Selling on Ebay - Bethel Park,PA

send me a private message and i will give you all this info and what I have learned from selling I have been doing it about a year.

I've sold off all of my childrens baby clothes on Ebay with good success. I have sold them in "lots" and I described each item as best as possible. A time consuming endeavor, yes, but buyers like to know what they are getting. If something is damaged (stained, torn, slightly worn looking) let that be known in your description. No, I would not start at $.99. I have started my bids at $3.99 (or more) depending on how many items at a time I'm selling for that particular auction. Always be very specific in your description: how long will it take you to ship once you get paid, how you will ship (UPS or USPS). Give options too. Include insurance in your price for shipping. I never mandated insurance but always made it optional for the buyer. The reason I would now include insurance (regardless if the buyer wants it or not) is because I had an incident a couple years ago where the buyer notified me two months after the fact saying he never got his package. I contacted Ebay who said that too much time had gone by and it was up to me to make a discretionary call on it. I regretted not enforcing insurance or even delivery confirmation...but in the end I felt the buyer should have contacted me sooner so I did not refund anything. If you don't include insurance but make it optional, at least include delivery confirmation. Delivery confirmation will cost you $.075 (include it in the price of your shipping) but it will give you peace of mind that your item was delivered to the address if insurance was not selected by the buyer. I've always included a small "fee" for handling. Don't get crazy with it and use your discretion, of course...and make that known in your description. NEVER ever communicate with a buyer outside of Ebay. I had someone contact me wishing to pay me $200.00 for a $5.99 item! It was a scam and I reported them immediately to Ebay. They were wanting to communicate with me outside of Ebay...Never do that! Never give the buyer private information about you either. I haven't sold on Ebay for a while so I know a lot of changes have been made. ONLY use Paypal. It's the safest way to accept money and it's also the easiest for everyone involved. Yes, there are fees associated with Ebay and Paypal, but if your items sell for a good price, the fees won't be noticed. Good luck. Oh, and take a good picture of your stuff.

With the 99cent sales you would need to be sure that there is enough interest in a item to get multiple bidders. Research every item you want to sell and see what the closing bids are and what doesn't sale. You do this by pulling up Completed Sales. I have had no luck selling clothes. I have tried jeans, vintage dresses and recent model shoes. None of it sold. I have sold an 15 YO film camera, purses (mainly vintage) and vintage linens that I found at an estate sales. If you need help with the Completed Sales option let me know. It is the best research tool you can have.

I have been selling and buying on ebay for almost 10 years. I have a feedback score of 500+. I love it, but it is only worth it IF you will made at least a profit off of the item after the ebay & shipping fees, so you want to price it reasonable taking that into consideration. The fees aren't much, but make sure with shipping you aren't stuck with not taking enough $$ to cover.

You have good comments already. Think of eBay as almost a garage sale. Folks generally go to eBay to look for bargains. I hear that some people make fantastic profits... but not any I know (including me). I generally sell old books, and that's down right now because folks don't have the money to do impulse buying.

I'd rather sell something for a SMALL profit and get it out the door. (Books I don't sell in two attempts go to my nearby used book shop or the library; other items are moved on to charity.) So I start with the price I paid (i.e., for an old book from a garage sale; if it comes from my basement where it's been for two years, I consider it free!), add on the amount I'll have to pay eBay as a listing fee, and add just a little bit for my profit. You want to make your minimum bid the lowest acceptable amount for you, because there may be only one bid! (So if you didn't pay anything for the item, you might start at 99 cents because if there's only one bid you're still making a profit; otherwise, it may not be worthwhile.)

If you're selling used children's clothing, you can't get the original purchase price; if there are no tears or stains, try 50% of the original price or less.

If you don't sell an item, you are usually allowed to re-list the same item one more time for free IF the item sells the second time around. This means that if you're selling a girl's dress, you pay the listing fee; if it doesn't sell and you re-list the item, you pay the listing fee again, BUT if the dress sells they'll take off the cost of the second listing fee.

Take time to look at items similar to the ones you'd like to sell. Read the complete information about those items and see how well they are selling. This will help you decide whether you want to do it or not.

Take time also to read eBay's rules and advice for selling. PayPal is safe but you have to sign up for it, and they charge you for their services (not a lot). Note carefully what eBay says NOT to do. They know what they're talking about.

