Any Ebay sellers? Need imput.

[Marty]

I know Mary Ann used to sell on Ebay and I'd sure appreciate her opinion and all others.

Its time to empty out our storage. I'm the last of my family so I ended up with boxes and boxes and boxes of everyone's estate, great grandparents, parents, aunts, etc. and now my house is floor to ceiling with this stuff I am cataloging so I know what I have. There's so much stuff, colletables from all over the world, dishware, glassware, Waterford crystals, Lenox chinas, etc. from trips to France, Poland, China, Germany, England, and I don't want any of it. I am so overwhelmed with all this and it needs to go away. I have done my research and I know what most of this stuff is worth and decided I would sell it on Ebay. I think.

Problem is that I have looked on Ebay at several items and is it my imagination or is nothing selling on there?????? I have looked at some similar things to what I have and also other things in general just to get the feel of Ebay and I am seeing a whole lot of zero bids on a lot of items. This is a lot of work and very time consuming so I am wondering if I should even bother with Ebay or not.

Your opinions please.

 

[Charley]

eBay did get really slow about a year ago, but it has picked up and people are bidding again. There for awhile it was terrible for sellers.

The key is marketing. I belong to quite a few Yahoo groups and read a few digests daily from these groups. They market on those and drive bidders to their goods. I see people doing the same with their blogs. They advertise that these items are for sale and provide a link to their listings.

But I also hear a lot of complaints about how eBay is charging so much. They just stopped offering a separate listing fee for postal insurance so that now it is the responsibility of the seller to provide the insurance fee in the selling price of the item. So it is cutting down the sellers profit. I'm sure eBay is doing this to entice more bidders but quite a few sellers have gone to other auctions or eStores. They are finding places on the web that specialize in the line of goods they are selling. Such as Etsy for handcrafted items.

On the LB Last Chance Auction, I see sellers using Craigslist ads in various parts of the country to drive people to their listings. And it works. The people who market sell quite a bit more than those who don't. We do market through google and I see a big difference in daily hits on the auction since we have been doing it.

It will be interesting to see what others see happening. We each have a window on the items that interest us so someone else may see something completely different than I what I see.

 

[Soggy Bottom Ranch]

Marty,

I used to sell things on e-bay that I no longer had a use for, just here and there, it wasn't like I had a store to market or anything. I've since stopped, I finally got zapped good by a bidder, and I was left with a pretty negative attitude. I have some things to list now, but I'm not sure if I'll go back to e-bay again or not. I have been with e-bay since '02, and had a 100% positive feedback rating, so that helped me when this cheating, lier tried to scam me. I worked hard to keep that rating, and I was honest about everything bought and sold. He was a first time bidder, and without going into to much detail, he damaged the item, and tried to claim I did it. He brought a case against me, damaged my rating, and made my life H*ll for weeks! Thankfully, PayPal was wonderful to deal with, because E-bay was honestly, uncooperative, useless, and unsympathetic to a long time, trustworthy, and honest seller/buyer. PayPal worked with me, e-bay refused to do anything, and even in the end, the creep who scammed me was allowed to leave me nasty feedback, and I wasn't able to leave any for him because he had brought the case against me. I begged e-bay to remove it, because it was false, and they wouldn't. They said after review, the buyer had the right, and there was no legal reason for removal..........even after PayPal found that I was in the right, and settled in my favor.

Just be careful when you list. If I do decide to sell on e-bay again, I will try to take as many precautions as I can. Take lots of pictures, and be very thorough about your listings........try to think of every possible senario, and show the product clearly, in several different shots/angles.

 

[uwharrie]

I have bought and sold on ebay for years. It is important to get good clear photos and good descriptions. Search completed auctions to see what items actually sold for to get an idea of fair market value.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Marty,

to get a better idea of what is selling, click on Completed Listings on the left. That will show you what actually sold and for how much. Sometimes bidders don't bid till the last second, so the item looks as though it has no bids.

 

[Leeana]

I listed a lot of items on ebay back in the spring. All horse items, miniature horse and pony tack ext. All the useless things that were laying around here brought in a grand total of just over $325.00 ... so not bad for crap i had boxed sitting in my closet. Stuff sells, advert it right. Im a big ebay'er (ha!) when it comes to horse stuff.

 

[Sixstardanes]

Selling on Ebay is a hit & miss.

We list things from just stuff we happen to have around the house which is often Dane related, Disney pins and art & figures I create.

While we do have things selling here and there it can take multiple times listing for them to sell - and usually for minimum bid.

So it you have going to put stuff up make sure your minimum bid isn't one you'll kick yourself in the pants for accepting.

