The Pros and Cons of Selling (and buying) on eBay

[tfunch24]

I do not have a lot of room for storage and an excess of film and video-making equipment. I'm toying with putting the stuff for sale on eBay. While I've purchased stuff on eBay, I've never sold anything on it. I've heard many people speak negatively of it (especially of rising fees). Is it worth it to sell on eBay, especially if the items in question are not worth all that much?

On another note, does anyone use any bidding strategies to win auctions? Or do you just bid as much as you can afford and hope no one tops it?

My opinion of eBay in general is that it's something you utilize only when you absolutely need something and can't find it anywhere else.

Tom

[monobath]

Ebay is the first place I go when looking for equipment. Even if I end up buying elsewhere, I find it useful as an information resource.

Ebay auctions are often a fine way to pick up reasonably priced (if you are careful) items. You can also get taken if you aren't careful. Ask a lot of questions of the seller before you bid, and make sure all ambiguities are clarified. If a seller ignores you or can't answer your questions to your satisfaction, forget the item, no matter how appealing, and wait for the next one. Review the sellers feedback rating and comments left by other buyers.

I've only sold one item on Ebay so far, but the buyer backed out and never completed his end of the bargain. He was a new Ebayer with a rating of zero who had never bid before. After he won the bid, he kept promising to send the money for several weeks, but he never did. I was patient and polite in my occasional emails to him. Eventually, he told me he'd found a similar item for sale locally for less money. This is not the sort of experience one hopes to have as a seller. On the other hand, I'm not dissuaded from selling more items in the future as I don't think my first selling experience was a typical one.

You pay listing fees to Ebay, plus a fee that is based on the final bid amount. The value-based portion of the fee is charged to your account only if the auction ends with a winning bid. The listing fee for the item I sold was around $7.50. It could be less than half that if you don't use a lot of special features, such as gallery listing, bold heading, supersize pictures, and so on.

The final bid for my item was $285, and the value-based fee was around $8.00. There is a process for recovering the value-based portion of the total fee if a deal fall through, but you can't get back the listing fees. So my total cost for this failed auction was limited to my listing fee of $7.50, but if it had completed successfully, it would have been $15.50.

That should give you an idea of the costs involved. I consider it worth it, since it is still cheaper than listing an item in your local newspaper, and your item will probably be seen by more people than in your local paper. Of course, for common items, there'll be more competition too.

Before you start selling, set yourself up a PayPal account using the same email address you associate with your Ebay account. Then read all the Ebay selling guides and go through the tutorials before you start. Look at how the more experienced and successful sellers list items similar to the ones you want to sell, and emulate them.

As for bidding, I use a strategy known as sniping. My success rate with this strategy is high. When you find an item you want, add it to your watch list. In the final hour before the auction ends, check the price. If it is still below what you would be willing to spend, wait until the final minute and check again. Place your proxy bid at the highest amount you are willing to pay. I usually hit the final submit button on my bid about five seconds before the auction ends.

Basically, I almost never bid more than once for any item, because I've already decided the most I want to spend, and that is what I'll bid. The proxy bidding system will raise your bid no higher than needed to win, up to your maximum specified bid amount. Using this method, you'll never spend more than you want. If you win, great. If not, just bid on the next similar item that meets your standards. There will almost always be another one that you like up for auction very soon.

I like the sniping strategy because it avoids needlessly inflating the price of an item prematurely. If you bid early and often, as most sellers would prefer, the price tends to get out of hand well before the end of the auction. Also, I feel it helps to keep an item you want off of other bidders radar screen. An item with a large number of bids early in the auction tends to attract unwanted attention.

As a seller, of course, I'd prefer for buyers to bid early and bid often.

[Matt Pacini]

I've been burned royally by PayPal.
PayPal deducted the payment TWO MONTHS after it was authorized as being good, and they would tell me NOTHING AT ALL as to why, other than to tell me it was paid by fraudulent means.
They continued to let the PayPal "customer" burn people long after this, and cited his privacy, for their reason of not telling me anything, even the day the item had been charged back to them!
So if anyone wants to burn you, PayPal is the way to go, because they will do absolutely nothing about it whatsoever, and they will not give you enough information to prosecute the person.
Really a scam, PayPal.
It's terrific... until someone decides to screw you.
I've been tagged a couple times on ebay, but mostly good experiences. My advice is, don't ship until the payment really certainly clears, and that goes for money orders. (I had a guy stop payment a money order on me AFTER I sent him a Canon 1014XL-S!!!!! Yes, you CAN put a stop payment on a money order!!!!)

My only strategy in buying, is to bid at the very last second, and bid the most you are really willing to pay.
If you bid early, you give everyone a chance to think it over, and decide they really would be willing to pay more than you!
If you bid late, they think they already are going to win the auction with their pathetic low bid!

Matt

[cameraguy]

I've sold about 200 items on ebay though not all Super 8 stuff. I've had very few bad experiences and just mostly deadbeat bidders. I did have a guy try to scam me saying the beta vcr I sent arrived trashed and he wanted a refund. I used UPS and when I told him I would file a claim he said "don't bother it works now".

Seems like 1 out of 7 or 8 doesn't want to pay. Its mainly those zero feedback bidders who just signed up a few days ago and they are so anxious to win something that they bid high but then realize a day later that other stuff is going cheaper so they don't pay. Generally most of the Super 8 camera sales I've made have exceeded my expectations by going higher than normal.