the price for shipping sucks, yes it does, most items I sell could ship for less than the priority flat rate envelope or 1 lb. rate, however, if you don't ship it priority on the same day they pay for the item, you get negged "because it took too long to get it" or if you ship internationally via the rate the person wants to pay you, then it takes up to 8 weeks. they wait, you wait, they either get it or not, then you get negged for same reason as above, but the buyer wanted it sent that way to save money. so paypal fixed it for me, I have to ship intl via priority - which is OUTRAGEOUS, but with paypals label printing service you can get the delivery confirmation and I don't have to make a 50 mile Rtrip to the post office to save the buyer postage. If I make that trip and save the buyer some money, I am out that fuel cost - which is OUTRAGEOUS. I list things at about $4.00 because by the time you get done that is about what it will cost to sell anything on ebay - store or auction - so if you put on auction and it makes it past 4.00 then you feel lucky but too many people are as said above, looking for something very cheap or they won't buy it, for the one item that sells for 4.00 or over, I have 5 or 6 other items that never got a bid. I sell vintage made in USA items because that is the type of thing I love to pick up at the estate auctions, yard sales and thrift stores. I charge a 2.00 fee for one item or ten, but so many people will not even look nor bid because they don't read my details to see that one time fee of 2.00 applies to however many items they purchase from me that week. and you have to admit, 2.00 handling is pretty cheap fee to ship 2 - 10 other items in a box, because paypal charges nearly 12% and ebay has some pretty high fees as well, when you figure in your time, the packing, the tape and printer, computer, time to post on ebay, time to follow up, the emails, the gratuituos follow-up requests for POSITIVE feedback for doing my job right, then most buyers won't even bother to leave feedback at all, even though I ship same day paid, I post lots of pictures, I spend a lot of time on my listings to not leave anything out, and I wrap things to withstand any clumsy handler out there. BUT regardless of all the hell there is to deal with selling on ebay, I can do nothing else, I am disabled and not on disability, yet, and I always figure a few bucks spent can be turned with one lucky sale per week on ebay just to purchase car parts, groceries, or even a few pretties.
which leads me to buying on ebay,
the best way to buy on ebay is to look diligently utilizing the searches. most newbie sellers are never at the top of the list of "best match" (ebays newest default search method) or if you have pissed ebay off - they put all your stuff at the bottom of the list. they can hold your items and not release them to search for over 24 hours if they so choose so you have to put up with ebay or they sabotage you. So if I am looking for an elusive car part or some otc medicines, or a specific necessity - I search via ending soonest and try every search word I can think of to get what I need or want, you can always find the item you need, and judging from the fact that I know how some sellers can chip away at the price of item by padding the shipping cost, I always look for the shipping cost, then I email to see how they do their combined shipping rate, I also eliminate a lot of low sales items just from the fact that the seller will not disclose their shipping nor how they do their combined shipments. If they answer my email and I feel confident that they have more than one item I need, I go ahead and purchase or place a watch and / or a bid.
I have noticed as of late however, if I place a bid early it seems I always win, no one seems to be bidding anymore, unless like its an item that is really a hot seller.
it seems that any bids placed on sellers who are not power sellers and might be fairly new don't pick up many bids until they get known better on ebay and their items hit the searches better, because most people think the power sellers have the best items for sale. But I have found that not to always be the case. There are those out there who are still trying to list as many things they can a week that they purchased thru local sell outs of new or reclaimed merchandise, so they start the bid low, but I also know with the new hidden bidder markings on listings, it seems there are less shill bidding going on.
But I have noticed that if an item has went several days and no bids, and I place a bid, the person who mentioned this already is right, a lot of times if that item receives a bid within a few minutes after you bid, its because they have shill bidders, I always report them for that.
If you sell something and someone purchases it and then says it was broken in shipment and they will not send it back or send you a picture, its because I have an invisible marker that marks my stuff, before it leaves my place, if they say its broken, they have to pay for shipping it back before I will give them their money back because I want to see that it was my item that got broke or one they simply want replaced for free. so its a dog eat dog world on ebay and paypal - both have faults - because ebay owns both, mostly their fees are the problem. I hate the fb system without the opportunity to neg a buyer now, unfair feedback usually comes from someone new on ebay. that feedback score hurts your fee rate, your final value fee rate, and potential future business. too much to digest all at once, but believe me. ebay is pushing for more fixed price store type listings. they make a monthly fee for the store plus each listing fee, plus a HUGE final value fee after you sell an item. Yes it is nice to list an item and then not worry about it for a month, unless it sells, but its also not on searches as much as auctions and my store things sell twice as slow as auction items. the only saving grace on the whole ebay scheme is auctiva. they have free picture hosting, the cheapest shipping insurance on the web, and so many great features- free listing templates to decorate you listing, their own listing page that downloads your listings to ebay at a set time that you don't have to pay for it to be a set time on auctiva like you do on ebay. they save me over 50.00 a month over what I used to pay ebay. so it was worth the relearning process to put everything over on auctiva and then I buy a store website thru them too that lists my ebay items and my blogs etc. so there are some great sites out there that help you if you have the time to find them.
