Getting Started with Ebay

Lucky Cynic

Hey guys. I've been reevaluating my possessions and I think it is time to clear some of this good stuff out. I have too many knick knacks and things that are still worth something/useful to some folks, so why not get rid of them? I'm not really looking to become a really aggressive Ebayer trying to turn a huge profit, but I am looking to make a few extra bucks while at the same time getting rid of things. Now for setting up ebay to sell, that I am not sure on how to start. That and how to get my monies back from Paypal in the form of a neat check.

That being said, I'm looking to get rid of some electronic odds and ends, and books for the most part. I'm thinking of starting bids at just 99 cents and let the buyer pay for the shipping. Some things will build up, others, probably won't which is fine. What do you guys think and have to offer a newbie ebayer.

Forar

By "letting the buyer pay the shipping", I assume you mean you'll determine the S&H costs after the item is sold? In my opinion/experience, that may well hurt your ability to sell.

When I buy an item, I want to know what I'm getting into, all in. If the S&H is "to be determined" it's a dealbreaker for me, and unless it's something I highly value at an absurdly low price, I'll skip over it for auctions with listed S&H costs. If nothing else, it just means you'll probably be fielding some (or a lot) of requests from people for at least a rough number.

My suggestion would be to research what the items you're selling are going for, and while doing that, check what some other sellers (especially the big ones who are moving a lot of product) are putting for their S&H. Within some variation, this should be roughly what it costs to ship the item (based on their packaging, the item's size/weight, where it's going, etc). They might have some ways of shipping a bit cheaper than you have available, but at least you'll know that Items like X usually ship for $2-4, so maybe putting it up for $3-4 will minimize the likelihood of you getting stuck with a S&H bill over what you got from the buyer, while giving others an idea of what they're getting into and thus increasing the odds of people bidding on your stuff.

I'm by no means a power seller, but I listed a bunch of stuff years ago, and am nearly up to a 500 rating between that and some casual buying over the past decade.

Now, books can be tricky as they're pretty heavy (by a mail perspective), especially a bunch together, but also keep in mind some sort of combined shipping. Even if it's just $1 off or something. Unless you're trying to make cash on the S&H (which can put people off, I know it often does for me), you're likely still coming out ahead and it can inspire people to buy multiple items, which adds a convenience factor for you (better to sell 3 books each to 4 people than to have to collect payments from and ship out individually 1 book each to 12 people).

Best of luck.

MushroomStick

If I can assume you're in the US, it'll make your life a whole lot easier if you stipulate that you can only ship within the US. If they'll fit, try to ship heavy things, like books, in flat rate boxes to keep shipping costs down. Otherwise, just over estimate the weight a little bit and punch in a zip code that's really far a way into the usps's online shipping rate calculator thing to figure out what to charge for shipping on things.

Shadowfire

MushroomStick wrote:

If I can assume you're in the US, it'll make your life a whole lot easier if you stipulate that you can only ship within the US. If they'll fit, try to ship heavy things, like books, in flat rate boxes to keep shipping costs down. Otherwise, just over estimate the weight a little bit and punch in a zip code that's really far a way into the usps's online shipping rate calculator thing to figure out what to charge for shipping on things.

Even when you select "only ship to U.S." people from other countries can bid. It creates some weird situations when they do (I had a guy from France bid and win, but was willing to work with me on shipping. Another from Brazil was absolutely unwilling, and gave me negative feedback after I refunded his money).

It's still a good idea, and definitely set a shipping price before the auction.

Wezoin

The other thing to keep in mind with shipping is to always use tracked or delivery confirmation shipping methods. If you don't its all too easy for it to become a 'he said, she said' argument if there is any disagreement, and you may end up losing the money. Especially if Paypal is still as biased towards the customer as they used to be.

MushroomStick

Shadowfire wrote:

MushroomStick wrote:

If I can assume you're in the US, it'll make your life a whole lot easier if you stipulate that you can only ship within the US. If they'll fit, try to ship heavy things, like books, in flat rate boxes to keep shipping costs down. Otherwise, just over estimate the weight a little bit and punch in a zip code that's really far a way into the usps's online shipping rate calculator thing to figure out what to charge for shipping on things.

Even when you select "only ship to U.S." people from other countries can bid. It creates some weird situations when they do (I had a guy from France bid and win, but was willing to work with me on shipping. Another from Brazil was absolutely unwilling, and gave me negative feedback after I refunded his money).

It's still a good idea, and definitely set a shipping price before the auction.

You can lock out foreign bidders now, and if they manage to bid anyway and leave you negative feedback, you can contest it if you had a stipulation in your auction from the beginning. When I sell stuff on ebay, I wont ship internationally because I'm not set up to ship through anyone that can give a delivery confirmation outside the US and I simply don't sell enough stuff for it to be worth my while to get set up for more shipping options. Since the OP is just starting out, I'm assuming that he'll be in the same boat, at least for a while.

Esh

Doesn't the post office still have a media rate for things like books, CDs, and records?

MushroomStick

Esh wrote:

Doesn't the post office still have a media rate for things like books, CDs, and records?

Yeah, but depending on how heavy your stack of books gets to be, it can theoretically come out cheaper to go with the flat rate boxes sometimes. Plus, flat rates are convenient for ebay auctions.

Prisca

Thanks for starting the thread Lucky Cynic, I'm in the same situation, and appreciate the advice given as well.

Question: is there a reason why eBayers from the US won't ship to certain countries? Is it because of high shipping costs or any other reason? I'm currently living in Canada, but the item I'm interested in is exclusive to shipping within the US only.

I've contacted the seller to see if he could make an exception, but he has not replied so far. Would it be possible to ask a US eBayer to purchase the game for me, I'll reimburse them the funds via PayPal, and they'll ship it to me?

Thanks for any clarification/help.

MushroomStick

There's a few reasons a lot of us don't like to ship outside the US - Yes, it does tend to get expensive real quick, but also a lot of shipping options wont offer tracking/delivery confirmation and that leaves us with no ammo to defend ourselves when people make paypal claims against us. Even if you forget about the expense/risks of international shipping, there's still a bunch of extra paperwork and stuff that just makes it a pain in the ass.

There are companies that you can use as your delivery address that will take care of the international shipping thing. Usually its only cost effective if you're getting a whole bunch of stuff shipped though.

Kuroi Ookami

I believe another reason US people don't like to ship to us is because if/when we get hit with a duty fee from Customs, we might expect the Seller to pay that, or give negative feedback because now we're paying more than we expected, or any number of scenarios where the US Seller gets dicked over. I remember the first time I got something from the US (and my first purchase on eBay) and had to pay COD because of Customs, boy was that unexpected.