Anyone here sell stuff on E-Bay?

[Kerrytravelers]

Meaning, does anyone have a business selling things on E-Bay? just wondering how you like it and how it works!

Thanks!

kt

[pitohui]

1. used to what do you want to know?

its day is over for the little guy, it's all abt the corporations and the power sellers now, they sell too low and you can't make any money after shipping costs

but...ah! back in the glory days!

[Kerrytravelers]

3. So, basically, if I am someone who creates crafts, like baskets

or small home accessories, I don't stand a chancec against the huge corporations?

[pitohui]

5. god no anything that takes time to produce you're eff'd

it was prob. never any good for things of that nature, the great thing of ebay in its heyday was finding crap in the attic or beside people's garbage cans or in the dumpster, wiping it off, fixing it up, and selling it at greatly inflated prices to folks w. auction fever

it was never a situation that was going to last forever, prices had nowhere to go but down

you can try crafts at the craft shows but they are HIGHLY competitive and you are only likely to make decent money if you are good enough to get into the juried shows

crafts are fun but they suck in a way because they cause people to have a dream that drives them to the poorhouse, it's almost better not to have a talent at all

of course this is the advice of someone who crafts very, very, VERY slowly but keep in mind -- anything you can craft someone in china is crafting faster and cheaper, even the cutest little mosaics and blown-glass hummingbird feeders and every thing you think can't be copied -- it can and it is and it just undercuts you in no time

[Kerrytravelers]

7. Thanks!

I paint wood. I do things for kids rooms mostly, but if I'm going to waste my time, then I'm glad to know now!

Thank you so much!

[Xithras]

11. Well, don't give up quite so easily.

Many people are jaded on EBay nowadays, but there are still many areas that you can make quite a bit of money in. I still buy and sell photo supplies on EBay regularly and profited about $10k last year. Not enough to live on, but a nice chunk of change nonetheless.

What you need to do is look up the types of items you want to sell, see if there's anything similar on the site, and then track a half dozen auctions or so to see how they do. Find out how many bids they get, how much they go for, and what kind of feedback they buyers and sellers exchange. If it looks like items similar to yours are going for a reasonable price, try to sell one of your own and see what it goes for.

I wouldn't try selling things like computers or coins on EBay today because there's a brazillion people selling those items and the competition is cutthroat. But unique crafts? That's far less competetive.

If you end up making enough off the sale to justify doing it again, put a decent website together and make sure to link it to your sale. A good friend of mine has a website selling heirloom vegetable seeds, and most of his traffic comes from his EBay auctions. Many people who aren't interested in his auctions follow the link to his site in order to see what else he has, and a large number of those visitors end up buying directly from his online store. In his case, EBay actually beats Google AdWords for cost efficient advertising (assuming your EBay auction sells).

[Kerrytravelers]

15. Perhaps I'll go simple, give this a shot and see how I come up.

I didn't see anything like what I'm hawking on there... but I may have missed it.

[Roon]

2. We used to

now we sell things on craigslist.com. It's free and a lot more fun!

[Kerrytravelers]

4. Just as a small home business, does EBay charge a lot?

We're making some side business decisions. I can read all E Bay has to say, but it's always better to talk to someone who has actually done it!

[pitohui]

8. it does charge a lot

there is a fee for everything -- a fee to list, another fee to have more than one pictures, paypal fees, final value fee (a commission based on the selling price)

when ebay first started there was no fee for photos and paypal was free, plus the listing and final fees were much smaller, and they would even occasionally have free listing days

plus thanks to the anthrax dude causing the shipping prices to go up twice in one year (2001) anyone who ships heavy objects is totally screwed because public is resistant to paying much for shipping so it comes out of your profit

in the beginning i'd be making $25 an item profit, in the end i'd be making a few pennies in profit

time to shut it down

sell as much as you can on craigslist before they start charging

another way you can sell for free in my area is that newspapers allow you to advertise items selling for less than $100 for free, the new orleans paper does it, as does the mississippi gulf coast sun-herald, it may be something most newspapers do

do everything you can to avoid fees, they really add up and you really get hurt

[Kerrytravelers]

9. Thank you so much!

Looks like I WON'T be going on Ebay!

[Roon]

13. Ebay charges for every little move you make

they're a total ripoff.

[Maddy McCall]

6. I heard somewhere that Craigs is about to start charging for listings.

:grr:

[Flaxbee]

10. hmm - I don't mind a listing fee, that's fair enough..

but the gazillions of eBay fees just piss me off. I hadn't even thought of craigslist, but will do so now...

[Xithras]

12. Only some listings, and in some areas.

Primarily they're going to start charging for real estate and help wanted ads in high-traffic areas. The fees will still be reasonable ($10 for a months listing in CraigsList New York is CHEAP), but it will no longer be free. Believe it or not, it's not so much a profit move as a post quality move. Because the site is free, many people are starting to abuse it. In places like New York, people are reposting the same ads every few hours just to keep their listings at the top of the page. This clutters the forums with junk repeat posts and makes it less useful for everyone. By imposing a relatively small fee, they can prevent this from happening.

There has never been any discussion about charging for other kinds of postings, because there's no abuse. If that ever changes, the charges will likely be proportional...a $1 fee for item listings, that sort of thing. That's enough to keep people from spamming, but not enough to scare many users off. With the volume on CL, it'll also make them a small fortune.

[Roon]

14. I wouldn't doubt it eom