Advice For A First-Time eBay Seller?

[Mayo]

I am considering selling a number of items on eBay:  a PCI upgrade card, video card, Palm personal organizer, that sort of thing... Is there any market at all for computer books covering older software?  I hate the idea of throwing away books that once cost $40-$50!!!

At any rate, there has to be some experienced eBayers on TS.  What do I need to know that I won't find on the eBay website?  How does a person figure out shipping charges?  I would like to use FedEx because I get a 25--30% discount which brings it in line with UPS; it would be nice to have a signature confirming receipt of the items I sell.

I understand that sellers benefit from having positive ratings from buyers, but having only purchased two items on eBay I only have buyers' references...Is there a preferred way to obtain positive remarks when a person is a newbie?

I have a personal account with PayPal.  Should I set-up a merchant account or just ask for payment by money order?

Any suggestions will be appreciated; I imagine that there may be issues I haven't even considered yet...

[neokm]

You'll want to do your homework first.  If it's computer hardware / software, get into the computer and link to "search only in Macintosh"  if thats what you have - - - then do specific searches for the same or similar items you have.  This'll tell you what they are going for and other details relative to selling.  

Use your paypal as a 'personal' account.  State shipping charges as "buyer to pay" actual cost (or ++ for handling), via USPS or UPS.   At auction close when you determine item ship cost according to weight and zip destination.

Remember always, eBay is "Trust Driven" Lastly, read all links in "Selling".

Check out "The Official ebay Guide", by Laura Fisher Kaiser and Michael Kaiser at your local library.  Good Luck
 
 [ 03-06-2003, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: neokm ]

[RNKIII]

Mayo;

I've bought and sold many items via EBay, and one thing I've learned is that you need a good picture of what your selling. Photos sell the item.  
Be sure your description is clear and not too long/wordy.
Set your starting, reserve, or 'Buy-it-Now' price realistically. Best way to do this is to check in the area where you will be listing for 'completed' items of a simular type to see what they went for or if there is a market at all.

As to getting good feed back....  be sure you communicate with your buyer(s)so they know what is going on and what you want from them and when. Other than that there is little you can do to accumulate positive feed back except treat your buyer(s) well.
I always tried to use PayPal when I was buying and BidPay(money orders) for when I was selling. But that was just my own personal preferences.

Good luck, good selling, and enjoy the last 2 minutes of your 'auction'. That is usually when the majority of bidding takes place.

Bob K.
 
 [ 03-06-2003, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: RNKIII ]

[Paddy]

Mayo, I've bought and sold lots of things on eBay (in fact, have a large pile of equipment I need to list, if I could only find the time) and would agree with most of what has been said.

Listings - a picture ( a GOOD picture) is an absolute must. Some buyers won't even bother looking at auctions without them, depending on the item. A complete description is an absolute must as well - look at the completed auctions for the items similar to yours and try to figure out what drives the prices higher on some rather than others. Often it comes down to the description - generally, the more detail, the better. BUT - lay it out so it's easy to read (bullets, headings etc. - use a bit of HTML) There is free auction listing software available through eBay for the PC, but not for Macs. I'll probably do my next round of listings that way, since I'd rather not spend my profits on either Auction Creator (only $10, but I can handle the HTML myself) or the more sophisticated eLister, which is now only available via a subscription. ($9.95 for 30 days, $29.95 for 6 months and $49.95 for a year)

I have eLister's predecessor, "PreLister" - but it only runs in OS 9, and its categories are no doubt long out of date, since Black Magik stopped supporting it a while ago (much to my annoyance).

I usually run my auctions for 7 days and start and end them on weekends on Saturday or Sunday in the evening, figuring that this is the time people are most likely to be home (not that lots don't bid from work!!!). I'm not sure if this makes a huge difference or not - but living on the east coast, I 'm not about to have auctions that end at 6AM west coast time!

I always send email immediately to my bidders at the end of an auction, and with only one exception have gotten paid and successfully completed the transaction. I use Paypal and money orders and discourage personal checks, though some will send them to you anyway.

