Can I make £1,024 in 11 weeks from nothing?

COOLTRIKERCHICK

just been paid £3.03 from another ptr site....added to sig...

adrasteia01....ok..... thought it was with all listings....as when ever i have gone into sellers account to check the fees charged....if i have revised an item they have charged me 5p...so maybe it is just on promtional listing day items ...

benedictadams

the people who are sticking huge amounts on the postage are just trying to avoid ebay fees

However people who shop on ebay aren't daft they'll only bid upto what they can afford including how much postage a seller is charging.

Meenie do u have some digital scales and a printer and a post-box near you?

If you do you could always try printing out stamps from the royal mail site

It may not help with the large items but small items you could get out every day. After all if a person pays within a couple of hours they will get annoyed if they have to wait days for the item to be sent, or do you have a friend who could post the items for you a few times a week?

When i look on ebay i only really look at the negatives in the past six months and what the negatives were for (it may be jut a revenge negative for you leaving them one)

mennie

thanks for all the advice

My negatives have been unjust and I only replied to try and prove this.

Yeah the fiction books seems to be a non runner and will be tried on amazon or green met next then charity shopped.

The listing times I know I am silly. What happens is I put it all on turbo lister and then plan to upload it to end at a good time but I get too keen and start it immediatley. I am stupid and should just be more patient.

The postage - I weigh it and measure then add about 15% for fees etc, the packaging comes free from all my freebies, friends and family - have a wardrobe full!! I dont think my postage is high at all as I dont factor in the cost of packaging just postage and 15%

As for the posting one day per week,yeah I could used the RM website for the smaller things, actually thats quite an old statement on my listings because I am not working at the moment I am going to the PO 3 times a weeks so I should change it especially if its putting people off!!

Thanks for all the advice

soolin

Adrasteia01 wrote:

Soolin..
I always wondered about people who list 1p items - if they sell for the starting price or little more, whether they're just giving their items away at the end of the day. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing that with ebay anyway as if I list a lot of auctions and only sell a couple of items, any profits get eaten up in ebay and paypal fees. I currently have 63 items listed and only 1 bid so far (and not on a 'free' item) - loads of watchers though.

I've noticed that a lot of sellers (especially international ones) with very low starting prices have very high postage rates. I think that can put off a lot of people though. It's annoying if you pay $20 for postage on something and when it arrives you see $1.50 on the envelope!

When it comes to listing less expensive stuff, I find lots of stuff can be a good way to go but generally you'd get less per item overall than if you had actually sold them individually on ebay, but you're saving on fees.

1p sellers are a whole different breed. They are not doing it for the money, they are doing it for the feedback, in many cases they are actually buying feedback.

However, they can do it cheaply. Set up a dutch BIN which reduces listing fees, no postage so no expense there, and no paypal fee as paypal can't take more fee than the actual payment received. The seller therefore actually gets nothing for their 1p ebook but also pays out very little, but has a massive increase in feedback.

Again this is something discussed on the main ebay forum quite often and os something to look for when buying expensive items from someone.

However, in the case i responded to above the seller is paying huge amounts of fees, including the £6 shop fee per month, and not even covering those costs, so overall making a net loss on ebay.

Soo

soolin

mennie wrote:

thanks for all the advice

My negatives have been unjust and I only replied to try and prove this.

Yeah the fiction books seems to be a non runner and will be tried on amazon or green met next then charity shopped.

The listing times I know I am silly. What happens is I put it all on turbo lister and then plan to upload it to end at a good time but I get too keen and start it immediatley. I am stupid and should just be more patient.

The postage - I weigh it and measure then add about 15% for fees etc, the packaging comes free from all my freebies, friends and family - have a wardrobe full!! I dont think my postage is high at all as I dont factor in the cost of packaging just postage and 15%

As for the posting one day per week,yeah I could used the RM website for the smaller things, actually thats quite an old statement on my listings because I am not working at the moment I am going to the PO 3 times a weeks so I should change it especially if its putting people off!!

Thanks for all the advice

A standard paperback costs £1.39 to post so charging £2 post and packing does look high when compared to other sellers who mostly seem to be around the £1.70 mark. Like you I do add on some costs when calculating my post and packing fees, but the one thing you must remember is that you must be in line with other sellers if you are going to compete. If your post and packing looks high against the other listings no one will even look at your auctions.

