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Hence the free part. If you are selling 2.00 items expedited shipping would be abnormal
I agree although you'd be surprised, I oftentimes have people who buy a $25 item from me and pay $28 for overnight shipping. im always shocked like your paying more for shipping than product but whatever.
These are all great comments. I need to find higher value items to sell, and sell large quantities of them. I could still sell a few things at auction for quicker sales. I've had trouble finding unique products to sell in large quantities, jewelry, for example, when overseas sellers only ask .99 --- when I'd need to sell the product for $5.00 to make it worth my while. I'll keep working on that one! PayPal is a good service, I just need to make enough money to cover fees. Thanks everyone for your advice!
I'd recommend signing up for a trial with Terapeak, you can do research on various topics and see hot selling items. Nobody is going to share their products or nicehs with you as it would just invite competition. I'll share one item with you that sells well but its really hard to find suppliers and you probably need a minimum 12k invested to get into this. Silver coins, its a item which has a single seller selling over a million dollars a week with his top 10 competitors also doing half a million or more. I typically do anywhere form 100k to 300k a month on ebay but again can't share my niche. Sign up for terapeak, not only can you see high dollar items but also you can see competitors, average sales price, best time of day to start and end auctions, best day to start and end auctions, etc.
You bring up a great point. People love to whine about ebay and paypal fees and policies and I can sympathize, typically paypal has about 100K of my money tied up in rolling reserve fees. That said paypal is one of hte few merchant companies who work with certain high risk or high chargeback industries so they are oone of the few who will work with me. also ebay gives you the biggest market out there. if you dont like it go to ubid or other alternatives but your not going to get any bids. ebay and paypal are known and trusted and its worth paying the fees.
Yes people whine about the fees but did they actually think that the business model "build it and they will come" works online? No, it doesn't. I've bought expensive things on eBay and it irks me when sellers try to get me to buy offsite. One side of their mouth they are saying "trust me" then the other they are trying to scam eBay. One tactic is to purchase then the seller asks if they could cancel the sale and give you a better price. They say there are many customers who will agree to it.
eBay is not stupid, they know that no matter what fees they set people will try to get around them. People are generally dishonest, they want the service but don't want to pay for it so eBay has to account for the scamming from both buyer and seller in their fee. Just pay the damn fee.
Yes people whine about the fees but did they actually think that the business model "build it and they will come" works online? No, it doesn't. I've bought expensive things on eBay and it irks me when sellers try to get me to buy offsite. One side of their mouth they are saying "trust me" then the other they are trying to scam eBay. One tactic is to purchase then the seller asks if they could cancel the sale and give you a better price. They say there are many customers who will agree to it.
eBay is not stupid, they know that no matter what fees they set people will try to get around them. People are generally dishonest, they want the service but don't want to pay for it so eBay has to account for the scamming from both buyer and seller in their fee. Just pay the damn fee.
I am a niche seller with an extensive inventory within my niche. A lot of my items are in the $2-$5 range or the $5-$10 range. The lowest-valued items are not really profitable to list with pictures and description, considering time and fees. I make deals with my buyers for items in inventory which I have not listed, we work out a custom lot of several (or more) items, then I list the lot just for them as a Buy It Now item as a generic lot so that nobody else wandering onto the site at just the right time will buy it - e.g. I'll list if as Lot A, which nobody else is going to buy since they have no idea what is in the lot. This way, I am NOT selling off eBay and NOT trying to avoid fees, but I avoid the time and hassle of listing and describing and pictifying each item separately.
Yes people whine about the fees but did they actually think that the business model "build it and they will come" works online? No, it doesn't. I've bought expensive things on eBay and it irks me when sellers try to get me to buy offsite. One side of their mouth they are saying "trust me" then the other they are trying to scam eBay. One tactic is to purchase then the seller asks if they could cancel the sale and give you a better price. They say there are many customers who will agree to it.
eBay is not stupid, they know that no matter what fees they set people will try to get around them. People are generally dishonest, they want the service but don't want to pay for it so eBay has to account for the scamming from both buyer and seller in their fee. Just pay the damn fee.
Another thing...newer sellers might not know this...eBay Final Value Fees used to be charged only on the item price, so sellers got around the fees by inflating the shipping charges. (They decided to get around the fees of ($3 shipping + $10 item) by going to ($8 shipping + $5 item)). So eBay dropped the percentage a bit and started charging FVF on the total price including shipping. Which screwed the honest selers who weren't trying to get around the fees.
Another thing...newer sellers might not know this...eBay Final Value Fees used to be charged only on the item price, so sellers got around the fees by inflating the shipping charges. (They decided to get around the fees of ($3 shipping + $10 item) by going to ($8 shipping + $5 item)). So eBay dropped the percentage a bit and started charging FVF on the total price including shipping. Which screwed the honest selers who weren't trying to get around the fees.
Well it is always the dishonest that end up hurting the honest. This applies to everything in life.
Well it is always the dishonest that end up hurting the honest. This applies to everything in life.
In typical corporate fashion, eBay also worked the rules in their favor to the detriment of sellers who offer combined shipping discounts - the fees apply to the gross shipping per item rather than to the discounted combined shipping total.
e.g. sell three items to one buyer ($3 shipping each or $5 combined shipping) = seller pays fees on $9 rather than on the $5 that the buyer actually pays.
These are all great comments. I need to find higher value items to sell, and sell large quantities of them. I could still sell a few things at auction for quicker sales. I've had trouble finding unique products to sell in large quantities, jewelry, for example, when overseas sellers only ask .99 --- when I'd need to sell the product for $5.00 to make it worth my while. I'll keep working on that one! PayPal is a good service, I just need to make enough money to cover fees. Thanks everyone for your advice!
Those cheap listings you see do not include tariffs, and taxes due at the time of pickup. Why don't you make your own product to sell? Hence forth less competition then selling what everyone else is.
Those cheap listings you see do not include tariffs, and taxes due at the time of pickup. Why don't you make your own product to sell? Hence forth less competition then selling what everyone else is.
You bring up a good point but someone looking for an iphone isn't gonna buy your croched socks. Also, for truly handmade products you have to be paid for your time and materials and its hard to compete making things when people are selling similar chinese crap for pennies. Also, etsy is more for handmade goods, you can sell them on ebay but you aren't goig to get much traction imho
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