On Line selling

[Dick7Access]

I am planning on selling a lot of good items I have around the house. Can anybody give me advice as how to get started, which sites they have used and liked, and vice versa.

 

[Vassago]

Craigslist? Ebay?

 

[Dick7Access]

What has your experience been with eBay and Craigslist?

 

[Steve R.]

What has your experience been with eBay and Craigslist?

I stopped using Ebay six years ago. As a person, who had mainly bought, the terms-of-service failed to protect the purchaser and PayPal is an abomination.

Inspect what you have to sell and see if the items fall into certain categories. The reason that I am suggesting this is that there may be hobby related websites that have buy/sell subforums. Even if none of the stuff is hobby related there may be other websites dealing in what you have.

 

[Alc]

PayPal is an abomination.

Not all that helpful, taken in isolation. Why describe it thus?

 

[Dick7Access]

Thanks all. I had heard that EBay was a nightmare, but wanted a second, third, etc. opinion. I have been looking at some tutorials but have not found the answer to some questions. Who pays shipping, and how to ascertain the condition of product? I had a friend years ago that sold a Rolex watch and when buyer got it he claimed it was a fake.

 

[boblarson]

...and PayPal is an abomination.

Explain please. I've used them for at least 10 years and have never had any kind of problem. But I've never used them in a business way - only personal use for buying some things and also for paying my GoDaddy bill every month.

 

[Steve R.]

Not all that helpful, taken in isolation. Why describe it thus?

Seems that this issue has developed quite a following. Even a few webpages devoted to exposing PayPal abuses: PayPal Complaints. I do not know whether the website is honest or not; but the fact that it exists implies a lot of dissatisfied people. I just did a quick search using Google. Basic issues (as of six years ago), it seemed that Ebay was forcing you to have a PayPal account in-order to do business, it appeared to me that it would be very difficult to retrieve money from your PayPal account, and (even though the-terms-of-service implied a degree of consumer protection) upon reading the TOS the implied consumer protection "evaporated". Fundamentally, if I have a credit card, why use PayPal? Seems that they have set themselves up as an unnecessary collector of transaction fees. So I quit. From my experience and reading the continued experiences of others; Ebay and PayPal are not very reputable.

PS: During the time that I did deal with Ebay I did not have a bad experience.

 

[Fifty2One]

Easiest way to sell your unwanted items is to have a garage sale or pass them over to a consignment store or an auctioneer. You can be liberated of the articles you have been hoarding and have a monetary return on the same day with minimal hassles. Otherwise too many other people will be making a profit on your items and create more effort and troubles than the difference is worth.

 

[Dick7Access]

Hi Bob,
Not much to explain. I have not use EBay, but have a few friends that said stay away. What there problem was I do not know, but I wasn’t going to trust a few people who may or may not know what they were doing. With the vast listing audience <G> on this forum I knew I could get more reliable accounting.

Fifty20ne, Yes I have had successful yard sales in the past, but they are a lot of work. This consignment store sounds interesting; I am going to look into it. I don’t remember seeing any here in FL, but it could be because I haven’t look for one. BTW what kind of Bible do you ride? I rode bikes from the age of 5 to around 50. Too old to ride now but I miss them. My Dad was a motorcycle dealer, and one time had a race team on half mile dirt tracks. His racing bike was a Indian. That dates me doesn’t it?

 

[Fifty2One]

Yes - eBay is a pain as well as other auction sites. Consignment sales are very popular near here, lots of good deals and even some new in the box from manufacturers and warehouse overstocks. Sometimes it is hard for people to leave with less then they show up with... lol

No such thing as being too old for bikes... just have to find the right one that compliments your vintage! I have a number of vintage bikes, more convenient in the country then a car if you are not in a truck or equipment moving stuff around. Playing around with an old Sachs powered BAT in the workshop at the moment. No more dirt racing or even flat tracks since they took trenchers to the tarmac of the old air force base. I make sure I get out to a couple of bike shows a year so the younger people can see the "old school" stuff.
There is a biker bar that opened up near here and all of the "wannabe bikers" hang out there and make a nuisance of themselves. Some of them have asked if I fix bikes but I told them I could not help them out because I have a plastic alergy so they could not bring their asian bikes to my barn.

Hi Bob,
Not much to explain. I have not use EBay, but have a few friends that said stay away. What there problem was I do not know, but I wasn’t going to trust a few people who may or may not know what they were doing. With the vast listing audience <G> on this forum I knew I could get more reliable accounting.

