Ebay sellers thread (other platforms too)

[disneysteve]

$11.40 divided by $83.77 = 0.1360 (13% fees). That's the price of doing business with eBay. With cryptos on Ledger it's 3% on the buy side and 3% on the sell side, which I thought was high but that's the price of doing business as well. You got to pay to play. Gambling as well the house builds in its vigorish as well.

Yep. There's always some cost to doing business. On ebay, I always use 15% of sale price as my ballpark figure. The final value fee is less than that but it's also charged on the shipping and tax so 15% is about right. I'm totally fine with that as it allows me to list my items where they are seen by over 100 million customers worldwide. There is nowhere else where I can get that exposure.

Week in and week out I sell items on ebay for 10 times what I paid for them. If that means paying ebay 15% of the total to make those sales, I have no problem with that at all.

[disneysteve]

Have I mentioned I love selling things I got for free?

Last week my wife gave me two sample tubes of hair care products that she got free when she bought the products she actually uses. I sold those both for $15.99.

Also last week, I responded to a free posting on Marketplace by a family getting ready to move. It said that everything they were taking with them was packed up and anything left in the house was free. I shot right over there and got a bunch of stuff. I got 2 reams of printer paper for myself. Those go for about $5 each so that saves me from buying it for a while. I also got a carton with 9 ready to eat emergency food bars. They're good for camping and disaster prep. Turns out they sell for $19.95 each on Amazon and ebay. I listed mine for $18.95 and just sold the first one. That price does include shipping so my net profit is only $7.00 but still, I got them for free. If I sell 9 of them, that's $63 profit with no upfront cost.

I got a whole carton of MREs also which I haven't listed yet. I've been researching the legality of selling those. It would appear that mine are fine to sell as they are not marked as being government property. I also have all of the MRE heaters which I can sell but can't ship due to FAA regulations so I'll have to sell those locally.

[disneysteve]

I saw a video yesterday from a former nurse. She started selling stuff around the house to help pay off debt. Fell in love with Poshmark and then branched out to eBay too. After 5 months, her reselling income matched her nursing income. She has been a full time reseller ever since. She and her husband now do it together.

People don’t realize what a huge opportunity there is to make money with online sales. I love stories like that. Whether people just do it on the side like me or they’ve made it their livelihood, it’s limitless and incredibly flexible.

[disneysteve]

Facebook Marketplace has got to be the most frustrating site to sell things.

I listed something a few days ago. So far, I have gotten 13 messages from people interested in the item. 2 of them set up times to come. 0 have followed through. A third person set up to come tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't get what pleasure people take in sending messages for items and then not following through. Why waste your own time messaging someone if you're not actually going to buy it? I don't mean the "Is this available?" message with no follow up. Those are a pain for sure, but I mean the people who actually send an original message, ask questions about the item, negotiate the price, ask where we can meet, etc. They put some time and effort into the conversation and then disappear.

At least I know when an item gets a lot of interest like that, it will eventually sell when a stable-minded person comes along, but dealing with the dozens of idiots along the way is annoying.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Craigslist was like that for me which I used to use exclusively before selling on eBay.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

FB i feel is for things that are harder to ship! I have sold my playset and other bigger items there pretty successfully.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Still awaiting shipment on an order I placed on 1/19/24, should I message the seller (open a claim w/eBay), etc.

[disneysteve]

Still awaiting shipment on an order I placed on 1/19/24, should I message the seller (open a claim w/eBay), etc.

Neither. Nothing is wrong here.

Listing states it will be shipped within 5 business days of receiving payment. You bought it on 1/19 so 5 business days takes you to 1/26 (weekends don't count). Seller is still within their stated handling time.

You can't file an Item Not Received claim until after the estimated delivery window has passed.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I see, thanks. When I sell my shipping I set it to 1 business day. I'm used to fast shipping and this order seemed long to ship.

[disneysteve]

I see, thanks. When I sell my shipping I set it to 1 business day. I'm used to fast shipping and this order seemed long to ship.

Always good to check the handling time.

Personally I use 3 days. I almost always ship next day and sometimes same day but I like to give myself room because life happens. It would benefit me to do 1-day shipping because then I could be Top Rated Seller Plus and pay less in fees but I don't want the pressure to get things out.

[disneysteve]

Have I mentioned I love selling things I got for free?

I also got a carton with 9 ready to eat emergency food bars. They're good for camping and disaster prep. Turns out they sell for $19.95 each on Amazon and ebay. I listed mine for $18.95 and just sold the first one. That price does include shipping so my net profit is only $7.00 but still, I got them for free. If I sell 9 of them, that's $63 profit with no upfront cost.

I sold 2 more today for $36. My profit is $22.09. That brings me to $29.09 profit on 3 bars. I have 6 more to sell.

Still trying to sell the MREs. I've gotten a few dozen inquiries and nobody has followed through yet. It's such a pain but it'll be a $100 sale when I finally find someone who isn't a flake and actually buys them.

[disneysteve]

I average 1.5 to 2 sales per day.

Today (so far; it's only 7:50pm) I've sold 7 items. Total cost $10.50. Total sales $170.75.

In my reselling groups, I see a ton of posts about how January is "always" slow and "everyone" is dealing with poor sales right now because of the season/economy/government/whatever other nonsense excuse. Meanwhile, I'm over here packing and shipping items as fast as I can. When you actually take responsibility for your own actions rather than trying to shift blame everywhere else, you can do incredibly well.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Great my frying pan got delivered today at Farmington, MO. Keep in mind I live in California. It started out good from San Diego, then to Moreno Valley, CA, then when I saw it going to St Louis, I started to worry. Any ideas from the group, contact the seller, open a ticket with eBay, etc?

[QuarterMillionMan]

I might have to wait until January 31 to make a claim since it's still January 30.

[disneysteve]

Here’s the problem. Tracking shows delivered so if you open an item not received claim eBay will close it in the seller’s favor. Instead, send a message to the eBay for business Facebook page (assuming you’re on Facebook). They’ll make you verify your account before they’ll talk to you. And they make take a day to answer you. But then explain that it got delivered nowhere near you. They should be able to take care of things.