Advice for Selling on Ebay?

Groges

Groges

Active Member
Silver Stacker
Hi guys, been looking at listing some stuff on Ebay for a while now, was wondering if people with experience had any tips for this?

One thing that has kept me away from listing things so far is the idea of a buyer claiming to ebay that they never received their items from me (when really they have). Any solutions to get around this happening ?

Anyway as always I'll be listing my upcoming items on this forum first and then go from there. This forum is IMO still the best place to trade precious metals :)

Any input is appreciated
 
1 - work out what money you actually want in the hand then add at least 15% to that for your listing price.
2 - send everything with tracking.

Im sure others can add points 3-10 but they would be the main two in my mind.
 
Stoic Phoenix said:
1 - work out what money you actually want in the hand then add at least 15% to that for your listing price.
2 - send everything with tracking.

Im sure others can add points 3-10 but they would be the main two in my mind.
Click to expand...

Definitely agree with you Stoic, do people recommend SOD as well?
 
Groges said:
Definitely agree with you Stoic, do people recommend SOD as well?
Click to expand...
If your item is worth over $50, do add SOD, this is the only way you'll get reimbursed if delivery was disputed. You may need insurance for really pricey items as well just for your own piece of mind, especially if the buyer has a bit of dodgy feedback regarding items not received in the past.
 
haha speaking from experience there?

What are the typical stresses that sellers run into?
 
I buy from eBay when there are coupons and there is something actually worth getting, but selling here on the forum is always the easiest and best way

The above points all stand, but also, make sure your listing title covers all bases, because you want your results to come up when people keyword search, which most do as they aren't obviously going to sift through 20k+ listings

Eg/

Bad: 1oz 2012 Dragon

Good: Perth Mint 1oz Silver Lunar Dragon Coin 2012

Put the Mint, the size, the type, the year, everything you can, into the title to get the most exposure
 
This is the exact situation which has kept me away from selling on Ebay thus far, What measures do you guys take when selling on Ebay to avoid this type of thing? would filming yourself packaging of the product make any difference?
 
Yep, good advice! I suffered stress when I recently auctioned off my one year old PC graphics card to buy a new one. The highest bidder/buyer turned out to be a complete newbie with no feedback history. So I took a video of my graphics card working perfectly thinking the person was going to say something like it don't work (there been cases where people swap their overclocked broken cards for working ones). I waited in stress for around 3 weeks or so until returns could be made. Thankfully it didn't happen.
 
Buyers can make a claim for up to 6 months on ebay! That's freaking nuts.

Also to all the guys saying do this or that. I'm sorry but it makes no difference at all. Ebay doesn't care about the proof. They pretty much always side with the buyer. If they try to say it wasn't delivered and tracking says it was that's not even good enough. You have to have signature confirmation. If you have proof of that then that's about the only thing that will help you. But there are a hundred other scrams or claims they can use. I think what ebay does is if a person has to many claims they get flagged. But I'm sure they can get away with it for a long time. I've heard of people getting caught scamming and when other sellers asked ebay to go back and look at their closed case with that scammer they wouldn't.

With that being said it's pretty rare to have a problem in the grand amount of transactions that happen. A lot of scams happen when a buyer is just pissed off. Item wasn't as described, not as good condition as rated, sent with cheaper slower shipping, take forever to even get it shipped out, not packed good etc. Then they feel scammed themselves and wasted time and angry. So they retaliate. Take lots of photos and be very accurate with the description, pack well. ship fast. Should have no problems.

The amount of money lost on ebay and paypal fees is nuts though. That's a whole other subject. Going to lose like $3 an ounce after fees and shipping.
 
With my ebay account in Australia I get 30 free listings a Month or $1,500 worth of sales, whichever comes first. If you have add ons to your free listings then they charge for that. If an item doesn't sell then the value of that item gets re credited to your $1500 balance.

The best part of ebay is that you can list for free if you are within your limits and if the item doesn't sell there are no fees.

The worst part of ebay are their fees.

The most important thing to factor into your sales is that dreaded fee. You pay 10.9% to ebay on the final valuation of your sale, including the postage as far as I know. Also if you get paid by paypal then there is a further fee from them of 2.6%. That is 13.5% in fees, OUCH!!

Don't do yourself out of money by not taking fees into consideration, good luck.
 
Stoic Phoenix said:
1 - work out what money you actually want in the hand then add at least 15% to that for your listing price.
2 - send everything with tracking.

Im sure others can add points 3-10 but they would be the main two in my mind.
Click to expand...

3 - Photos are everything. Learn how to take good photos and the importance of light, framing, perspective and macro for small items.

And be aware that ebay automatically report you to the ATO for over $20k in sales a year.
 
^^ Sorry about the previous replies as the forum software didn't allow me to post for some reason, no dialog box appeared.^^

All I wanted to say was that I was upgraded to 60 items or $3,000 value. It doubled overnight, I'm happy.
 
Hi Groges,

The biggest concern is not the selling fee, the SOD but the fraudulent charge back through PayPal.

I set an eBay selling account several months back and no issues with items from $100 to $800.

However my largest sale which was over $2500 of rare silver bars successfully bought off ebay from a member of this site and the owner a certain silver research site that many of use.

There were several emails confirming the sale, photos from me packing and receipt of the extra post I had included at my cost as well as Perth mint bronze medallion as I gesture of good will from me and a delighted buyer thanking me for the extra coin and speeding delivery and all completed or so I thought.

Several months later PayPal emailed me say that the buyer had initiated a charge back against me and that they didn't authorise the charge, despite having several emails from the buyer after the purchase including the discussion of other bars.

This caused a huge amount stress and frustration and I believe the buyer has found a legal (but still fraudulent ) way to get cheap silver bars and has made me seriously consider using the site for this reason.

Sorry for the long message.
 
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