paypal free shipping label printing service is the best too. its better than the USPS site because if you are shipping in USA you can print labels for first class parcels, media mail, parcel post, and get a del conf for .18 and with priority the del conf is free - just like it is if you use click n ship on USPS - but USPS won't let you print up anything but priority labels on their website. so there are some advantages to using the paypal shipping label printing service. provided you have a working printer, and you use the paypal funds you have available to pay for the shipping at the time of printing the label. also you can set how you want the label to read as well.
well thats my experiences on this subject, hope I have helped someone else.
which leads me to buying on ebay,
the best way to buy on ebay is to look diligently utilizing the searches. most newbie sellers are never at the top of the list of "best match" (ebays newest default search method) or if you have pissed ebay off - they put all your stuff at the bottom of the list. they can hold your items and not release them to search for over 24 hours if they so choose so you have to put up with ebay or they sabotage you. So if I am looking for an elusive car part or some otc medicines, or a specific necessity - I search via ending soonest and try every search word I can think of to get what I need or want, you can always find the item you need, and judging from the fact that I know how some sellers can chip away at the price of item by padding the shipping cost, I always look for the shipping cost, then I email to see how they do their combined shipping rate, I also eliminate a lot of low sales items just from the fact that the seller will not disclose their shipping nor how they do their combined shipments. If they answer my email and I feel confident that they have more than one item I need, I go ahead and purchase or place a watch and / or a bid.
I have noticed as of late however, if I place a bid early it seems I always win, no one seems to be bidding anymore, unless like its an item that is really a hot seller.
it seems that any bids placed on sellers who are not power sellers and might be fairly new don't pick up many bids until they get known better on ebay and their items hit the searches better, because most people think the power sellers have the best items for sale. But I have found that not to always be the case. There are those out there who are still trying to list as many things they can a week that they purchased thru local sell outs of new or reclaimed merchandise, so they start the bid low, but I also know with the new hidden bidder markings on listings, it seems there are less shill bidding going on.
But I have noticed that if an item has went several days and no bids, and I place a bid, the person who mentioned this already is right, a lot of times if that item receives a bid within a few minutes after you bid, its because they have shill bidders, I always report them for that.
If you sell something and someone purchases it and then says it was broken in shipment and they will not send it back or send you a picture, its because I have an invisible marker that marks my stuff, before it leaves my place, if they say its broken, they have to pay for shipping it back before I will give them their money back because I want to see that it was my item that got broke or one they simply want replaced for free. so its a dog eat dog world on ebay and paypal - both have faults - because ebay owns both, mostly their fees are the problem. I hate the fb system without the opportunity to neg a buyer now, unfair feedback usually comes from someone new on ebay. that feedback score hurts your fee rate, your final value fee rate, and potential future business. too much to digest all at once, but believe me. ebay is pushing for more fixed price store type listings. they make a monthly fee for the store plus each listing fee, plus a HUGE final value fee after you sell an item. Yes it is nice to list an item and then not worry about it for a month, unless it sells, but its also not on searches as much as auctions and my store things sell twice as slow as auction items. the only saving grace on the whole ebay scheme is auctiva. they have free picture hosting, the cheapest shipping insurance on the web, and so many great features- free listing templates to decorate you listing, their own listing page that downloads your listings to ebay at a set time that you don't have to pay for it to be a set time on auctiva like you do on ebay. they save me over 50.00 a month over what I used to pay ebay. so it was worth the relearning process to put everything over on auctiva and then I buy a store website thru them too that lists my ebay items and my blogs etc. so there are some great sites out there that help you if you have the time to find them.
paypal free shipping label printing service is the best too. its better than the USPS site because if you are shipping in USA you can print labels for first class parcels, media mail, parcel post, and get a del conf for .18 and with priority the del conf is free - just like it is if you use click n ship on USPS - but USPS won't let you print up anything but priority labels on their website. so there are some advantages to using the paypal shipping label printing service. provided you have a working printer, and you use the paypal funds you have available to pay for the shipping at the time of printing the label. also you can set how you want the label to read as well.
well thats my experiences on this subject, hope I have helped someone else.