TOPIC:

After writing this on JR's ebay thread, I thought a thread for posting useful tools for ebay listings and tips on how to get the best out of ebay could be useful.

Here's a couple to start us off:

Image Hosting (Save money on images)
jpegbay.com - Free service. Images higher resolution than standard ebay ones. Easy to use - make an account, upload images, copy-paste HTML code into your listing.

Shipping Services (Often cheaper than post for large items)
Interparcel - UK (e.g. UPS 24hr for £8.49 +VAT)
Parcel Monkey - UK

Little-known Listing Tips
The "Manufacturer" and "Part number" fields are included in the standard search function, so fill these in if you run out of space in the title. The Description is not included in the standard search, so do not rely on this.

Many of the Internet shipping services (a couple listed above) will collect from anywhere and deliver to anywhere for no extra charge, so can be useful for collecting parcels from sellers unwilling to visit a Post Office e.g. "Collection only" listings.


I am sure others can contribute many more tips. Maybe if people find this useful, it could be stickied?

I can add a couple:

Sniping
gixen.com . I know some people are dead against this, but I don't have a problem with it - I work out what I'm prepared to pay, and put in that amount in the dying seconds - or rather, I get gixen to do it for me (thanks to Lars for the tip).
This to me is far more moral than putting in an early 99p bid in the hope that no-one else will notice the item and/or a load of servers will crash, or there'll be some big event or natural disaster that people will watch on TV and forget to bid so you'll get it for a tiny fraction of its value.

Best end time
For a buyer, this has to be early mornings or very late at night. As a seller though, you should think about your end time - in the UK at least, the highest prices are paid between 2100 and 2200 on a Sunday evening. I don't think this is some big secret I'm letting out here BTW.
If you're not around to post your listing precisely a week or ten days in advance, pay the 7p extra for a delayed start time.

Maximising what you get as a seller
Post lots of pictures, including the underside. Don't claim things are untested (it just looks like you have tested it, it doesn't work & you're hiding it), or state that it is missing something that "only costs a few pounds on eBay" (that make you look like a liar, or stupidly lazy), or attempt to hide damage (like "accidentally" cropping the broken end of a TX antenna off in a photo). Don't claim that you won't take returns "due to nature of hobbie" (sic), it just make you look like a twunt trying to palm off broken crap.
Don't use a high start price as a cheap alternative to paying for a reserve price - you will get less bids.


Buy It Now sales
I have nothing against these - in fact I generally try to sell anything this way first. However, don't waste your money setting things up as BIN listing and an auction with a low start price - within minutes, some Berkshire will bid 99p (see my rant under "sniping", above) & wipe out the BIN option.


That'll do for now

I'll also add a footnote one of MB's notes (this applies to the UK only):

Shipping Services:

Using these also means you don't have to go to your local post office. Maybe there are some where the proprietors are miserable, but I've yet to see it.

Also, unless any items you send will fit into a post box and don't need to be sent recorded - DON'T buy postage online, either through the Royal Mail website or through eBay - your local PO will get nothing for handling such items, will be resentful of it, and may well refuse to take them, even though it is part of their contract to take them.

Some of us have a serious aversion to stuff that comes by carrier, particularly deliveries that can be organised online by people with no common sense. UPS are incredibly slow & unreliable around here, parcel monkey use any old carrier to do their deliveries for them, & most of the "cheap" carriers tend to "lose" your parcel (Or claim they left it in the garage that you haven't got) just to avoid the extra cost of redelivery.

So, seller has specified "Royal Mail 1st Class recorded", then chooses to send by a cheaper carrier & doesn't tell you, or have the intelligence to think you might be at work & unable to wait in the house for 10 days to sign for the parcel IF it eventually turns up. How will that pan out?

You can bet your bottom dollar it will turn up when you nipped to the shop, or was taking a dump, & then you'll be into the "Trying to organise a redelivery to a different (Work) address thing", where when you ring the carrier they won't talk to anyone except the sender, who happy in the knowledge "Their bit is done" is inconveniently ignoring messages for the duration of the 7 days you have before the item gets returned to sender.
Stress & anger ensues, then you end up paying AGAIN to have the item delivered again & NFB is left all round.

Other option is when the "We couldn't deliver cos you have a life" card arrives in your back garden, you can sometimes go & pick the parcel up from the carrier's depot. For me, that means driving 30 miles to Cambridge (On a weekday when I should be at work), resulting in cost of 3 gallons of fuel & half a day's lost wages. Cheap? Not.

So, if you plan to use a carrier, make sure the buyer is fully aware, give them the option to have the item sent by Royal Mail at whatever the extra cost is, & sort it out before the end of the auction. Give the buyer ALL of the details (Who the carrier is, their phone number, your phone number, tracking number, web address etc) so if something goes wrong it can be rectified relatively easily. If there's an accurate delivery time/date, give the buyer that too, maybe they could organise a neighbour to sign for it if they know it's on its way.

