So, I'm going to start selling on ebay soon. I just wanted to know some things before getting started. Is it as easy as simply putting up a listing, and shipping your product to the address of the buyer? And do you have to pay ebay some money for using their site to sell your things? Any other info would be great.
It is pretty much that simple. Make sure to take good pictures and to have a detailed description of what you're selling. Make sure to use the eBay USPS shipping label print system as it saves you a lot of time and money. You ALWAYS need to provide a tracking number to show proof that the item was indeed shipped to them to cover your end of the deal. And using the eBay USPS shipping label option makes this easy for you. eBay will automatically suck out a fee (Final Value Fee) depending on how much your item(s) sell for. eBay will also charge you a fee for listing it. PayPal will also take a cut (3-4%). For example, you sell an item for $10 and it's something very light that can packaged into a bubble mailer. You'll probably have $4-5 at the end of the day after all the fees have been sucked out. If you are planning to sell items that can be packaged into bubble mailers, buy them in bulk off eBay.
Don't expect to make any money at all when you first start. Start w/ small ticket items. As you build feedback, you can start to command higher prices. If you have an ID that you used to buy, that's a better starter for you to sell as you have some feedbacks for transactions on ebay. If you plan to continue to buy and sell on ebay, get a separate account down the line. It will prevent headaches for you. There will be some that try to bully you because you are a noob. Just try to take care of disputes as professionally as you can, and bend over backwards as much as you can to please them. Communicate with customers through ebay messaging, not email. It will help to settle disputes as ebay will have a record of your messages. Don't delete ebay messages until it's passed time for buyers to file dispute. Feedback is the most important thing to you now, so provide as good a customer service as you can. Prepare to take a loss initially to prevent a negative feedback. Don't give anything for free. Make the buyer return the item for refund or exchange if there are problems. Many times, the problems just go away. If you have been to any stores and have witnessed the customers aggressively arguing with the manager, you are now the manager and will have to deal with the customers. Don't expect everyone to give you good feedback. You will only get about 1 in 3, to 1 in 2 to give feedbacks. Get good tape and pack well. Most sellers still don't know how to pack properly. If you can drop a package from 3-4 feet and it breaks, it WILL break during shipping. Priority boxes are free from the USPS, and regular boxes are free from groceries, and local stores.
Package the item before you list it so you will know exactly how much it costs. If it's a common item and you are in no hurry, consider a buy it now price, slightly higher than the average selling price of the item. It might take longer to sell, but someone who doesn't want to wait for an auction to end will eventually buy it. What are you selling?
I always look at the prices my items are currently selling for and then I undercut those prices and throw in free shipping if it is a cheap item. Free shipping, if you can do it, helps you get more looks.
When you're listing something, such as a stapler for example, look at the completed listings for the same model / brand of stapler that actually had people bidding / "buy[ing] it now," and see how the seller structured their description of the item. This really helps, not only seeing what the sold listing did (vs other listings that didn't sell), but also what the target price will probably be, so that you can set your starting price accordingly. If you have something of great value, and something similar to that item, but of lesser value, you might be able to package the two items together, and get more money than if you were just to sell the two items separately. I used eBay to get rid of some trading cards, and I would always package the $40 rare card along with some worthless cards to get something like $46-47. Because no one will buy the worthless cards for $6-7. Not sure what you plan to sell, OP. But good luck!
I feel bad I was ever involved in this but when I was 15 I used to sell "grab bags" of sports cards. I would list pretty decent cards saying you could get one in a bag. I stuck to my word and got rid of all the valuable cards in the grab bags but alot of guys got stuck with crap. No different than what card companies in general do.
lol why are you selling USED products? http://elite-resales.3dcartstores.com/Moco-de-Gorila--Gorilla-snot-gel-USED-BOTTLE_p_37.html
It was a joke, because another cf member said he was looking for used hair gel. I replied with a link to the product lol. Look in classifieds...my online store thread.
