Selling on eBay?

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Dec 28, 2016
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Does anyone has any feedback or experience with eBay as a seller?

Have done local trading and want to sell and offload a few things where no bites locally, appreciate the feedback and help
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I've only sold things on a casual basis, not as a full-time or even part-time eBay seller (same situation as you, more or less). I had no issues at all. I posted plenty of pictures, described my items as accurately as possible, and it went well. I haven't done it in a long time though so as far as tips go, mine may be out of date. Some are:
1) Start the asking price at something very enticing. If it's too high, people simply move on. If the item is worth a certain amount, the odds of bids getting close to that are very good. Yes, it's possible that it will sell for less than you'd like this way though....
2) You can set a 'reserve' price but again, don't set it too high or people don't bother.
3) Don't rip people off on the shipping charges. Some sellers sell their items for dirt-cheap prices but ship it "USPS Priority" for $4.99 or something around there but charge the buyer $19.99. Sadly, too many buyers don't factor in shipping charges. I'm pretty sure eBay has a shipping calculator and they get discounted rates from the common carriers. The shipping calculator will determine the rate based on where you are and where the winning bidder is. It also allows you to "pad" that amount (to cover buying a box, tape, etc, if necessary).
4) Package the items extremely well. Take pictures showing the packaging process before you tape the box shut. This is for "just in case" situations....
5) Restrict it to US and/or Canadian customers (this is for your protection).
6) Remember that nowadays, eBay/Paypal tend to side with the buyers by default, then you have to prove your case. Another "just in case" situation....
 
I sold some things there before but they were all specialty CATV passives or CATV fittings so the type of buyer is less likely to make a false claim and they were highly unlikely to be damaged in transit. I bought a lot of 8GB DDR3 modules real cheap last year and barely broke even because I had some get damaged in shipping, which was my fault. I'm not sure I'd sell a whole lot on eBay people love making false claims and they love to side with the buyer too, I only sell stuff there that you could throw off a building and it'd be fine and caters to a niche crowd that's unlikely to file any calims.
 
Sold a thing for 60$, they got 12% commission. YMMV but add on to that Paypal fee for receiving and possibly transferring the money to your cc account.
Suddenly local/regional sites look very attractive. I'm in Europe btw., but dont think fees vary too greatly.
 
Originally Posted by DrDanger
Sold a thing for 60$, they got 12% commission. YMMV but add on to that Paypal fee for receiving and possibly transferring the money to your cc account.
Suddenly local/regional sites look very attractive. I'm in Europe btw., but dont think fees vary too greatly.

In the states most of what I sold was 10% from eBay then 35cents+2.9% from Paypa
 
Originally Posted by DrDanger
Sold a thing for 60$, they got 12% commission. YMMV but add on to that Paypal fee for receiving and possibly transferring the money to your cc account.
Suddenly local/regional sites look very attractive. I'm in Europe btw., but dont think fees vary too greatly.


I've been miffed by this too but think of the exposure... if you can't sell it for $25 on craigslist or FB marketplace it's worth it.

Same as a band and their manager. The manager makes it happen.

I recently had to sell a nintendo doodad that my kid accidentally bought at a local record store and we nearly broke even. Ebay and Paypal have a very slick shipping interface that includes a discount, and automatic notification to the buyer. Just print out a 1/2 page label and glue/tape it to the package.
 
beware of Canada, my friend sold regularly + many times buyers hounding him when merchandise SETS in customs!!
 
12% is pretty high although possible if selling cheaper items. eBay is something like 50 cents for a basic auction and you can price that up to a few dollars. I can't find PayPal's fees right off hand, but they are not too bad either and of course you can always have them pay through something else if you want. In my experience the only stuff not worth selling on eBay are big, but cheap items that no one will want to pay to ship. False claims can be a problem, I've had eBay go either way with buyer or seller. With Craigslist so full of scammers these days there are not a lot of good options.
 
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eBay will take 10% fee on the price + shipping. PayPal will take 2.9% of the total transaction amount. Then there is shipping cost, discounted for eBay sellers.

Unless your margin is high, these fees will kill you
 
Only on used, high value, low local demand item. As others said they take a cut and most importantly you have to deal with shipping effort. I personally would sell something locally for a bit of a discount instead.
 
Stick to USA only, take excellent pics, and do not accept returns. Ebay lets you declare all sales final. You have to do everything right every time and you still lose some orders to shipping loss or successful scams. Plan on losing 1-2% of orders and price accordingly if you sell in volume. Ebay will actually back up the seller a lot more often than Amazon. Amazon is a joke when it comes to awarding refunds at the sellers expense for no reason.
 
