Ebay / Hunting questions and answers thread.

[diggummup]

Has anyone sold stuff on Ebid? Their listing fees are low. I was just wondering if anyone used them because I am getting tired of the e-bay fees and non-paying bidders.

All other sites are going to basically suck unless you already have a strong following of buyers.
I get tired of people complaining about ebay fees. Seriously, they have 15+ years of advertising under their belt already. They are an household name. ebid isn't an household name. Sell better stuff if the fees are really bothering you. You know the fees BEFORE you go to list an item. They aren't something that is hidden and secret that gets thrown at you after the auction ends.

Where else can you sell items for these kinds of prices with lower fees so easily?

I don't mind the fees because that's the price of doing business and it's no worse than a local auction house will charge you, only you get a million times the exposure, plus I only pay 9% (plus paypal) and then I get a 20% discount on my final value fees for having a top rated seller status. As I stated in another thread, I just wish they had some serious competition because it seems they are always changing the rules in favor of buyers versus sellers. If I was a dishonest person I could make a killing on ebay as a buyer, using unscrupulous methods and sellers would have no recourse. I'm sure it's being done now to new or inexperienced sellers who aren't aware of the exact and correct procedures to use when selling/shipping on ebay. I still haven't got over the fact that you can't leave neg. feedback to buyers. And how long has that been in effect? Several years now?
I don't know if this applies to you but they have some MORE new rules coming soon as it pertains to maintaining or achieving a top rated seller status. Here are the new rules (also includes a few others, a couple good ones actually)- http://announcements.ebay.com/2012/02/2012-spring-seller-update/ About the only thing I may have a problem with is the fact that I have to offer same day or 1 day shipping in order to keep my status. I ship within 24 hours usually anyway, but there's always the exception if i'm really busy with my real job.

 

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[GibH]

I ship within 24 hours usually anyway, but there's always the exception if i'm really busy with my real job.

Same here, but there was no way I was going to go to the P.O. yesterday with the weather we had.

 

[famous turtle treasures]

I have 24 hour turn around on my items anyways but the way I read it was you just had to have your tracking updated within 24 hours. So as long as I pay for postage within 24 hours technically I am meeting the standard.

Unless I misunderstood the new rules.

I do have to admit the new DSRs are going to be much better.

 

[leadnugget]

cheap shipping tip.
i have found a way you can ship a lot of items cheap with usps first class mail. (under 13 oz)
by using poly shipping bags and bubble wrap.
i bought a large lot of poly bags on ebay and use them often.
i buy the large ones and after sealing them, fold and tape them down to a more compact size.
this way i can offer free or cheap shipping.
i just ended a small vintage toy lot, it was 8oz. 12"x7"x4" package.shipping for only $2.48.

 

[diggummup]

I have 24 hour turn around on my items anyways but the way I read it was you just had to have your tracking updated within 24 hours. So as long as I pay for postage within 24 hours technically I am meeting the standard.

Unless I misunderstood the new rules.

I do have to admit the new DSRs are going to be much better.

I noticed it says you ship within 3 days of receiving payment. You better change that to 1 day if you wanna keep getting that 20% final value fee discount after June 1, you won't get it anymore. Also, if you do it now you will receive an extra 5% off your final value fees besides the 20% you already get (until the new rules go into effect then back to the standard 20%).

•Starting June 1, those listings from Top-rated sellers that include 1-day handling and a 14-day or longer return policy with a money-back option will get the greatest average boost in exposure and 20% final value fee discounts. Listings that don’t include these services will continue to get some boost in Best Match and the Top-rated seller badge, but not the 20% discount or greatest average boost.
•Bonus discount now: As an extra reward to help you get started offering these in-demand services now, from March 1 through May 31, Top-rated sellers will get a bonus 5% discount off final value fees—along with their current 20% discount—for all listings with 1-day handling and a minimum 14-day return window with money-back option.

 

[famous turtle treasures]

Yeah I am going to do a bulk edit and change everything here pretty soon. Just been busy working on the new website.

