Selling on Ebay for Dumbies (or just 1 dumbie)?

princessjv

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
I keep reading about how many people are selling stuff on EBAY to pay for WDW and more. How do I get started? What steps do I take? What are the best selling items? :confused3
 
I really, really wish I could help you. I too would LOVE to sell on e-bay but my
dh once bought something on e-bay with PenPal, somehow his password was tapped into and thousands of dollars were charged on our charge card, all over the Christmas holidays. We weren’t responsible for the charges, but it cost him much stress and left a bad taste in his mouth.
I think I can go to our bank and open up a free checking account, paypal account and have everything separate from our household.
I also am not sure about the shipping? Does it require you to always be at the post office? I do have a scale at work that I could weigh things on, it is just a matter of packing it up and getting postage I guess.
I did post some items just yesterday on craigslist so I guess I am taking babysteps LOL
I will be watching this post and seeing what everyone else has to say. Maybe they can persuade us.
 
I sell on EBay, and personally I use USPS Priority mail unless it's something big then UPS or fed-ex. I put on my sales calculated shipping that way people can see what the actual shipping cost is.
 
rgd-Am I correct if you go to the USPS website you can get the calculated shipping cost if you have the weight of the item?
Thank you all for your help.
 


js said:
rgd-Am I correct if you go to the USPS website you can get the calculated shipping cost if you have the weight of the item?
Thank you all for your help.

You can get it if you have the zip code you're shipping it to. eBay's shipping calculator gives you a range of weights, so if you don't have an exact weight you can put in an approximate weight so the buyers can calculate it for themselves. You can also add a handling charge.

I've been using eBay as a side income for 3 years now. I could NOT survive without it. It pays my smaller bills, everything from gas to cable and it's also paying for my second trip to Orlando next month.

Ebay is just like any business, it takes hard work, research and time. There are fools everywhere so protect yourself. I've never had a problem with eBay OR Paypal and thank God for that, but know that others have.

Good luck, it's hard work but it's worth it!
 
Totally OT, but after seeing your post Robinrs, I thought George Clooney had made a CD!! :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2:
 
I think the best wayt to find out if e-bay is for you is to pick a single item around your house and try and sell it. That's what I did. I carefully looked at the listings for items simular to what I wanted to sell to get an idea of how to word my listing and what kind of policies other sellers had. I created my e-bay and paypal accounts, then very slowly and carefully set up my auction. I read the whole page each step of the way when building my auction and made sure I understood everything. Even after listing I went back to revise it (you're allowed to do this) several times until I got it exactly the way I wanted it.

After a couple of listings I got the hang of it, and while I don't list things often, I'm now comfortable with selling.

As for shiping, I us USPS priority. I feel it's the easist way to do shiping, and buyers like that they get their items in less than a week. You can do delivery confirmation which makes e-bay/paypal happy and makes the buyer happy since they can track their own item. It's very easy. When you are making your listing, weigh the item to get it's exact weight (packaged and ready to ship, remember the box and packaging material count towards the total shiping weight. I have a digital food scale I use for weighing). I put the "Shiping Calculator" feature in my listing. When you do that, you enter the weight of the package, how much (if anything) you want to charge for a handleing fee (I charge $1) and the shiping options you want to give your buyers (you can offer them everything or just one or two options). Then when you listing goes live, the buyers can just type their zip code and the calculator tells them what it will cost to ship the item to their address with the option they chose. When they win the auction, the correct shiping cost is included in the e-bay generated invoice. I think this is the best way to do it because you never have to worry about under-estimating the shiping cost and have that eat in to your profits from the sale, or over estimating the shiping and have buyers not bid on your item due to excesive shiping costs.
 



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