ebay-any tips?

[LadyFaile]

i want to start selling on ebay. for the moment i just have a bunch of things i tried to sell at a garage sale in the summer without success. i figure the smaller items i can try on ebay and large expensive to ship items i'll just donate to goodwill or something. if all goes well i can get my sales and ratings up high enough to start an ebay store.
does anyone have any tips about what to sell, where to find items at good prices that i can sell, etc?
where do people get wholesale lots?
do homemade items/crafts actually sell?
what about gift baskets? i had this great idea while back that i would put together small gift baskets themed for each holiday/event and some year round themes as well. anyone know how successful things like this are on ebay or have any other suggestions on what to sell?

thankees

[chryssiie718]

I would suggest cruising around ebay for a time, noting what sells that is similar to your items. I have been participating on ebay for quite some time with mostly positive results. I always "look around" at stuff to get ideas of how to sell, what to charge for shipping, etc.
Good luck!!

[LadyFaile]

they have a free shipping calculator that i will probably use. my biggest pet peeve with ebay is how people will post a low bid price but jack up the shipping cost. especially for items you know they can ship in an envelope for the price of a couple stamps (like $4 to ship one iron-on patch 2"x2" big)
the ebay selling tips all say to keep your starting bid low and don't use reserves. but if i don't want to rip people off with shipping how do i make sure i make a profit? starting the bid at $0.99 is great and all but if the item cost me $2 and only one person bids, i'm in the hole unless i post a reserve. it says people are less likely to bid on something with reserve, but i've bought things before where my bid didn't meet reserve, if i wanted the item and the reserve was reasonable i kept raising the bid til i met it or just contacted the seller to find out how much it was and bid that.
though it's also the beauty of buyouts, if something has a buyout i'll take it instead of bidding since then i'm guaranteed to get it. but you can make more on open bidding, no?

[*AHIMSA*]

It would seem to me the shipping costs may be what they are to take into consideration the time and energy spent dealing with processing shipping too, not just what it would actually cost.

[Jeremy]

You can start a auction at any opening bid you want. But, $0.99 is a good starting price for any item. You start a item too high, or you have a reserve people get frustrated and stop participating in the auction. We even start big ticket items at $0.99 without a reserve. That's why Chrissy says to look around... You want to see if there is interest in similar/your items prior to listing. If there is interest, no worries... starting at $0.99 with no reserve is fine... You will get the going price or close to it in the end.

[LadyFaile]

see my instinct would be to add the cost of shipping materials and labour etc to the price of the item. i guess most people on ebay don't do it that way.
you gotta admit though that some of them do really jack up the shipping to unreasonable amounts. my mom got burned once that way, she was new to it and didn't realize that a. everything was in american dollars, and b. that shipping charges weren't included in the price. she didn't read far enough down i guess. she spent waaaay too much for a decorative mailbox that she ended up not even using. in the end decided it would get wrecked so it's sitting in front of her fireplace for no apparant reason instead. glorified paperweight. she's still mad about it.

at least now ebay.ca shows canadian funds on everything and shipping charges are a little more noticable than they used to be. i like when they're posted right under the price of the item. i hate having to contact the seller for a shipping quote and wait for a response. i've often waited so long for an answer that the auction ended before i could bid.

i guess my point is i've been on the seller end for a while and have an idea of what i like and don't like to see in an auction, so i'd like to stick to those preferences on the seller side too. but if others don't see things the same way i don't want to set myself up for failure either.

hence for now i'm not putting any money into it other than fees obviously, i'll sell some of the garage sale stuff i have hanging around and if all goes well i can move on to bigger and better things

no suggestions on the gift basket idea yet?
i had at one point found a seller on there doing wholesale lots of baskets, all different shapes and sizes. cheap cheap. i thought i could order my baskets on there and find some good deals on wholesale lots of items to put in them. buy it all on ebay and turn around and sell it back on ebay. the beauty of baskets is you can put just about anything in them so i'd only use what i found at good deals. i wouldn't make much per basket but if i did a few per week i'd make some extra spending money. i think it would be awesome to be able to work part time or not at all and turn ebay-ing into a full time job.
heck i made my own barefoot sandals for my wedding, when i looked them up on ebay they were selling for minimum $10/pair and it cost me about $10 to buy enough materials to make at least half a dozen pairs (i made 1 pair and 3 matching necklace and anklet sets and still have lots of stuff leftover.) that's quite a profit. and they don't take long at all to make, i could do custom orders and still ship them out in a reasonable amount of time. post a couple of sample pictures and list the available colours and let the buyer choose.
only problem is i have VERY little patience for beading, those few things i made drove me nuts

[Jeremy]

You're right, most people do calculate the cost of shipping materials, Ebay's fee, and Paypal's transaction fee into the cost of the shipping. Well actually I can give you a real life example. Chrissy and I just got through selling an item for $380, and we charged a flat $32 for shipping the item. So the grand total was $412 USD. To actually ship the item will cost us $8, but to start things off Paypal deducted $12 from the transaction for their fee. Ebay will probably want another $12. So in the end, the seemingly ridiculous $32 we charged for shipping didn't even cover our costs entirely!

[SotallyTober]

Set yourself up to take payments from customers through PayPal. From a customers point of view, I always feel more comfortable buying that way. From your end, it's probably a more secure transaction. I like Ebay. I just don't buy from people with shady ratings or comments or people who have just signed up.

[LadyFaile]

oh for sure i love paypal

so do those of you who sell claim your income from it at tax time and how?