 

[Buff4]

The trick with shipping fragile items is to make sure it is packed very tightly in the box with no play and use bubble wrap with tape for the individual item/s. I use old newspaper, grocery store bags and any other packing material I can find for free, pack it (entirely) around the item that is already wrapped and taped in bubble wrap.

My question would be (actually it's more of a comment or a peave) What can one do to keep new buyers
(0 feedback) from bidding? or more importantly how to get them to pay. It seems recently i've been having problems with relatively new ebayers not paying for items they've won. Anyone else have this problem? Can I put in my listing bidders with 0 feedback or new members can't bid? Probably not huh?

Sold some salt and peppers this week, a set of Shawnee dutch boy & girl went for $15 paid $1, a set of majolica ones shaped like oranges paid $1 sold for $11.06, a ben franklin half dollar paperweight paid .50 sold for $20.50 and many others......

Yes there is a way to limit who tou sell to. I think I set mine as , if you have 1 non payment, you can't bid. Also If you sell as a Buy It Now, you can require immediate payment. I'm a Top rated Power Seller, and have been on Feebay for 14 years. Feel free to ask any questions. Also as far as shipping glass, I would stuff the item with newspaper, wrap in bubble wrap and then wrap the whole thing in that plastic they sell to seal your windows in the winter. After it's wrapped, you hit it with a hair dryer to schrink wrap it... Glass is very rough to ship, but I have a very good track record.

 

[Buff4]

Frankly I'm tired of jumping through all the hoops just to be a "Power Seller" and have a "Top Rated badge", big deal...20%... yeah yeah I know some are going to say that 20% is a lot, but if your buying items for resale and making 100%-3000% profit on the item, I'll pay the extra fees. I've been with Feebay since the beginning, when sellers were more important then buyers, but now that they have all the traffic, there is NO OTHER auction site that can compare, and I have tried Amazon and others with nearly no traffic. We sellers need buyers, and theres no reason for buyers to leave Feebay as they are getting treated better and better each day.

 

[diggummup]

Yes there is a way to limit who tou sell to. I think I set mine as , if you have 1 non payment, you can't bid. Also If you sell as a Buy It Now, you can require immediate payment. I'm a Top rated Power Seller, and have been on Feebay for 14 years. Feel free to ask any questions. Also as far as shipping glass, I would stuff the item with newspaper, wrap in bubble wrap and then wrap the whole thing in that plastic they sell to seal your windows in the winter. After it's wrapped, you hit it with a hair dryer to schrink wrap it... Glass is very rough to ship, but I have a very good track record.

Yeah, i've been selling partime on ebay for the last 8 years, i'm pretty well versed in their policies and guidelines (and constant changes). I've set and reset up my buyer requirements several times over those years, but they are a joke and pretty much useless and noneffective. I have it all set to the maximum (so to speak) in order to block certain buyers. Mine are as follows-
1- They have to have received 2 Unpaid item Strikes within 12 months not 1 (they don't have that option anymore). It should be 1
2- Live in a country I don't ship to. common sense and shouldn't even be an option
3- Have 4 policy violations within the last 6 months. it should be 2 in the last 12 months
4- Have a feedback score equal to or lower than a -1. the biggest joke, is this even attainable? should have an option for "buyers with less than 10 feedback requires payment at auctions end"
5- I blocked buyers who didn't have a paypal account for a short while, but I changed that. I think sellers should have the option to accept payment in ANY form, this is not a communist country (not just yet anyway).
6- I always use the "buy it now requires immediate payment" whenever it's applicable. if you want it now you should pay for it now

And that's it, like I said it's a joke and basically you have to physically put a "bad" buyer on your blocked bidders list after you find out they are "bad". One of my dislikes about Ebay for sure. That's just one example of the buyer advantages and/or seller disadvantages. As I said, my comment was more of a peeve than anything else. Sellers should have more control over who they can block. The guidelines right now don't do 99.9% of sellers a bit of good when it comes to weeding out the bad.

