Before I jump in I was hoping some of you would have a few good pointers and or info.
I want to sell some woodworking tools on ebay but don't know much about the service with respect to selling.
I want to have at least two pictures per item - does ebay provide a good service to allow posting of pics or should I go with an other service or am I allowed to direct browsers to my webspace...
I don't plan to put on a reserve or high starting bid but(!) some of the items I just can't part with for "nothing." Can I withdraw an item if the bidding is too low?
And in your experience what's the best way to list.
Posting more than one image costs you extra. You can make a HTML page as your ebay auction page and imbed links to images freely though if you have those images hosted elsewhere.
Reserve will ensure you get what you are after, but again it costs to set a reserve but often worth it. Sometimes you get a good price without a reserve and it can attract more bidders, but other times you just dont get the price you wanted. You can only withdraw an item if there are no bids on it.
That may be the official rules, but they are not enforced. My wife was furious when she was bidding on an item and it was withdrawn and sold privately. She complained loud and long to ebay. They did nothing.
looks up, sees the word tools in the subject line and nods approvingly...
Okee dokee.
It is set up so anyone at the shallow end of the gene pool is at an automatic disadvantage.
I think the eBay supplied service is good enough providing the original (your picture) isn't real shitty.
No you cannot. Per the eBay rules once a bid is placed you legally have to sell it. Now that's not to say that you can't put a reserve on it and identify within the description what the reserve is.
Got a minute?
Let's start with The Three eBay Kisses of Death.
TeKoD No. 1: Bad description. Take a moment or two to examine the item. Note the maker. Note the pertinent data like how big it is, motor horsepower, motor phase, when it was made and condition, to name a couple/few. No really. You wouldn't believe the number of people who are selling "this tool, I don't quite know what it does". In other words, you cannot over describe something.
TeKoD No. 2: No picture. It's 2004, buy a digital. But don't stop there. Crop the picture when you're done. I mean, we really don't need to see your kitty cat in the picture or your cousin Ralph in the background scratching his balls. No really, there's an auction running now and there's this dork in the background frozen in time mid-ball grab.
Rotate the picture if it needs to be rotated. I mean, eBay even has this feature in the upload part of the process and people just don't seem to care.
Don't put the piece in the door of the garage and shoot it from the inside looking out. It's called back light and it pretty much screws up the meter and that means you won't be getting a decent shot.
Don't shoot with harsh light that creates shadows. Best to shoot on an overcast day.
Go find a 'frigerator box (if you have big stuff) and cut it open. Place this behind the item. Again, we don't need to be seeing anything other than the item.
Clean it. Doesn't mean you need it showroom shiney, just that you want to maximize the return and while you're at it, don't shoot the shot with a bunch of other shit strung over/on the item.
TeKoD No. 3: Pick up only. Now granted, this one does sometimes need to be adhered to but if you figure that someone out there reeeeeeeeeeeeeally wants it and is willing to pay to have it shipped you might as well accommodate them if you can.
Now, here's a pointer they don't tell you about anywhere else. Boxes. I try and make sure I have a "proper" box for something before I list it. To this end I've found a local business that throws away boxes by the hunnerts and I'll swing by there every week or so to see if they have anything that looks good. I typically horde a few dozen at a time. Your local supermarket or hardware stores are also good sources. Find out when they get their weekly deliveries and be on hand for that.
Lastly, start with some smaller (less expensive/stuff you don't care about) items and throw them up. Get your feet wet and take it from there. Before you know it you'll be thanking Al Gore for inventing eBay.
One picture is free second and more are about 15 cents each. Supersize and it costs some more again. Gallery picture (the one you see on the side of the description list) add another 25 cents. Take a good picture or two and make sure you use a gallery option to we can see what you are selling without drilling down to your listing page.
Ebay offers a good posting process. Unless you have a tone of pictures that you do not want to pay extra for, you don't need to post to a separate site.
You have three options for listing. Start at a low price to keep your listing fee low and hope the value of your items works for you in the listing process. If you have a good product it should sell. That is unless your cousin Ralph wound up in the picture and no one has a clue what you're selling (i.e. bad description and photo). With this option you sell the item for the highest bid.
Second and third options are reserve price and start with what your minimum starting bid shoudl be. Lot of discussion here about reserve price being public or not. Won't get into it, but reserve will cost you a buck or two depending upon the reserve price. Sell the item, your reserve price fee is waived. Don't sell, pay the listing fee and reserve fee. Start minimum acceptable bid option, you pay for the higher listing fee.
Do what others have said, start with some small stuff and get your feet wet. It's also easier to ship the small stuff in the beginning than the larger stuff. Make sure you know the shipping weight (including the box and packaging material) before you list so people know what the heck it will cost to ship to their place. Use the shipping calculator if you can. Also, make sure you ship the same or next day as it sells. Good service means good (positive) feedback. You need those!
If your tools are large you might consider including them in a local auction that is well advertised as having tools. It's my experience that local auctions bring higher prices for large tools, sometime more than the identical tools sells for new. Something about the competitive auction atmosphere and bidders can actually see and touch the tools as opposed to a picture and hoping for the best. Course, you also have to pay the auctioneer. Not sure what the percentage is for your area but might be worth it. Also, the whole process would likely be easier. Everything sold at one time, no people coming to your house, etc. Good Luck, Mike in Arkansas
What I do is list the weight (estimated with packaging) and let people know it's coming from zip code XXXXX and they can go to the USPS site and do the calcs. Nothing worse than having to do shipping calcs for drive-bys.
Of course I could also get off my dead ass and look into the eBay calculated shipping thing but I haven't.
