Would you really sell on ebay ?

[SilverSolder]

I am still buying on ebay but selling has almost come to a complete still stand for me because of too many problems with stupid or idiot buyers or some buyers that have intent to screw the seller. It has become redicules over the years.

10 years ago, ebay was fun to sell.
Today it sucks for sellers!

About 6 month ago I sold a brand new original item for around 200 Euro on eBay germany.
The seller claimed it was bad and wanted his money back.
I told him that he would have to send me the part back and then I will decide.
He called Paypal and got his money back right away.
Then he gave me negative feedback on top.
So, I ended up with no item anymore and no money and a negative feedback.
Just because the buyer wanted it this way.

Ebay has become a buyer's market only from my experience.
 

The only way to deal with buyer complaints is to offer to take it back right away - and if buyer thinks it was not as described, you have to eat the shipping.

Basically...   make sure your listings are bullet proof - and even then, some idiot will find a way to misunderstand! 

[kaz911]

I've sold quite a few items on ebay - incl. expensive scopes etc. So far no issues.

But a few pointers:

1. I sell only cheap crap at standard rates. I have a list of more expensive items I list when eBay sends out the "seller specials" where you only pay GBP 1,- or 1% per sale. So I pack everything up and write the text and pictures - and are ready to post when eBay sends their special offer. (Only works with things that does not depreciate quick....)

2. Always have pictures of the ITEM itself. For fast postings just use eBay app on your phone and snap some pictures. Even bad pictures gives me better prices on auction than stylish ones or original manufacture pictures only. It also protects you as seller. If it is electronics with "display option" show it working somehow. I have a standard text on my adverts saying "If it is not shown in the image or specs it is not included"

3. To get the best price if you are in the UK - you must ship to rest of EU. It usually gives me 10-30% higher end sale price. I usually exclude the "EU Newcomer" countries as that is they only places I have had attempted "fraud" from. Sadly you can't save your seller preferences for countries so you have to actively go and select countries you ship to manually every time.

4. Try and guesstimate the potential market before you list it. I sold my Tek MDO via advertised price and "best offer" enabled because market is "small". Other items that has a bigger market - does a lot better on "No reserve / GBP 1,- start" than if you put reserve on or a high'ish start price. Sometimes I do make a bad call and sell something too cheap - but usually it reaches the price I expect or more.

But I am amazed by how many people will pay up to normal retail minus a few pct for 2nd hand products. Some buyers on eBay are just "shopping mad" I think.

But sometimes one can be really lucky at get the right product for the right price or dirt cheap. That was how I got my MSOX4k...

[peter-h]

As I wrote before, the way to keep out the idiot buyers is to create a really good detailed listing. Good pics and lots of text. Most idiots are illiterate (which is partly why they are frustrated with so much in life, and take it out on everybody else) and if you write say 20 lines, they won't read it and buy another listing whose text is 2 lines.

[SilverSolder]

As I wrote before, the way to keep out the idiot buyers is to create a really good detailed listing. Good pics and lots of text. Most idiots are illiterate (which is partly why they are frustrated with so much in life, and take it out on everybody else) and if you write say 20 lines, they won't read it and buy another listing whose text is 2 lines.

Or, they will buy it without reading the text - and then blame you for hiding the details when their expectations are frustrated later! 

[Simon]

Either way you can't stop idiots. I had someone complain i sent her 50V electrolytic capacitors instead of 25V as listed. Fact is she found some cheap junk from china and wanted a refund. Fact is no reputable manufacturer bothers to make 25V 1µF electrolytics, the value is so small they just come out at 50V. I tried explaining but she was not interested, again I got ebay in on the case and told her if she wanted to send them back to me I would refund her minus shipping, ebay never said a word and that is what I did, she returned them and i gave her back what was left after fees. So petty, so much time wasted over less than £10. But you will never stop the idiots, these capacitors went from being "not as described" to poor replacements for the rarer more sought after 25V parts which I told her was rubbish al clearly every chinese seller and their dogs were selling the 25V ones dirt cheap where as she got quality branded parts from me.

I think in the end i told her it would serve her right if her cheap chinese caps blew up in her face as I personally would not rely on stuff like that anymore.

There are always idiots, and ebay are not as senseless as people make out. In that case despite how heated it got they never intervened and i never lost a penny, just a sale that I needed like a hole in the head.

