Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

I own an Ebay Consignment shop that does millions in sales for a nice nut of the total sale. Ask me anything about selling, buying, owning a business etc.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

How often does someone bail on payment?

What types of interesting scams to people try to pull a lot?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

how much income do you generate / month (pre-tax)

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

Generally my no pay % is around 7% of the items I sell, which can be tough, and hopefully Ebay will improve this, id love to see them qualify buyers but that will never happen. As for scams best one we see is about 100 phishing for our password emails a week.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

My company which features myself, my wife, and one part time shipper generates around 120k a month profit after wages, expense, ebay fees etc...we pay the shipper 8 bucks an hour and wife and I take 1,000-3500 a week depending on what we need etc.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

What do you sell? Where do you buy it?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

What edge or core compentency do you have that let's you make a profit or prevents anyone from selling the exact things for the exact price that you sell? Do you just have a lock on the supply/manufacture of your product?

How about a link to your ad on ebay?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
What edge or core compentency do you have that let's you make a profit or prevents anyone from selling the exact things for the exact price that you sell? Do you just have a lock on the supply/manufacture of your product?

How about a link to your ad on ebay?

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe they mainly sell other peoples junk for a percentage of the final sale.

There are a lot of ppl who have stuff they want to sell but don't really know or want to create an ebay/paypal account etc.

please correct me if I'm wrong...


edit: core compentency/edge = high seller rating, experience and market valuation skills. I did not get the impression from any of OP's wording that he is an authorized dealer for any products.

consignment = a shipment of goods under an agreement whereby the receiving party undertakes to sell them as an agent for the shipper. The shipper retains title to the goods until they are sold.

I believe being an authorized dealer, you have to establish a line of credit w/ the company and actually purchase the products that you are going to sell.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

I'm very interested in ecommerce as a whole, and would love to chat with you sometime.

The obvious question everyone wants to know is - what do you buy&sell?

Some more interesting questions I'd like to know:

- strategies on getting the best price (good times to bid, bad times to bid, days to avoid, etc)

- optimizing shipping cost to get the most bids

- general page layouts/copy that seem to work

- which merchant account do you use to accept payment?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

Im thinking about getting into Ebay (and other online) selling as a serious business come the summer - im also an Ebay newb having never used it before - which means you have come at the right time for me [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Is there any money left in drop shipping, or do you have to be handling stock to see any profits in the modern market?

Do you run a storefront outside of your (dutch?) auctions (my guess is yes but gotta cover bases)? How easy is it to maintain on the Ebay network?

Do you take credit card payments? Is there any particular 3rd party processing company you recommend or do you have a merchant account at your bank?

To give us an idea of your company, what do you sell (or a link to it, im sure the mods wont mind).

Assume ive decided on a company - i have a name, the money is there, ive got some stock on hand and my suppliers are ready when i run low - what do i need to do to get started on Ebay? Is there still a minimum number of successful auctions you need to do before you can run dutch auctions? How easy is it setting up an Ebay storefront - can i use a simple HTMl editor like Frontpage or is it worth slipping some uni guy a couple of bills to do it professionally?

By which i mean simple and classy. Not with thousands of colours and moving objects and other such stupidness.

When it comes to marketing, do you go all out on fancy auctions stickied at top, or do you go for the less than premium ones with less bells and whistles - or is it simple normal listings you do? Do you have any recommendations on keywords to be used in auctions so they are found by searching (other than making sure the words are spelt corretly)?

Is repeat business a big thing in Ebay-land or is it simply a case of the product sells the product?

What is best - picking an area of expertise and building confidence in it, or selling a series of seemingly unrelated 'hot products' and thus follow market trends?

Yes, a few questions i guess. If i think of more ill be back in the thread later [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

What is the best way to win an auction for the lowest price possible?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

We do it all through Consignment. We take 25-40% of the sale and make about 3-6 bucks an item on shipping. I do tv radio and newspaper ads in my area.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

quote the questions you are answering.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

What is the exact scam angle on Craigslist posts (typically under computer gigs) seeking out "experienced eBay sellers" to list stuff for them for a commission? Obv, there are multiple exploits possible...just wondering which they were after.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
We do it all through Consignment. We take 25-40% of the sale and make about 3-6 bucks an item on shipping. I do tv radio and newspaper ads in my area.

[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly do your ads look like? Exactly where are they placed?

What were your first months like when building up rep etc

Any plans to expand?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
What is the best way to win an auction for the lowest price possible?

[/ QUOTE ]

Snipe your bid in the last 5 secs of the auction, never bid early, watch several auctions of the same item to pick the best sniping prospect, be patient enough to pass on "good" deals to get the "great" deals on items commonly sold, possibly gambool on low-feedback sellers (I took a chance once on an item regularly selling for $550-$700 and got it for $350 cause the seller had a feedback of 1...from a purchase (no sales, ever. I checked him out as best I could...name was listed in phone book, address matched where to send a money order, seemed pretty normal in info I turned up during google-recon, exchanged several emails...I felt it was worth the risk)).

