I think you are avoiding the obvious Tom. You don't like to ship things. I think you should do your trading in person.

Get a nice portable display and print some tags or whatever and attend the swap meets. Put that 'stash to work! There are three or four a year at least within your reach.

What's the USB allow you to do?

Another benifit of printing labels through ebay is that if you use the correct paper a second small label prints that oyu place in log book to keep record of all your sales.

I have been buying & selling on Ebay since 1999 & have almost a 1600 100% positive feedback score, & as Bill stated above it is not an easy thing to do specially the way Ebay is set up now, you need to bring your A game or your feedback will get you shut down. I always sold in the winter as it was always my down time at work and it allowed me to spend the time posting ( it takes a lot of time no matter how you do it ) & this is the first year I didn't list anything on Ebay because of how much work is involved to list an item ( Turbo lister wouldn't work worth a crap, on 3 PC's we tried nothing but problems) so I sold bike parts here on BF and everything else on CL ( mostly big items) & for the most part that worked for us this year. Selling on Ebay is a lot harder then it used to be for me and think for the money they make it could be a little easier for the small time guys, but then again Ebay really doesn't care all that much about the small time guys so why would they.

Tom listen to the great advice that has been given here, it is not easy & requires a lot of commitment to sell on Ebay & to keep a 100% Feedback score. I do think Ebay is a great way to sell as you reach a lot more of the masses, but it can be a lot of work no matter how you look at it. As a new seller with under 250 positive feedback sales you will have to use all of Ebays payment & shipping services if you want access to your funds because they may put a hold on them for up to 21 days if you don't, which means you will have to pay for shipping out of your own pocket upfront.

Glenn

I love USPS.com. I have a side business and shipped just over 1000 boxes since April. Priority flat rate is your friend, order the boxes for free from USPS.com and get clear shipping envelopes (search "2976-E"), also free.

Prebox. Ship directly from eBay using USPS. Schedule the pickups online. It's wonderful.

Thank you, everyone, for your superb advice. I'll follow it, especially the part about packing before listing!

I had over over 10,000 feedback, 100% positive when I sold there. I don't encourage anyone to sell on that particular site, but if you do here's some general advice: use enough pictures, of the specific item you're selling, that there are no surprises. Describe it in detail, more (actual facts) is better. Include a description of any flaws or drawbacks in the item. Respond to every inquiry and concern seriously in a timely matter, no matter how ridiculous it seems. I also made the shipping costs prominent in the listing body, but my preference is free shipping and make sure that's written near the top. It's a selling point, and from the buyer perspective removes one potential common gimmick from the equation.

Some people like to use gimmicks, and add a lot of hype and huckster to their listings, some even going so far as to intentionally call into question their own literacy and knowledge. To trick a buyer into believing that the seller is too stupid to realize how valuable the item is for example. I don't hold with any of that but I do advise to make the listing interesting to read and to add informational value to it.

That's all I've got for you - good luck.

I'll have to disagree with this one Tom. Personally, I like to have the item sitting next to me when I write the ad, to inspect and make sure I didn't miss something. I'm not disciplined enough to write a spreadsheet and all that stuff, with descriptions, notes, etc. Doubles the work. But if you're doing high volume, having the parts sitting next to your computer may not be practical. I'm low volume, so it is for me.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I think where Tom is coming from is that he recognizes a tendency to procrastinate packing/shipping after the sale. He knows he often ships late, which isn't great among BFF (BicycleForumFriends) but is feedback suicide on ebay. So even though it is better practice to keep the item available for view/review while the listing is live, for him it would make better sense to pack the item before listing so that he'd be more likely to ship quickly after the listing ends.

FWIW, IME potential bidders who ask for detailed descriptions of every visible flaw seldom bid, and often find a reason to return the item if they do bid/win. I politely reply to requests to forensically describe every flaw with something along the lines of: "I have provided detailed photos which accurately show the item's condition. It is not represented as a mint item, it does show signs of use. If you don't feel the posted photos are sufficient to allow you to determine the cosmetic condition, please feel free to refrain from bidding." Usually I never hear from them again and they don't bid. If they send me an unhappy reply, I block them from bidding on any of my auctions. Even if they don't reply, if I sense an attitude or their feedback shows frequent dissatisfaction with purchases, I'll block them. I don't want my auctions inviting overly-critical bidders, and I see no sense asking for trouble.

That said, I do usually leave my items unpacked so I can follow up on legitimate questions if needed. There is a big difference in my mind between: "Please describe in detail any visible cosmetic defects" and "There's something that looks like a crack in the outer cage plate near the bottom pulley. Could you please check and confirm?" The first question is a booger-rolling bidder fishing for information already visible, who will not get a detailed response. The second is someone with a genuine and legitimate concern, for whom I'll happily check and confirm.

I reckon it's best to pre-box but not seal, so you have weights and dimensions already done and shipping costs calculated, and can also retrieve the item for additional detail if needed.

Definitely the way to go. A must for accurate shipping estimates.

I always have to wait before packing full bikes and larger parts. I live in a big city and its usually 50/50 on ship or local pickup. Still I do have the packaging on hand for the shipping cost.

This.

