Does anyone sell on ebay?

[Pikaia]

Hi all,

I have two things listed on ebay right now and obviously they are hot items. I have a doll that I bought for a buck at a flea market (she is up to $100 right now with 5 days to go! YAY!) and an old Sega CDX system (also over $100 right now and I have nothing invested!). I plan on selling a lot more on there, but do any of you sellers have tips for me? Like situations you were in and what did you do about it? I am kinda nervous right now because the winning bid on my doll is from Japan. I list on my auctions that if you are out of the continental US, please contact me before bidding so I can give you a shipping quote. The person did that and I quoted them on the high end so I would be sure. I told them that I don't make money on shipping, so if you did win the auction whatever I pay for shipping is what you pay.

The auction has my shipping at $6.99 for continental US. Will I be able to change this on the invoice after the auction is over for the Japan buyer? I am assuming this person will pay the shipping no problem because they have 100% feedback and I see them buy from the US all the time.

Anyway, just rambling and seeing if you experienced sellers on ebay had any valuable information you would like to pass on!

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

Yes, I'm pretty sure you can change the shipping price when the bidding is over. The end is usually when the bidding gets crazy. Like if your number of watchers is higher than those bidding currently.

 

[Pikaia]

Yes, I can't wait for the end of these auctions. My doll has 3 bids and 14 watchers. The Sega CDX has 17 watchers and two bids so far.

 

[alli713]

I sell things occasionally, and I've found out that even if you click "no international shipping" when setting up, if you don't have something specific set in your profile (not sure what it is exactly since it didn't work for me) international bidders can still bid. I just went through a whole thing about having to ship a huge item to Israel, and shipping would have been $50, so they had me ship it to family in Canada instead. I had no int'l shipping clicked, but they still won. So just as a fyi for the future, if you have something huge you don't want to send overseas if it's a hassle, make sure and check your settings in your profile and figure out how to set it to not accept int'l bids. (sorry I'm not more help)

You can change the postage amount when invoiced, but I'm not sure what will appear for them to pay for shipping if they try to pay right after winning and you don't get a chance to invoice them. So in that case I would make sure that the international shipping is set higher than you expect so that you can refund overages instead of having to pay out of pocket.

 

[Pikaia]

Oh, good information Alli! I will have to remember that for in the future. I don't want to count international bidders out, but I am always just worried that I will quote shipping wrong. I try to be extra careful, err on the side of caution and calculate shipping a little higher. I tell bidders that ask, "You will pay what I pay for shipping". However, I know that between international bidders and language barriers, things can get hairy. That's another drawback of accepting international bidders.

I am hopefully gonna be sitting here when the winning bid comes through, so I hope I can get the invoice out in time.. lol. If they don't pay the proper shipping amount, I just don't ship the item. However, things can get crossed and then you get bad feedback. I hate to ruin my 100% feedback score because someone refuses to pay international shipping! lol

 

[Pookinaround]

WATCH INTERNATIONAL BUYERS AND ABOVE ALL ELSE HANG ONTO TRACKING INFO FOR AT LEAST 45 DAYS!!! You can set your profile to block international bidders. The post office has different policies when shipping to different countries and to get a tracking number can be quite expensive sometimes but without it you can get charged back through Paypal in a heartbeat. When an auction ends a buyer can pay immediately and this would be at whatever price you had listed for shipping. If you then don't complete the transaction then you are gonna be considered the bad guy and you pretty much ought to expect a negative (they do fall off after a year though). I got burned shipping some N64 games overseas many moons ago so never again. I have been on Ebay a long time and have done well over 2000 transactions. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions...

 

[javachin]

If you are shipping valuable things, always ship UPS. Their tracking and insurance policy is the best. Just be very, very specific on your listings and look at the shipping exclusion lists. You can block international buyers, buyers with negative feedback, etc. Keep all of your documents for a while too.

 

[Pikaia]

Well, this whole thing turned into a FIASCO and a half, let me tell you! The Sega CDX was going higher and higher with the bids and I was EXCITED! I didn't have anything invested in this thing, so I was thrilled to have some extra money. I wasn't planning on selling to international bidders, but I didn't know about blocking them either. A guy sent me a message and asked if I would ship to France. I checked his feedback (not knowing that sellers can no longer leave neg feedback for buyers since 2008) and it was 100%. He had bought from the US many times, so I thought what the heck? I sent him a quote which ended up being $60 and he bid. He won the auction. The Sega sold for $198.

