eBay selling advice

Slim11 said:
Good for you all for selling China and making $$$. For me I found unless its rare its worthless. You guys can sell my Waterford crystal and tiffiny glasses. Lol.
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If you’re anywhere near Philadelphia I’d be happy to. Waterford and Tiffany are great sellers.
 
disneysteve said:
Not every pattern has good value but plenty of them do. Not on Marketplace or Next Door though. You'd need to sell it on ebay or to Replacements. Those are the two places I sell mine.

And yes, thrift shops have a ton of china and it's usually pretty cheap. That's where I buy most of the stuff I resell. It's a gold mine when you know what you're doing. I can walk into Goodwill, spend $50, and get $500 worth of china.
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That sounds like a great side gig for extra cash. How did you learn about china? I used to know a little about things like depression glass, but china? What makes a piece valuable? I'm guessing you learned because you are interested in it and/or are a collector??
 
The thing with eBay is to become an expert in something that interests you or that you have knowledge in. For me it was cycling related items. For my wife it was photography. We’d often buy items on eBay and resell them on eBay because the seller lacked knowledge. I have even bought items retail knowing someone else in the world doesn’t have access to that same item at that price. It’s eBay arbitrage.
 
Koolau said:
That sounds like a great side gig for extra cash. How did you learn about china? I used to know a little about things like depression glass, but china? What makes a piece valuable? I'm guessing you learned because you are interested in it and/or are a collector??
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It really all comes down to supply and demand. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. But it's pretty simple to look up values on the fly so I can know before I buy something how much I will get for it. Very low risk business that way.
 
COcheesehead said:
The thing with eBay is to become an expert in something that interests you or that you have knowledge in. For me it was cycling related items. For my wife it was photography. We’d often buy items on eBay and resell them on eBay because the seller lacked knowledge. I have even bought items retail knowing someone else in the world doesn’t have access to that same item at that price. It’s eBay arbitrage.
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I've done the same. Not often but occasionally. Not long ago I bought a china tea pot on ebay for about $50. The day it came I opened it, inspected it, repacked it, and shipped it off and got $110 for it. It was literally in my possession for about 4 hours.

I've done the same from antique stores, not a place you might think of for buying items to resell. I bought a tea pot for $60 and shipped it out the same day for $120. A couple of weeks ago I bought a butter dish for $20 and sent it off the next day for $50.

And Marketplace is a gold mine. I've bought sets for $50 and sold them for hundreds. I bought one set for $300 that I resold for $1,100. The earning potential is unlimited. It's just a matter of how much time I want to put into it.
 
I got my YTD sales total today. We sold $5150 so far this year. That’s about our average. We’ve been selling since 2001so that puts our lifetime sales at about $120,000. Not bad for something we do just for fun.
 
COcheesehead said:
I got my YTD sales total today. We sold $5150 so far this year. That’s about our average. We’ve been selling since 2001so that puts our lifetime sales at about $120,000. Not bad for something we do just for fun.
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Nice.

I don't pay a lot of attention to the report ebay sends out, plus I have no idea why they chose to send it now when there are still 12 days left to the year. Why not wait until January and give the figures for the full year?

The number they report probably includes shipping fees. My actual YTD sales are about $9,000 on ebay and another $11,000 in china sales so right around $20,000 total. That's a lot lower than I was predicting but I decided to take a bit of a break for a few months. Otherwise it would have been more in the $30-40,000 range.
 
We bought a bunch of gear for our Antarctica trip from eBay. There are a few things we'll never use again so those will have to go back up on the eBay. The site is pretty good for that.
 
Pointby2 said:
We bought a bunch of gear for our Antarctica trip from eBay. There are a few things we'll never use again so those will have to go back up on the eBay. The site is pretty good for that.
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Definitely. It can be a very cheap or even free way to "rent" things you won't need long term. Buy them, use them, and resell them. The great thing about used items is they hold their value. They don't rapidly depreciate the way new items do.

