eBay selling advice

[Stomski]

For those that have sold on eBay what is general good advice?

How do you price other than looking at previous sold listings?

What's your best strategy for dealing with offers?

Is it acceptable to add a little on to postage to cover box and packing materials? (Previously I've always had soare packing materials to hand, but now I've scaled up I've had to buy a supply of boxes, tape, and packing filler)

In the event that someone complains, what's the best course of action? E.g. lost package (I'd refund and claim from courier) or not as described (I'm pretty verbose with pictures and description, but they could always damage themselves).

Anything else people advise?

Thanks.

[Bogatan]

Work out your postage in advance, add whatever for packing materials and add that to your start price and list as free shipping. If you charge 1p more than the actual price someone will eventually complain.

I appriciate this doesnt work if the plan is to use free 99p listing type offers.

I should say I havent sold on ebay for 3 or 4 years now. So this advice may be out of date.

[Stomski]

Jun 25, 2024 19:11:27 GMT Bogatan said:

Work out your postage in advance, add whatever for packing materials and add that to your start price and list as free shipping. If you charge 1p more than the actual price someone will eventually complain.

Thanks, nice tip. I've done that a little in the past just to simplify things.

[Pinwig]

I'd agree with Bogatan on the postage. I tend to use sold listings to value items and start a bit under that to generate a few watchers. Always use a tracked postage method, it's sad the number of people who will try to rip you off these days. It's happened to me several times and eBay will always side with the buyer unless you can prove they're lying.

I also use eBay's built in postage method these days to send things. It's much quicker and easier than taking parcels to the post office.

[Shockprowl]

I very rarely sell on eBay but yes TRACKING TRACKING TRACKING. Track that parcel's ass off.

If you've been clear in your photos and descriptions you should be watertight re any not as described shenanigans. When I have sold on eBay I always do extensive descriptions and loads of photos and I never use the auto-generated descriptions.

Bogatan's tip about adding postage to the start price and putting it as free postage is a really good idea, I've never thought of that.

Oh, and I only ever go 'UK only'. It's so much more less stressful and annoying. But that's just me.

[Pinwig]

I do international but only through eBay's own service. My thinking is that if it gets to the UK hub and eBay's international service takes over, it's their fault if it goes missing.

[Stomski]

Not getting a lot of feedback from buyers. When I've bought stuff I try to leave it asap. Are people pretty poor these days at thi

As a seller I don't want to leave any until the parcel has been delivered and there are no disputes.

[Benn]

As a buyer, I will confess to being pretty bad at leaving feedback. Mostly because I find it super tedious to have to write something! If I could just click the stars and not have to write, they'd be done like a shot!

I always catch up eventually, but it can take a week or so.

[Stomski]

One other consideration is capital gains tax yada yada. As with every article I read on HMRC, it's always a horrible grey area.

I didn't buy these toys to resell at a profit, but if the auction happens to go higher than I originally paid (not that I have a record of 15-25 years ago!) does this make me a trader or not?

www.gov.uk/government/publications/selling-online-and-paying-taxes/selling-online-and-paying-taxes-information-sheet

Fortunately going through this guide makes it clear that as long as I'm under the £6k personal capital gains threshold, I'm ok.

www.gov.uk/check-additional-income-tax

I also wonder - with payments from eBay being a net amount after shipping is paid, does paying for shipping offset the income from the final sale price for tax purposes? It seems that if income from sales is over £1k, eBay report this to HMRC. If I was to pay shipping to the handlers directly, there'd be no way to offset this if so.

[that_bluestreak]

nothing to add here, its all covered! re shipping, in general i charge shipping at 4 quid or 6 quid. that covers pretty much eveything , tracked shipping plus a little to cover packs of shipping boxes and tape. i only ship abroad with the ebay service, it makes things so much easier.

[Stomski]

Hrm.

Really starting to like the idea of zero posting fees. it protects you and makes combining sales for shipping so much simpler.

Anyway... I had a buyer take a few items off my hands all fine and I did them a deal on a multi purchase. A few weeks later they messaged me to ask about taking another 3 items off my hands, but I as I was away and marked my selling profile as such I replied saying I'd sort something out in when I return.

In the meantime someone else bid and won one of the items.

I then let them know, and I offer a deal on the remaining 2, but this is informal in a message, not through eBay's offer system.

Before they reply, another buyer has bid on one of the 2 remaining items.

What's the etiquette here? Reneg on my informal offer as someone has bid? Or as it's a returning buyer, show good faith and end the auction to honour the offer I put out? ...?

[that_bluestreak]

I don;t know that there is etiquette Stomski. I think that you just apologise to the original buyer and say that someone else got there first.

[Stomski]

That's what I did, and offered the per item bundle price for a single item as good faith as they were a returning buyer.

[The Doctor]

Are you by any chance also known as 'stomski' on Ebay?

-Ralph

[Stomski]

Aug 26, 2024 18:38:05 GMT The Doctor said:

Are you by any chance also known as 'stomski' on Ebay?

-Ralph

How'd you guess?

Aug 26, 2024 15:54:10 GMT that_bluestreak said:

I don;t know that there is etiquette Stomski. I think that you just apologise to the original buyer and say that someone else got there first.

I guess my issue is, it almost seems abusable by sellers. You know someone's interested, so you get someone else to bid to put pressure on the original offer to increase what they're willing to pay. Underhand tactics, but I'd certainly be suspicious if I was on the other end.

[Stomski]

Private seller listings now free, but from the 18th eBay hold funds until designated pay out days or you request.

I wonder if they make enough money from business sales and the interest of holding funds until pay out to cover private sales. Or I guess they're trying to compete with FB Marketplace and the multitude of apps that seem to have sprung up.

[Pinwig]

I suspect they're feeling the pinch from all the free services, but for private sellers this seems to be a good thing to me. It means I can list stuff any time now instead of having to wait for the fortnightly 70% off final value fees promotions. I always time auctions to end on Thursdays/Fridays so I can send at the weekend and having the promotions Sat-Mon meant I was always listing on a Monday for ten days just to get a Thursday finish. It was a drawn out process. I'm quite pleased about that. Having to request withdrawals is no biggie, that's how it used to be with Paypal keeping funds from sales anyway.

[Stomski]

There's also the income for eBay from listing extras, but I never see much worth in them myself.

[Jim]

I remember the days when I'd receive cheques by mail, take them to the bank in a batch, wait a few days to see if they cleared and only then send out the items!

[The Doctor]

And at times...postal orders!!!

-Ralph

[Stomski]

At what point does buyer communication count as harassment? I'm sure this buyer isn't intentionally being bothersome, but it's reached the point where I'm ready to block them once I confirm their items have been received.

[Pinwig]

Wouldn't the communication stop anyway once they've got the items?

[Stomski]

They're already messaging me about another listing. I'm sure it's nothing and they're just keen, but I find myself having to repeat details constantly or point out the most basic stuff. I don't want to spend my entire evening in a bulk buy negotiation only to end up at my original offer.

Edit- Checked the count... 60+ messages in 3 days. Doesn't sound like much, but that's over one every waking hour on average.