Problems for New Sellers on EBay

After Christmas of this year I got bitten by the EBay bug and the whole buy and selling thing. Like many others in my position I thought it was a great way to supplement your income from home but soon found out its not as easy as many people would have you believe it is.

I wrote this article to share my experiences with others who maybe thinking they want to sell on EBay and the things you should know before you start.

1. Fee's
Now without going into long boring details I have to say I do understand in their being fee's in selling items no matter where you go but my thing with EBay is they literally charge you a fee for everything you do. For example if you list an item with a buy now price of 9.99 you will be charge a fee for that. If you start your auctions at a certain price the fees start to climb and when you do sell the item then there's the final value fee that EBay receives. Then not to mention you get charged for insertion fees on the ad for the item, picture uploads if you have more then one and duration fees for the length of your auctions.

I loved it when I first started but EBay's policy constantly keeps changing and it seems to me it gets more unfair for the seller which is who basically keeps that site afloat. After all, buyers don't have even close to half the fees that we the sellers do.

I think EBay's fees are ridiculous when you can go to the second best online auction site on the web which is Ebid and have almost no fees at all which maximizes the seller's final profit after a sale.

2. Feedback
Now here's the most important thing on EBay which can make or break someone trying to be a successful seller on EBay. When I first started I had to learn about shipping and handling fees, customs information and much more. Everything started out great for me up till when I hit my 100 positive feedbacks then it seemed things got crappy.

It all started with a package that I shipped to Florida with Canada Post Expedited which is a 9 day (Business Days) delivery. Well the customer was not happy with that even though he paid for standard delivery which takes 3-4 weeks and left me with my first neutral feedback which at the time was no big deal because it still left me at 100 percent feedback. Soon after EBay's policy once again changed and stated that a neutral feedback now counts as a negative feedback. This got me thinking why even have neutral feedbacks now?

A few weeks went by and now I had 150 happy customers until my most recent sale of a gram bar of gold to a guy in the states. Turns out this item was lost in shipping but it was insured and the guy wanted his money back which is fine so I issued the refund.

This time Pay Pals system had decided for whatever reason to take funds from my bank account and not from my pay pal balance or the credit card that was linked to the account. So his refund has been issued but now are pending which was not good enough for the customer who in return left me my first negative feedback and open a dispute with pay pal even though through no fault of my own the item was lost and the refund was not instant. This in return has hurt business.

I decided he had every right to leave his negative feedback but I thought I would do the same for him since I tried everything to make him happy. I found out shortly after that we the sellers can only leave positive feedback or none at all. We Do not have the option to leave our truth feelings on the transaction which again is totally unfair considering we the sellers have NO control over shipping or handling plus for all the fees we pay.

I learned recently that it's impossible to make every customer happy and for that even good sellers get hurt sometimes on EBay.

3. Non Paying Customers
Now here's another thing you have to be prepared to deal with if you decide to sell on EBay. I found most customers are 100 percent legit and plan on paying but you do have ones that don't and seem to bid on many of your items. The problem with this is that if the customer does not pay then you have to re-list the item or you can offer it as a second chance offer to the next buyer but by then the second buyer has changed their minds and decline which in return takes you back to re-listing it and waiting to see if it sells which you pay insertion fees for.

Sellers only recourse for this if it happens is to place an unpaid buyers strike on the customer which takes seven days for the date of purchase and this still does not reflect in their feedbacks.

I was told by EBay that a user can get up to 3 unpaid strikes before having their accounts closed, which is no big deal to buyers because they just open another account where as some of these sellers getting unwarranted negative feedback have had their accounts open for years and have established a customer base. It's not that easy for them to up and start new accounts and they shouldn't have to because some customer is unhappy with shipping times or the items where lost.

I think when a buyer does not pay they should be charged a re-stocking fee or something for the lost of a possible sale to another customer. This is one thing that many sellers are getting tired with.

4. Fakes Sold On EBay
Well it's no surprise that EBay has many fake items on their site. The list includes just some of these: coins, stamps, carvings, gemstones, jewelry, gold, clothes, music accessories and much more.

Now remember I was new to this myself only months back so I fell for a few things that were fakes. I have now kind of learned what to stay away from so I wanted to share the problem items I had.

My problems with fakes started with 14k solid gold jewelry that I bought form EBay and turned around and sold for a pretty good profit just to find out it was a total fake gold plated cheap metal bracelet. I took everything I had bought off EBay that was gold and took it to a local jeweler who verified my worst feeling that they where fake.

After that I started to file disputes with pay pal for over 14 of these bracelets and rings that I had bought from many sellers. Turns out every sale was refunded by the seller and never asked for the item to be returned. Also every one of those sellers had disappeared and closed their accounts on EBay.

So keep in mind if you see solid 14k gold anything from Hong Kong and my Jeweler said Florida on EBay watch out and becarful. I'm not saying all are bad but most and just out to make a slick buck. Also if it's too good to be true then it probably is and I learned this the hard way.

Second thing I had problems with being fake where precious gemstones I was buying. Now you definitely got to know what your looking for which is something I'm still in the process of figuring out myself.

I have bought many rubies, emeralds and diamonds on EBay. I found most gem dealers are located in India and countries far away like that. It makes sense to me since that's where many of the gemstones are mined from but shipping is a killer and the items turnout to be either fake or damage 50 percent of the time.

For example I bought a big 196 Carat emerald that turned out to be a polished and dyed piece of granite or something.

I had the option to return it but the seller wanted the item shipped back registered mail which turns out was going to cost more then the original price of the item and the shipping it took to get here so I had to take the lost on that one.

If you must or want to buy gemstones on EBay try to buy only certified gemstones or buy from sellers who verify that their gemstones are real and only buy from someone that has 100 percent feedback that's been a seller for a few years.

Again if it's too good to be true then it probably is but you have to research each seller or their business before you commit to buying these items on EBay.

5. Safety with Teens Shopping On EBay
Now although our purchases are safe and protected by pay pal or MasterCard how safe is it for teens who can buy weapons and other illegal contraband on EBay? How easy is it for them to buy online?

Well scary fact of the matter is it can be done quite easily and with little to no effort.

Think of it this way, anyone can open a pay pal account even with a fake birth date. Then it takes little to get a prepaid credit card and add it to your pay pal account which verifies your address or add a bank account. Then you sign up with EBay using your slightly modified birth date and boom their on their way.

After that it will take a teen a short period to find illegal articles on EBay which they can easily buy whether they are of age or not. I know because I intercepted a package meant for my son from eBay that was a knife.

There's many things minors can get their hands on from hand knifes, axes, throwing stars, legal herbal smoke (God Knows What That Really Is), Playboy magazines, recipes for instant fire with items found around home and so much more.

That has to be my biggest problem because I never really actually know if the buyer or seller I'm dealing with is an adult.

EBay could be a great safe spot but instead of always focusing on the little things like fees and feedback why not look into changing the bigger problems that seem to be happen there first.

Again just because my experiences with EBay have been far from good does not mean yours will be to but rest assure it will be only a matter of time before someone on EBay will mess up all your hard work if you decide to become a full time seller.

These are merely just things you can try to avoid if you do start on EBay but sometimes it's impossible to avoid problems. Good Luck!!