Ebay Question

**AmyBoz** · 12-02-2007, 09:57 AM

Hi all. Dh and I are thinking of selling some things through eBay. Could someone give me a quick lesson?

Do you have to pay a fee to just list an item, and if you don't sell that item, do you get that $$ back?

Do you pay the commission based on what you listed it as or what you sold it for?

Do you have to use PayPal? If not, how do you get your money?

Thanks!

**Lisahas2cats** · 12-02-2007, 10:48 AM

Yes, there is a fee just to list...it's based on what you set your opening bid at. You don't get that money back, even if your item doesn't sell.

There's an additional Final Value Fee that's added on if your item sells, and it's a percentage of how much the item sold for.

You don't have to use Paypal, but it does make it easier. BUT...if you take Paypal, you have to take all forms of it, which means that you also get dinged a small fee per transaction for the convenience. You can also take checks (I wouldn't, though) or money orders.

HTH!
Lisa

**cottageliving** · 12-02-2007, 12:47 PM

I agree with what Lisa wrote. The fees are not bad though - you can still make money.

You may want to do what I did: I listed and sold only one inexpensive item on Ebay so that I could go thru the whole process. That way I could figure out what worked for me and what did not. (Example: I purchased a bubble wrap envelope at the post office to mail the item in -- not a good use of money.) It was fun, I learned what to do differently in the future, and I earned about $2.75 on a $5.50 sale (would have made more if I hadn't bought that expensive envelope - live and learn).

The buyer pays for shipping/postage, and ebay has a shipping calculator built in that you should use. Then no guesswork. It's great.

Good luck!! I'm getting ready to post all the stuff I dug up around my house from the Fall Fling. Wish I had posted it before this week-end.

**AmyMCGS** · 12-02-2007, 01:50 PM

You can specify that you only take check or money order. IMHO, though, you'll have more potential bidders if you set up a PayPal account-- I personally only bid on auctions that accept PayPal so that I can do a secure transaction online.

**mikandmari** · 12-02-2007, 10:45 PM

I list stuff on Ebay. It is much easier to accept Paypal, you get your payment right away, definitely worth the small fee.

If you've never bought or sold on Ebay, you'd want to first register and purchase a few items (you'll find great bargains on everything under the sun). That way, you have some feedback. Without any feedback, people may be wary of buying from you.

Also, before you sell an item, you can go to the advanced search page and search for completed auctions of similar items. That will give you an idea how to price your item, or if it is even worth it to sell an item. Sometimes you can even determine your shipping amount this way.

Take a photo of you item -- my experience is that the more appealing the photo, the more likely the item is to sell, and for more $$$.

Going thru the process of listing an item is very easy (Ebay has really improved this). For most items I find it is worth it to pay .35 for the gallery photo, unless your item is so common everyone will know what it without seeing the photo on the gallery page. Right now there is no fee for gallery listings, I think that special ends on Dec. 6.

I have a listing for 1 item right now, this is a link to it, to give you an idea of photos, etc:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE:IT&ih=017

And here is the page of the fees to sell:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

**dolphin** · 12-08-2007, 10:24 PM

Please do yourself a favor and take the Ebay Tutorial for Selling and Buying. It doesn't take that long and you will learn a lot. It also helps to go to Community at the top of the ebay page. click on Answer Center and then read and see what problems other sellers and buyers have had. You can also ask questions there and other ebay volunteers will answer your questions.

Definitely accept Paypal. Offer at least 2 forms of shipping. Weigh all of your items including the packageing before you start entering your item for sale. Big ticket items are rarely successful for a new seller. You either get avoided because you have no, or little feedback or you get scamed by an unscrupulous buyer asking you to accept a western union money order or bank check.

Good luck!