ebay virgin
just joined ebay.
me and the lass have been playing 'epic 40k'. i had some old models so we had a go, she likes it cos its like advanced wars.
so i decided to get some more models and games workshops seems to have abandoned those types of models and their prices are such a rip off. so i went to ebay. i bought a tank last night (a pound more than in the shops, doh!!)
i did one of those 'buy now' things, and set up a paypal account. seemed quite easy.
anyway, i also bid on some plastic models (as apparetnly a lot of the lead models are home made recasts)
so a few of my bid are ending soon, im excited to see if i win. :smile:
i was thinking about selling some scenery on there, i can make it myself of cardboard and polystyrene. i used be be good at it.
so what are the tips and trick, and pitfalls and traps of ebay i should be aware of?
like i said i am very new to ebay. :-P
me and the lass have been playing 'epic 40k'. i had some old models so we had a go, she likes it cos its like advanced wars.
so i decided to get some more models and games workshops seems to have abandoned those types of models and their prices are such a rip off. so i went to ebay. i bought a tank last night (a pound more than in the shops, doh!!)
i did one of those 'buy now' things, and set up a paypal account. seemed quite easy.
anyway, i also bid on some plastic models (as apparetnly a lot of the lead models are home made recasts)
so a few of my bid are ending soon, im excited to see if i win. :smile:
i was thinking about selling some scenery on there, i can make it myself of cardboard and polystyrene. i used be be good at it.
so what are the tips and trick, and pitfalls and traps of ebay i should be aware of?
like i said i am very new to ebay. :-P
Post edited by mile on
Comments
Make sure you dont make any spelling mistakes, sounds basic but seen way too many items with typos which means they got less bidders, same for categories, make sure its in the right category as that'll affect your sales a ton.
Dont go crazy on postage, i would weigh items up and then go to www.royalmail.com and see how much something is (i'm sure you've got scales miles ;)
Its exciting when you get tons of bids and you watch the final minute or two as often the price goes up quite a bit (thanks to snipers).
Just be honest, if something isnt in great condition mention it as some people will be unhappy if they get something and its not A1 condition etc.
Ebay is still great despite some of the stupid changes from them.
Anything you buy prepare to lose the money, if you sell, expect ebay to take money back off you because a seller says something didn't turn up/is broken, assume that what you are being sold may be broken and determine how much "broken" is acceptable. E.g. case has cracks, packaging dented, something slightly different colour.
Also, bid late in the last few minutes, but not too late in case of auto bidding.
i'll prolly sell it for what i think its worth, if no one buys it, i will just smash it up.
@ brownb2 - so buyers and sellers are both screwed?
Only had about 3 instances where i've had a nightmare seller/buyer.
If somethings worth a bit of money always send it registered and wrap well.
Overall ebay has been very good
Ebay favours the buyer's word, afterall there's more of them. IMHO as I've never used paypal's features to claim back I wouldn't put any faith in them just yet. There was one game that I got a year or so ago whose box was damaged on route - the seller only had one. I didn't want a refund as it wasn't the seller's fault (idiot post man crushed it putting it in the letter box) and it was the only copy so just accepted it. What I'd say is the buyer isn't always screwed, as long as you accept things might not be perfect and you may get a refund minus P&P.
Still, on the E-Bay question, I have never sold on there, but have been buying well for about 8 years, and have found it brilliant, with very few dodgy dealers. Untill this last Christmas, I have mentioned before that since then I have had 8 dodgy dealers, I now have another two ( 10 in all ) One of them sold a lot of stuff in one day, collected the money, then promptly left the next day, without sending any stuff out. The other refused to answer any mails about combined postage, I paid just within the 5 day limit he set, a month later and he has not delivered anything to me, and only once replied to a message ( ?50 down on that one if it falls through, not including postage ). E-Bay make it very difficult to process a claim for a refund, then I have been unable to follow a refund to a conclusion, you just go in circles untill you give up.
Hopefully you will enjoy the experience, but I don`t know if it will be profitable enough to embark on a selling spree on there. Unless anyone knows differently, and I don`t mean by selling games for 20p a go, I would spit on 20p if that`s all I made on a deal ! Also probably hand deliver the item, just to punch the winning bidder in the face !
Snipe bidding is the best way to go, that way by quoting your maximum offering price in the last few seconds, you beat other collectors to it at the last minute, the more you WANT it, the higher the final bid, it rarely fails. Unless you put in a bid for ?1000 instead of ?100 ( which I did by accident by getting excited and trying to touch type ) by the time I pressed the commit button it was too late, I hadn`t realised till then, luckily it stayed at a small price, but could have been tricky.
Scrabble isn`t worth a tenner ! Quit while you are ahead.............
If the other person bids ?10.01 though, they'll get it. Also, be aware if you've got, say, ?10.02 down beating their ?10.01. If you put any more money down, eBay will immediately bump you up to the next whole step, e.g. ?11.01.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
That's not quite right.
I have a feedback of 1087 @ 100%
I have received 1535 feedback
The difference is that I have bought/sold 1538 items with 1087 different account holders.
