Ebaying for friends - how/if to charge?

LadyMcPoundland

A friend of mine has a large amount of clothing that she wants to sell on eBay . She doesn't know how to and has asked me to do it. She says she'll pay me for my trouble but how would I work out a fair price? There's the insertion fees, final value fees and PayPal fees as well as the postage costs as it is . What could I fairly charge for my time and not appear too greedy ? I don't think she realises that ebaying in quantity is quite time consuming.

Flyonthewall

Would it not be easier to show your friend how to do it? Sit with her and go through putting up some items. Tell her about fees and everything else she needs to know. Say she can ask you for help if needed.

LadyMcPoundland

I agree but she's not interested. Also she knows I need to earn some money so she's doing me a favour.

campdave

Work out how long it's going to take you to do, and set your hourly rate.

Also decide who's going to pay if things are returned or lost in the post.

Flyonthewall

Well she should be, they are her items. She's asking quite a lot of you and after you agree once if she has more in the future she'll probably be asking you again.

You setting the price for this is more like a job than a favour. Either way, you've no idea what things will sell for or if they'll sell at all. If they don't sell you may still have fees. If they do sell then a set price or percentage may either be really low or really high. At this point it's really hard to say what is a fair price.

Plus I assume you'll be packaging and sending the items? More time and cost there. Possible issues if not as you're only supposed to list items you actually have and you'll need to make sure they're sent and well packaged otherwise it'll be your account that suffers. Also consider if anyone has any issues and wants to return an item. You'll lose the money when you refund them.

Perhaps gumtree or a carboot would be a better option for her?

If you want a bit extra money other options may be better for you too.

A one-off favour with a few items would be one thing, but it's not so simple once money comes in to it. Like I already said, it's hard to say what a fair price would be.

LadyMcPoundland

I'll report back when and if i end up doing it. It may be helpful to somebody else? Thanks for talking to a newbie!!

amibovvered

I did that for a couple of years, and sold 60 - 70 separate items for a friend. I kept a spreadsheet so it was no problem calculating and subtracting final value fees and PayPal fees etc - the final figure was the amount I paid her (I wasn't taking any money for doing it but once you've calculated the final figure it's easy enough to subtract say 5% or 10% from that).

She kept all the things at her house and I photographed them there, she provided the descriptions and decided what she wanted the starting price to be. I only handed over the money about once a month so on the couple of occasions we had to refund I just adjusted the spreadsheet. She was much better than me at packing up the items and I would text her the address once the item had been paid for and she texted me when it had been posted. She was paying the postage herself so I didn't need to subtract that on my spreadsheet. It all worked perfectly, but we trust each other completely. I suppose it depends on the relationship you have with your friend.

Goldiegirl

I sell some of my friends things on eBay from time to time.

How we do it, she gives me the things she wants to sell, and I'll do the photography and listing, and I will set the start price.

When it sells, I do the packing and posting. (I charge for postage and packing in the listing)

I prefer to do it this way, as I have complete control over the whole transaction.

The selling fees are deducted from the auction end price, and whatever is left we split 50/50.

You need to have 100% trust in each other. She trusts me to handle her money, and I trust her to only ask me to sell items in excellent condition.

You also need to keep full records of each transaction, to keep a running total of funds raised.

Finally, don't start this if you can't be completely open and honest with each other. If there's any reason you don't want to sell something, you have to be able to tell her, without her getting offended.

eBay is a hobby of mine, so I don't mind doing this from time to time, but I also tell her when I want a rest - she never just assumes I'll do it

Some of our other friends have hinted that they'd like me to sell their things, but I never would, as I don't trust them in the same way I do my other friend.

ElefantEd

I'm selling some items for a friend who moved abroad recently (not on ebay) - I wasn't expecting him to, but he offered me 25% of the selling prices, which seems like a decent offer to me. Obviously it depends on how much they sell for relative to the effort - these are all worth about £20-30, so I'll end up with about £4-5 per hour's effort probably. Which I'm quite happy with, and so's he as he doesn't have to worry about having to get rid of a few hundred pounds worth of stuff at short notice.

19lottie82

Don't do it. A buyer has 180 days to raise a chargeback through PayPal. Will your friend give you the money back if this happens and PayPal rules on behalf of the buyer?

Seriously show your friend how to do it herself. If she can't be bothered then why should you be?

RFW

ElefantEd wrote: »

I'm selling some items for a friend who moved abroad recently (not on ebay) - I wasn't expecting him to, but he offered me 25% of the selling prices, which seems like a decent offer to me. Obviously it depends on how much they sell for relative to the effort - these are all worth about £20-30, so I'll end up with about £4-5 per hour's effort probably. Which I'm quite happy with, and so's he as he doesn't have to worry about having to get rid of a few hundred pounds worth of stuff at short notice.

From that description, 25% pf the selling price sounds like a bad deal, unless you mean after charges.
Ebay/Paypal fees will be at least 15%, so you'll be lucky to get £2-£3 plus all the risks. If you get one chargeback from ten sales you'll have lost any earnings.
As a general rule, if I was doing this (and I can't think of a good reason to!) I'd let the owner of the items know that they will be receiving about 40% of the sale price, otherwise it isn't worth it and you'd be at risk of losing on the deal.