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That’s an easy question to answer!
Have always taken the “friendly PERSONALIZED service” approach – – would rather have a message come from me than from me with a little less automatic feel than just relying on the automated do not reply to this mailbox corporate .Oddly, about 30% of the time the buyer replies with a thanks – and 1 in 10 respond with effusive thanks and say they never hear from anyone. ( your seller is a person, not a corporation )
Admittedly, might be a holdover from the olden days of eBay auctions, but it takes me seconds and has some benefit to buyers.
Until now, when It might take a few minutes. ” wash wah wah ”
And, in the “FWIW” category – the iPad, which was not updated, still emails the buyer.
Have to add two more absolutely foolish bone head maneuvers –
Love model kits – they usually sell – opened box with bagged parts are my faves –
Until I realize there is – no kidding – one small part missing – often a tiny separate clear piece. Example? The cool mid-70s airliner that had Eastern Airlines decals – absolutely untouched but missing the windshield – a cleat 1″ by 1/8″ part. Sold as is but lass than hoped for when I picked it up. Also have THREE COUNT EM THREE vintage corvette models, one is missing a single suspension rod, one is missing the headlights, the other one wa s ought to fix the other two but apparently EVERY model year and kit is just that different.
Next up is the building set – mega bloks, knex, even Lego – beautiful boxes, sealed parts bags, instructions – half the time there are missing parts which I don’t discover until I obsessively catalog each one. Can charge more but …
IS IT REALLY EORTH IT??
At least with the building sets people will usually buy as parts – but still want to say
DONT BE A BONEHEAD
Not to predict the future but…. Can’t wait to get the eBay update that says:
Sellers, you can now opt in to ebays new “free sales tax for customers” program!”
We have discovered that the majority of our buyers don’t like to pay sales tax, so this program gives you the opportunity to increase satisfaction and increase sales!
Add the ” free sales tax ” message to your qualifying listings today!
Have listened to the first couple – very interesting, brings back lots of memories.
Those were the days !
Really like that it is a pretty even fact based presentation.
Not a bad week, still quiet days.
Total Items in Store: 370 (small fry!)
Items Sold: 8
Cost of Items Sold: $33
Total Sales: $139.3
Highest Price Sold: $60.00 vintage cooler – 70% Best Offer
Average Price Sold: $17.44 (not far off the usual)
Returns: 0 (don’t take em!)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: ~ $12
Number of items listed this week: ~ 5Turned down a small handful of lowball offers, quiet in general.
Lesson learned on the cooler, despite having plenty of “free time” and supplies on hand it took quite a while to pack – and the amount of packing material probably ate into my meager profit. Amazingly, it went parcel post and delivered all the way across the country in one business day (Dropped at PO Saturday, delivered Monday). THE PO IS GREAT!
Feel a general slackening, decided to pull down at least 100 items this week for a refresh – mostly glass, lower price items, and anything that had no action for a year. Since there’s time now, will revise or restart as needed – though some of this stuff is dead.
oh, Happy birthday to Jay!
This is a great discussion, very heartening to hear these quality perspectives!
Not much to add – I do miss the glory days when it was obvious that you were using eBay as a way to connect with people who had something that you wanted. And, often shared interests.
All the tweaks that have come down “lo, these many years” have tended to create more of a distance between buyer and seller.
Of course, people have businesses now, with costs expectations and one of my least favorite words, “scaling”.
I’ve mostly ignored them all, unless forced ( you must use PayPal because buyers hate money orders! You must pay fv fees on shipping charges because some sellers are avoiding fees with expensive shipping)I abhor returns, in life as well as eBay. So whatever incentives are offered, not worth it. And there is no way any alleged upturn in business would even out a single cross -country return on a heavy item.
Cool items – described with wit and affection – shipped at buyers expense with obsessive attention to safe arrival, shipped within one day ( even though handling time is set for 2 days to avoid silly guarantee blather ) at postage rates which are not marked up- and so far thousands of happy customers whose expectations have been exceeded!
Have loved selling on eBay since 1997 and will keep on until they force me too!!!
Have to say that the week here was flaccid – days went by with nothing happening. But interesting!
Total Items in Store: 366 (small fry!)
Items Sold: 5
Cost of Items Sold: $10
Total Sales: $90.98
Highest Price Sold: $35.00 building set – Best Offer
Average Price Sold: $18.20 (not far off the usual)
Returns: 0 (don’t take em!)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: ~ $50 (much more than sales warranted!)
Number of items listed this week: ~ 25Funny how not having to pack and ship items frees up time! If this keeps up I’ll be listing decorator tumbleweeds!
But honestly, what other endeavor is fun to do and allows you to generate such high margins?
In other developments:
Did have 4 offers that came in for various items – and every one of them had comments about shipping, requests for free shipping, free free free free, I’d buy except you pay shipping.
