How do you buy/sell on Ebay?

[dougy76]

I'm curious to know how you frequent Ebayers buy and sell.

 

For buyers, do you require anything before you will bid?

1. High feedback rating?

2. PayPal option?

3. Does anything else make a difference on whether or not you will bid?

 

For sellers, what do you find works best?

1. Do you find offering PayPal will yield more bidders and in the end offset the fees you have to pay?

2. Do you provide a flat shipping fee upfront rather than weighing it after the auction?

3. Do you have any restrictions as far as international bidders or feedback ratings on the bidders?

 

Thanks for any input.

[MacGurl]

As a buyer, I will not bid on anything from someone who:

1-has any negative feedback (unless it's like 1 negative versus 100 positives)

2- Does not offer PayPal

3-Does not provide shipping charges (or at least an estimate)

 

As a seller, I always offer:

1-PayPal as an option

2-Shipping estimate

3-Notice that I can refuse bids from people with excessive negative feedback.

 

I also make sure they know how many days I expect payment in.

[Lemmi]

As a buyer only

 

Pictures are a MUST (good pictures)

and a Money Order option

 

negative Feedback for sellers must not be (never sent my item or, took 2 months to ship after getting payment) and not have to many negatives to begin with

 

if there are 2 neg's for every 200 positives i feel pretty safe buying unless those negatives were all very recent ones

[oesii]

I shop and sell exactly like MacGurl except if the negatives are in the past or there's a large amount of positives than I don't mind bidding.

[Bratwurst]

As a buyer I generally try to avoid bidding on auctions of sellers with several thousand feedbacks. Even if the negative feedback is simply overwhelmed by the positive, my experience has been that it's hard to establish decent communication and wrangle swift shipping out of them. I like to deal with 'plain' folk I suppose.

 

Pictures are an absolute must.

 

When selling there are pretty much no restrictions in place. Payment options are varied, feedback rating doesn't matter much unless it's an obvious trouble maker with 10 negatives to 0 positives. I figure everyone has to start somewhere.

[Brad2600]

How do you put something up to sell anyway? Do you have to pay a fee to list something?

 

I was wondering as I have bought off EBay..but never sold anything. I do have some things I'd sell for decent prices just so I could get rid of them.

[oesii]

it's pretty easy to sell, you need to set up an account with a credit or debit account, all the info is easy to get by pressing the sell button in the bar on top of the www.ebay.com page. Here's a little bit:

 

How to Sell

Follow these easy steps to sell on eBay

 

Register.

Set up a seller's account by providing a valid credit/debit card and bank account information. If you'd rather not provide this information, become ID Verified instead.

Sign up to accept eBay Payments. (optional)

If you want to use eBay's easy way to accept buyers' credit card and electronic check payments online, we recommend signing up before you list your first item for sale. Register for eBay Payments.

Fill out the Sell Your Item form.

Take an audio tour of selling

The Sell Your Item form is where you'll create your eBay listing. Here are some of the sections you'll find:

[MaxSpeed]

As a buyer:

I only bid if I can pay paypal (just fast and easy)

I only bid if negative feedback is less than 1% of transactions

I only bid if the seller has 25+ feedbacks

I only bid if the shipping fee is reasonable

 

As a seller:

I only accept Paypal (just fast and easy)

I always offer a buy it now.

I always test games before selling them.

I always pack everything extra nice and secure

I never use L@@@K, Mint, or anything that might cause a buyer to be dissapointed.

 

As an eBayer I appreciate peole who provide honest feedback and sellers

who ship quickly, provide honest descriptions, and pack product well. Sellers usually get top dollar on eBay and I expect good service for paying it !

[Brad2600]

I would do so except that I can't afford the seller's fees right off. Good idea though.

[J.Max]

I always pay with either Paypal or Bidpay (Paypal is cheaper though) and I always make sure that their feedback is relatively good. Pictures are a must! I also don't bid on international auctions, unless I know the seller.

As a seller, I always offer Paypal (usually Paypal only, because it's faster esp. now that eBay and Paypal are the same company). I usually disallow people with excessive negative feedback and international buyers. (I like to use trackable shipping methods and they can get very expensive to overseas destinations.)

[AtariDude]

How do you put something up to sell anyway? Do you have to pay a fee to list something?

 

I was wondering as I have bought off EBay..but never sold anything. I do have some things I'd sell for decent prices just so I could get rid of them.

 

Yes there is a fee involved in placing an ad. The amount of the fee depends on which features you decide to include (for example the first picture is free but the rest of the pictures cost more). They tell you what each fee is so you have to make the determination if you feel that the extra cost involved will make your auction more noticeable.

 

Myself I keep my auctions to one picture and pay the extra 10 cents to keep the ad up longer so that the snipers...umm...bidders can get there last bids in and I can hopefully make a few more dollars as the seller.

 

They also access a fee once the sale is final. I think it is something like 5.25% if it is under $20 and a higher percent if it is more. That part I have forgotten since I haven't put up any ads recently (I just got DSL to work on Friday at new house so I will be posting some items later).

[Happy_Dude]

It's actually less if you sell for more

 

These are the australian $ fees but I think it's basically the same

AU$1 = US$0.55

AU$0 - AU$50.00 ---------- 5.25%

AU$50.01 - AU$1,000.00---2.75%

AU$1,000.01 and over-----1.50%