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
We do it all through Consignment. We take 25-40% of the sale and make about 3-6 bucks an item on shipping. I do tv radio and newspaper ads in my area.

[/ QUOTE ]

What percentage of your customers that you sell for are acquired from the TV/radio/newspaper ads? Have you tried advertising on the web? What other methods do you use?

For the numbers you specified, roughly how many products are you shipping out per month?

How many regular customers do you have that use your service?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
What edge or core compentency do you have that let's you make a profit or prevents anyone from selling the exact things for the exact price that you sell? Do you just have a lock on the supply/manufacture of your product?

How about a link to your ad on ebay?

[/ QUOTE ]

Our Edge is experience and having 100,000+ feedback. We opperate only on consignment basis and get individuals in and companys in about every day that would like to use our service. The best part of our business is that so many people are looking for someone to sell their stuff with no work.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What edge or core compentency do you have that let's you make a profit or prevents anyone from selling the exact things for the exact price that you sell? Do you just have a lock on the supply/manufacture of your product?

How about a link to your ad on ebay?

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe they mainly sell other peoples junk for a percentage of the final sale.

There are a lot of ppl who have stuff they want to sell but don't really know or want to create an ebay/paypal account etc.

please correct me if I'm wrong...


edit: core compentency/edge = high seller rating, experience and market valuation skills. I did not get the impression from any of OP's wording that he is an authorized dealer for any products.

consignment = a shipment of goods under an agreement whereby the receiving party undertakes to sell them as an agent for the shipper. The shipper retains title to the goods until they are sold.

I believe being an authorized dealer, you have to establish a line of credit w/ the company and actually purchase the products that you are going to sell.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your exactly right, we only sell for others, and we take a large % at 25 to 40% with us covering the fees.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm very interested in ecommerce as a whole, and would love to chat with you sometime.

The obvious question everyone wants to know is - what do you buy&sell?

Some more interesting questions I'd like to know:

- strategies on getting the best price (good times to bid, bad times to bid, days to avoid, etc)

- optimizing shipping cost to get the most bids

- general page layouts/copy that seem to work

- which merchant account do you use to accept payment?

[/ QUOTE ]

We use Turbo Lister for all our items, Paypal for our payments though we do take checks and money orders as well, as far as best time to get the highest price I feel it has to be Saturday and Sunday evening.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We do it all through Consignment. We take 25-40% of the sale and make about 3-6 bucks an item on shipping. I do tv radio and newspaper ads in my area.

[/ QUOTE ]

What percentage of your customers that you sell for are acquired from the TV/radio/newspaper ads? Have you tried advertising on the web? What other methods do you use?

For the numbers you specified, roughly how many products are you shipping out per month?

How many regular customers do you have that use your service?

[/ QUOTE ]

Generally we do 500 items a week, we have around 100 customers that are very loyal including a few major companies that do reposession and bring us the items. The radio seems to be best as I can get ESPN ads for 5.00 an ad for 1.00 here. My tv commercials range from 25 bucks to 800 a piece but I tend to focus on the 25s during the midday news and the 60.00 during the early eve news.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We do it all through Consignment. We take 25-40% of the sale and make about 3-6 bucks an item on shipping. I do tv radio and newspaper ads in my area.

[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly do your ads look like? Exactly where are they placed?

What were your first months like when building up rep etc

Any plans to expand?

[/ QUOTE ]

The first months were insane, we had about 200 customers and some even brought in many items. We had one customer bring in 480 Dept. 56 village buildings in one day. We have no plans for expansion yet as were burried now and good help is hard to find it seems.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
What is the best way to win an auction for the lowest price possible?

[/ QUOTE ]

When I buy, which isnt that often latley I tend to use a stop watch and bid with 10 seconds or less...you can pay a sniping service, but why do that when so easy to do yourself.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

I hate it when people start these threads and then ignore them after 2 replies.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
I hate it when people start these threads and then ignore them after 2 replies.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ive made about 12 replies so far?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What is the best way to win an auction for the lowest price possible?

[/ QUOTE ]

...you can pay a sniping service, but why do that when so easy to do yourself.

[/ QUOTE ]

because you don't have to (remember to) be at your computer.

you can set up a snipe on multiple auctions of the same item and once you win one, the rest of the scheduled snipes are cancelled.

there are many reasons why this software is valuable (assuming you purchase more than one or two items off of ebay)

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

OP...

I have started a small ebay business and just sell local junk on ebay and I've been making b/w 500-1000 a month for the past 2 months now. Mostly sporting goods, used snowboards, surfboards, some golf stuff, some clothing, etc...

I have over 200 positive feedback but its been hard for me this month to find things to sell. Can you recommend some things I could sell with a good profit turn around that aren't too hard to come by but are in decent demand?

thanks

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

Whats the best/cheapest way to build positive feedback for a new seller (looking to sell mostly books)?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
OP...

I have started a small ebay business and just sell local junk on ebay and I've been making b/w 500-1000 a month for the past 2 months now. Mostly sporting goods, used snowboards, surfboards, some golf stuff, some clothing, etc...

