money order.