going to start selling on ebay 2, Q's

doraexplorer

Well i have tryed to do a search on here, ebay forum and google. i am baffled for what i am looking for.:o

I have decided to start selling on ebay, stuff from the house, kids clothes cd's etc. Nothing big just bits that i have that will hopefully cover what i spend on ebay purchases. I spend around £100 a month on ebay buying clothes for myself and kids. I would like to sell enough to cover my spending.

now i am a big lurker in this part of this MSE forum, so think i know what i am doing, well hope.;) I have asked Q's as buyer not as a seller.

So my questions ?

whats this auctiva thing and i downloaded , it but is there a better/easier alternative one to use?

my feedback as a buyer is 106 (100%)is this good enough to start selling ? i pay as soon as i buy.

Is there a spreadsheet thing about that i could use to keep track of monies/selling fees/ postage etc

My OH says it won't work but i say i can do this, I want to do this, OH works nightshift so i plan on doing all the work when hes not here.

Hopefully this can become a nice hobby/ pay my ebay buys save us money in the long run.

So any other tips because i plan on starting or trying this from thursday night.

Just to add this ebay forum has helped me out as a buyer and was a good virtual friend so it would be nice to get some good sound advice as a beginner seller from you experts

thanks for reading and any advice, i am proberly not the only lurker in here that never sells stuff so maybe this thread would benefit others aswell. its a scary thought starting to sell

just to add i am very gratful for any advice and time taken in answering my post its very kind of you to take time to answer my post. thanks again .

Dora
xxxxx

ChrisCar_2

Best advice I can give is -
Sort out your postage
Get yourself a set of digital scales and the new (only came out on Monday) price list from the Post Office. Work out how you are going to pack things up and how much it is going to cost you.
Work your asking/starting prices out from there.
Guessing postage charges wrong and it's going to cost you money.

Apart from that - go for it, but don't risk more than you can afford to loose, leave the more expensive stuff until you've got a better idea of how it's going to go.

Good luck

RFW

doraexplorer wrote: »

Well i have tryed to do a search on here, ebay forum and google. i am baffled for what i am looking for.:o

I have decided to start selling on ebay, stuff from the house, kids clothes cd's etc. Nothing big just bits that i have that will hopefully cover what i spend on ebay purchases. I spend around £100 a month on ebay buying clothes for myself and kids. I would like to sell enough to cover my spending.

now i am a big lurker in this part of this MSE forum, so think i know what i am doing, well hope.;) I have asked Q's as buyer not as a seller.

So my questions ?

whats this auctiva thing and i downloaded , it but is there a better/easier alternative one to use?

my feedback as a buyer is 106 (100%)is this good enough to start selling ? i pay as soon as i buy.

Is there a spreadsheet thing about that i could use to keep track of monies/selling fees/ postage etc

My OH says it won't work but i say i can do this, I want to do this, OH works nightshift so i plan on doing all the work when hes not here.

Hopefully this can become a nice hobby/ pay my ebay buys save us money in the long run.

So any other tips because i plan on starting or trying this from thursday night.

Just to add this ebay forum has helped me out as a buyer and was a good virtual friend so it would be nice to get some good sound advice as a beginner seller from you experts

thanks for reading and any advice, i am proberly not the only lurker in here that never sells stuff so maybe this thread would benefit others aswell. its a scary thought starting to sell

just to add i am very gratful for any advice and time taken in answering my post its very kind of you to take time to answer my post. thanks again .

Dora
xxxxx

auctiva - Turbo lister via Ebay could be considered easier, depends what you want to do regarding listing. Go through Ebay 'site map' (top left of all Ebay pages) and look up 'seller tools'.

Feedback - 106 is more than ok for a new seller

Spreadsheet - Not sure what you want but again if you look at 'selling tools' on Ebay, "Selling manager" might have stuff you need, otherwise a standard spreadsheet programme, depends on how good you are with all that type of thing!

