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A friend wants me to sell some stuff on Ebay for him. He is willing to pay me a comission. How much should I charge him percentwise? From anyone's experience, what would be a fair rate for arranging an Ebay sale?
It depends on a lot of factors. What kind of things are you selling for him? Large, bulky items that are difficult to store and package and mail (such as furniture, cars etc.) or small items which are easy and quick to mail? Popular or unpopular? Antiques?
My friend can't be bothered selling his textbooks himself so he lets me have 50% of the profits in exchange for me photographing, listing, answering buyer's questions, posting books and meeting buyers in person (if the buyer is in the same city).
I believe part of the reason why he gives me such a high commission is because we are best friends, I have never tried to swindle him and we trust each other completely. I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your friend.
I think ~10 to 20% would be reasonable regardless.
50% of the final bid is standard for those eBay drop-off consignment stores (or whatever they are called now). And that covers fees, so the client will take home roughly 35% of the final sale price.
When I have done consignment selling in the past, I charge 35% of the final bid, client pays fees (which means the fees are taken out of the remaining $$ and the client gets the remainder). If it's family, I charge 20%.
The above ^ considers small items that sell under $500. For cars, boats, expensive things that will go into the thousands of dollars, I would take 10%.
Remember, you are taking all the risks associated with selling on eBay - customer returns, dishonest (scammy) buyers - especially in electronics, and the hit to your seller status if the buyer decide to torpedo your feedback or your DSR's.
That said, if this is just a temporary thing and you want to do a favor for your friend, I'd go with Stabby's advice and charge 10-20%, and they pay fees.
I have bought and sold stuff on Ebay for the past several years not to make money but to fund my train hobby. In the past few years the fees that paypal charge have increased alot. I don't remember the percentage but you will want to figure it in to your commision just ot cover your costs.
Good advice from Ranchonan. Ebay has evolved into a buyers market in that the buyer seems to have the final say over any deal good or bad. It is the bad that you need to watch out for because it will ruin your reputation and Ebay tends to side with the buyer.
I don't sell enough to worry about this but recently Ebay started reporting earnings to the tax man.
Also don't forget your time to list, monitor, then cost to package and a trip to the PO.
10-20% sounds good
Calculate your shipping to the furthest point in the country and let that be your shipping for all like items.
If you sell items for other people, as mentioned, you don't want their items to cause you to get any negative feedbacks. If the items condition are just to hard to accurately describe or you can not get good closeup photos, then that item may be a negative feedback in progress if you list it.
I get manila envelopes from the post office inside trash cans, and boxes thrown out by local businesses.
That can cut your cost for supplies.
Right now a lot of ebayer's are not able to print labels on that site or paypal because they keep updating the site all of last year and up till now, pictures take forever to upload, then you look at a listing and the picture does not load, some have no choice but to use stamps.com but that is $15.99 a month. Thank G someone helped me.
Sending out an item without a delivery confirmation? or shipping Int'l without a customs#?
I don't need trouble with dishonest buyers, let alone bad feedback
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