Though it’s difficult to override, all the offers were about 25% of asking price too.
So I am against free shipping, and against sellers who build all of their profit into overcharging for shipping, and remain so.
The customers seem to be getting a lot of noise about free shipping, though!!!
Enjoyed the podcast, and really connect with
“Scavenging Off The Joneses” – Just can’t believe what people throw away or discard or donate or give away. Of course, a lot of “regular” folks would look at y garage and basement and say they can’t believe the stuff I have stacked up!Don’t get me started about 45 records – UBIQUITOUS – I have stacks that people have given me – and except for mint picture sleeve from Elvis Beatles and the Rolling Stones, (Clash quote there) would stay away. So many of them are great songs but are totally played out, scratched or mishandled. Are there collectors items about? Yeah, I guess. But for every copy of “Grunion Run” (very cool b-side but still not worth that much) that you find in a box of 100, there’s easy listening, overpressed pop and little value. Local iconic record store ditched all of their singles about a year or 2 back, there are thousands in every thrift store. Unless you have an OCD gene that gives you pleasure checking 99 singles for condition, stay away.
Think I said “don’t get me started!”
Also have a gut reaction to returning product to retailers – but, really, they all promote liberal return policies, so serves them right, but they are also buying at a cost that is higher than usual, but if the product is new in box and sellable, (and turns quickly enough) they might not lose money. Still feels a little “scalpy” but absolutely ok!
Lastly, the ebay “Guaranteed auction value” offer that came through was a complete bust. Item sold for half the market value, and hmmm… no info from ebay about claiming the difference.
BUYER SEEMS HAPPY THOUGH!!Will update my original thread on that one once the dust settles.
From the cool and verdant gateway to the gateway to the gateway to the west…
This is a little guitar practice amp – fairly common, no big deal, have sold one or two when they turn up. Certainly not one of those high volume commodity type items. Doing some in depth research which I.ll submit, but as usual some confusion at eBay.
Quick snapshot ( will follow up with screen shots etc. ) Looks like 5 exact matches having sold since March, typical sell prices are 20 to 30 bucks all in (only one had free shipping.)
On he most recent sale, eBay has a note that says “trending at $18.00”
The guarantee is like 16.50′ and they wanted a low starting price.Left to my own devices I would have probably priced it at $30 and easily taken ~$25 on an offer. Plus shipping!
So it is an experiment, have a whopping $2 in it.Sharyn, thanks for the electronics heads up, seriously never saw this before!
More when I am not mobile.
It absolutely SHOULD be a selling point – I noticed this on my mobile listings and commented on another thread – even had a screenshot. Driving across southern Ohio now so will look for that pic later.
Listen – don’t believe free shipping is so important, vehemently oppose the encouragement of returns – so someday, eagerly handling offers is my THING!It was interesting to hear the shocked response from the hosts. (caveat, don’t like that show at all)
They didn’t really respond to your questions and seemed to upset to answer directly. Looking forward to your future interactions.
Heard a CNBC report recently after ebay announced their earnings, one statistic that was mentioned is how high ebay’s margins are compared to Amazon and other retailers, apparently more than double. It’s because they don’t operate warehouses, they just provide a nexus for sellers and buyers.
So, thinking out loud, for the company, a transaction is a transaction. A selling fee is a selling fee. Thus encouraging transactions is the key, whether they are sloppy or not.
Free returns, free shipping, emails saying reduce your price, give it away if you want to sell it, remove realistic feed back for buyers because they can do no wrong…
I still use my late 90s model of ridiculously thorough detailed descriptions, test everything, take too many pictures, discourage returns (NO!) , actual shipping charges only, etc. and have had only a couple of issues a year. (and, yes, EVERY ONE of those has had a bunch of odd emails before the sale – Grif, that’s a 100% statistic!).
I’m small time, still enjoy each sale, love to scvenge – and as long as I ignore the nonsense on ebay radio ( brought to you buy our sponsors who will ship you piles of stuff to sell) or am FORCED to comply with the Free return / Free shipping scheme, I’ll stay that way – and generate transactions for ebay!
Very much appreciated!! Never thought fuel in a million years!
Plus, apparently bubbles in glass mean old!
Thanks!
And gain I say thanks for the info. As an avowed over describer, I can say it has been in the family for over 50 years, extensive measurements and might go so far as to say that it appears to be in a pattern attributed to Dakota.
Just shocked by the sold research and wondered about the Dakota name.
subject closed until it is listed and sold. !
This has been a fascinating discussion, again, thanks very much. Since I do have the “provenance” at least going back 50 – 60 years, pretty confident it is real. Whether or not it is actually from the company mentioned in the high price auction, who knows. Doubt that receipt is still around.
Was so proud to use imgur for the first time…