Nowadays I make a point of looking at the "Delivery method". If it says "Carrier" or "Unspecified", I send a message to the seller (If there's time) asking if they can send by Royal Mail. If there's no time, the seller disagrees, or I don't get an answer, I don't bid, simple as that. Their loss...

Better option is to just use Royal Mail, at least then if you miss the postie you have the option to pick up from the nearest Post Office, usually the following day.
Personally I don't care how miserable the biddies in the PO are if it means I'll save myself 100-odd quid by not having to chase a parcel around the countryside.

It doesn't matter what you charge for postage, Ebuyers will always mark you down for it because the answer to star rating "Postage charge" will always be "More than I wanted to pay", people don't understand the concept that they're marking "Is what was charged a reasonable summation of post cost, packaging cost, travel to PO etc". Makes me angry when I get marked down for charging LESS than what it cost to post!

Jonny wrote:

Don't claim that you won't take returns "due to nature of hobbie" (sic)

LOL. See this one all the time, but have never understood what it even meant (and still don't). Nature? Of...the hobby? What?

I feel like someone came up with it in 1999 and it has been passed on ever since, like when people say "it was a near miss!" (a near hit) or "where can I find an ATM machine?" (an Automatic Teller Machine Machine?)

Jonny wrote:

Don't use a high start price as a cheap alternative to paying for a reserve price - you will get less bids.

Unfortunately, eBay no longer offers the ability to set a reserve in some countries (like Australia) on some categories (like hobbies).

I used to be a strong advocate of the low starting bid concept, but the psychology of bidders is really strange sometimes.

An item that starts for $1 with no reserve will sometimes end high because so many people think it's going to be a bargain and so a bidding war develops.

But on the flipside, sometimes bidders let it sit low for too many days, by which time on the 8th day of a 10 day auction, everyone seems to think "Maybe it isn't worth much to anyone...?" and then you end up with a weak closing price because of an extended lull in activity causing people to think they didn't need to bid much higher.

There's definitely issues around "peaking too early" and "peaking too late" when it comes to bidding activity. It's frustrating either way. And there's no way to prevent either one.

The only satisfying outcome in eBay selling is "the long game" - the notion that, long term, poor sales are balanced by good sales. In just the past few weeks, I sold two fairly valuable toy R/C cars, one for more than I expected and one for less. The poor sale defied all logic. The good sale was great. My whole eBay career has been just like that.

H.

eddrick wrote:

... ...

Oooh, get you Mr Grumpypants! However, I understand your point.
I think what it boils down to it this:

So, if you plan to use a carrier, make sure the buyer is fully aware, give them the option to have the item sent by Royal Mail at whatever the extra cost is, & sort it out before the end of the auction

In other words - Give the customer the choice.

I also think I am the only person on ebay that actually does enter the Tracking Number into the order details when it is shipped. I can't remember seeing one on any of my purchases.

Yes, carriers should be used for business deliveries only in my opinion, unless the general public suddenly get struck by lightening & gain enough common sense to do it properly!

Yes, I totally agree, give the customer some choices & let THEM decide how quickly, safely, conveniently & to what address the item is delivered. (Another concept work's sales department haven't grasped).

Yes, I always give ALL relevant info to the customer, even if it's only something going in an envelope through the post - tracking number (Where applicable) how it's going (1st, 2nd, signed for, carrier etc), when it was sent & when they should expect it to arrive. They (& the carrier if applicable) always get my phone number too, in case there's anything that needs to be sorted out quickly.

Yeah I know I'm grumpypants, always have been, & as for as long as I encounter the dumbest of the dumb in everyday life making my life difficult, I will be for the foreseeable future!

Couple more tips:

When listing as Buy it Now, make sure you change the listing length from the default of 7 days to the maximum of 30 days otherwise you face paying a relisting fee(s) if it doesn't sell quickly.

When trying to price something up as a Buy it Now listing try clicking on 'Advanced Search' next to the normal search box and tick the 'Completed Listings' box then search as normal. All of the listings with a price in green are ones that actually sold and will give you a ball park figure of how much to list your item for.

unfortunately unless you have a store or are a power seller you can't list anything greater than 10 days, (well thats for Australia anyway) as either BIN or an auction. Also the other limitation for the casual seller in Australia is you can't list multiple items, you have to do them separately or upgrade to a store, work you way up to a power seller or be registered as a business listing.

All of which I find very annoying if you are just a casual seller like myself,

regards

Johann

Johann, I totally agree! I only recently discovered that eBay Australia have stopped allowing casual sellers to offer multiple items per listing. It lets you set it up, and then at the last moment a red error message appears to say "you must be a power seller or store". badword? It never used to be that way.