I want to finally start selling some stuff on eBay. Tips?

Steev

I'm moving in a few months and planning on selling a few things on ebay, i.e. old video game stuff. I've had an ebay account since late 1999, but I've never used it to sell anything. I do have a PayPal account, and I have a bank account I set up three years ago specifically to associate with PayPal so they wouldn't have access to my main bank account, mainly because I was planning on selling on ebay and never got around to it.

But now I think I'm finally getting around to it. I dug out two of the items I'm planning on selling and took a few pictures. I'm ready to create my first listing! But before I do, I'd like to know about anything to be aware of as a seller. If you've sold stuff on there before, is there anything you wish you knew before you created your first listing?

Ken O

It's been a few years since I did this, but the things I quickly learned.

Make sure you are taking shipping into account when creating your auctions. Especially when you have odd shaped or very heavy items. I ended up selling an item or two at a loss after shipping.
Because I didn't want to deal with international shipping issues I only made my auctions available to the US.
If you are in the US the USPS has lots of free boxes and envelopes if you ship Priority and it includes Tracking in the price.

Expect some strange messages. Lots of people wanted me to end my auctions early and just outright sell items to them. I'd have lost out on a lot of money had I done that and I believe at the time it was against Ebay terms of service.

ChasinTheTrane

Make sure to take good pictures that look professional. Often times that's how I've made my purchase decisions when there are multiples of an item. Spend a bit of time on the product description -- it may help to create your own templates so you can push them out quickly.

Steev

Thanks! Good tips so far. I might drop by the post office to see what boxes they have available. And yeah, limiting it to US people only seems like the way to go. I feel pretty good about the pictures I've taken, and I would like to make my item descriptions more eye-catching.

DoctorArch

USPS priority mail boxes are the light and the way. Flat rate, so no time wasted figuring out an exact price for shipping, and you can even have the postman pick it up from your doorstep/mailbox.

Go with a ten day auction vs. a 7 day auction, and put the ten day up on a Thursday evening between 9-12PM Eastern / 6-9PM pacific so it will end ten days later on a Sunday evening. This gives you coverage over two weekends, and more eyeballs means its 1) more likely to sell and 2) more likely to net a higher price.

I've sold a lot of video games over the years and unless the specific game in question is rare (e.g., Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii) you'll have less stress and more success selling games in a lot. After you price check sold/completed listings on your games to make sure you don't have any rarities, take a high-quality picture of the entire game lot/cases/etc. In the title for the auction say what kind of lot it is and list the biggest hits to maximize keyword returns. For example: "Nintendo Gamecube 20 game lot - Zelda, Mario, Eternal Darkness." There are additional fields you can populate when setting up your auction to trigger other keywords, but in my experience these are not as consistent when searched for; the title is everything.

Orestus

Some of this may be commonsense but figured it couldn't hurt:

I'll echo the warnings above about not underestimating shipping, I too have lost money on an auction or two after drastically underestimating shipping costs.

I would say don't limit solely to the US, no reason to cut off another market (YMMV depending on types of things you are selling). Ebay now has a global shipping service that you can choose to use at listing creation- I've done so several times and its worked great. The way it works is you pay (and, at your discretion, can charge the buyer for) the cost to mail the item to Ebay's global shipping center in the US. Ebay then ships the item internationally to the buyer and charges them directly for whatever the cost is to mail it to them. Ebay handles all the customs info, etc. As I understand it once the item gets to Ebay and is logged in you have completed your obligation in the deal and if there is any further problem w/ the international shipment its between the customer and Ebay, not you. I always prominently state in the listing that any international buyer will have shipping handled via Ebay's global shipping service.

Ignore anyone who asks you to end the auction early and sell directly to them, don't even waste time responding "No", just delete the message.

When you are deciding pricing, search the item on Ebay then filter to just show sold listings so you actually see what things have sold for in recent months. You can't realistically base pricing off of what stuff is listed for, only off of actual sales.

