A fresh start

taxi73 · 22 January 2011 at 3:05PM

don't know anything about ebay....maybe a car boot sale?

NorthernLas · 22 January 2011 at 10:39PM

Seaxwyn - I think it is worth setting up an ebay account for yourself and giving it a go. If the clothes are still tagged and of a saleable size, you just cover postage costs in the minimum bid (plus the actual postage costs).

As you got the stuff for free, then you only really need to cover P&P and your time going to the post office. I think when you set up a new ebay / payPal account you have to validate it, so this may take a few days. In the meantime you could search and watch what people are willing to pay for similar items and get an idea on postage. For example, with books the max postage is £2.75, so anything more needs to be accounted for in the min bid.

buddiebabe · 23 January 2011 at 12:49AM

Hey Seaxwyn

Sorry i've not been around much lately.... signed up for too many challenges and struggling to keep up with all of them let alone my own or your diary

Ebay challenge sounds great.... first thing you need to do is get an ebay account set up and also a paypal account.... you will need to get your paypal account validated like northernlass mentioned so the first thing i would do is take the time to set up your ebay account and also your paypal account.

We should maybe start our challenge in February to give you some time to get familiar with it or we can start anytime you like!!!

Things i would suggest you do before you start listing:

- make sure you have a camera and all connections to the pc so you can take and upload the pictures of the items
- you need an accurate set of scales
- a notebook or spreadsheet to keep details of weights of items
- you should make up a postage sheet... bearing in mind you need to watch what size an item is and which catagory it will fall into for posting it i.e. large letter, packet, parcel etc. Then when you go to list an item you check the weight of it against your sheet and then you know how much you need to charge. Other option is to use the royal mail website postage finder you just need the weight and where it is going to. Just remember you will need to account for the extra weight that packaging may add to the parcel and also include a small amount in the postage cost for packaging materials
- you need to decide how much is the lowest you would be happy to accept for an item. If you start the bidding at 99p make sure you would be happy to part with the item for that amount as there is nothing worse than starting at 99p and having the expectation it would go for loads more then feeling really unhappy you have to sell the item at the winning bid.

Ok that's as much as i can think of just now if i think of anything else i'll let you know

Hope you and the family are all ok

Buddiebabe x

Seaxwyn · 24 January 2011 at 12:01AM

Thanks for the advice. I have listed three things tonight - on OH's account as he has a good feedback record there doesn't seem much point in starting from scratch myself. We photographed lots of other things today that I think I will save for a free listing day.

Some questions:

- does free listing only apply to things listed for 99p?
- can someone explain the fees, ie apart from the listing fee, what percentage of the sale prices does ebay take? And paypal?

Thanks!

Seaxwyn · 24 January 2011 at 8:16PM

A red letter day!

One of my ebay items has a bid, one has a watcher, I've sold something on Amazon, but best of all..... I received my payslip, my monthly pay is now £100 higher. And - wonder of wonders - OH got a letter saying he will receive £65/week benefit! This is a big surprise as he has already received several letters saying he wasn't eligible. This must be from a different pot. Anyway, with £360 more a month than last year, we might just be able to keep up with our outgoings.

Oh and I found 2p on the pavement.