[kaz911]

Either way you can't stop idiots. I had someone complain i sent her 50V electrolytic capacitors instead of 25V as listed. Fact is she found some cheap junk from china and wanted a refund. Fact is no reputable manufacturer bothers to make 25V 1µF electrolytics, the value is so small they just come out at 50V. I tried explaining but she was not interested, again I got ebay in on the case and told her if she wanted to send them back to me I would refund her minus shipping, ebay never said a word and that is what I did, she returned them and i gave her back what was left after fees. So petty, so much time wasted over less than £10. But you will never stop the idiots, these capacitors went from being "not as described" to poor replacements for the rarer more sought after 25V parts which I told her was rubbish al clearly every chinese seller and their dogs were selling the 25V ones dirt cheap where as she got quality branded parts from me.

I think in the end i told her it would serve her right if her cheap chinese caps blew up in her face as I personally would not rely on stuff like that anymore.

There are always idiots, and ebay are not as senseless as people make out. In that case despite how heated it got they never intervened and i never lost a penny, just a sale that I needed like a hole in the head.

Simon - all your grief seem to come from you not accurately describe the products you are selling ... I know your inner angle want to do better than advertised but with eBay and any selling platform - you do not want to leave anything up to chance.  But if it is 50v then write 50v

So accurately describe the product you sell and you will have a lot less grief.

[HighVoltage]

So accurately describe the product you sell and you will have a lot less grief.

That is NOT my experience.
I am always using all 12 really good pictures and plenty of text.
And still have some idiots complain.

At one time I sold 10 technical items but in reality I had 11.
So, I thought to do the buyer a favor and added the 11th item for free.
He gave me negative feedback because he got 11 instead of 10 items.
Go figure.

The world is full of idiots.

[Simon]

Either way you can't stop idiots. I had someone complain i sent her 50V electrolytic capacitors instead of 25V as listed. Fact is she found some cheap junk from china and wanted a refund. Fact is no reputable manufacturer bothers to make 25V 1µF electrolytics, the value is so small they just come out at 50V. I tried explaining but she was not interested, again I got ebay in on the case and told her if she wanted to send them back to me I would refund her minus shipping, ebay never said a word and that is what I did, she returned them and i gave her back what was left after fees. So petty, so much time wasted over less than £10. But you will never stop the idiots, these capacitors went from being "not as described" to poor replacements for the rarer more sought after 25V parts which I told her was rubbish al clearly every chinese seller and their dogs were selling the 25V ones dirt cheap where as she got quality branded parts from me.

I think in the end i told her it would serve her right if her cheap chinese caps blew up in her face as I personally would not rely on stuff like that anymore.

There are always idiots, and ebay are not as senseless as people make out. In that case despite how heated it got they never intervened and i never lost a penny, just a sale that I needed like a hole in the head.

Simon - all your grief seem to come from you not accurately describe the products you are selling ... I know your inner angle want to do better than advertised but with eBay and any selling platform - you do not want to leave anything up to chance.  But if it is 50v then write 50v

So accurately describe the product you sell and you will have a lot less grief.

Once again it was an idiot that would have caused grief one way or the other. I used to have crappy chinese 25V ones but then bought reputable manufacturer ones. It was not intentional, just an oversight when I bought more stock. I supplied something that as I told her was, fit, form and function as described.

On the other hand i taught so many uni students how to use a mosfet to control a motor or something for their degree projects  Yep, your at the end of your degree and doing a poxy PWM brushed motor controller as your degree project and still don't know the difference between N and P channel, which way round they go or how to use them. But these guys were not assholes and I spent a lot of time helping people who were willing to be helped and not screaming at me because they messed up.

[SilverSolder]

Idiots are idiots - that's what makes them idiots! 

Think of all the entertainment they provide, they aren't completely without function in society! 

[Simon]

Yes it is mildly entertaining to do battle with these idiots from time to time.

[Golds]

Yes, I started trying to sell it on Ebay in June last year, and so far I have provided tax of $3000+.  Although it helped me complete the sale, the 10% sales tax was uncomfortable because it didn't even miss the shipping cost.Hope to find other low-cost sales channels, thank you!

[Simon]

The problem was that lots of chinese sellers were selling everything for £1 with the rest of the price as shipping, for example a solar panel I saw for £1 with £250 shipping so they just made the cost of shipping costs the same. They also have a thing for free shipping but this of course means you paid fees on the shipping cost so now you do anyway.

[james_s]

The problem was that lots of chinese sellers were selling everything for £1 with the rest of the price as shipping, for example a solar panel I saw for £1 with £250 shipping so they just made the cost of shipping costs the same. They also have a thing for free shipping but this of course means you paid fees on the shipping cost so now you do anyway.

I get this, but when you buy the shipping through ebay this sort of trickery is impossible. They know exactly how much you paid for shipping because you paid through their own system and the only excuse for charging fees on the shipping cost is pure greed. I'm surprised they don't charge fees for their fees, and fees for those fees on top of that.