He took a week to pay which kinda irritated me, but he finally paid after I opened an UID case against him. I shipped the item Express mail with tracking number, insurance and signature confirmation. I did everything I could. So, I watched the tracking and it arrived and was out for delivery on Oct 24th. Surprise, no one was home and the item went back to the post office.

I figured the guy would pick the item up in a few days at the most. Nope, 3 freaking weeks went by and NOTHING. It was just sitting there at the PO in France. At the two week mark, I started to get nervous and did some research on the seller forum. I found out about an international scam that people can do. They let the item sit at the post office, file a claim with paypal "item not received" and then when they receive their refund, they will pick up the item. Isn't that crazy? This got me pretty nervous, because if I bought a $200 item, I would be there lickety split to pick it up.

Well, after the three weeks, he did as I expected and filed a paypal claim. I called paypal and informed them of the situation and they were very helpful. The man told me I need to check France's tracking information through Chronopost (France's post). I did this and it said the item was being "returned to sender". So that was a good sign! A week went by and I was kinda waiting to see if the item would show up and it did. I refunded the guy's money. I believe that the guy changed his mind, knowing the item would be returned to me and he would eventually get his money back. For your reference: www.track-trace.com is an excellent tracking service that tracks basically any carrier and does it internationally too! You may need to translate stuff though.

I am not selling internationally anymore. Out of the three items I had listed- The first never paid and I filed UID (haven't relisted), the second did pay only after I filed the UID after a week and a half, and the third was the Sega. I don't know. It just kinda turned me off to the whole thing.

Thanks for your feedback guys, I blocked international bidders and people with bad feedback (although feedback doesn't mean squat anymore) and blocked currencies I do not hold on paypal.

 

[Pookinaround]

Buyers also will use negative feedback as extortion...(getting a negative doesn't scare me anymore) it isn't the end of the world and I refuse to be bullied. People still buy from you with them. Last negative I got was from a buyer who filed an item not received claim against me and lost (cause I had tracking info) then said the usb cord for the Elmo doll didn't work...lol stick to one story but I am glad to see ya got it...lol!

 

[Pookinaround]

The best advice I can give a seller is to check what an item sells for by searching completed listings and use that to price your item accordingly. Start your opening bid at the minimum you are willing to accept and add 10% to that as a buy it now price. Then if a buyer uses buy it now you can check immediate payment required for buy it now. You avoid a LOT of unpaid items that way. My user name on there is goinggoinggone_76 feel free to check out how I do mine.

A CDX is well worth relisting. There is a LOT of money in old school video games. I have a funny story about a CDX. Not last summer but the summer before I went to a yard sale where I knew there was going to be a lot of games. Rule of thumb with yard sales is that the early bird gets the worm. Anyway there was a fire and I was late getting there. I walk up and another guy had the CDX in his hands...I was ticked so I asked how much for ALL the games guy said $50 and the guy holding the CDX started grinning from ear to ear. I was NOT going to be defeated...lol The guy said well he was here first so I said fine I'll give you $100. Other guy goes $125, I said $150! LOL I still made money but boy was I mad this cost me a hundred bucks more than what it should have...I kept that CDX as my trophy...LOL

 

[Pikaia]

Thank you Pook! I always thought you wanted to start items low for more bids, but that totally makes sense! Buy it Now probably have soooo much less unpaid items. My boyfriend says I should definitely relist the CDX with no international bidders. I probably will, just not in too much of a rush to do it.

I will check out your username for sure. I am always looking for tips from experienced sellers like you cause I have no clue what I'm doing half the time! LOL! That's great that you were able to score that CDX, I just love garage sales. Although I didn't go to any this year and that is sooo unlike me! I guess I was too busy doing other things, next year I am definitely getting out there!

 

[Pookinaround]

Thank you Pook! I always thought you wanted to start items low for more bids

Doing that is always a gamble. I have had multiples of the exact same item and I sold them at different times and they can bring two entirely different prices. I have noticed a lot of items sell better towards the beginning of the month too. Sometimes when doing listings the way I explained before you may not get any takers the first time around and you have to re-list but usually stuff eventually sells and if it doesn't that is when I drop prices but it is a lot safer that way. You know what you are going to get and hey you get 50 free pr month so what the heck...

I haven't really been doing much buying since I got into chins and I miss it in a way. It does get old chasing down great deals and with the price of gas these days it isn't what it used to be... You can definitely make money on Ebay but it can sometimes be a serious headache and don't forget that about 10% of what you get goes to Ebay/Paypal for fees. They make their share believe that and it is the sellers who do all the work. They just provide a venue...but nevertheless a brilliant business from Ebay's standpoint.

BEST OF LUCK TO YA!!!!