I routinely check feedback left by potential high bidders and just about anyone who asks a question. I'll block anyone who I get a bad vibe from or who leaves excessive negative feedback.

I think it might help to plan out a week of tasks, like this:
Monday, select ten objects to eBay
Tuesday, write all the descriptions
Wednesday, take the photos you will need
Thursday, box them and weigh the boxes
Friday, post them all on eBay
Enjoy your weekend and start over on Monday
Next Saturday, send out the things you sold, take Sunday off, and start over on Monday.

Tom, reading every word in this thread is more work than selling on eBay. I'm sure you've carefully read every word, maybe more than once. You just need to reorganize your priorities. :crash:

Can you sell my stuff on ebay and just give me the money?

I deleted all my earlier comments, but really "easy selling" and "ebay" are oxymorons. Best off for easy selling is either right here on the forum, or at a swap meet. As an active seller, I can only say ebay has a real problem right now. Either you have to be really active on ebay, or forget it, its more hassle than it is worth.

And if you are going to become active on ebay, you have to bring your "A" game. Pack well, ship at a low cost, ship lightning fast, bend over backwards on any complaints or concerns, make world class listings with great pictures, etc. Unfortunately in my experience, 99% of my buyers have never sold an item. So they have no appreciation for the selling process. So the whining sometimes borders on ridiculous. I have my wife write the replies to the whiners, as I don't have the patience for it.

Tom has trouble selling at swap meets, too. He gets too distracted by all the shiny stuff other people are selling.

I heard through the grapevine this works if you're an ebay employee!

I only see one problem with this, PCB. I sometimes ask very detailed questions. There is a reason for it. Maybe 3 to 5 percent of listings on ebay provide adequate information, and/or enough very good pictures with which to determine condition. And, as you know, with many things that are older and valuable, condition is everything. It sounds like you provide many well-lighted, detailed, in focus pictures. If so, you are in the minority on ebay.
In fact, it is my experience that there are many, many sellers on ebay whose main goal is to try to pass off second or third tier parts as something they are not. Or, they just don't care enough about honest and up-front listings to provide clear pics and detailed information. In my experience, obfuscation, poor pictures and absolutely no verbal description of condition is the norm on ebay. A sad trend. There are a few sellers of vintage bike parts who tend to the opposite, and they stand out like sore thumbs. It doesn't matter too much if you're buying something like a fifteen dollar derailleur. But it matters a lot, to me anyway, if it is a two hundred dollar brake set, for instance. I'll ask detailed questions on condition, only because most sellers don't provide any.

I keep things simple by only buying from eBay. :innocent:

Great idea! You could have an illustrious career as a project manager.


Ain't dat da troof!

I understand what you're saying, and don't want to beat this to death. Buyers can have problems determining condition, or worry about hidden flaws. Sellers can have problems with bidders asking for information already provided, or asking for levels of detail that just smells like trouble to the seller.

At home I buy almost as much on ebay as I sell, and when I feel the need to ask questions, I do. If the seller doesn't answer, or the answer is inadequate, I weigh that in my bidding decision.

As a seller I absolutely get ridiculous questions from bidders who either never bothered to read more than one line of the description and didn't look at the photos, or didn't care about what they read/saw.

It is the bidder's choice whether to bid or not, it is the seller's choice whether to block what seems like a problematic bidder. For the items I sell, there are many potential bidders who won't likely cause problems. I block bidders liberally to minimize my selling problems. The only potential problem for the seller is limiting the bidding pool, but since I don't have trouble selling items that hasn't been a problem.

As a bidder, I almost never bid on anything that isn't easily available from other sellers, so I avoid sellers liberally if I'm not getting enough info to be comfortable, or if I don't like their attitude. The bidder's problem here is limiting the number of potential items to bid on, but that hasn't been a problem for me, either. There's always another whatever being listed, I'm fortunate to have plebian tastes and not be searching for anything that is truly rare.

3 items I always highlight in BOLD are

Continental US only

Paypal only

No returns

No returns? Read ebay's buyer protection program. Buyers can and will return items, whether you accept them or not.

One challenge with trying to ship on one day is that buyers do not all pay immediately. So I end all auctions Sunday night. A couple will pay immediately, and get shipped Monday. Another might pay Monday, I'll ship that one Monday or Tuesday. Then another buyer doesn't pay til Wednesday, so I need to ship by Thursday. And the last buyer doesn't pay, I file a deadbeat report, about half of them eventually pay, the other half, no pays. That takes you to the next Sunday, where the process repeats itself.

Whiny buyers can drive a Mack truck through "the item not as described" rule. I sold a pair of gray shoes, with full sized hosted pictures. Buyer said the shoes were olive gray, instead of silver gray (WTF?). Of course, I never said they were silver gray. Didn't matter.

Despite the work and issues of selling on ebay, it is the place where you have the best chance to get full market value out of your items.

I always make sure I have a box for the item I list before I sell it. I always end auctions on Sunday. I love printing the labels on ebay, I drop my items at a contract station, a private business that is also a Post Office because there are no lines. I post the pictures on the ebay server and then put hosted pictures in my listing.

It is a pain sometimes but I usually don't sell that much stuff. I plan on doing some liquidation this year to finance new projects.