A good way to sell (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: Claribella

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	03/12/08 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: sell stuff from the comfort of your living room

Disadvantages: Can get messed around

My hubby and I set up an Ebay account about 6 years ago and have been buying and selling on there ever since. It has changed since we first started because it's become more well-known and most households have the internet these days.

When we first started our Ebaying I could get some real bargains and I mean bargains. You can still get stuff relatively cheap but a lot of the time the things that I want are things that others are willing to pay for too so the bidding goes ridiculously high.

There have been times where I have really wanted something and have got so carried away in a bidding war that I've ended up paying well over the odds for it. Sometimes I found stuff in the Argos catalogue for much cheaper and I think a lot of people find that they have the same problem as me........no self control! These days I will either do a 'Buy it now' so I know exactly how much I'm going to pay for it (half the time the bidding goes over or very near that price anyway). If I am going to bid then I will keep a fixed price in my head of what I want to pay for that item and won't go any higher than that. In the beginning I loved the excitement of the bidding war but now I tend to put my price on that item and check back when the auction has finished to see if I've won.

There have been occasions where I have bidded on something, paid for it and when it's arrived it's not what was described in the item description. I paid £100 for a Shure SM58 Microphone and when it arrived it was not only broken but it was an older model than what was in the photo. After contacting the seller and having no response I just had to accept that my £100 should have just as well been thrown down the drain. At the time I wasn't aware that I could have contacted Ebay and asked them to sort it out.

When it comes to selling stuff we've had both good and bad experiences. In general most people pay up quickly and love the item when it arrives but sometimes you get the odd buyer who takes absolutely ages to send the money over and you have boxes hanging around for ages. If the buyer doesn't respond to your emails asking them to pay up then you can give a second chance offer to the bidder that just missed out. This is pretty inconvenient because they have obviously bidded less for your item so you can lose a couple of quid.
The last round of Ebay we did was very successful but we were waiting for a payment for weeks and weeks. We sent a few emails to the woman and she finally replied saying that she didn't actually bid on the item and she thinks someone must be using her account. Whether that was true or not it doesn't bring back the £10 that I thought I had made.


You can set up shops on Ebay and there are a lot more around on the site than there was when I first joined. I know a lot of people who have a shop on Ebay because although they have their fees its not nearly as much as opening a shop on the high street and paying for rent, electricity and all the other things that go along with renting a place.

Most people seem to pay by Paypal these days (It's very quick and the money can be in your account within seconds) which is a pain in some ways because not only do you have to take into account the fees that Ebay shaft you with but Paypal take a good percentage too. It can also be a bummer when people pay by cheque because you have to wait for it to arrive then cash it in and wait for it to clear before you can post the item. Sometimes people write the wrong name on the cheque so you have to wait for another one to arrive but at least you don't have fees with the cheques.

I feel great when I've packaged up a load of stuff and posted it off at the local post office but if I've had a massive sell off then you can pretty much guarantee that something won't get to where it is meant to go and I end up giving a full refund. Again you don't know if the person is telling the truth but rather than have a full on dispute that takes weeks to rectify I just tend to give them there money back and just think if they are lying and did receive the item then the money they get back is a blessing for them from me. That stops me from becoming bitter too after all it's only money.

It does take along time to actually list items to sell but it's worth it when you check you stuff and see that it's going for more than you actually paid for it! That doesn't happen very often and I generally make a loss but in a sense it is a gain because most of the things I sell are stuff that has been sat doing nothing for a century (ok maybe not that long!).

Although this review seems quite negative I would recommend using it to sell some of your old crodge because it is fun and you would probably get more for it on here than at a car boot sale. It's much crosier doing it from the comfort of your own front room too!

Summary: A good auction but has high fees and people can be annoying.