 

[2ndisbest]

The trick with shipping fragile items is to make sure it is packed very tightly in the box with no play and use bubble wrap with tape for the individual item/s. I use old newspaper, grocery store bags and any other packing material I can find for free, pack it (entirely) around the item that is already wrapped and taped in bubble wrap.

My question would be (actually it's more of a comment or a peave) What can one do to keep new buyers
(0 feedback) from bidding? or more importantly how to get them to pay. It seems recently i've been having problems with relatively new ebayers not paying for items they've won. Anyone else have this problem? Can I put in my listing bidders with 0 feedback or new members can't bid? Probably not huh?

Sold some salt and peppers this week, a set of Shawnee dutch boy & girl went for $15 paid $1, a set of majolica ones shaped like oranges paid $1 sold for $11.06, a ben franklin half dollar paperweight paid .50 sold for $20.50 and many others......

Yes there is a way to limit who tou sell to. I think I set mine as , if you have 1 non payment, you can't bid. Also If you sell as a Buy It Now, you can require immediate payment. I'm a Top rated Power Seller, and have been on Feebay for 14 years. Feel free to ask any questions. Also as far as shipping glass, I would stuff the item with newspaper, wrap in bubble wrap and then wrap the whole thing in that plastic they sell to seal your windows in the winter. After it's wrapped, you hit it with a hair dryer to schrink wrap it... Glass is very rough to ship, but I have a very good track record.

What is with the sealing and shrink wrapping? What does that do for the glass to protect it? Just asking because I sell a lot of dishes and had no problems until the USPS broke 2 separate packages in 3 days. The one lady sent me a pic and the bowl looked like an m-80 was set off inside of it. It was ground to dust. She said the box was fine with no damage and the weather wasn't cold and her husband took the package straight from the carrier. Though I can't imagine whoever was handling the package didn't know whatever was inside was destroyed. Must have sounded like a box of broken glass.

 

[Buff4]

2ndisbest, If you are asking me directly about the schrink wrapping, I'll go a little more into detail. I hit a lot of stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army and any other thrift store I see. And usually you can find open boxes of the plastic people use to seal off drafts on their windows at home (very cheap...99 cent range. If you can't find any there, than any Lowes, Home Depot or Ace Hardware will have it. The reason I use this it to keep the protection on the item itself. Years ago I had 2 glass shipments out of about 30 break, which wasn't bad but it still cost me money. Lets say you have a set of 4 nesting bowls to ship. Each bowl gets a piece or two of bubble wrap between them, then all 4 bowls are "nested" and wrapped in 2 layers of bubble wrap and taped, next I will take like a 2'x2' piece of the window sealer and wrap the 4 bowl package (tape firmly). Now I have a heat gun, but a hair dryer will work, and all you do is heat the plastic as you would do if sealing a window. The heat (not to high) will schrink the plastic tightly around your items, and now it's nearly bullet proof. Of course you still have to package theitem in the box well, but the items will not bang together.
This may sound like a lot of work or materials, but it really is not. It takes me about 10 minutes. Also with ANY item that needs special prep for shipping, add $1.00 for handling to help cover costs. 99% of my Feebay sales are "Fixed Price" or "Buy it now" auctions for many reasons. With BIN auctions, you can require "immediate payment". Most buyers do not want to wait the 3,5,7 or 10 days for the auction to end, also there are impulse buyers to consider, and those that just came into some money or a new credit card, and just want to SPEND !!! (it's the American way). Sure you can at many times get more money for an item if it's an "Auction" style and get a bidding war at the last 5 minutes, but you have to be sure to TIME your auctions to end at an ideal time - like 11:00 p.m. Est time - 8:00 Pacific. There is a lot of money to be made out there, but you can also loose your shirt by buying items that won't sell. I used to do at least 2 hours of research per day looking at the completed auctions of the items I was interested in selling. MORE to come, as I'm running out of space here

