Buying and selling tips for Ebay (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: snootybutnice

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	24/01/09 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to sell on Ebay, can get a rid of a lot of unwanted items, big marketplace

Disadvantages: Ebay fees soon add up so use all the tricks to minimise costs ... and it's time consuming!

Ebay is a great site for selling and buying things.

I've been both a seller and buyer and here are quick tips for both:

Buying tips:
Check out the finished auctions to get an idea of the selling price of the items. Either bid last minute when there is a lot of interest (so you don't end up pushing the price up) or use an auto bidding service which does this for you, for which there is a charge. Other than this you could strategise on bidding first in the hope that no-one else notices the item and you get it really cheap. Check out the postal costs first (if not listed) because it's no use paying 0.01p for an item and then find postage is £9.99. Also for large/costly items ensure you check the sellers history - if they have a lot of complaints don't bid for their items. If you don't like the hassle of writing cheques and posting them off, check beforehand if your seller accepts paypal - not all of them do. Be fair when giving feedback and allow the seller to make amends if they have got something wrong - just make sure they don't keep you hanging on until a future point in time where you've gone past the deadline for making a complaint. Paypal will normally err on the side of the buyer if you want your money back e.g. if item hasn't arrived or arrived damaged etc.

Selling tips
Always check out the price of postage - and look at other people who are selling the same item to gauge the marketplace. It's always galling to find you've sold the item for a great price and then accidentally charged the buyer £5 less for postage and have made a loss! If you have sold an item and someone has paid by paypal but wants to collect it, ensure you have a written/signed document from them showing that they collected. Otherwise for high risk items some scammers will go back to paypal and say they haven't received the item - paypal will ask you for proof of postage, and when you can't give this to them (because the buyer collected) they will refund them their money - so you'll have no item and no money!! Other than this get to grips with a free Ebay tool called Auctiva. This allows you to put loads of photos of the item onto Ebay for free. Otherwise Ebay will charge you for every picture (except the first one which is free). Ebays charges are quite high when you add it altogether - but then again the marketplace is good and you can make a few hundred pounds for getting rid of your clutter. Finally be honest in what you're selling - nothing riles a buyer more than thinking they're getting a top quality/nearly new item when it arrives with lots of wear and tear. Clothes need to be washed. Items need to be described correct.

Now is a great time for getting rid of household junk and making money so I'd thoroughly recommend ebay for doing this!

If you can't be bothered with the hassle, then go online to your local freecycle group (every town has one) where people give things for free. DON'T use peoples generosity by picking up things for free and then ebaying them - there is a general rule of thumb/etiquette that you keep the two separate and put back into Freecycle anything you got from them and reoffer it to someone else. But ...you can get a lot of free packaging materials/boxes for sending out your things by Ebay... and you can also offload stuff which isn't ebayable to Freecyclers.

Have fun! :-)

Summary: Use Ebay with Auctiva to minimise costs - and use Freecycle to get free packaging material