Actually, I enjoy the eBay thing very much - especially as opposed to having my own garage sale!

I've been doing it for years and LOVE it!!!! It's so easy - a little time consuming and very hard to find time - but great for a little extra money!!!!! Feel free to send me a message on this site if you want my email address and i can answer any questions.

Ebay also has community boards - look at the top right corner on the ebay home page - you can ask questions about everything and ppl respond - very quickly i might add - to your questions - and i have found them to be amazingly knowledgable and helpful!!!!!! Good Luck!!

my husband does this for a living (for over 10 years now) and actually wrote a book about it. it's pretty cheap and not only goes through what you should and shouldn't do, but also goes into his personal experiences of things to look out for :) his website is www.thefastmall.com and there's a link to his book in there. you can download it or pay to have it printed & shipped. there's definitely a science to it if you want to do it right. it's a great way to get rid of good stuff you have, but you gotta watch out for the scammers too :)

To add to the already good advice given here...I NEVER start the bidding on something for 99 cents. I start the bidding for the absolute minimum I'd accept for it. I've been clearing out my designer purses, a couple of cameras, and some of my kids clothes. I sell outerwear by itself. Other clothing I sell as outfits or lots and I usually think of starting the bid at 99 cents per clothing item (ie. a pants & shirt outfit I'd start at $1.99).

As for shipping, 2 things. First, eBay does NOT take a %fee for shipping charges. They will encourage you to offer free shipping to sell your item. Don't do it, because you will be paying eBay a fee for the final amount your item sold for. which will include your out of pocket shipping costs. Second, the way you know how much to charge for shipping is quite easy now. When you create a listing, one of the things eBay does is takes you through your shipping method. If you are shipping something in a box, you put your item in the box, weigh it, then input the weight and the dimensions of the box, and then you choose how you want to mail it (parcel post, priority mail, etc.) and when a person looks at your listing, eBay will show them automatically how much the shipping will cost them and what method will be used to ship. For little stuff that requires only a brown envelope, you just input the weight and it will do the same thing. You no longer have to do the hard work of figuring out shipping costs on your own. I personally always ship purses and more expensive clothing items via Priority Mail because you can track the package. Also, eBay will ask you if you want to purchase your shipping label through Paypal. Do that, because you sometimes receive a small postage discount and you can print out the label, get everything ready, and give it to your postal carrier without a trip to the post office.

Bottom line, do your research. If you're going to sell something, check to see how many others just like it are listed. If there are a ton and none are selling, you might want to hold on to your item for a month or two until some of them clear out. Or try to sell the item on Craig's List instead. Or, if you can sell the item as a Buy It Now item for a little less than what others are starting their auctions at, sometimes you can sell something that otherwise isn't selling. Look at the kinds of info people list and think about what info you'd want to know if you were buying the item. Be up front w/as much info as possible in your listing. If you are a non-smoking home, be sure to list that. If you do/don't have pets, list that. For every listing, I tell people the following:
"We are a smoke-free home with 2 dogs. Please ask any questions before bidding, since all sales are final. Paypal payment due within 48 hours of winning auction. Item will ship within 24 hours of receiving payment. Thanks for your interest!"

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me directly. I'm listed under NuttySnoopyFan on eBay if you want to take a look at my listings. Good luck! C.

You definitely want to make sure you 'pad' your price a little bit (not giving away for too cheap or free) because you may lose a little on shipping. (oops... I forgot that's amazon.com) With e-bay you want to make sure that you research how much shipping will really cost you and add $1.00 or so to that to cover the packaging, your time to mail it, etc... You can use their shipping calculator option so potential bidders can calculate how much it will be to ship to them.

Always sign up for a paypal account so you are covered just in case somebody decides not to pay or to cancel a check.

You can always use 'buy it now' options if you don't mind hanging on to something for a while and you know you'll get the price you want.

It is good to set auctions at 99cents to get people excited, but set a reserve (minimum price you'll let the item go for) so you don't end up giving things away for free...

Post lots of GOOD pictures so your item looks attractive.

Also- With clothing I've probably made more selling my items one-by-one instead of in a lot. I sold a few maternity and nursing-wear lots.... I made a nice chunk of change on one, but lost money on others. (although it was nice to just pay for one auction fee, pack up and mail one box, etc...)