I know of people who have done this for musical instruments for their kids. Rather than using the costly school rental programs, they bought a good quality used instrument (better than the school would have provided) and when their kid was done with it, resold it for about the same as what they paid, sometimes even more.
 
Old thread, but I thought I'd post what is close to the last straw for me. It might actually have been the last straw... we'll see.

I encountered a second, in all my years selling, theif.

The first one was clueless, but a thief none the less. This recent one knew exactly what she was doing. She couldn't tell if her device had failed or if the charger for the device had failed. She bought a charger from me for $25 plus $5 shipping, determined her device had failed (still would not charge), so clicked "didn't work", got all her money back. Meanwhile, eBay charged me both ways shipping of $11 plus final value fee of $4.

This, despite having video evidence that I presented to eBay that the item she returned worked fine.

I didn't realize that selling a $25 item (that might net $20 after fees) on eBay is risking a $15 loss. That's a dumb bet to make.

And when you get into items priced higher, the fees get huge; an item selling for $500 would have earned eBay $75. That's too much for me. It used to be that you at least got eyeballs, but lately the number of views has been 0 or low and eBay wants to gouge the seller further by "boosting" your listings.

I think the eBay seller era has passed for me. It was fun while it lasted.
 
sengsational said:
Old thread, but I thought I'd post what is close to the last straw for me. It might actually have been the last straw... we'll see.

I encountered a second, in all my years selling, theif.

The first one was clueless, but a thief none the less. This recent one knew exactly what she was doing. She couldn't tell if her device had failed or if the charger for the device had failed. She bought a charger from me for $25 plus $5 shipping, determined her device had failed (still would not charge), so clicked "didn't work", got all her money back. Meanwhile, eBay charged me both ways shipping of $11 plus final value fee of $4.

This, despite having video evidence that I presented to eBay that the item she returned worked fine.

I didn't realize that selling a $25 item (that might net $20 after fees) on eBay is risking a $15 loss. That's a dumb bet to make.

And when you get into items priced higher, the fees get huge; an item selling for $500 would have earned eBay $75. That's too much for me. It used to be that you at least got eyeballs, but lately the number of views has been 0 or low and eBay wants to gouge the seller further by "boosting" your listings.

I think the eBay seller era has passed for me. It was fun while it lasted.
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interesting. I ran into several issues selling items on eBay late last year that have soured me to selling on the site.
  • Buyer tried to renegotiate the price with me after the item arrived to avoid giving a bad review. All communication was through messages on their site and eBay agreed that their attempt to shake me down for money violated the terms of service.
  • Buyer bid up an item well beyond the "Buy it Now" price before messaging me that he didn't want the item........ less than a minute before the end of the auction. Cancelling a bid after an auction ends does not default to the next highest bid. Rather, it defaulted to the first bid a second bidder made before they were outbid, which was extremely low.
  • Tried to sell that second item again. My auctions clearly stated that I don't ship internationally, but the winning bid came with an international shipping request and some weird message about how they were going to send me a money order with more than enough to cover shipping. Then, I would send a gift card with the item for any remaining funds minus shipping. Again, eBay agreed this attempted fraud violated their terms of service.
After two failed attempts to sell that second item, I gave up on eBay.
 
CO-guy said:
  • Tried to sell that second item again. My auctions clearly stated that I don't ship internationally, but the winning bid came with an international shipping request and some weird message about how they were going to send me a money order with more than enough to cover shipping. Then, I would send a gift card with the item for any remaining funds minus shipping. Again, eBay agreed this attempted fraud violated their terms of service.
After two failed attempts to sell that second item, I gave up on eBay.
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I eliminate all international ship locations when I list an item. It’s a listing selection input, not just a statement.
 
I'm starting to list more on Facebook Marketplace and less on ebay. Sometimes I'll list the same item on both, but the ebay price is significantly higher than the Marketplace price to cover fees, shipping and risk of unscrupulous buyers with whom ebay seems to always side with.
 