[Syntax Error]

Fake bidders, seller fees, paypal fees, shipping stress, damaged returns and scam buyers. Ebay is a crap shoot, but it's the only selling platform in town. Just be sure to do the math when you're selling....... and bidding.

[Simon]

The problem was that lots of chinese sellers were selling everything for £1 with the rest of the price as shipping, for example a solar panel I saw for £1 with £250 shipping so they just made the cost of shipping costs the same. They also have a thing for free shipping but this of course means you paid fees on the shipping cost so now you do anyway.

I get this, but when you buy the shipping through ebay this sort of trickery is impossible. They know exactly how much you paid for shipping because you paid through their own system and the only excuse for charging fees on the shipping cost is pure greed. I'm surprised they don't charge fees for their fees, and fees for those fees on top of that.

They do charge fees for their fees and so on. If I want to make £100 with a 10% fee I can't sell at £110, because I will only get £99, so i sell at £111, but then that is £99.90 so i sell at £111.10 and I make £99.99, so I sell at £111.11 and make £99.999 which will round to £100, fees on fees, on fees, on fees...... That is why I "rip" people off. Ebay fees are not 10% but 11.11111111%

They are pushing the selling of postage through the site now but it's value has nothing to do with the shipping charged. I suspect that the reason they are having you buy it online is more about trying to collect the evidence of shipping and reduce claims.

I don't buy my postage on eaby because I am signed up to the post office drop and go service, if I buy on ebay apart from my post office not seeing any of the money I have to stand in a queue. With drop and go i slap the address on, make a list of the items with the shipping method and just leave it with the post office 5m walk around the corner. They process it when the queue has died down and I get an email telling me what my account was charged and can check on my account for the tracking numbers.

[Syntax Error]

Ebay charging a fee on postage - a service they do not provide - was a response to some sellers charging pennies for their items but having stupid postage rates. It meant ebay was missing out on a big cut of their customers' trade. Ebay is not Amazon; it stocks nothing, sells nothing, ships nothing.

The ebay system was designed for domestic/national sellers, but does not scale for global drop-shippers who have the resources to bot-spam listings with identical items at anti-trust prices. Ebay is trying to be another ali-express? Of course, China has long profiteered from the (non-reciprocal) universal postal agreement. This has led to the crazy situation where domestic ebay sellers find themselves unable to compete with their own suppliers on their own national platform, because it's always cheaper to ship from China than from the next town.

Would I sell on ebay? Yes I do. Do I offer free postage? Only when it's built into the buy-it-now price. Have I dealt with idiots? Good customer service goes with the territory.
Do I make enough profit to retire? Are you kidding

[Simon]

I can see why they did it but of course whilst closing a loophole it put the price up for everyone which they can do, still amazon charge 18% or actually once you factor fees of fees 22% and that's to use them as ebay.

[SilverSolder]

[...] Of course, China has long profiteered from the (non-reciprocal) universal postal agreement. [..]

To that point, I think our (Western) postal services are used to loading the price of sending anything with all kinds of costs that are nothing to do with the actual, real distribution costs.  That's why it costs us $30 to send a package to China, whereas our Chinese friend paid sub-$1 to send it the other way (i.e. one envelope in a container going over on a ship just doesn't cost that much in real terms, before loading the costs...)

Shipping container rates from the United States to China begin at $277 for a 20 foot container.  How many envelopes/small packages can you fit in a container?  -  you see the real price is only pennies, and the Chinese sellers get to pay the real price....    we don't.    Yet many will tell us that we are the ones living in a free market system, while the Chinese are stuck with inefficient communism!

Our postal costs are high enough that Amazon thinks it is worthwhile to hire their own drivers and buy their own vans instead of using the existing "shipping mafia", that ought to tell you something.

[james_s]

The cost of shipping out of the USA went up dramatically around 10 years ago. I used to send quite a bit of stuff and as long as it wasn't huge or super heavy there were economical ways of doing it. Now all of the low cost surface options are gone and USPS only offers the high priced premium airmail services. Shipping even a small package to the UK for example will cost over $50 now, they charged me over $7 to ship a small packet weighing a few ounces (blank PCB) that could have been sent as a letter for under $1 but the clerk said it was rigid enough to count as a package. People get upset with Americans for refusing to sell international but it's not our fault, it's just that it is such a hassle compared to domestic and the cost is so obscene that it's not worth it.

[Simon]

As far as i am aware the Chinese government subsidizes the shipping. It's also a quirk of an agreement between countries to no charge each other.

I can ship in the UK for about £5 an to Europe for £12 which is pretty much as expected. Our letter costs have skyrocketed though when Royal Mail was sold off the first thing they did was start putting the price of stamps up for letters even though they were now turning a profit from the ecommerce world.

