This item will cover any questions you have that you can hope can be 
answered by other users.

this can be as simple as how to place an item for sale, what to do in 
a bid to win, how to find items, or anything you can think of.

the only "rule" here is that theres no such thing as a dumb question, 
remember everyone was new to this stuff at one time. just keep that in 
mind when posting your answers.

31 responses total.

well, I have yet to offer something for sale on ebay although I have
bought plenty of things. Is it difficult to sell stuff if you dont have
a rating as a seller?

Also, how do to determine how much to charge for shipping? Do you go to
the post office and have them weigh it? I would be half tempted to try
to send things Fed Ex because we are allowed to ship from my company's
mail room (at our expense of course) but it is kind of expensive
sometimes. 

Anyways, I got a free printer from Dell when I bought my laptop and I
dont need it so I thought I might try to sell it on ebay. Even though it
is brand new in the box, it cant be worth much since I imagine that
since they were giving them away free, a lot of people ended up with
printers they dont need. 

I use the "calculate shipping" option so I don't have to mess with how much
I should charge people...though I do tack on a $2 or $3 handling fee if I
think I'm going to have to get a box or bubblewrap from Office Depot.
Sometimes if I undershot the cost of shippign then I'll use junkmail crumpled
into balls as the filler.  >:)

I don't know if seller ratings make all the big a difference really.  I tend
to think that a thumbnail picture is that lil extra bit of difference to make
a sale.

RE: #1

you cant really get a seller feedback rate without selling stuff... :)

the shipping cost is easy, ebay lets it do the math for you.
or you can set a preset amount.
i found that with the help of ebay and usps.com ive been very much on 
the light side as far as shipping costs. and you can recycle almost 
any box into a shipping package, keep in mind the local post office 
supplies FREE boxes and bubblelined envolopes if you mail your stuff 
there. ive saved a ton of cash with that.

i also found for when you mail it out from home that a little scale i 
won for 5$ saved me a lot of time and hassel.

Seller ratings are critical for stuff technical stuff, or expensive stuff.
One suggestion made to me was to build up my ratings by buying for a while.
The key issue is the %, not simply the number.

If I saw someone with a rating less than 20, and negative feedback, I'd check
the actual feedback very carefully before bidding.  

I never bid on items where the seller has less than 10 feedback points.  

Also, the Ann Arbor recycling station lets you take away things like flattened
cardboard boxes and styrofoam peanuts and newspaper.  Just about packing
central, all you add is tape.

RE;  #5

yea theres a recycling center here too.

NEW QUESTION

does anyone know of a place to download or copy the little graphics 
people use in their feedback?

ill post an example in a few minutes when i find one.

ok, here are a few, and yes i know i just make these with my keyboard 
by typing them.
IM LAZY.
theres gotta be somewhere to get like a list of them.
heres some examples
 :::P:::   :::E:::   :::R:::   :::F:::   :::E:::   :::C:::   :::T::: 

   SUPER      SELLER      THANK      YOU   

 -( `v  )-  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED  -( `v  )- 

 :- :*'""*: .-: :- *SUPER eBAYER* -: :- :*''*: -: :- Thank you!!! -: 

i guess its just something you do whe you have more freetime than 
usual...
:)

 :)

damn, im seriously gonna start looking at the BUY_IT_NOW sections 
instead of bidding.
i just got 3 video games for under 15$ each shipping included, plus 
you get it without waiting and bidding on the item.

I just put in a starting bid on a small set (4 place settings) of an
obscure pattern of Noritake china on eBay.  It'd be nice if i could get
26 pieces (1 chipped a bit) for $10 + $17.?? S&H...but how plausable is
this?  It's 6 days until the auction closes...does no bids early on an 
obscure thing mean no one else wants it, will the big-bucks bidder all
wake up on the 26th, or what?

Walter, find out exactly what it would cost to buy the same items on a china
replacement website.

Figure out exactly how much you're willing to pay for those items.

Do not enter a bid until just before the auction closes (look at the item for
when it ends, and remember to translate Pacific Time into your local time).

Enter exactly the amount you're willing to pay.  No more, and certainly no
less.

If you are the highest bidder, you will get the item for the next lowest bid
plus the current increment (bid increments change as the price gets higher).

It does not matter how high your bid is, you will only pay what the next lower
bidder is willing to pay, plus the increment.  This is why you need to bid
the actual highest amount you'd be willing to pay.

You want to wait until near the end of the bidding period so that your bid
doesn't get nibbled up by someone trying to figure out how high it goes.  

You want ot wait until near the end of the bidding period so that other people
don't realize that you are interested in the item.  

You want to bid your highest actual bid so that someone doesn't win it for
an amount that is less than what you'd really be willing to pay.

You want to bid your highest actual bid so that you don't get swept into a
bidding frenzy, trying to stay ahead of someone else.  

Some of us engage in "sniping" which is the practice of not entering our bid
until less than a minute remains in the auction.  I'd not recommend this
unless you've tried it on a few items where losing doesn't matter so much.

Bid once, bid late, bid your real price.

To answer your question:  No bids until the last 60 seconds is not unusual.

