selling shoes on ebay

burnoutbabe

Am doing my mate a favour, she is a bit of a shopaholic and has sorted out 40 pairs of unworn shoes that she wanted to get rid of.

All designer ones, brand new, with boxes.

my ebay selling has been of the games and books variety but i want to sell them for her and just want some advice of best way of presenting.

Have given her my digi camera and told her to take 2 pics of each, one of shoes by box, 1 a good close up of the shoes. then make notes for each of size, colour, designer, style.

Not sure about whether shoes even go for much? (these are not jimmy choos but probably £50 a time type shoes/boots)

any pitfalls to consider? and postage on a shoe box? I would say in the title BNIB (if this adds any value?)

Am just trying to help her out of debt really

Catherine

soolin

At around the £50 mark these are high street brands, probably Dolcis style shops. For non branded you are probably looking at about 20% maximum of the original price, unless there are any little gems that might be considered retro.

Shops like Primark/New Look often copy the other High Street shops but sell at around the £10-£15 a pair mark, so you will be competing with people that would prefer to go and buy new from New Look and try them on rather than risk money and pay postage on something that might pinch.

As for postage, it really can vary. I suggest you use kitchen scales to weigh the shoes , box and wrapping to get an idea from the Royal mail site.

I have sold shoes and many buyers actually asked me to send without a box and reduce the postage acordingly. I could send a basic pair of black patent stilettos for less than £4 very securely wrapped.

Soo

Toon

Shoes, like anything goes for as much as the buyer is willing to pay. I would certainly recommend adding BNIB to your title and charge about £3 to 3.50 postage. Perhaps you could see if there are any ebay trading assistants near you?

mykidsmum_2

I sold a BNIB pair of lovely shoes for 99p, they will sell for what people will pay for them I guess!

burnoutbabe

i figured around £10 a pair would be what we'd get for them (she has expensive tastes and i know zero about shoes so they are probably more than £50 original price). but put a £4.99 starting price on them.

shall put 10 or so on first time i sell them, see how they go.

soolin

burnoutbabe wrote:

i figured around £10 a pair would be what we'd get for them (she has expensive tastes and i know zero about shoes so they are probably more than £50 original price). but put a £4.99 starting price on them.

shall put 10 or so on first time i sell them, see how they go.

You have to balance the listing fees with the chance of them going for opening bid. Starting at £4.99 will only cost you 20p to list, but of course you run the risk that they sell at your start price. £10 will cost you 35p to list.

On top of that you will probably need to use a gallery pic which will be another 15p. Factor in all this, plus FVFs and paypal charges and make sure your friend fully understands what her net return will be. She might think she'll be happy to get £5 a pair for them, but in reality if you end up with that after fees and expenses she may feel a bit miffed and think she would have preferred to keep them for herself.

Contains_Mild_Peril

soolin wrote:

I have sold shoes and many buyers actually asked me to send without a box and reduce the postage acordingly. I could send a basic pair of black patent stilettos for less than £4 very securely wrapped.

I usually post shoes in a box if available, especially stilettos, which I'd be worried might poke through packaging. With ladies' shoes, I can usually still keep the packed weight under 1kg - the all-important threshhold beyond which 1st class postage leaps from £2.70 to £4.74! I have discovered, though, that an empty shoe box can weigh about 200g.
When photographing shoes, I usually show one from the top and one from the side in the main photo, e.g. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/Siddles/ebay003.jpg . Gallery pics are definitely worth the extra 15p when selling things like clothes.
It's not the best time of year to try selling BNIB shoes though, since you're competing with shops' January sales. It may be best to wait a few weeks until the sales are all finished.