Starting selling on eBay - any tips?

Thanks all - good advice.

I'm kind of excited at the prospect now - how sad am I?

6) Be sure to put a little extra care into how you photograph the items you're selling. It can make all the difference!

Phew.

Thanks for the heads up Doc - so I take it that it's not de riguer to provide action shots of the collection of sex toys I was hoping to sell?

Not sure if you're joking but they wont allow the sale of sex toys! got given a toy as a joke by a friend and tried to sell it - it was swiftly removed 2 minutes later!!!

Yes, it was a joke BTW.

dmos87 said:

... got given a toy as a joke by a friend

Click to expand...

Ah yeah. That's what they all say.

I'm not a prude at all, I'd admit it if I had purchased one for myself but I am perfectly happy in the bedroom department thank you - I have no need for such things!! Seriously though, It was a funny gift at the time, we moved homes so I did a clear-out and came accross it still in the packaging. eBay wouldnt allow a sale so I gave it away!

Is it still for sale?

Caveat - based on what a friend has said (she sells a fair bit of stuff on ebay) - the photos & how you present the item is all important.

Be prepared to get emails/texts at all hours asking questions about the item.

Also, I hope you live near a post office as people do expect the item to be shipped immediately (waiting a week 'til you have more stuff to post is a non runner)

The friend I mentioned buys stuff in clearout sales and sells them on. I always reckoned that unless you are doing it on a resonably decent scale, it is alot of work - she was raving about the 200% markup she got on a dress - cost €10 & sold for €30. But given the time involved in getting the dress, taking phots, answering questions and going to the post office, I reckon it was a hard earned €20 & not much of it profit when she took out the time and effort involved. She never seems to consider the other item that only covers it's purchase price, which will clearly bring down the overall margin.

It's a different story if you have 10 dresses on at the one time & can get it all done in a decent timescale.

Anyway, if you have aload of stuff to get rid of, why not give it a go.

As I mentioned warlier, and which can't be stressed enough, is to watch out for scammers.

I have been done a couple of times. People claiming they never received the item I sent (even though they had it up for sale themselves a week later) etc. So always get proof pf posting, and if possible make them sign for it on delivery.

I would also try to avoid people with very little feedback. Its ok on your description to say "Only bid if you have 10 positive feedback or more". But also watch out for some bidders, who can have feedback of 20 or 30 despite only registering with eBay 2 weeks before. They set up other accounts and buy from themselves or friends to get their score up, then try to rip people off.

But overall you can still make decent money. There are some stupid people on eBay and they can often pay silly money for things.

Recently I did a quick trawl through my cupboards and sold 9 things that were gathering dust. I got £260 for them all. This then brings in another issue I have with eBay, the fees.

This cost me £24 in eBay charges, and then of course when all the winning bidders paid by PayPal they also take a % of the amount. PayPal are an eBay company so they get you twice.

Iv been put off selling stuff on eBay purely due to eBay and paypal charges
Most of my items start at €1.49 so I don't pay an insertion fee.
but then it sells for that ebay takes a percentage of the total and paypal takes ~40c for the service of taking your fees.

so I'm not listing cheap stuff any more I think its just not worth it. €4.99 will be my new minimum.

As for tips.

If you have photo-bucket or similar on-line photo storage you can add as many picture in the listing as you want for free. But you have to do it in the HTML tab when creating the listing so get yer "HTML for dummies" book out if you don't know what it is. This also gives you the ability to show large clear images of things rather than the small ones that are standard to eBay.

90% of stuff I have sold on Ebay.ie goes abroad. 80% to the UK. In fact I rarely find anything on eBay.ie. Most of the stuff on it is RUBBISH or overpriced.

I have found on occasion that the postage is more than I have quoted. In this case I tend to take the loss rather than explaining to the PO that I dont like there charges and delaying posting somthing by contacting the buyer for more money. Mostly its 50c to €1 but they all add up.

Sold 2 books recently to the same buyer for €3 and got €16 for postage.
postage turned out to be €18, paypal too about 50c, ebay took 20-30c
so that left me with a few cent. Then the seller left feedback saying average postage rates .

What I do sometimes is quote a postage rate above what the estimate is and note in the listing that the postage rates are high estimates and any overcharging will be refunded. People are always happy when they get money back after buying something.

Say in your listings that you will leave feedback when buyer leaves feedback or they wont do it at all.

as mentioned earlier best times to end an auction is sat/sun - this calender may help though http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/calendar