Also, note in the description if a packing charge is being charged (sometimes this isn't just another way to make a buck). People are more confident of you as a seller if you list up front what it is you are charging for. Nothing worse than paying $4 for something and getting hit with a $10 "extra" (nose picking charge).
I don't do PayPal so I wait, they wait and we wait some more if a check is used.
Greetings and Salutations... Well, in general, my pointer would be to try and ensure that you sell them for more than you paid for them...or at least a chunk of what you paid for them. Don't make up the difference in shipping and handling costs. DO make sure to reply promptly to emails from your customers. DO make sure to send out reminder Emails promptly. DO make sure to send tracking information when available...even if they don't ask.
On Mon, 31 May 2004 11:46:24 GMT, "Bob Davis" wrote:
I suspect that IF Ebay bothered to ask the seller about this situation, the reply was that someone else had been looking at it, had dropped it and damaged it, so the seller had done the "right" thing - cancelled all the pending bids and withdrawn the auction. That, I believe, would fall within the rules. Now...if the seller was LYING and, indeed, sold the thing out from under y'all....that sucks...but is life. I agree that Ebay really does not care. After all, why should they? They get paid huge amounts of cash for not too much work, and there are no regulations that would make them responsible. The good news is...although I suspect it is hard for your wife to do...that she can chill out, as there will be another one come along, and, she likely will get it for a better price than the first one. For Buyers...it is REALLY GOOD to remember that the item you are bidding on is NOT YOURS. So...the other bidders are not trying to take it away from you, like little babies in a playpen grabbing toys. If one gets too much of an emotional commitment to an item on Ebay...one WILL pay way too much for it. This is hard to do...but an excellent way to play the game.
Well, "rules" might be a bit strong. However, that is becoming a problem too, thanks to the fact that Ebay allows sellers to hold their feedback hostage until the buyer gives THEM feedback. I don't recall if it was a rule, or custom in the early days of Ebay that pushed a seller to leave feedback for the buyer at the time that the seller shipped the item. In any case, if it was a rule, it is one that has been quietly changed, and, if it was JUST custom...I think it ought to BE a rule. After all, In this transaction, the buyer has fulfilled his or her part of the bargain at the point that the seller has received payment and is shipping the item. It only seems fair to me that is the point that feedback should be left for the buyer. Now...feedback for the seller SHOULD wait until the buyer has received the item and determined if all is ok. However, in way too many cases these days, the seller will not leave feedback until they have received feedback from the buyer. Way too often, the seller's feedback has NOTHING to do with the buyer's performance in the deal, but, is retribution for negative feedback the buyer leaves. Is that right or fair? I don't think so. Also, I have had some sellers tell me that they don't leave feedback for a buyer UNLESS that buyer leaves feedback for them. This seems wrong to me too, as that is not part of the feedback "deal". However, I suppose it is "legal" as a quick look at the confusing maze of EBAY POLICIES does not turn up any requirements other than that the feedback not fall into the illegal area. Of course, the sellers squeal like stuck pigs at the thought that they should lose this advantage of being able to hold feedback hostage. However, I would be happy to allow the feedback to be expanded, to allow sellers to go back and add commentary to existing feedback in any case (not just negative feedback) to help deal with this situation. The feedback mechanism is flexible, after all. Look at the recently implimented policy of Ebay to allow seller and buyer to mutually agree to withdraw feedback. That is both a big change and a new one. In any case, Ebay is a strange place in its own way, and while it can be a great help, it has, alas, become less user friendly than it used to be, and, more of a money vacuum for folks out West. Regards dave mundt
We (wife and I) prefer using our own server. At first it was the space with our road runner account but it's 10 meg server /100 meg throughput limits too inhibiting so I got StangII.com. 600 meg, 6 gig. Costs about $100/ year total.
You can sell anything, even broken stuff, with a honest description.
Look through
formatting link
(This is all Wife's stuff)
The only pictures not cropped are the ones where the item filled the file.
Wife was researching a Churchill Downs glass. came across one with a picture of the glass in the horizontal. How freaking lazy can they get?
You don't always rotate 90. like this graphic:
formatting link
there is a problem, something's broken or even mildly damaged I document it and take a picture, like the flea bite in this glass:
formatting link
's the picture and thousand words saw (OBOT). I don't want to give anyone a reason to feel they were deceived.
Consequently everyone's happy.
I assume everything posted is to be shipped. I had better be able to hoist it onto a pallet or into a box on the back of the truck to get it to a terminal.
Wife works for the University, she looks through and by the recycle bin daily. She gives boxes away.
Another hint: The Post Office gives away Priority Mail boxes and supplies.
Care to elaborate on that? I am always interested in hearing the reasons for not using PayPal. That is to say, I've heard some which are, um, bustagut entertaining, but that is not to say there *isn't* a good reason for not using PayPal. I just haven't heard it yet.
Same here. I've seen the anti Paypal propaganda and heard all kinds of myths about people getting taken for thousands of dollars but in the years I've had a Paypal account I've never had anything but success with it.
Granted I don't use it much but for both ease of use in selling and buying, it's served me pretty well at a pretty minimum cost.
The fees on my commercial account haven't changed since I opened it. And it allows me to accept credit cards. If paying 2 or 3 percent for that convenience is too much, why not raise the price of the item that much? You're paying for convenience. Where else can you get a service that will do what Paypal does for less money? That gives the same relative level of service?
Truth (part 1): Gore's exact words were "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." [CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer, 9 Mar 1999]
Truth (part 2): Gore's first term in Congress began in 1977.
Truth (part 3): the internet has been around a LOT longer than that.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter, send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
Sure. Well, at least it's better than one who said she wouldn't use it because you had to give them your bank account number, and she wasn't going to do THAT.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.