Fifty20ne, Yes I have had successful yard sales in the past, but they are a lot of work. This consignment store sounds interesting; I am going to look into it. I don’t remember seeing any here in FL, but it could be because I haven’t look for one. BTW what kind of Bible do you ride? I rode bikes from the age of 5 to around 50. Too old to ride now but I miss them. My Dad was a motorcycle dealer, and one time had a race team on half mile dirt tracks. His racing bike was a Indian. That dates me doesn’t it?

 

[Dick7Access]

fifty2One, your right, it’s not age, but I get dizzy sometimes from my medication. Once I get my operation done and get off this pain medications maybe I will look into another Bike.

 

[Groundrush]

I have been using Ebay & paypal for over 8 years now & have logged over 300 positive feeback entries

I can only guess that most problems people have are from inexperience & not planning their auctions properly whether it buying or selling

I do agree that Paypal may be a problem but that is mainly down to high costs on higher value auctions that may put people off using it. Paypal is good protecting buyers from disputes & I have had money refunded due to problems but only about 2 or 3 out of the 300 transactions.

The best thing to do is sell one item first & see how you get on
I compare other similar auctions first to see what they go for so to get an idea of what to expect.

Make sure you take good quailty photos to show your item & a good description to go with it, the more effort you put into it the more chances you will get in making a profit.

Don't over price the postage costs as that may put people off. You can even start the price a little higher than you would have then make it free postage if you wish. people are attracted to free postage offers.


Don't start you bidding too low if you are not prepared to sell if the winning bid is not what you hoped for. do this if you know for sure it will sell at a higher cost - see other auctions & see what they go for.

For higher cost items you can either start the auction off with an amount you are prepared to sell for or you can start it off low but put a reserve price in preventing it selling if it does not reach reserve price - this however does incur higher Ebay transaction costs so be careful.

I have sold my car, washing machine, table chairs, baby prams etc & have also bought a parachute on Ebay.

Sometimes I have even resold items that I previously purchased on ebay & made a profit.

It actually becomes fun & even addictave, you may find yourselfe looking around the house for things to sell just to get the buzz

 

[Vassago]

Paypal can be very much an abomination. They freeze people's accounts for no reason whatsoever. I've had it happen to many of my friends who tried selling on Ebay. They figure it's because they are not "Preferred Sellers" and they were outselling the "Preferred Sellers" on Ebay. Since Ebay owns Paypal, they can pretty much do what they want.

 

[Groundrush]

Paypal can be very much an abomination. They freeze people's accounts for no reason whatsoever. I've had it happen to many of my friends who tried selling on Ebay. They figure it's because they are not "Preferred Sellers" and they were outselling the "Preferred Sellers" on Ebay. Since Ebay owns Paypal, they can pretty much do what they want.

Never heard of that before

As a seller you can avoid Paypal all together & ask for cash or cheque instead but you will not be protected if anything goes wrong.

Doing that may also put buyers off as they may think that you're up to no good but I do find that for larger expensive items it's best asking for cash on collection, that way you can avoid the high Paypal costs.

Paypal works best for buyers as it costs them nothing to buy & they get the protection needed for when things go wrong

 

[Dick7Access]

Thanks for all the input. How can the seller be protected about quality? I had a friend years ago that sold a Rolex watch. When the buyer got it he said it was a cheap imitation. My friend almost went to jail.

 

[Groundrush]

Thanks for all the input. How can the seller be protected about quality? I had a friend years ago that sold a Rolex watch. When the buyer got it he said it was a cheap imitation. My friend almost went to jail.

It's up to the seller to be as honest & describe the item condition as accurately as possible, I don't know much about Rolex watches but I would have thought it would be easy enough to prove that it was not fake with certificates or proof of purchase etc

Was the Rolex actually found to be fake?

 

[Dick7Access]

Yes, but what is to stop the buyer from taking out the authentic workings inside and putting in a fake replica and claiming that is what the seller sent him. I think this is what happen to my friend. He had to return the thousand plus $, and the buyer returned a junk watch. I have never bought anything off of eBay for this reason how can a buyer be sure on what he is getting? I have so much stuff that has accumulated over the last 40 years I want to get rid of it but before I do I want to make sure I do it right. There is a woman in my city that has a seminar on selling and buying on eBay but she wants $150.00.

 

[boblarson]

Personally, I would really never buy, or sell, anything over about $150 to $200 (if that). I think the most I ever paid for something was about $120 (for a guitar effects unit). For big ticket items I would rather sell locally.

 

[Groundrush]

The most I spent on Ebay was £2200 for my parachute - the best investment I ever made on ebay.

I put it on sale the other day for £2500 & within hours had a lot of interest,.

I then cancelled the auction before any bids tool place because I felt I was losing a good item & did not want to give up the sport just yet.

Buying new would cost me £4000 plus

I also sold my car for £700 when I was only offered £100 pounds part exchange.