COcheesehead said:
I eliminate all international ship locations when I list an item. It’s a listing selection input, not just a statement.
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The eBay international shipping program is the greatest thing they’ve ever done. All you do is ship to the eBay hub in Illinois and your job is done. You aren’t responsible for anything that happens after that. No seller should ever opt out of international shipping. I wish all my sales could be international.
 
disneysteve said:
The eBay international shipping program is the greatest thing they’ve ever done. All you do is ship to the eBay hub in Illinois and your job is done. You aren’t responsible for anything that happens after that. No seller should ever opt out of international shipping. I wish all my sales could be international.
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Except when the buyer says it’s your fault and you pay both ways. Nope. Been there done that. I do not sell international and I am happier because of it.
 
I always enjoyed when someone from China would buy a bulk order I had and it went to a place in Portland where all things go to get loaded up and boated to China. As long as package arrived at location, all was well. Whatever happens across the ocean isn't my problem.

I had a lot of a certain item and loved when it went to the Portland spot. Never had an issue. It got to the point where I would send the same person a personal message asking if they wanted more, I would set up an auction and send them the link. They would just keep buying. Easy money.
 
COcheesehead said:
Except when the buyer says it’s your fault and you pay both ways. Nope. Been there done that. I do not sell international and I am happier because of it.
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Not true. If you use the ebay international shipping program, you are not responsible for ANYTHING that happens as long as the package reaches the hub in IL safely. ebay handles it at no cost to you.

This program is relatively new, within the past 3 years. Anything you experienced before that is no longer relevant.
 
Sorcerer said:
I always enjoyed when someone from China would buy a bulk order I had and it went to a place in Portland where all things go to get loaded up and boated to China. As long as package arrived at location, all was well. Whatever happens across the ocean isn't my problem.

I had a lot of a certain item and loved when it went to the Portland spot. Never had an issue. It got to the point where I would send the same person a personal message asking if they wanted more, I would set up an auction and send them the link. They would just keep buying. Easy money.
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Yep. Freight forwarders are the second best thing to ebay international shipping (eIS). If a foreign buyer uses a forwarder and wants to return an item, they are responsible for shipping it back to the US, so they never do that. I would take international sales either through eIS or forwarders all day long over domestic sales. No headaches with the foreign buyers like there can be with US buyers, not that I've had many issues there either.

The problem is that people only share the bad stories so it gives the impression that ebay is full of problems. You never hear about the millions of transactions that go smoothly. You only hear about the rare ones that have issues. And much of the time when sellers do complain, it turns out that they didn't handle it properly and ended up screwing themselves.
 
disneysteve said:
Not true. If you use the ebay international shipping program, you are not responsible for ANYTHING that happens as long as the package reaches the hub in IL safely. ebay handles it at no cost to you.

This program is relatively new, within the past 3 years. Anything you experienced before that is no longer relevant.
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Not true. I had a guy in the UK say I described an item wrong and eBay charged me back for outbound and return shipping.
 
disneysteve said:
Yep. Freight forwarders are the second best thing to ebay international shipping (eIS). If a foreign buyer uses a forwarder and wants to return an item, they are responsible for shipping it back to the US, so they never do that. I would take international sales either through eIS or forwarders all day long over domestic sales. No headaches with the foreign buyers like there can be with US buyers, not that I've had many issues there either.

The problem is that people only share the bad stories so it gives the impression that ebay is full of problems. You never hear about the millions of transactions that go smoothly. You only hear about the rare ones that have issues. And much of the time when sellers do complain, it turns out that they didn't handle it properly and ended up screwing themselves.
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Yes, freight forwarders. I couldn't think of the term, thanks. I actually cancelled the first couple purchases because the name was obviously Chinese but the address was Portland, Oregon. On the outside it looked scammy. I eventually googled it and saw it was a legit place that international buyers use. And like you said, as long as your package makes it to the address in the United States, you're golden.
 
COcheesehead said:
Within the last couple years and yes, it was using the international program.
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Did you contact ebay about that? If it was truly with eIS and not any other international shipping option, that's not how it should have been handled but mistakes do happen with even the best of programs. However if you contact them, they correct it.
 
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