I have sold a ton of items on Ebay, wife sold even more. Generally no problems but every once in a while you get a complainer. I have bought a ton as well with good luck except for one item. Bought a used Iphone, supposedly certified and working perfectly. Get it home and notice one of the buttons is wonky. The guy had a "no returns" policy. But Ebay went to bat for me since he admitted no item is perfect in an email. I told him, but you claimed it was gone thru, certified and in perfect working order. He fought tooth and nail but in the end, he had to take it back.
 
Yes the pictures really matter … I almost passed over this used wrench that came today
(only use a six point box for drain plugs) since the pictures were bad.
Took a chance and it's in good shape … shouldn't be like that.

F4ECC115-92ED-4BF3-8BC3-245E4F6E1432.jpeg
 
Yes, I've sold on eBay for years, hundreds of things. Not as high volume though as people who make (or used to make at least) a living on eBay by trolling closeout sales.

My opinion is that selling on eBay is dead. For years now eBay has been making it harder and harder for sellers to sell and make everything skewed toward buys. It was an attempt to draw in more customers who would have otherwise went to Amazon. For a seller this means that buyers can pretty much return things for any reason and you have to pay the postage or let them keep the item. This opens the system to serious abuse (I've actually experienced it).

For example someone could buy a shirt from you, decide they don't like it and to get their money back if you don't offer voluntary returns they can punch a hole in it, claim to eBay it came that way and they will automatically win. You're out the money, you're out a perfectly fine shirt you could have sold to someone else, you either let them keep the shirt or pay the return postage to them so they can send it back to you. eBay claims they look for patterns to find abuse so any buyer can do this multiple times and still not get caught.

I sold a 1/2" drive digital torque wrench once, it cost me a little more than twenty dollars alone to ship due to the wrench being long and heavy and the blow-molded case. The joker filed a return case claiming he didn't know it wasn't torque-angle (the auction clearly states it is not, it's his job to research and confirm the item is what he wants, not mine). I was lucky he was stupid enough to state this in the complaint so eBay found in favor of me because they don't allow complaints due to buyer's remorse. Had he been smarter he could have just lied and claimed the wrench didn't work. eBay would have ruled in his favor and I would have had to pay the twenty or so dollars to ship a really heavy digital torque wrench back to me all because he didn't research the item before he bought it. You better be absolutely certain you're willing to take the risks when selling on eBay. It is not seller-friendly at all.
 
Originally Posted by NoNameJoe
Yes, I've sold on eBay for years, hundreds of things. Not as high volume though as people who make (or used to make at least) a living on eBay by trolling closeout sales.

My opinion is that selling on eBay is dead. For years now eBay has been making it harder and harder for sellers to sell and make everything skewed toward buys. It was an attempt to draw in more customers who would have otherwise went to Amazon. For a seller this means that buyers can pretty much return things for any reason and you have to pay the postage or let them keep the item. This opens the system to serious abuse (I've actually experienced it).

For example someone could buy a shirt from you, decide they don't like it and to get their money back if you don't offer voluntary returns they can punch a hole in it, claim to eBay it came that way and they will automatically win. You're out the money, you're out a perfectly fine shirt you could have sold to someone else, you either let them keep the shirt or pay the return postage to them so they can send it back to you. eBay claims they look for patterns to find abuse so any buyer can do this multiple times and still not get caught.

I sold a 1/2" drive digital torque wrench once, it cost me a little more than twenty dollars alone to ship due to the wrench being long and heavy and the blow-molded case. The joker filed a return case claiming he didn't know it wasn't torque-angle (the auction clearly states it is not, it's his job to research and confirm the item is what he wants, not mine). I was lucky he was stupid enough to state this in the complaint so eBay found in favor of me because they don't allow complaints due to buyer's remorse. Had he been smarter he could have just lied and claimed the wrench didn't work. eBay would have ruled in his favor and I would have had to pay the twenty or so dollars to ship a really heavy digital torque wrench back to me all because he didn't research the item before he bought it. You better be absolutely certain you're willing to take the risks when selling on eBay. It is not seller-friendly at all.
 
But in reality, your talking out of 100 sales, maybe you have an issue with 1-2%....right? Ebay is expensive but it does sell a lot of items that are next to impossible to sell locally. What are the other choices?
 
Yes. Had an account there for over 20 year. Occasionally sell. The 10% + 3%PP gets to be a killer, but I'm paying for the exposure. Since they take the fees off shipping costs too, I let eBay determine the shipping cost and then ship things from my work account. They also collect sales tax now. Of course I will report that when I file taxes, but it's worth noting. What could be a quick and straight transactions now has numerous fees, shipping costs, and taxes. Way more complicated than it needs to be.
 
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