As for not wasting listing fees, take one book at random, The Tinkers Girl, in the last 30 days 12 copies are showing in the completed listings. Only 1 sold and that went for 35p with £1.35 post and packing and as that was a hardback the seller made a substantial loss after fees and postage (item number 110038354187). Importantly though, not one other copy sold...even though many of them cost less than yours *and* had cheaper post and packing. You would have saved yourself 15p by looking at those completed listings and not bothering.

I've looked at a few of the other books as well and they are similar, pages of unsolds in the past month, again many cheaper than yours.

Your negs are unfortunate, I agree that there are some difficult users out there, but 7 is beginning to look like a problem.

Also, why the shop, do you realise you are paying ebay £6 for the privelege? We give ebay enough money as it is, why give them more than we need to?

I can only work out your details over the past 30 days with th einformation that ebay provide, but my back of an envelope calculation suggests that even if you are selling things that cost you nothing, you are still making an overall loss. Ebay is great, I love it, but selling at a loss is not going to help your debt position. Close the shop, do some research on what sells and maybe list less items, but choose them well and see if you can turn it around.

Soo

freebird65

Greetings all....am still ahead of schedule this week so very pleased. Both my juicy tubes sold quickly and after fees & postage left me a great profit of £6.29 each! Energy bulbs sold to neighbour for £3 in the end (he took pity on my challange and gave me 50p extra).

My pigsback points have jumped to 780 courtesy of frantic clciking on every link available and some review writing so getting close to a voucher there. Will also be getting cheque from greasypalm soon. Have also decided to abandon the grand plan to double the £10 freebie I have left in totesport as I'm a rubbish gambler and just withdraw it! I also have some freebie vouchers I'm thinking about selling so it's all looking good, if not spectacular.

jobbingmusician

Here's an idea. Some of you have given out your ebay IDs and some haven't, but if you all put a line of text into your listings as a code, you could search Ebay for listings carrying the code, and know it was another one of Emily's 'gang' who had listed the item.

It needs to be a line of text that no ordinary seller would insert - how about 'SOLDBYAGENUINEMEMBEROFTHE£1024FROMNOTHINGCLUB' with no spaces?

If you've got the skill you can even write it in white writing, so casual browsers can't see it but it will still show up in searches which search all the text!

Good luck to you all - I'm watching!

Mrs_Sparkle

freebird65 wrote:

Greetings all....am still ahead of schedule this week so very pleased. Both my juicy tubes sold quickly and after fees & postage left me a great profit of £6.29 each! Energy bulbs sold to neighbour for £3 in the end (he took pity on my challange and gave me 50p extra).

My pigsback points have jumped to 780 courtesy of frantic clciking on every link available and some review writing so getting close to a voucher there. Will also be getting cheque from greasypalm soon. I also have some freebie vouchers I'm thinking about selling so it's all looking good, if not spectacular.

Hiya hun, can I ask where you got your juicy tubes from please? Well done on your piggy points and your challenge... I think I'm falling behind a bit here!

freebird65

Top advice from soolin there!!

I run a full-time business on ebay with a shop as well as my private IDs for all my other bits and I spent a huge amount of time researching just as soo suggests. Many things I thought would be great on ebay never show sales so I just don't bother. Some items though can be rare and are therefore difficult to price as they rarely come up so may be worth a go. I also have some things that go through a few times and then suddenly sell - you need that element of "right buyer, right time" luck. If I had these on 10 day listings, it would cost me a fortune so a shop is handy....but only if you list enough stuff that sells in it every month to justify that £6 fee and the higher FV fees.

Negs....none yet (phew), but then if anyone is ever unhappy, I offer a no-quibble refund, even if I lose out, as I've found that many of these people then come back and buy from me again and recommend me to their friends so I win in the end
.
A little tip for good stuff to sell on ebay.....I have a local market where one stall sells genuine gift packs of Clarins and Lancome....I check what each item goes for on ebay and then buy job lots from him to get the best price, split the packs and sell them on ebay. I rarely have items that go unsold and those that do make great stocking fillers at Christmas!!

freebird65

The juicy tubes were a bit of luck - I went to a Mulberry shop catalogue preview evening in New Bond Street just so I could drool over the Roxy bags and pretend I could afford one - they gave out gift bags which contained make-up, juicy tubes, Mulberry keyring (sold that for £12!!) etc. Mum gave me hers too!