Advice For Selling On Ebay?

I have been buying on ebay for two or three years. Now I would like to try selling.

I do not expect to get rich. I just want to move some stamps out of my house, and maybe make a little cash in the process. I'v also got some art works and some tools that I'd like to move.

Any advice?

One specific question: I have a PayPal account. Do I need to arrange with them in order to receive my money?

Thanks for your help.

Don

PayPal goes both ways, as we used to say, so one account is enough.

However, you might choose to open multiple accounts to segregate:

- business (taxable income, deducible expenses),

- a second business (rather than sort them out),

- personal (disposed disposable income),

- discrete (if you are hoping to be drafted in Cleveland).

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

PayPal is owned by ebay, and they've essentially made it a one-click process for buyers to pay via PayPal.

You'll have to decide whether to sell auction style or buy-it-now (BIN). Setting a starting price can be tricky with auction style. Unless you expect a bidding frenzy, you may want to set a starting price around the lowest you would accept if you were selling to a dealer, let's say.

PayPal is no longer owner by ebay but is now a separate, publically owned company.

Start listing a few of your cheaper items first; this will provide you with some practice listing things. Pay attention to packaging and shipping, you might want to box up, weigh, and determine shipping method and cost before listing. Determine 'worse case' shipping cost. (This will allow you to offer free shipping if you calculate this into your starting price.) Think through the cost of the listing vs. if you want to add the cost of tracking of not; for lower price listings you might want to risk not tracking them and just using up your spare face value stamps.

Use a scanner (as opposed to a camera) if you are selling single stamps. In any case provide plenty of high resolution, good quality images with each listing. Avoid using 'puffery' in the written description.
Don

Also decide whether you want to limit yourself to domestic sales or sell internationally. I offer free, second-class postage in the UK (although I use first-class for higher priced items and "signed for" for more expensive material), and postage at cost elsewhere. Which posting method I use for overseas depends on the destination - I haven't lost material by sending overseas by standard air-mail, but I've used "signed for" for China. There are some places I probably wouldn't post to.

I fully agree with Don - well worth avoiding the fairground barker's approach. I try to keep it factual, e.g.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371591139....m1555.l2649

Use fixed price and look at what others sell same stuff for. Too high and it will never sell but you dont need to give stuff away either. I only put things in auction if I just plain want it gone and dont care what it sells for. If you have stamps that are just postage type value save them and use them to mail the letters.

Here's my (published by Canadian Stamp News) ebay primer. If you get some benefit from it - I'd appreciate $2 to my paypal account: shibumi.management@gmail.com. Us writers gotta eat.

https://shibumimanagementcanada.wor...8ynph54k-39/

I don't mean to come off as negative, but I have to be frank:

There is some good information buried in that long article, but it is sadly in need of an update and in some areas a complete rewrite.

The ebay landscape has changed a great deal in the six years since that article was written. There are several factual inaccuracies, features that no longer exist, and several recommendations that are no longer in buyers' or sellers' best interests.

Some of the concepts remain valid, but I would not recommend that article to an ebay beginner in its current state.

Sorry.

I'll echo this:



If you're a new seller with no followers, do NOT sell "expensive" stamps at auction, at least not with a low start price. You'll be giving them away at the end, if you do. Too many buyers simply browse the same sellers over and over again and don't use general search. As a new seller, far fewer eyeballs will see your listings as compared to the big sellers, and your auctions, even for better items, may only end up with one or two bidders. If you list using buy-it-now with a fair price, they'll sell eventually. It may take weeks or months, but at least you won't end up giving them away for nothing.

Listing stamps 1 at a time is tiring work if you have thousands to go through. Batch up the cheap ones and sell in kiloware groups. Buy it now for expensive stamps and remember to use very clear scans of the front and back of the stamps. Be precise to mention any faults. Don't offer ridiculous shipping like $40 to mail a postage stamp. Cover yourself with high purchase from any single customer by sending them registered. Use a competitive price compared to what other sellers have listed on the same expensive stamps. COA cert sometimes helps with better stamps. Be mindful that ebay charges a listing fee per listing and takes a % of the sales. You have to pay the fee every month or as you get sales. Paypal also takes a fee out of every transaction. Be prepared for some people to bid and never pay, it happens. Be prepared for I didn't receive my item. Do sell internationally in USA dollars on ebay USA and tick international visible. But block some countries that have a bad postal system where things never get delivered. Be aware postage costs are a killer I spend several hundreds on stamps a month just for mail outs. Use good clean envelopes include a stifner in with the stamps sold. Tape the envelope well and use do not bend stickers on it. Make sure when you pack inc a mention that its an ebay item and please leave feedback etc. Lastly treat your buyers like a king this can get you repeat sales. That's my 2 cents worth of advice I been selling for some years on the bay and no you don't get rich but you can get money to pay some bills or money to buy more stuff off ebay.

revenuecollector - my pappy used to say if you can't say something good........

Maybe you ought to write a helpful article instead of knocking someone who did.

If memory serves, my suggestion to the author (eMail, long ago) was a bulleted appendix.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

And perhaps instead of getting offended and indignant at constructive criticism, perhaps you should make an effort to keep the article up to date before you post a request for payment from anyone who reads it.

You don't see anyone else asking for money here when they post recommendations or research.

GeoffHa-

Noted from your sample listing that, like many UK sellers these days you do not ship to the US. Why?

I understand the concept of limiting mailings to domestic buyers but it does seem US bidders are a bit discriminated against by UK sellers. Probably some issue with insurnce, etc. Sellers have every right to pick where they sell to, just curious..

Stamps

I'm actually happy to post to most places - I mention that in the body of the description of the lot. I just prefer to give myself the choice, to avoid some destinations with a bad reputation for claims of non-delivery. Most of the stuff I sell tends principally to appeal to UK buyers, however.

Geoff

International shipping and insurance can be a bit of a minefield. It's up to each individual seller as to whether they feel the risks worthwhile.

For example, since according to ebay and PayPal policies the seller is liable to show proof of DELIVERY (not shipment), this can be problematic as far as USPS is concerned, as frequently tracking activity ceases once a parcel leaves the U.S. Additionally, USPS insurance is not available on 1st Class International parcels, only at Priority Mail levels and above, which are prohibitively expensive. Many sellers either self-insure or use 3rd-party insurance policies.

If this makes you feel uncomfortable, you can mitigate risk if you are selling fixed price by only shipping items below a certain dollar amount internationally. If you are selling via auction however, this becomes more difficult since you do not know what the final result will be, so you have to make that decision before you know the selling price.

Personally, I set the threshold at $100 since 99% of my listings are fixed price. Above that, I will only ship domestically. I make sure only to ever run cheap items as auctions.

Additionally, different sellers will exclude bidders from specific countries they do not feel comfortable shipping to (or there are excessive communication barrier issues). You can do so by customizing your list of countries and then checking the option for "Do not accept bids from buyers in countries I do not ship to" (that's an approximation, not verbatim).

Personally, I have found Italy to be problematic as a destination country. Historically I have quite a few "losses" from that country so I've decided to not ship there. Additionally, I have blocked China following a run of buyers who (1) spoke no English, and (2) sent messages through ebay that rendered as nothing but Chinese characters, which I cannot read and Google Translate cannot reliably translate. Since I could not tell what questions they were asking, there was no way to know whether I was meeting their needs. I found it safer to simply not ship to China.

Every seller's risk tolerance is different. What works for me may not work for you.