[GlennSprigg]

If buying from Australia, to Australia, I often find the same eBay seller/person elsewhere on the Internet, and transfer a 'cheaper'
cost to his bank account, after some dialog.  Then we BOTH save!!   

[peter-h]

"The cost of shipping out of the USA went up dramatically around 10 years ago. I used to send quite a bit of stuff and as long as it wasn't huge or super heavy there were economical ways of doing it. Now all of the low cost surface options are gone and USPS only offers the high priced premium airmail services. Shipping even a small package to the UK for example will cost over $50 now,"

I find that really surprising.

What about normal airmail / air parcel post?

I've been importing from the US for 40+ years and the biggest issue I have seen is that most US firms are not interested in using the "Post Office" because somebody has to mess about, go there, etc. Whereas if they use say Fedex they just chuck everything on a big pile, have a streamlined system for labelling it / printing off the AWBs, and the Fedex driver just collects the lot, so nobody has to do anything "complicated". The result: I pay $150 for shipping the smallest item, whereas airmail would have cost $15.

[SilverSolder]

[...] It's also a quirk of an agreement between countries to no charge each other.  [...]

The agreement between governments relates to the distribution of "the last mile" (can be many miles!) after the container full of mail is dumped on the floor in some distribution center, once it has arrived in the destination country. 

The agreements between countries are based on the real costs of distributing the mail.  (We are talking about professional negotiators here, not members of the public!)  The real costs boil down to a warehouse, and some guys with some vans - they all know that, and that is what they are willing to pay for.  Those costs are not that high, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the prices we pay at the post office counter.

Western business and private users of the mail services are, to put it in simple terms, being fleeced.  Then, when we notice how cheap it is for Chinese businesses to send stuff, we think they must be cheating...  -   and it is convenient for the powers that be for people to blame China rather than them, so they are happy to let people believe it is all China's fault -  they are far away anyway, and probably blame us for a lot of their own problems in return, on the same principle! 

[SilverSolder]

"The cost of shipping out of the USA went up dramatically around 10 years ago. I used to send quite a bit of stuff and as long as it wasn't huge or super heavy there were economical ways of doing it. Now all of the low cost surface options are gone and USPS only offers the high priced premium airmail services. Shipping even a small package to the UK for example will cost over $50 now,"

I find that really surprising.

What about normal airmail / air parcel post?

I've been importing from the US for 40+ years and the biggest issue I have seen is that most US firms are not interested in using the "Post Office" because somebody has to mess about, go there, etc. Whereas if they use say Fedex they just chuck everything on a big pile, have a streamlined system for labelling it / printing off the AWBs, and the Fedex driver just collects the lot, so nobody has to do anything "complicated". The result: I pay $150 for shipping the smallest item, whereas airmail would have cost $15.

The US postal rates are pretty complicated.   E.g. https://www.nerdylorrin.net/jerry/postages/index.html

On one level I don't blame the average small business person for not wanting to grapple with this...   on another level, they are obviously giving up sales, since it is the customer that pays the shipping, not them...


It is hard to send "real world" packages to the UK for less than $20.  The exception would be "flats" i.e. paper documents - nothing else is allowed to be sent at the document rate.

Competing services that simply bung everything into a container like the USPS and Royal Mail should be doing have already appeared...

[Simon]

[...] It's also a quirk of an agreement between countries to no charge each other.  [...]

The agreement between governments relates to the distribution of "the last mile" (can be many miles!) after the container full of mail is dumped on the floor in some distribution center, once it has arrived in the destination country. 

The agreements between countries are based on the real costs of distributing the mail.  (We are talking about professional negotiators here, not members of the public!)  The real costs boil down to a warehouse, and some guys with some vans - they all know that, and that is what they are willing to pay for.  Those costs are not that high, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the prices we pay at the post office counter.

Western business and private users of the mail services are, to put it in simple terms, being fleeced.  Then, when we notice how cheap it is for Chinese businesses to send stuff, we think they must be cheating...  -   and it is convenient for the powers that be for people to blame China rather than them, so they are happy to let people believe it is all China's fault -  they are far away anyway, and probably blame us for a lot of their own problems in return, on the same principle! 

actually royal mail ran at a loss until the volume of online selling picked up and it started turning a profit because the cost to process a parcel is not too different from a letter but for it's size, weight, fuel etc. As soon as Royal mail started making money they privatized it. I don't think parcels have gone up dramatically just letters. Now parcels and letters are delivered by different people who may even cross each others paths but the volume of parcels is such that it warrants a person with a van where in the past the on foot post person would carry the odd parcel. Now the ones carrying letters do leaflet drops too.