I generally use Priority Mail - you can weigh your items and figure out the postage in advance from the USPS web site and include it in your auction listing. I know that when I'm bidding, I like to know what the shipping will be - because some sellers tack on handling fees etc. which can make something significantly more expensive than the actual selling price. Again, the principal of more information rather than less applies here too. Since the buyer pays the shipping (unless for some reason you decide to), it's up to you to choose the shipper and generally, you should do it to make the transaction as attractive as possible. Unless you can offer FedEx cheaper than Priority Mail, you'll find the higher cost of shipping makes your auctions less atractive to bidders. Priority Mail offers various options - including delivery confirmation. I just discovered that they have some interesting new services - label printing and online payment. Check this out:

https://sss-web.usps.com/ds/jsps/index.jsp

Comes with delivery confirmation for free if you use the label printing service online.  

Just a few things that came to mind...

[sluggo]

Like Paddy, I've sold everything from a vacuum cleaner to cell phones on ebay. I've also purchased everything I've ever owned for computer equipment online, be it ebay or an online merchant like Small Dog.
You've been given great advice as far as posting photos and checking to see what similar items are selling for. You need a way to determine the weight of your items and then all the major shippers (UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc.) have websites where you can determine shipping costs to a particular location. If you  get a discount at FedEx, you should pass that on to the buyer.
Lastly, one thing I've learned is to hold off on giving feedback until after you've received yours. Several times I've given glowing feedbacks only to have the people stiff me and not give me a feedback at all. I even had one woman give me a negative after I posted a very friendly neutral for her stating that I had to return the item but the whole transaction went very smoothly. The reality of it was that she duped me on a pair of Levi's and I should have held my feedback and then I would have had some ammo to let her have it after she gave me the negative.
Just a few things I've learned over the last 3 or so years of ebay.
 
 [ 03-07-2003, 12:16 AM: Message edited by: sluggo ]

[Mayo]

This is great information.  I haven't a clue about the eBay culture, so this helps a lot.

Some (maybe stoopid...) questions: do the photos have to be of the actual item or can it be a pic I grab from a website catalog?  Are images of electronic items like a PCI card necessary?

I don't have a digital camera, so getting photos online will be a hassle...

[sluggo]

Mayo - In the past I've snagged images from a website to use in an ebay auction when I couldn't take a decent digital photo of the item myself. I'd say that it was OK as long as the image is for the exact item you're selling. In fact you see it all the time on ebay. There will be an image of the item along with a complete description of the item and it's features from the manufacturer.
I haven't done so in quite some time since I've gotten a little better with my camera. Like I said, you do see it done all the time on ebay but I'm not sure if anyone ever gets the manufacturer's permission to use the image.

[Steve_J]

mayo,
There is little to add to the above good advice. A couple of points I've run into that weren't mentioned.

If you are selling books, USPS book rate is the cheapest way to ship.

Use your personal PayPal account but advise your buyers that they cannot pay by credit card. PayPal only accepts credit card payments to business accounts. They can, however, pay by transfer from a bank account such as checking.

Always get full payment before you ship. Some will pay immediately in an attempt to avoid shipping charges.

For anything you buy or sell over $500,or whatever $ amount exceeds your comfort zone, use escrow. Pay the fee yourself if the other party won't.

Be advised, some sellers charge exorbitant handling fees. Usually they are attempting to recoup the eBay fees. I charge a handling fee if I have to use special packaging and then I let the buyer know before hand or put it in the auction description.

[MamaMoose]

I am abvout to sell my Minolta SLR camera system on e-bay. What worries me are the pictures of the system. Right now they reside on my desktop. How do I get them to the e-bay page containing my description. I do have a web page  but I worry about strangers accessing areas of the web page they should not. Can I ftp my pictures to e-bay?

Thanks for any help with this.

MamaMoose

[sluggo]

Although I'm not perfectly clear on this because I mainly used some of the free image hosting services for ebay pics, I believe that you can ftp your images via ebay. I used to just have the images sitting on my desktop to that they were easy to locate when it was time to upload them.

[Bill]

MM, boomspeed.com was originally designed for storing images for auctions.

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"Boomspeed is one of the most popular and easy to use auction image and file hosting services on the Internet!"
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I've never used them for that purpose but it wouldn't hurt to check there free version out.