 

[Buff4]

Part 2 of last thread - I noticed people are talking about apps on there Smart phones, and this will save you tons of money on questionable purchases. Figure if you can't make 3-4 times what you paid... DON'T BOTHER. I remember the days prior to these apps, and I would carry a small digital voice recorder and make a note of what I saw, and where it was (which store) and then when I got home I would look them up on Feebay (under completed auctions), and sometimes have to run back to the store to buy the item. But like I said before, research is a huge benefit. I have bought items for 1.00 and sold them for nearly 500.00 (and that was a simple handheld calculator), 2 hard hats at 10.00 each, sold within 24 hours for 175.00 each, Leica lens at a yard sale for 5.00, sold for 785.00, box lot of old radio tubes and light bulbs for 25.00, sold 1 light bulb for 475.00, 2 more in the 175.00 range, and a few more in the 100.00 range. Coro Horse head pin, paid 1.00, sold for 150.00.... I can go on and on and on. My wife used to say I had a horseshoe up my as*, but after 34 years of yard sales, flea markets, auctions and thrift stores, items stand out. I came on this site for MD'ing, and was helped by many. I stumbled upon this forum buy chance, so if anyone needs advice as far as Feebay, just ask...and I will TRY to help.
I love Treasurenet.com
P.S. PLEASE think about becoming a Charter Member, it's only 20.00, and it helps run this site. I joined after only 2 days of enjoying this site. IT IS THE BEST ON THE INTERNET.

 

[bazinga]

Has anyone sold stuff on Ebid? Their listing fees are low. I was just wondering if anyone used them because I am getting tired of the e-bay fees and non-paying bidders.

All other sites are going to basically suck unless you already have a strong following of buyers.
I get tired of people complaining about ebay fees. Seriously, they have 15+ years of advertising under their belt already. They are an household name. ebid isn't an household name. Sell better stuff if the fees are really bothering you. You know the fees BEFORE you go to list an item. They aren't something that is hidden and secret that gets thrown at you after the auction ends.

Where else can you sell items for these kinds of prices with lower fees so easily?

I don't mind the fees because that's the price of doing business and it's no worse than a local auction house will charge you, only you get a million times the exposure, plus I only pay 9% (plus paypal) and then I get a 20% discount on my final value fees for having a top rated seller status. As I stated in another thread, I just wish they had some serious competition because it seems they are always changing the rules in favor of buyers versus sellers. If I was a dishonest person I could make a killing on ebay as a buyer, using unscrupulous methods and sellers would have no recourse. I'm sure it's being done now to new or inexperienced sellers who aren't aware of the exact and correct procedures to use when selling/shipping on ebay. I still haven't got over the fact that you can't leave neg. feedback to buyers. And how long has that been in effect? Several years now?
I don't know if this applies to you but they have some MORE new rules coming soon as it pertains to maintaining or achieving a top rated seller status. Here are the new rules (also includes a few others, a couple good ones actually)- http://announcements.ebay.com/2012/02/2012-spring-seller-update/ About the only thing I may have a problem with is the fact that I have to offer same day or 1 day shipping in order to keep my status. I ship within 24 hours usually anyway, but there's always the exception if i'm really busy with my real job.

Exactly.

In the grand scheme of things, ebay fees are nothing if you know what you are doing. I can sell items for $100 that you couldn't give away at the local antique mall for $50.

Ebay keeps throwing more rules at me and I just don't seem to even notice them anymore. Somehow I'm a top rated seller without putting much effort into the site. So when I see people complaining, it irks me, since this is the easiest time in history to make money from home. People should be thankful for these opportunities. Ebay as it is, no matter how poorly it is run, is still better than no ebay at all.

I sell items that would end up in the trash can at many auction houses since people just don't see the value in them. I couldn't do that without ebay.

And for those that complain... well here is some inspiration... With the help of ebay, I have paid cash for my last two houses. I don't have a job. Selling online is what I do.