 

[kaykay]

I started selling again on ebay last month on some of my painting patterns. wow I could not believe how bad the ebay fees have gotten. My stuff did sell but Im not sure I will load more as after fees I didnt make much.

I think the problem is Ebay needs some competition. People that have sold on there for years are very unhappy. This was not the time for Ebay to raise fees for sure.

 

[Shari]

I used to sell things on ebay a lot.

However, since the ecomnony has gotten bad, only one thing sold... the other items even at half off of what I paid new and still in new condition or not used at all, didn't sell! Then Ebays fee... oh my how they add up, you have to pay their selling fee up front and if something sells you also pay a %.. plus you eat the cost of Pay Pal.

Needless to say out of the 8 things I had for sale... only one sold. Just enough to cover all ebays fee's... made no profit whats so ever.

So if I tally all that up, I bacially ate $300.00. I was supposed to sell things to help out with the bills...not cause things to be worse.

People don't want to pay a fair price for anything right now.

Have things on Tack trader, craigs list and the LB board.... years past these items would sell in two weeks. Now all I get is people wanting things for free and some of them even wanted me to ship the item to them. The gall of some people. Is offensive in the extreme people try to take that kind of advantage of someone.

Sorry... a bit of a Vent there.

Marty, personally I would stay away from ebay but if you go that route... take in account "ALL" the fees you will be charged, so you don't end up having to pay out of pocket to sell something.

With some things...I find it easier to give to GoodWill, get one of those little blue slips and take it out of my taxes the next year.

 

[Seashells]

In my opinion, you would do better selling items in estate sale, or yard sales, or public auction.

From time to time, a friend sells on ebay...usually listing about 20 items at a time. She complains about the fees, and hassle of listing. Most of the time, it's a bust for her. Usually, her items are horse figurines, breyer horses, collector plates, and old toys that use to belong to her son.

Personally, I don't think ebay has the power it use to....

 

[Charley]

Here is an interesting listing on eBay.....

eBay Fee Saving Listings

 

[Katiean]

I don't like the way they have changed ebay in the name of making it easier to use. I have bought a few things that I have gotten burned with. I have gotten some super deals. I have thought about selling on ebay. My brother sold some baseball cards when he was laid off and made upwards of $600 in just a couple of weeks. I am just not sure what will sell good.

 

[Miniv]

Marty,

To be honest, we haven't sold anything on E-Bay for a couple years now......not since the economy started sliding and E-Bay began changing.....so I'm not a good one to ask.

I do know that there are other On Line Auction sites. I haven't used them and don't know what their names are, but I've heard from others that they aren't as expensive. You might try googling?

Ma---

 

[LRMiniatureShetlands]

Hi Marty! I love eBay! Right now they have a special and you can list 5 items for free (no insertion fess and a max final value fee of 8.75% or $20.00 whichever is lower) every 30 days. So, there's really not much to lose. Why not give it a try? I've had really good luck on there and have sold all kinds of things I no longer need or want!

 

[Charley]

Their free five items can cost you more....

Why might you ask am I selling such a nice piece of paper?

Well, I'll tell you.

A couple of months ago, ever so generous eBay decided to do us all of us sellers a "fee saving" favor.

We each get 5 free insertions fees a month! Wooo hooo

This means that we can save anywhere from 15 bright shiny pennies to $4, depending on what we start the auction at.

Most of us dolly makers save $1 to $2.

Awesome, right?

Well I did some snooping around and discovered that eBay jacked up the final value fee on these 5 freebies to 8.75%

For auctions where we pay for the insertion fee, after the auction ends, we pay 8.75% for the first $25 plus 3.50% for the remainder up to $1000 but for the 5 freebies we get to pay 8.75% for the entire amount of the winning bid.

So, if I sell something for under $25, all is well.

but

If I sell a baby for $100, taking advantage of eBay's "generous" free insertion offer I will pay no insertion fee but the final value fee will cost me $8.75.

If I pay for the insertion fee I will be charged $2 (or less) plus the final value fee of $4.82. So the auction will cost me about $6.82 or less.

For eBay's mandatory free insertion offer:

On a $100 auction, that's a 30% increase in fees

On a $200 auction, that's a 70% increase in fees

and so on

And we can't opt out of the free insertions!

 

[LRMiniatureShetlands]

Hi Marty! The "Free" eBay offer worked for me, but I was selling high ticket items that I had to relist many, many times to sell. As an example, if you are selling a saddle for $1000, then you will save using their "Free" offer. But, if you are selling smaller items, then you will not. It worked for me, but I had relisted my things for months and they were expensive items. You'll have to figure out what works best for you; eBay is in it to make money, that's for sure!