A recent ebay vrigin, I have now made my first purchase on ebay and am in the process of selling my first item. I'm having great fun and it all seems too good to be true!
I'm thinking about starting a little ebay sideline -- have an ebay shop, be a regular seller, that kind of thing. Anyone use ebay to make money?
I've made some money selling things off ebay. One thing I would advise is to be completely honest about what your selling and postage costs tend to be more than you think.
Make sure you get a receipt for your postage, use payment methods like Paypal and keep in touch with your buyers so they're happy.
I don't use it a hell of alot but my feedback is 100% with 55 stars - the feedback is what's it's all about. You may find it hard to sell at first with little feedback. Oh yeah and ebay fees can be more than you think, so make sure and cover that with your selling price and happy days :)
just be careful who you buy off. I only buy off people who accept paypal. And only sell to paypal, it has protection built in so you know you won't get screwed.
I've done a little selling and it's been fine.. use paypal etc.
We've bought a couple of things that weren't so good.. but that's mainly my son's enthusiasm etc.
The fees do eat into your money though so it's important to bear that in mind.
Make sure that emails are coming from where they claim to be coming from. I sold a mobile on ebay and received an email from "Paypal" saying I had been paid. It didn't look right so I forwarded it to Paypal who told me it was fake. Good thing I didn't send the phone.
It's like any market - 95% of people are honest, the other 5% are out to scam you!
We bought off someone who didn't mail the goods to us, so we went to paypal and they got the money back and refunded us the difference.... so as someone stated above, use paypal for the built in protection.
I listed some textbooks on Amazon a while ago. They basically sit on their site for something like 60 days before they are removed. Desptie having the lowest price there wasn't any takers so couldn't really rate it.
a seller needs to be fully registered with PayPal otherwise you are not eligible for Seller Protection. So be careful, not every auction has a sell protection built-in.
For me it all boils down to one thing: Stay in touch at each stage and don't be lazy with the postage. If you have a decent friendly post office, then go in there and buy something small and they won't begrudge you weighing your item and getting UK, Europe and Rest of World prices before you post which you can then round up to the nearest £1 for Europe and RoW. If you are selling lots of the same thing you may then get a feel for how much something is supposed to cost.
For example, people who want £10 postage for a computer processor weighing nothing really hack me off and I just won't bid on their auctions. People who send Ebay items by recorded delivery just don't give a toss about their customers (might as well write "steal me" on the packages) and I don't bid on their auctions either. I charge £2-2.50 UK postage and split the cost of Special Delivery 1pm with the buyer and in four years have never had anyone pretending they didn't receive anything. The auction isn't over and Feedback shouldn't be expected until the item has arrived in the stated condition and is working.
The feedback system's now changed so too many one- and two-star experience ratings and even if Feedback comments remain a minefield of political correctness, people will see how you really feel (or you'll see lots of three star ratings).
If you want to pay by cheque don't bug the seller to post the goods before it clears, it was your choice not to use paypal and slow him down. When an auction is over, as a seller, I want to post it out and move on to the next.
OK so it boils down to quite a few things :-) What I couldn't tell you is how this British zoning system has had any effect. If you want your listings to be seen by Ebay.com users who haven't extended their search properties, you'll need to sign up to an American account if they let you.