This wouldn't be possible even 20 years ago. I can wake up at 10am and be lazy and go ship orders at my own pace and then smile and wave at the fedex guy when he shows up for his daily pickup.

But, some days I'm so busy that I miss my afternoon nap.

 

[Buff4]

bazinga, I agree with you 1000%. If you know what your doing, and know what to buy and sell, you can do very well. Everyone is looking for an alternative to Ebay, but that is where the "Buyers" go.... and so I will stay.
Go take your nap now..lol.
P.S. remember the days we had to bring 10,20 or 30 packages to the post office and stand in line.... I haven't been to the post office in years now, as they pick it all up at my door... what a beautiful thing.

 

[diggummup]

I sell items that would end up in the trash can at many auction houses since people just don't see the value in them.

Note to self... check the trash bins at the local auction houses! lol

 

[bazinga]

bazinga, I agree with you 1000%. If you know what your doing, and know what to buy and sell, you can do very well. Everyone is looking for an alternative to Ebay, but that is where the "Buyers" go.... and so I will stay.
Go take your nap now..lol.
P.S. remember the days we had to bring 10,20 or 30 packages to the post office and stand in line.... I haven't been to the post office in years now, as they pick it all up at my door... what a beautiful thing.

I missed my nap today! A bunch of guys play basketball every Monday afternoon at the gym where I work out, so I needed to get some exercise in this week while I'm still young enough to run up and down the court.

I couldn't imagine waiting in a post office line. It's absolutely miserable. And pretty often it's ebay sellers that have no clue what they are doing and need their hand held when they get up to the front of the line. Paying the $10/week for the daily FedEx pickup is a dream come true for me.

I sell items that would end up in the trash can at many auction houses since people just don't see the value in them.

Note to self... check the trash bins at the local auction houses! lol

I worked at three different auction houses while going to school when I was younger. I made more money picking through the trash than I ever did through the regular wage. Not to mention I got to see what was going up for auction and research it all before it came up for sale and was allowed to bid, so it was win-win for me. The thing that sucked was everybody knew I was buying for resell, so stuff that they would normally ignore, if they saw me bidding, they knew it must be worth a pretty penny and would bid against me.

 

[Buff4]

Being a runner in an auction house does have it's perks, and I know what you mean about others watching you and bidding on items that your interested in. I have noticed the same at the auction I used to go to regularly. And yes, they do trash some items worthy of selling. I was not aware that Fedex charges for pick-ups. I use USPS, and as long as 1 package is going Priority, they'll take all the others... even International. If I had 15 1st class packages going out, I would just upgrade 1 of the packages to Priority to qualify for pick-up.

 

[bazinga]

Being a runner in an auction house does have it's perks, and I know what you mean about others watching you and bidding on items that your interested in. I have noticed the same at the auction I used to go to regularly. And yes, they do trash some items worthy of selling. I was not aware that Fedex charges for pick-ups. I use USPS, and as long as 1 package is going Priority, they'll take all the others... even International. If I had 15 1st class packages going out, I would just upgrade 1 of the packages to Priority to qualify for pick-up.

Yeah, I get charged $10 a week with FedEx. I also ship USPS at times as well.

I have a contract with FedEx, though, and get discounted rates based on my volume. And having access to SmartPost is a crazy cost saver. Probably saves me $3-5,000 per year. Instead of spending $12 to ship an item, I spend $7. Not to mention the savings I get on overnight and ground shipments. They can't compete with the USPS on First Class or under 2 lbs to same/neighboring states, though.

 

[Grundestoun]

How do I find the completed auctions section of ebay? others here have mentioned it. I would like do do some research, but havn't been able to find it.

 

[2ndisbest]

How do I find the completed auctions section of ebay? others here have mentioned it. I would like do do some research, but havn't been able to find it.

When you look for an item and the page with all the items for sale comes up there will be a big blue search button on the top right of the screen. Right next to it there is a tab "advanced". Click that.