I have over 200 positive feedback but its been hard for me this month to find things to sell. Can you recommend some things I could sell with a good profit turn around that aren't too hard to come by but are in decent demand?

thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

Right now I would suggest PS3's, waiting in line for 300 bucks profit seems like good deal, Target has some autographed electric guitars that are doing well the Kiss one especially...throw some ads on the radio see what happens.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
Whats the best/cheapest way to build positive feedback for a new seller (looking to sell mostly books)?

[/ QUOTE ]

Buy a bunch of 10.00 and under items that seem to always bring that price...vintage sports cards is a good avenue, get them and relist them at what you paid for them. Little work and you build your feeds.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

My bad. Somehow didn't see your replies.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

Have you considered buying lots and reselling them? Is there any value in doing that?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
OP...

I have started a small ebay business and just sell local junk on ebay and I've been making b/w 500-1000 a month for the past 2 months now. Mostly sporting goods, used snowboards, surfboards, some golf stuff, some clothing, etc...

I have over 200 positive feedback but its been hard for me this month to find things to sell. Can you recommend some things I could sell with a good profit turn around that aren't too hard to come by but are in decent demand?

thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

what have you been selling so far?

very interested in this avenue of making a living even though i'm currently pretty immersed in my poker player lifestyle.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

How good do you think it would be for the internet auction market if a true competitor to both ebay and paypal were to appear? (I'm hoping for GoogleBay, and GooglePay)

I can't stand paypal, providing absolutely no seller proteciton, outsourcing their CS to incompetent reps, and a feeling that I am getting ripped a new [censored] everytime I use paypal.

Ebay is only slightly better.

The double dipping on sellers pisses me off to no end.

How much do you allocate for losses due to scammers convincing paypal they were defrauded by you?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
OP...

I have started a small ebay business and just sell local junk on ebay and I've been making b/w 500-1000 a month for the past 2 months now. Mostly sporting goods, used snowboards, surfboards, some golf stuff, some clothing, etc...

I have over 200 positive feedback but its been hard for me this month to find things to sell. Can you recommend some things I could sell with a good profit turn around that aren't too hard to come by but are in decent demand?

thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

what have you been selling so far?

very interested in this avenue of making a living even though i'm currently pretty immersed in my poker player lifestyle.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've sold a lot of used clothing but not cheap clothing...

ie banana republic and abercrombie and fitch

I also look in the area for musical instruments @ garage sales, then put them up for sale.

i also had multiple surfboards I sold as well as a snowboard...also sell some electronics too. Just stuff I look around the house or neighborhood for that is cheap and then resell.

I try to put up anywhere from 10-30 auctions per week but it is time consuming. Every sunday it takes me a few hours to list my new auctions, and prepare all my other auctions for shipping for the week.

I'd say ~5 hours of my sunday is used b/c of this and then a couple of hours spread out during the week by going to post office or ups or fedex to ship the auctions that have been paid for.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

When you sell an item, ebay takes a small percentage right?

How much is this and how do they do it if someone sends you a check or money order? Do they take it out of your paypal account even if they didnt use paypal?

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
OP...

I have started a small ebay business and just sell local junk on ebay and I've been making b/w 500-1000 a month for the past 2 months now. Mostly sporting goods, used snowboards, surfboards, some golf stuff, some clothing, etc...

I have over 200 positive feedback but its been hard for me this month to find things to sell. Can you recommend some things I could sell with a good profit turn around that aren't too hard to come by but are in decent demand?

thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

what have you been selling so far?

very interested in this avenue of making a living even though i'm currently pretty immersed in my poker player lifestyle.

[/ QUOTE ]

I too started with poker 8 years ago and rolled my whole BR into this business. We sell everything from baseball cards to sports cards and its all on consignment.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
How good do you think it would be for the internet auction market if a true competitor to both ebay and paypal were to appear? (I'm hoping for GoogleBay, and GooglePay)

I can't stand paypal, providing absolutely no seller proteciton, outsourcing their CS to incompetent reps, and a feeling that I am getting ripped a new [censored] everytime I use paypal.

Ebay is only slightly better.

The double dipping on sellers pisses me off to no end.

How much do you allocate for losses due to scammers convincing paypal they were defrauded by you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Generally less than 200 bucks a month

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

[ QUOTE ]
When you sell an item, ebay takes a small percentage right?

How much is this and how do they do it if someone sends you a check or money order? Do they take it out of your paypal account even if they didnt use paypal?

[/ QUOTE ]

Last year my total Ebay / Paypal fees cost me 14% of my total sales. I pay them enough to have a monster house and nice cars each year lol.

Re: Ask Me Anything About Ebay
 

this is more paypal related than ebay, but i'm guessing you've had some experience with fraud. somebody bought 3 $500 amazon gift certificates from me on paypal and he turned out to be a crook. paypal reversed the chrages (one within paypal, two by doing a credit card chargeback). i currently have a negative balance. (here's the longer version

i'm inclined to bend over and just give them the remaining money they say i owe them b/c i don't feel like dealing with the hassle and i assume that's how it will wind up anyway. i'd appreciate any insight, even it's just "you're probably screwed."