ARTICLE DISCUSSION: Ebay selling tricks

RFW

outercontrol wrote: »

How about if I put my starting price for my item at 99p and stated my reserve price 'IN MY DESCRIPTION' of my item rather than click on the ebay reserve box itself maybe also stating that if my reserve price is not reached within one hour of the auction ending then my item will be removed.

You can't end the item with under 12 hours left if it has a bid. The more straightforward way would be to list on buy it now at the highest price you would expect with the best offer facility.

Dicky2K

Personally if i click on an item and find it has a reserve on it i know that im not likely to get a bargain, so 9 times out of 10 i go back and search again for the item until i find on without.. - might just be me, but in my experience i get more for items without a reserve because more people are interested in getting a bargain and then get carried away with the bidding in the end.. hence lining my pockets better

newz

When you do a search on ebay how can you tell if there's a reserve on the item or not? Relatively new to ebay so still learning!

soolin

newz wrote: »

When you do a search on ebay how can you tell if there's a reserve on the item or not? Relatively new to ebay so still learning!

If you look at current price it will say 'reserve not met' regardless of whether there is a bid in or not. A reserve must be at least £50, so if an item has a reserve you know you need to bid at least £50 to stand a chance of winning it.

frivolous_fay

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/protect/selling-on-ebay#global is the 'Go Global' bit for anyone too lazy to find it

I would also like to add that mobile phones cannot be insured by Royal Mail to go overseas. Full stop!
And international bank transfer (IBAN) is a great way to be paid from Europe - you don't have to demand paypal just because ebay say you have to offer it. And bank transfer is fee free :money:

Oh... and 'Unfortunately eBay requires all sellers to offer Paypal as an option. Yet there’s nothing to stop you telling buyers “a cheque’s preferred”, to avoid Paypal fees. ' Not allowed by ebay, sorry!

StaffsSW

Yet there’s nothing to stop you telling buyers “a cheque’s preferred”, to avoid Paypal fees.

ebay have put the dampener on that now as well, creating a new policy that is designed to get a paypal only site more acceptable to the members.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html

Misleading & Discouraging Payments

Sellers who state in their listing that they accept certain payment methods must not selectively offer those payment methods to buyers or discourage buyers from using those payment methods.

This means that sellers must always accept payment from buyers through the payment methods they have selected in their Payment Details section of their listing, including PayPal, and must not act in any way to discourage buyers from paying by these methods.

While eBay is massively dominant, cqout*, eBid* and qxl* are sizeable auction

QXL is no more They stopped trading on 9th May 2008


Re: international selling, I'll pretty much post anything to anywhere, but there are a few items that I would not take any chances on - ipods, mobiles, electronics etc, and I set the buyer requirements ultra-tight on these items - outlined in this post. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=15101411&postcount=20
The risks are well proven, not from my own experience, but it's a not uncommon subject matter on the eBay boards here and elsewhere.

MSE_Jenny

Thanks guys - I've now taken out mobiles and QXL. :-)

soolin

Oh, and gallery is currently free
so the bit about the additional 15p needn't be there.

• Get proof of postage.
  One problem is buyers signing up, buying a mega-pricey item such as a Nintendo Wii and claiming it never arrived. Always, always get proof of posting (just ask for a stamped receipt at the post office), so if anyone tries to argue that they didn’t get the item you’ll have evidence. Better still, send items by recorded delivery; this includes tracking number which you can send to buyers so they can track a parcel’s progress.

Proof of postage won't win you a paypal claim for non arrival, however the pOP will cover you against loss in the post and also protect against a claim for fraudulent use of a card.

soolin

Just being picky here but can this be reowrded a little?

• Discourage dodgy buyers
  It’s not just buyers that can get caught out by dodgy sellers; some buyers get up to skulduggery too, for example, claiming an item arrived broken to get a refund. Discourage this by adding a requirement that you’ll only accept bids from buyers with a certain feedback score. To do this, in My eBay, under the My Account column, click the "Preferences" link. In the Seller Preferences section, click the “Edit” link.

It is very important to set seller preferences but mainly for those with strikes or in countries that the seller doesn't ship to. However with buyers only ever getting positives and with no ability to block zero feedback sellers the feedback requirement doesn't matter much anymore.

soolin

Sorry sorry, I'll stop picking holes in a moment I promise:

• Be prepared to refund
  Sometimes an item will arrive broken because you packaged it poorly or the buyer will be disgruntled by an inaccurate description. In this case, try to negotiate with the eBayer; most are nice, reasonable people. If you’re in the wrong, it’s fair to give a refund, whether or not you’re legally obliged. To do this, either use Paypal’s refund button or send out a cheque.

Any refund should be made via paypal if the payment was made that way. If you send a cheque to refund a paypal payment the original paypal payment remains available to be chargebacked.

I know these points aren't specifically overseas, but the pitfalls are the same whether selling in the UK or overseas.