I recently bought 30 magazines in 30 separate auctions from a single seller which added 30 to my received feedback but only one to my actual feedback score. Multiple feedback from a single account only counts once for your overall feedback score.
People also use sniping tools, for some reason some people dont like it but i'm a huge fan ! If youre away or an auction ends at a silly time you can put in your bid.
So say the auction ends at 3am, i can use a sniping tool and put in a price of 33.07. So 1 second before the auction ends it'll put my bid in (You put a weird figure in case the highest bid is the same as yours).
So it'll put in my bid with 1 second left, if its not the highest you've obviously pushed it up a fair chunk, good chance you may win it as well.
Its a bit like cards, dont show your hand till the end. I get a fair bit off ebay but i never bid until the very last second.
You'll see the same on the items youre selling, the final minute (and seconds) the price often goes up quite a lot, specially if theres a lot of watchers.
Yippee! I sold my tatty but 100% complete 1982 Panini world cup album for over 50 squid last week!
bought 2 spectrums, not as described and in a real awful state.. got a refund
bought another 2 , apparently "working" seller wanted positive feedback for a refund.. NEVER give them any feedback till it's resolved. ebay refunded it because well he had REALLY messed me about..
2 sets of people I buy a lot off are really nice people and I buy off them privately now as I know them in real. Not local, but worth a trip to get good bargains.
I don't ship abroad esp. italy.. I have had stuff go missing so far in france and spain.. it's sad , I'd like to sell abroad, but it's a pain to claim back costs.. also the fact a some of euro's (french / spanish) are big time moaners.. never happy... so f'em.. I don't need the hassle.
I am anti snipe tools, and I do find it funny people try to justify them. If ebay had any sense they would do stuff to mess them up and make them not work.. Besides . Also trusting a 3rd party with my details... sod that. If your new to ebay and say you bid on 20 things and get none of them because of mr or mrs 2 seconds, it does start to grate.
Getting continually snipe bid is a nuisance, BUT in some cases the other party has made it obvious and a few times I've made em pay WELL over the odds. As out of 20 items it was always the same person, and after the 5th I get fed up with it.. yep I had the funds to pay for stuff if I won, but I pretty much knew they had stupid reserves set up on auto-bid after the first 5
the postage thing is another thing.. I was bidding on speccy games and the seller wouldn't combine postage.. for 7 bundles of items.. told him to cancel... it's obvious they were doing a markup on the postage.
I've bought and sold with people off here on there, never had any hassle.
only other thing is make 100% sure the money has gone into you paypal account before shipping ...
Also perhaps get proof of postage also, which the post office stamp.. sometimes I don't bother.. but if it's a lot of games I do..
I do finish my auction at odd times , well really late to stop snipe bidding and partly , so next day I know what I have to post
lol, i saw that in someones description. 'i wont ship to italy.'
i thought he was just a racist. :p
I sell 10 x2 spider plants roughly every fortnight where my profit margin is about 30p after ebay and paypal fees, pots, watering the plants to grow etc. (10p for postage naughty but I need to keep the price for plants below 99p). Are you suggesting I should be spitting on the pennies because the profit is so little? They all add up especially as I drop the plants off at a nearby post office at lunch - and good exercise.
Building up the pennies in paypal is useful for getting retro stuff - that's how I got the Comet 20 Game pack in preservation, to my mind that was "free" as I didn't actually commit any cash from my bank balance. :)
not at all, I have an Italian friend who I helped with a sound pack (http://www.patcharena.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55:muz3um-for-rapture-released-&catid=1:news&Itemid=128) and even he says it.. he gets annoyed because a lot of UK things he wants he won't risk ordering for fear they get stolen..
him and his wife came over, it was nice to meet em.. joke was she wanted Croc's , the shoes? made in italy.. but double the price over there.
oh and the other one is you get a bidder.. says ship to UK then says oh it's my daughters birthday.. and she's in lagos etc can you ship it there instead.. big con.. and accepting paypal only is good.. don't pay with money transfers
Suppose it gives you something to do but sounds a lot of hassle selling these plants for very very little profit.
My wife used to get some cheap stuff in the sales from some shops in town and then sell it on ebay as people overseas cant get hold of it.
Years back i used to scour the local adverts and buy in bulk old stuff (some computers) and then sell it seperately on ebay, more people have got sense of ebay now though and if anything its a pain as you get some old granny saying 'but that sells for ?40 on ebay...' etc !
I think ebays the best though for 'de-cluttering'.
In my younger years i used to horde everything, never throw anything away. Now if i havent touched it for months i sell it, yeah it might look good having books/games on a shelf but if theyre gathering dust i might as well get rid and use the money for taking the missus out for a meal or just a bit of extra cash.
And in this day and age if anyone sends money by western union/other money transfers or sends stuff to Nigeria, i think they need their head examining !
mine is at zero, so if i buy something will it debit my bank account or do i need to add money to my paypal funds?