Steev

I do appreciate all the tips so far! Even if they're tips that seem obvious and I might have already been following them, it helps to know that I'm on the right track. I haven't made any listings yet, but I'm hoping to get started with a test run on a smaller item like a PS2 game this week.

djmitchella

I sold some games on ebay a long while ago, and one thing to watch for is how you describe condition; people can be _very_ picky about what exactly the various terms mean for "good" / "as new" / etc, so if there's, say, creases in the manual, or scuffs on the disk (even if you can only see them with the light at a certain angle), make sure you photo them as much as you can.

Lovely

(edit- deleted post)

Steev

So I intended to start selling my stuff back in May, when I created this thread, but I procrastinated because I'm an idiot. Regardless, I put up my first two items last week (some old PC controllers and an mp3 player) and they sold! And I took heed in calculating shipping properly as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a postal scale, and the only local post office that has a self-service kiosk with a scale is a 15-minute drive, but I think it was worth it to get an accurate weight. With that, eBay could calculate my shipping and I was pleased to see how easy it was to print off shipping labels (and to get them at a discount that way!).

Anyway, tonight I'll be listing my first 10-day items. I noticed people have been selling old NES system boxes for a lot of money, and mine was still in good shape, so I figured why not! Too bad there are no priority mail boxes for stuff that size. Hopefully it'll sell well, along with the other box and Saturn controller I'm trying to sell.

Thanks, everyone!

ezara

djmitchella wrote: »

I sold some games on ebay a long while ago, and one thing to watch for is how you describe condition; people can be _very_ picky about what exactly the various terms mean for "good" / "as new" / etc, so if there's, say, creases in the manual, or scuffs on the disk (even if you can only see them with the light at a certain angle), make sure you photo them as much as you can.

This.

A few months ago I sold some Cereal Geek magazines (fine condition) and I got alot of views, but no buyers. When I finally took pics of the corners and spine, I sold 3 in a week.

As far as other tips, you can always try a gimmick lol: https://www.ebay.com/sch/strykeforce/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

Donnicton

Once you get a few sales under your belt, ebay will offer you the option of the Global Shipping Program, where all you have to do is ship to an ebay distribution center and pay local shipping costs, and they will handle the rest of the hassle with regard to shipping to the other country. It's incredibly convenient. For now though I would suggest avoiding international shipping.

Secondly, make sure what you sell has detailed pictures. Now this is more rare than some people would have you believe, but there are scam artists who will buy an item and then claim it was damaged or not as advertised after receipt just to attempt to get their money charged back, but also keep the item. Ebay has a habit of overprotecting buyers unless they have a record of filing these complaints, so they have the advantage in this - especially because you don't have established feedback yet. Don't offer partial refunds, offer them all-or-nothing refunds to make them ship an item back. Don't offer no refunds, it only makes them get way more vocal and eventually ebay or PayPal will do a chargeback on you just to shut them up.

djmitchella wrote: »

I sold some games on ebay a long while ago, and one thing to watch for is how you describe condition; people can be _very_ picky about what exactly the various terms mean for "good" / "as new" / etc, so if there's, say, creases in the manual, or scuffs on the disk (even if you can only see them with the light at a certain angle), make sure you photo them as much as you can.

I do this absolutely. I tend to buy fairly rare games off of ebay and I get incredibly annoyed if there's damage to the label/manual/inserts that they didn't document. Dings on the case I'm fine with, because these cheapshit Nintendo DS/Playstation came cases can be bought like ten for a dollar anyway and aren't tied to any specific product. It's just direct damage to the product itself that I don't tolerate well.

Steev

Well, I messed up and one of my auction items was won by someone in Brazil (I said I ship to the US only, but apparently I didn't have the settings right) and the winner was someone with 0 feedback who just registered today. I am very suspicious and don't know how to proceed from here. This wasn't set up for the Global Shipping Program people here mentioned before.

This was for a SNES system box which sold for over $100. I really don't want to get scammed here. I'm also about a week out from moving, so I don't have much time.

I've actually run into issues with each of the three items I sold this time. I sold a Saturn twin stick, and the buyer left me a message saying they couldn't pay due to an unauthorized charge on their debit card. I offered it to the second highest bidder and that seemed to go OK. The third item I've sold went for about $140, but the buyer hasn't paid yet. It's been a little over 24 hours since that auction ended. Hopefully they'll pay soon.