There are other hints and tips at the top of this forum and also check out the guides on Ebay, there are some decent ones (apart from the ones I wrote!) and the Ebay forums (there are parts that aren't just slanging matches!).

Be wary and have fun!

soolin

I find Auctiva incredibly UN user firiendly, it is down half the time anyway. I do use it though as I like being able to schedule my listings, but I also use Turbo lister as a back up as thta is used off line and is much much easier to get the hang of. It is an Ebay tool so go to help and type in Turbo lister and you can download it there.

Like the others have said, watch your postage. I have a dinky set of digital scales I got a year or so ago from Argos for less than £10 and they were worth every penny.

Good photos of course and an accurate description. Importantly get your seller preferences et:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/buyer-requirements.html

Start from here to set buyer requirements to exclude overseas bidders or bidders with NPB strikes etc.

tiff

I am new to selling on Ebay, I found Auctiva difficult to use so quickly moved over to Turbolister. I dont have a working printer so have to do postage the old fashioned way (go to PO), if you have a printer you can print your own via the Royal Mail site.

soolin

Just remember though that printing your own postage online means you have no proof of postage if you need to make a Royal mail claim. personally for a new seller I would be recommending that everything goes via a Post office and POPs kept in case an item goes astray. Otherwise a couple of lost items and any profit will start to get wiped out.

doraexplorer

thanks so much for the advice, will have a good look later tonight when the kids in bed just sneaking on as they are having breakfast. will also go and get turbolister. will also post the old fashioned way post office is not far. i have scales for weighing parcels and will pick up the new pricelist tomorrow.

i am going to try to recycle packaging as aften as i can. i will keep all my boxes.

thanks again

dora

soolin

One other thing I thought of. Keep your existing account for selling but open a new account for buying, it always pays to keep buying and selling seperate.

Emmaizzy

I've sold a few things on ebay (made about £700 over a couple of years). I also find auctiva a pain to use but it does allow you to put up to about 20 photos on for the same price as one picture on ebay. Lots of clear pictures are recommended because you don't have the ability to feel the fabric and also the buyer only has this information to make his decision - most people don't allow returns so if you can't see what you are buying your are unlikely to - being a buyer yourself you need to think about what information do you need to encourage you to buy.

Auctiva does allow you to do some reporting and if you sell over a certain amount of ebay you can also request reports from ebay too.

I have an excel spreadsheet that I use to list but quite frankly working out how much profit you've made can be quite complicated because unless you always use recycled packaging or always bought packaging you can't apply a fixed amount to set off against the postage.

You also have to take into consideration the charges that ebay take from your profit and again the percentage paypal take from the payment sent to you. If someone pays by Credit Card paypal take a higher percentage than if they pay by direct bank transfer. As paypal is an ebay company and ebay now say you cannot list without accepting paypal they really have got this sewn up - the swines!

Bearing all this in mind you would have to manually enter all the information for each transaction to caculate the profit made on each item. If you think that you are not actually making any profit unless you sell the item than more than you originally paid for it (unlikely) this really could be a thankless timeconsuming task on an already lengthy process on listing!

I assume that proper business have some kind of agreement with ebay/paypal otherwise it would be a nightmare.

I haven't listed anything for about a year now and know that listings for 99p are now free but you need to be careful that you are not lured in by that because you do stand the risk that something you could have listed for 4.99 and made that money might go for 99p - it might be a false economy to try and save the 15p listing fee.

The advice about listing cheaper items first is a good idea so you get the hang of it before selling something worth more for a lot less!

soolin

Emmaizzy wrote: »

I

You also have to take into consideration the charges that ebay take from your profit and again the percentage paypal take from the payment sent to you. If someone pays by Credit Card paypal take a higher percentage than if they pay by direct bank transfer. As paypal is an ebay company and ebay now say you cannot list without accepting paypal they really have got this sewn up - the swines!

s!

Juts to clarify that all paypal payments even those from an existing balance attract the same fee. Direct bank transfers outside of paypal if within the UK attract no fees at all.