advice for first time Ebay seller

[kellyponyfeathers]

I buy from Ebay all the time (too much!), so I know the system from that perspective.  But I need to list a bunch of non-MLP stuff to sell.  I've never sold on Ebay before, and all the horror stories have made me a little nervous.  Can you guys give me some advice?

I'd like to know the best way to minimize fees.  How much of the purchase price can I expect to lose to fees?

And I'd also like to know the best way to block bad buyers.  I know we have an ongoing list here, but I haven't really used it before.  Can I copy and paste it into Ebay somewhere?  Or do I have to enter each username individually for bidders I want to block?

Thanks!

[StoryDreamer]

Never put a price at .00, always end it in ;99, because if you go above .99, you get charged an extra amount.

See here: http://ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

Take really good pictures. Use a white background for anything, never a colored background, because it would be hard to see your item in the search results. My go-to is a piece of white poster board. It makes everything stand out!  Even for clothes, books, etc.

Example:

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/21-Lot-Rainbow-Magic-Fairies-Dance-Pet-Weather-Special-Editions-Books-/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/FbEAAOxyiBpSIRBT/$T2eC16ZHJGYE9noojeR!BSIRBTDZ-w~~60_57.JPG



That's one of my auctions. The white background allows the buyer to focus on JUST the books, and not anything else. It's all about marketing..

Read some of the tips the Ebay Entrepreneur has, his website is http://www.theebayentrepreneur.com/

Ebay has a fee calculator:  http://www.fees.ebay.com/feeweb/feecalculator

I copy/paste the names and separate them by commas.

[Navi]

You usually get about 50 free listings a month - if I hit 50, I wait until the next month to list anything new. It saves you about .30 - .40 a listing. Their final value fees are unavoidably high, so I like to give them as little of my money as I can.

[kellyponyfeathers]

Oh, I can do marketing; I'm good at that!

So I get 50 free listings per month?  OK, I kind of knew that already.  But Ebay will take 10% of the final sale value?  That's not as bad as I thought it would be.

How many pictures do I get with each listing (without having to pay extra)?  Just one?  Two?  You have to pay extra for lots of photos, right?  I guess if I want to include more pics without extra fees, I can link to photobucket. 

[StoryDreamer]

I think... 12 free. Then I just use Photobucket (if needed, usually I don't)

[Dyzarktarzk]

Still... eBay seems cheaper than MercadoLibre (10% of final sale price, if you decide to pay $0.50 for listing it's 6.50% of final price).  But the listing is for 60 days, so... maybe it's not so bad.

Still... as far as I've read you can block 0 feedback users in eBay and manage your block list, and with ML you can't do that (suffering from that lately), unresponsive newbie buyers who just 'buy' and doesn't complete the transaction ¬¬X

[Navi]

Ebay only takes 10%, but paypal takes almost as much on top of that

[Dyzarktarzk]

Ebay only takes 10%, but paypal takes almost as much on top of that

Good point =P  Forgot about PP fees =P

[AppleDash1]

Paypal fees are 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction if you don't have to have currency exchanged.

[StoryDreamer]

Not for personal? Do they consider Ebay business? How do they differentiate?

http://pages.ebay.com/paypal/fees.html

[kellyponyfeathers]

Oh yeah, I knew there would be Paypal fees too, but I thought those were fairly low.  Yeah, I was expecting about 2.9% (that's not bad).  But where did the 10% come from?  Is that for currency exchange?  Geez!

Wow, 12 free photos per listing?  Really?  That's more generous than I expected; that's great!  (Why don't sellers post more pics?  It's a pain in the butt to have to ask.)  What about the telescoping feature?  Is that free?  I don't think it's automatic; do you have to specify it in the settings?

[Ringlets]

You have some good advice already here
I always allow around 20% for fees (ebay and paypal etc) - its quite a bit to pay out but then a lot of people still use abay so your item is likely to sell for more.  The 50 free listings (for listings under 0.99) is good, but be careful with that. Sometimes its better to pay a bit more and start your item at a higher price (say for example you have a $50 pony for sale and you list it starting at 0.99 , but for some reason not many people see the auction and it ends much lower than the value, plus you have the other fees that you still have to pay ...  you could end up losing out  more than if you'd started the bidding higher and paid an insertion fee because even if not many bid you'd still have made a profit on your item.)

Wow, 12 free photos per listing?  Really?  That's more generous than I expected; that's great!  (Why don't sellers post more pics?  It's a pain in the butt to have to ask.)  What about the telescoping feature?  Is that free?  I don't think it's automatic; do you have to specify it in the settings?

Its relatively new - the 12 photos for free - it used to be 1 photo free and then you'd get charged extra for the others, which is why most people only added one pic. Its possible that people who dont sell much or who dont keep up with ebay updates dont realise that  all 12 pics are free now and thats why they still only add one pic

You have to add users to your blocked bidder list - here's how

   
By adding buyer requirements to your listing, you can stop members from bidding on or buying your items based on certain criteria. You can block buyers who:
•Are in countries you don't want to send items to.
•Have a negative Feedback score.
•Have unpaid item cases recorded against them.
•May bid on several items and not pay for them.
•Don't have a PayPal account.
•Have breached eBay policies.
To add buyer requirements:
1.Go to Site Preferences in My eBay.
2.In the Buyer Requirements section, click Show, and then click Edit.
3.Select your requirements, and the click Submit.

If you don't want to sell to certain bidders and buyers, you can put them on your blocked list. They won't be able to bid on or buy your items unless you remove them from the list. You can block up to 5,000 users.

To add people to your blocked list:
1.Go to the Blocked bidder list page.
2.Enter the user ID(s) you want to block, and then click Submit.
To remove someone from your blocked list, delete the user ID and click Submit. Let them know so they can start bidding on or buying your items.

[StoryDreamer]

Yeah Paypal is a pain. I get paid for writing through Paypal and they take a cut. But hey, if you claim sales as business, then the fees are a business expense.

[kellyponyfeathers]

Oh, wait, I was going to do all my sales as BIN's.  Does that mean I have to pay a higher fee rate than if I had just started out as 99-cent auctions?

[ponylady]

Insertion fees are free for your first 50 listings per calendar month no matter how they are listed. A calendar month begins at 12:00:00am Pacific Time on the first day of each month and ends at 11:59:59 pm Pacific Time on the last day of the month.

Also you are going to be charged a Final Value if your item sells besides your Paypal fees. They determine FV fees by the total amount, which is the final price of the item, shipping charges, and any other amounts you may charge the buyer. Sales tax is not included. Which will be 10% of the total amount of the sale.