Many people snipe, which is waiting until the last few seconds to enter their
bid.

It's probably not a good idea to enter a "starting" bid.  Wait until close
to the end of the bidding period and enter what you're really willing to pay.

yea, ken (krj) suggested that method, decide the most im willing to 
pay, bid that and let it ride. if you win great, if not try a diffrent 
auction, if your lucky you get it cheaper that you expected, 

i have won several things this way, plus you dont get cought into a 
biddin g war and pay more than you want to pay

Buying the set in pieces would cost vastly more than i'm willing to pay,
but that's a wierdness of how china is priced.

I'd probably pay $40 total for the set...so i won't get it if anyone is
both willing to pay a non-dirt-cheap price and cares enough to bid in
time.

It sounds like the early bid (both a way to tell myself i'm interested
and to remind myself over the next week) wasn't too smart...but the
auction ends on a busy work day, so grabbing it late might not work
out either.

I remember polygon talking years ago about buying old books (political
records for his web site) dirt cheap on eBay - it sounded like his rule
was never to bid against anyone.

I put a reminder to myself on my calendar.  I even put the time at which I
need to make my bid.  Then I get online, sync my laptop clock with the ebay
clock, and starting about 10 minutes before the bid ends, sit poised with my
finger ready to send off my first, best, and final offer.

Several times I've come back to an item to discover that the bidding had
already taken it above my cutoff point.

"Grabbing it late" will always work, if your bid is truly your best and
highest bid.  If you get it, you've paid what it is worth to you, or maybe
less.      If you don't get it, it's because it was worth more to someone else
than it is to you.  

On a couple sterling silver place setting pieces, I've actually bid what it
would cost to get it from Replacements.  I still got it for much less than
that.  But I figured out that I really was willing to pay the going retail
cost because the pattern had been out of production for so long.  

In other cases, I used the Replacements figure and calculated 1/2 that amount
as my top bid, figuring that I was willing to pay what Replacements would buy
it for, but not what they would sell it for.  

Remember:  If no one else wants it, you will get it for the opening bid price,
no matter how high your max bid is.  

true. true.
also look for the item in BUY-IT-NOW
you can score stuff quick, cheap, and easy

Hmm. I have gotten some things pretty cheaply by taking an opposite 
approach. I just bid early for the lowest minimum bid and wait. 
Sometimes I get the stuff for cheap and sometimes I dont. When it is 
something I actually really want though, I bid as close to the last 
minute as I can. 

ive won a few items with people who cant type....
see site: http://www.refundplease.com/

ooops!!!!!!!!!!1

my bad thats the wrong site......

heres the correct URL:
http://fatfingers.com/Default.aspx

Checking eBay just now, i'm still winning!  :)

Re: #17 - I didn't bother pricing it as replacements.  My gut says $40
would be mostly okay for a nice looking & interesting but useless &
inconvenient clutter (the first & most i've bought in a long time).

Re: #22 - Yep.  I bid early & low on another set (this pattern, far 
larger) a year or two ago.  A friend called when the auction was about
to close, and i talked to him instead of going on-line to bid; the set
sold for a price i'd have paid. 

Thinking about it, my eBay bidding seems to be much more about cheap
entertainment than actually buying things.  Bidding early & low on an
occasional nice-looking thing makes many hours a bit more interesting
(will i win???), but costs very few dollars.  Or maybe i've just
rationalized my poor strategy. 

Walter, I've frequently bid a price that I thought would not prevail against
someone who really, really wanted an item.  EBay as entertainment.

Sniping is, in and of itself, entertaining.   You can still bid your low
price, but if you have a chance "practice" sniping for the fun of it.  

merry christmas eve day!

Ack!  Some vile evil-doer has come along and outbid me for *MY* low-
bid prize set of fine china!

Time to go on a macho dinero rampage and show him & that sleazy auto-
bid dog of his exactly who's big bucks kick butt around here, right?  

:)

errr, right.  But only if you have macho dinero.  Probably would help to have
mucho dinero too.  

The high bid is up over $80 (with shipping) now.  Way beyond where
either my macho or my dinero is willing to go.  :(

well, ive been really doing well on ebay, and a lady at my work has 
asked me to selll a ton of stuff from her late husbands stuff, she is 
willing to pay me to do it.
she wants to just take a picture of each item, write a description and 
then she will mail it out from her place. and thats fine, but i only 
see her 3 of the 5 days i work, so very little time to get more pics, 
or info on items, i understand her not wanting to give it all to me. 
but does that seem fair?

Yes, she's buying your consulting expertise.  Charge a fair price for your
knowledge and experience.  If she doesn't want to pay what it's worth, shrug
your shoulders.  

You might calculate what you estimate the difference in selling price would
be if she wrote the copy and if you wrote the copy.  If she took the photo
and if you took the photo.  Split the difference.  

A good experience for her might be for each of you to place an ad for
something she has two of.  Let her compare how much she earns from doing it
all herself with how much she earns when you do it all.  It may help her
understand the value of her services.

Also, check around and see what kind of prices eBay selling services are
charging.  I think there are some community forums where threads discuss
exactly that.  

good ideas

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