Ebay Sellers and Buyers

Many ebay users don't do their homework and end up with bad experiences, either as buyers or sellers. Here are some tips, from my own experience as well as reading about other people's experiences, on how ebay can work for you.

A little background about my own "expertise": I am usually a seller while an occasional buyer over the past few years. Ebay offers stores and has power seller categories, which I do not have. I would love to expand my regular sales of scrapbook items but have not dedicated the time to it so I have around 250 completed transactions listed. I've just learned over time that there are things to do and ways to go about ebay that make the experience much better for both yourself and your buyer/seller whichever the case may be.

First and foremost, do your homework. Whether buying or selling you must do the homework about your item. Know what the value is on ebay and what people are paying for like items. If you believe your item is worth much more than ebay buyers are paying, don't bother with ebay. Find another way to sell your item, such as listing it in the paper or on craigslist.com. If your item is unique, see if you can find something similar on ebay and what that is selling for also. You may find that ebay is not the answer for you. Ebay has message boards where sellers and buyers communicate and share tips. You can read these and find out some good information.

Something else to consider when listing an item is how much will it cost to ship to someone. Would the shipping costs be so prohibitive that the buyer would say no way? Then again it is not worth listing. I have made shipping cost errors and listed items with much lower shipping than I should have, making my sale not as good because I lost money on the shipping. I now always know what the package weighs and look up how much it would cost to ship an item to the farthest U.S. address. If you are also shipping to other countries, you can list this separately, but it can get tricky. Ebay does have a shipping calculator for both U.S. and international shipping, but I found that sometimes it got the shipping costs wrong.

I now always include shipping and handling costs on my items, rather than using the calculator. That way my buyers know their costs up front when they bid, no surprises for either of us. I also now include insurance and list that within the S&H on my auctions. I had a recent experience that thankfully the buyer was understanding, but an item did not arrive intact and she had not chosen insurance. You can say all you want to in an auction that insurance is extra and you are not responsible if it is not chosen. However, according to ebay policy you can be held responsible. Besides, it's just not good practice to not be good to your buyers. This particular person bought books from me, which I replaced at my cost some similar children's books and she was happy with the decision. So I now choose insurance and tell buyers that it is not optional and that is for both their protection and mine. So far I have not had a complaint.

Buyers, be sure that you look at all auction details, especially shipping costs on items where the cost is "too good to pass up". Shipping might be far too much and why the seller lists too low. This is actually a way of skirting around ebay fees, and is not good practice. If a seller does not list many details in their auction, ask questions. If they don't answer, pass up that great deal. Are you willing to ship several auctions within one shipment and offer a discount? Then say so in the auction and give details. I usually can do this but stipulate that multiple auctions should end within a week of each other and be paid in the same payment (especially if Paypal as they charge fees). If you are a buyer and want several items from the same seller, look for shipping discount details and if they don't give enough information, ask the seller a question via ebay's site. If you like the answer, bid but be aware you might not win all of the items, so be sure you are willing to pay the single item cost of shipping.

Look at feedback ratings, it's a valuable ebay tool. If a person does not have 100% ratings, look at the actual feedback comments. It could be that the buyer/seller that left feedback was unreasonable, leaving bad feedback for a situation that could have been resolved. I've seen some buyers give bad feedback to a seller because they believe the shipping was too high when it was not (you can look back at the auction to see details). Some people believe the item should have arrived faster, when you can see the end date was only a few days before the item was received...usually this comes from new ebayers.

As a seller or buyer you must communicate. Not happy with the purchase? Ask the seller before leaving bad feedback, they most likely will work with you. As of this writing I have a 100% feedback rating for several reasons. I am an honest seller, listing all qualities of an item that I can honestly and carefully. If a book is worn, I don't list it as like new. If a clothing item has a small hole in a mostly unseen spot, I tell it like it is. I also work with my buyers if they are not happy or if something happened. The transaction I described above with the books could have been handled differently, but working together we found a solution and both came out happy. I did not have to ship another set of books at my expense, but I prefer to have integrity and make someone happy with my sale.

Ebay has pretty good auction tools, but they do charge extra for more than one picture. I choose to use an auction listing website and pay monthly for that service. The one I like is The Seller Sourcebook. http://sellersourcebook.com
For scrapbook items I like to list lots of pictures and this site allows for drag and drop for easy uploading. Take a look around, there are other sources out there.
Speaking of pictures, you can sell your item without a picture but you are much more likely to sell at a higher price (or at all) with pictures of the actual item.

What should be the starting price of your auction? That is up to you, personally I list items at the lowest price I am willing to let it go for and don't use the reserve system. The reserve price, for those unfamiliar with it, is a hidden price the seller sets. The seller lists the auction to start bids at say $1, so buyers start bidding but soon are met with a message that the "reserve price has not been met". As a buyer, I find this frustrating and kind of infuriating. People do it because the fees are based on your starting price. You are charged this fee whether you sell or not, and the higher price you start your auction at, the higher the fee. It goes in increments, and I have decided the fee is generally better than frustrating my buyers. A lot of buyers will bid with a reserve price set, so that is a personal choice.

Selling? Keep the personal details out of the auction. Your little one might be the cutest thing on earth, but no one wants the details if it really has nothing to do with the item you are selling. Don't look for sympathy in your auctions by listing your dire circumstances, frankly people are on ebay to find a deal, not to help you out. That might sound harsh, but it's generally the truth. There are legitimate fundraiser auctions on ebay, and people will gravitate there if they want to help out. Others might disagree with this tip, but I can only say what I believe.

Spell out all terms of your auction. What payment will you accept? Paypal is probably the most used online payment tool, and one that most sellers and buyers prefer. You can list an auction as only Paypal and no other payment. Keep in mind that not everyone will use an online service. I let people know that I prefer Paypal, but they can also send a money order or cashiers check. I do NOT take personal checks, due to bad experiences, and make that very clear in my auction. IF someone sends a personal check, I will send it back. So far, just letting people know in the auction has worked. I had one person ask if they could send a personal check due to fees for a money order/cashiers check. When I said no but also suggested a postal money order with lower fees, they were happy for the information and did it that way. Once again, communication is the key.

The best advice I can give about ebay is to be an honest person, be reasonable, and do your homework.