Its quite nice seeing the paypal money start totting up ! I find having a paypal account very useful, just easy to send money to someone abroad for an item etc. Youre 'meant' to be covered, had a few instances where paypal was a pain but eventually got our money back.
ah i see, so why would i put money in my paypal fund? does it go in there if someone pays money into my paypal?
Never had one lost or delayed parcel.
Never had any problem on Ebay buying from anywhere in the world so long as you can live with the postage costs some people charge.
You put money in your paypal fund via your bank account. So if you want to send me ?20 (even though your paypal balance is 0) it takes out ?20 from your bank and sends it via paypal to me. (and vica versa).
So you dont have to deposit money in there to send it, it'll automatically take money from your bank.
If you sell stuff so you have ?50 in your paypal account then like i say it'll use that money first and wont touch your bank account.
Once you get a bit of money in your paypal account from selling you then transfer it to your bank account (takes 3-5 days). I think if the total is over ?40 you dont have an extra small charge for transferring it.
So again most people wait for the money to build up and then transfer it. If i sold something, 2 quid a week i wouldnt keep transferring the money to my bank account, would wait for it to build up (?40) and then transfer
Agree with adjb above, you dont often have trouble. But when you do its frustrating and then despite 99% of sales being fine it starts to put you off sending things abroad etc. We've been fine sending stuff abroad but sometimes you start to panic when the post is slow and someone is moaning that its been two weeks etc but then sods law, the item turns up the next day (always happens when you contact someone)
if you look at it that way , instead of "spitting" on it.. then it's not so silly... 1 other was charging ?7.99 or some guff.lol
I have sent to some very interesting address's I will say that.. Oz, Malta and a very well known tourist visitor place in london (think the top 3 places people would visit, not gonna name it ;) )
Mile, after a while you will have to verify your account as well. They put money in... and you have to tell em the 2 sums..or use a 2 digit code, it's no biggy.
ADJB , the foreign bidders did my nut in over combined postage.. and wouldn't believe I'd NOT over charge em.. one ordered a "shed load" then moaned I used too much tape to hold em together.. if they hadn't ordered so much I wouldn't have... although I'd say about 60-70% were fine.. it's not enough hassle free for me.
Visit lots of relatives and see what dusty items they have in their loft, nab it and sell it on ebay. Some places you get a community newsletter with some old dear throwing out her sons old computer or some other items, worth picking those up cheaply and then putting on ebay.
Its like that guy who made a success when he opened an 'ebay shop'. Theres a lot of people out there who have stuff to sell but cant be bothered to do all the 'fiddley stuff on the computer' as my parents put it. So make sure you take advantage of their negative computer knowledge and sell everything you can get your hands on ;)
If its gathering dust, sell it !
I just find it a pain packaging and then taking stuff to the post office to send when its such a small cost. Then you get some anal people moaning about an item when they only bought it for 99p.
To carefully wrap stuff up, spend time packaging it, then going out of your way to stand in a stuffy queue on a saturday morning while the blue rinses get their pension, all that for 20p or so ? Just not worth it
Then again I'm not a business seller since I have just under 180 feedback of which about 20 are purchases just whatever junk, old stuff and plants I come across occasionally. I suppose if I had to VAT register as I was running it to make profits etc I'd make sure my profit margins were larger.
I make a point of not selling outside of the UK too for exactly the reasons mentioned in other posts - if it goes missing you lose your item and payment and you never know what selfish individual might be trying to pull a quick one (also had this in the case of some ?10 RAM I've sold to people in London that doesn't turn up to a communal flat mailbox.... they seem to lose a lot of things I post to London grrrrrr - birthday cards etc... but that's another issue).
I hate those bloody programs. I had one sniped from me a couple of weeks agao and the only thing that I could think of was that the bastard used a sniping program.
I'm buying a few cd's off of one seller at athe moment and he's been listing loads at once. The week in question, he listed a set of CD's that would have completed my collection of that artist. I placed my bids as usual and for a change, I was at the PC when the listings finished. I was watching my wins go through and with less than 1 minute left on this last cd and the price at around ?3.50 and my maximum bid at ?8.50, i thought I'd be safe, so i got up to make a cuppa. Returned to find that I'd lost it due to one last bid placed 10 seconds before the end of the auction with one bid of ?9. No gradual build up, just one bid larger than my maximum. I was, and still am, rather angry at that.
Play fair on Ebay ;-)
Too right ! Up the snipers ! ;)
I dont see the problem with them, if you werent being tight and putting in a low offer you would have won ;)
If it was a bid with 10 seconds left its a good chance it wasnt as sniping program (normally go in with 1 sec left) but someone just sat there pressing refresh and then putting in their bid late on. Sensible move by that person i'm afraid !
never had a problem selling make a chip / scrabble / survival - horizons.. takes all of 10-20 seconds to wrap...
a person would have to be trampy mc tramp to complain about it, none have (yet). If I'm going post office anyway it's no bother.. if not it gets chucked in the post. thankfully the vast majority of ebayers are honest, so I haven't had issues with that specific thing.
it's all car tax people on a Saturday at the post office.. the blue rinse brigade do their business earlier in the week.