eBay Review
I must admit I am a little addicted to eBay, it’s an awesome website and like most of you out there, I am wishing I had some up with the idea in the first place!!! But as I didn’t, I’ll continue to plug my own little website instead!! (http://areyouasbusyasme.com)
Back to my thoughts & tips on eBay! I have been a member on eBay for approximately 5 years, in this time I have bought and sold using them. Experiences have varied, some good, some bad but I expect that is the same for any website I or you use.
eBay as you probably already know is an online auction website, it’s free to join and to place bids on any item you wish to buy. Remember when bidding to read the whole ad, so you know just what your bidding on & ask the seller questions if their ad doesn‘t answer them. You’ll also get a rating, this rating is out of 100% and a number of feedback scores/comments you have had. It is important as a buyer to maintain your rating high, preferably at 100% as people have more confidence in your buying ability and of course it reflects how easy it is to deal with you, especially if you have favourable comments from your sellers. Your feedback score is also very important if you decided to sell, again people prefer to buy from sellers who have a perfect or very near perfect score.
The easiest way to buy & sell with eBay is of course by using a Paypal account. Paypal offer a free account for buyers and sellers but watch out for fees if your using it to accept payments. Sellers can set preferences on their auctions including to only accept bids from Paypal account holders.
If you are a new member, you may find sellers request you contact them first if you have a feedback rating of less than 10 or again they can set their preferences but many sellers will give you the benefit of the doubt.
Always leave honest feedback for your sellers, this helps future buyers if they choose to read the sellers feedback comments. I will give you a scenario and an idea of the kind of feedback you could leave.
- You bid, buy & win your chosen item, promptly pay through Paypal or other payment method
- The seller emails you to state they have received payment/posting your item to you
- You receive your item as described & quickly
Once all checked and no problems, log into your eBay account, click on your won items. Find the item you have just received and click leave feedback. This will bring up a screen with room for a sentence, you could state something like:
“Item as described, fast delivery, Good comms, would use again, A********” or similar. This indicates to future buyers that they are quick & reliable.
If you do have a problem with your item, email the seller straight away and normally some arrangement can be made. Don’t just leave negative feedback!!! Talk first, if you get your issues resolved either leave positive feedback stating you had an issue but it was resolved or if your still not a 100% happy consider leaving neutral feedback. Only leave negative feedback if absolutely necessary.
As a buyer I have had brilliant items at brilliant prices, items that are not as described, items which are just plain pants and broken items. I have never had an issue with a seller resolving my issues, although I did end up waiting 3 weeks to receive an item with a seller who had poor communication. It later transpired her daughter had been really poorly, she had been at the hospital therefore hadn’t had the facility to contact her buyers. This is why I stress, DON’T just leave negative feedback, there is often a good reason for seller behaviour, good communication is key to buying & selling.
So, you’ve bought a couple of items, explored the website, uploaded your pic & updated your profile. You have a clearout at home and find lots of odds & ends which are in great condition. You could just bin them but instead decide to sell them on eBay.
You’ll need to log into your account, update the account type to a sellers account and away you go. You need to click on the sell tab, choose the category that your item fits into, of course listing a play station game in clothing will go for very little or nothing at all.
Always check eBay seller offers, is it free to list under a certain price? Do you get reduced fees if you offer free posting? And so on, these are normally well advertised by eBay, especially when you log into your account.
Give a good honest description of your item, if it has any damage or marks, list them or take pictures of them. If it’s almost new & hardly used, promote that fact and list how much it would cost brand new.
Take great pictures, your first picture is free however, for any additional pictures it will cost you unless you use an external website to host your pictures. You can put your best picture as the free picture, this one will show in the search results and then using the HTML tab on the description section you can paste your links to the rest of your pictures.
I use a website called shareapic, this allows you to create galleries, upload your pictures and for every 1000 clicks you earn $0.22. Not much I know, but just think about how much time you spend clicking on pictures to enlarge them to see what your buying, it soon adds up. Shareapic also pays into your Paypal account and is open to international users.
Once you have created your gallery, you can get the HTML code by clicking the get code and then copy and past the code for eBay onto the HTML part of the description section. Once you have done this, click back the basic description section and your pictures will appear. You can then type in your full description.
Be fair with your postage, weigh your item & add a little bit for the weight of packaging. You could then use the Royal Mail website for the pricing guide. Once you find the correct cost, add a little bit to cover costs but don’t be excessive, people hate to pay postage especially if they feel it’s a rip off. Offer different postage options, 1st/2nd class etc. I also strongly recommend using registered/recorded services as it is easy for a buyer to deny all knowledge of having received an item. They will then start a dispute in Paypal and you will have to refund them. However, if the items is tracked, you are covered by Paypal’s seller protection and it is easy to check if it was delivered and signed for.
Offer a refund in certain circumstances outlined by you but state the postage is at their expense, otherwise you will really be out of pocket. Give your buyer an idea how long it will take to post the item e.g. 1, 2, 3, working days etc. Drop them an email at the very least to say it has been despatched that day. Treat your buyer/s how you would want to be treated.
Complete the listing, it is very easy to do as eBay have simplified the process with drop down boxes etc. When you complete/submit the listing, eBay will tell you at the bottom how much you owe them every time you list. Listing can be a lengthy process so do items that can be listed in the same categories after each other so you can click the sell similar tab and edit the previous listing appropriately.
All your items when listed can be viewed in My eBay, this will also show you how many watchers you have & how many bids. You can review your bidders too, e.g. check their feedback rating etc. Once your listing has finished you will also be charged a final valuation fee by eBay, there is a guide table on eBay.
The nature of eBay means, you may list what you think is a brilliant item but it finishes at an odd time, you may be disappointed to find it hasn’t sold for anything near what you thought it would. Try and list items to end when people are most likely to be on the internet, for example don’t list things to finish at 4am or 5-6pm as people either are not up or having tea etc.
There are lots of ways for buyers to auto bid but your best results come in the last minute or two when people are physically bidding against each other. Remember, we all have a competitive streak and it is very satisfying to be the winner, especially in the dying seconds!!
When you pack your item pack it with the least amount of packaging necessary as it all adds to the weight and if you haven’t accounted for it, you’ll lose profit. Pack it securely and either buy your postage online or take it to your post office.
I could go on forever talking about eBay and how much I love it but I won’t go on forever.
If you would like to have your opinion/comment added or have any questions please contact me at support@areyouasbusyasme.com
Mrsl x