How to get the most out of Ebay

So I have been selling a lot on Ebay recently but still feel I am not getting the most I can and not making the auctions as descriptive as they can be. I would like to know from people that sell a lot how they set up the auction. How do you do shipping? How do you handle insurance? Certified? What do you usually say in the description? Anything and everything will help. I really want to become better at auctions. I have 100% feedback but I think my auctions are poorly done and I really don't know how to mail them so I don't lose money or cost the buyer a ton. Help!

I don't know about selling, I don't sell much on ebay.

But as far as buying is concerned. Gixen.com is absolutely the best way to the most out of ebay possible.

I use Gixen.com every single time I buy any thing on ebay, esp magic cards.

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The handful of times I sold on ebay, I shipped them in a regular postal envelope in a hard loader and put on two stamps instead of just one. They always arrived in perfect condition. The postage is only like .80 cents that way. You save yourself the hassle of driving down to the postoffice, save on gas money. And you can charge a reasonable shipping and handling fee ($1.99 is the maximum). Lower shipping prices encourage sales.

Accept paypal, that's key to getting bids on your items. Register a paypal account.

Use "Magic MTG 4x CARDNAME SETNAME NM" for the title and you should be good. NM stands for Near Mint by the way, dont include it unless your cards are near mint. In the description write the card name, condtion, and the set it's from. That's all you need.

I can't speak for others, but the things I look for when buying is a high seller rating/high feedback, quality photos of the item, and shipping costs. When the seller rating is lower, but still has a high feedback score, I look at the last auctions of the seller to see if there is anything comparable that has been sold.

I haven't focused too much on the actual description, just the basics. Speaking of cards, name, set, quantity & condition are all I need to see. Google auction templates and you can free ways to improve the look of the auction page.

Shipping is usually never more than $3, unless a special service is requested/required. I'm actually a fan of using the buy-it-now function and offering free shipping if buy-it-now is used. Be clear that you only ship to confirmed addresses.

To maximize the selling price, look to have the auction end at a high internet traffic time. Weekends are good, since more people are available to bid. (Likewise, when you're looking for a good deal, check for auctions ending at odd times ex. 2:26 am)

Now, to protect yourself (I should know, I got screwed selling a playset of Mana Drains... and have thus read paypals policies), you only want to ship to confirmed addresses. You really want it to be trackable online and have delivery confirmation. I believe paypal will let you know if there is an unconfirmed address involved. Usually there is no problem and you can actually pay for shipping and print out postage and labels from the paypal site. I shy away from foreign shipping, because the price to adequately protect yourself is higher than a buyer usually wants to pay.

This may be more than you want, or not what you want at all, but I hope it helps some.

Well, I sell a lot there, and I mean a lot. I'll tell ya everything I know since I love it when I find people who seem to know what they are doing.

1. I tend to offer guarantees. It means I always get 100% good feedback all the time and you'd be amazed how much of a help that is. Sometimes I'll sell stuff in the store that I offered at a higher price than someone else and mine will sell first because of that rating. Doesn't matter to me if they send it back and I have to give a refund. I'll just sell it again. I do actually try and make everyone happy. It's not easy to do, but if you give people no outs to bitch, you can do well.

2. Accept Paypal if you don't already have it. I don't even bother to bid on stuff that won't accept it unless it's an amazing deal. I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who feels that way. It doesn't take crap to sign up and it's so worth it. There are other services, but people don't ever seem to use them despite how many people bash paypal.

3. Don't bother selling crap that costs less than $2.00. It's so not worth your time. The fees kick the crap out of your profit and make it not worth it.

4. Charge reasonable shipping. Don't be a tard and try and make money off shipping. I tend to ignore people who do that and I'm sure a lot of others do to. .75c to $2.50 is more than enough. $1.00 to $2.00 is pretty fair.

5. Use pictures. I hate buying something if I can't see what I'm getting. I don't list anything unless I have a scan. Even in the case of sets I at least show some cards from it. It just looks better.

6. Try not to start off your starting bid at exactly what you want for it. I like to start them off higher than a penny, but going all the way up to what you expect to get for it scares people off for some reason.

7. Use the Buy it now thingy. It's amazing how often something will sell for more than I thought just because it was obvious they were impatient.

8. If you have a lot of junk to get rid of, use the store. Get one. It's worth that monthly fee if you have a ton of junk to sell off.


Here's one of mine if you want to know how I write it out. It's fairly standard and not fancy, but it works. I'm far from an HTML guru.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Time-Spiral-COMP...742.m153.l1262


Notice that in the listing I mention exactly what you get. It's unplayed and in good shape. Simple, but easy to read and you get the point. I bothered to list how many cards were in that set in the top. That helps. You'd be surprised how many people try to sell crap that isn't even finished or beat up and don't mention it. Half the people on Ebay right now selling a set of Unhinged don't even include the stupid tokens and that Foil Super Secret Tech. Kinda not a complete set if you ask me if you don't have those.

9. I include the delivery notification if it's in the states and I do that on just about everything. People think it's a nice bonus. I do it so they can't say they never got it and try and screw me. I had that happen a couple of times and I don't want to go there. It's really cheap to get it and sounds good, so why not?

10. I don't combine shipping if I can help it because there's a ton of people out there that will buy up tons of stuff all from you just to cut costs and make off like a bandit. If you don't add it up right, you can screw yourself sometimes. I just make it simple so I don't have to check how much everything is going to cost me everytime. If you enable the combined shipping, make sure it actually covers the costs. I only do it on the 7 day auctions and some store items because I don't like it when people buy up a ton for their store and I'm out a lot of shipping materials. I don't actually include that stuff in my costs too often.

11. Take money orders if you don't mind them. It's one way for foreign people to buy from you. I hate MO's so I don't take it, but that's just me. I'd rather send crap out the day they pay for it. It's just easier and I have too much crap to keep track of if I did take them.

12. I mention Emailing me if there's any problems over and over in the listing and just about every message I send out. I do that on purpose. I don't want those fools saying I didn't offer to help if they aren't happy with something. People are really dumb and hard to deal with so I make every opportunity open. If they can't figure out how to bitch after all the chances I gave them, they will only feel dumb and not bother. Sad but really true.

13. Notice at the bottom of that listing it advertises other shit? I did that on purpose. It's all the expensive crap I would really like to sell. lol Usually the horridly expensive stuff is hard to get rid of so I advertise that first. Nice trick.

14. Don't use the best offer thing if you can help it. A lot of countries think it's proper to haggle over price over and over and for them, that's cool, but I hate answering mails over and over about one stupid thing that only costs a few bucks anyway. Italy will drive you crazy if you offer it.

15. Pay attention to your fees. You don't want to sell something and figure out you just went in the hole. Ebay charges a lot and Paypal takes a chunk also. Add it up and decide on how much you need to cover the fees. Start the bidding off at least a dollar above that much so at least you get that.

16. Don't sell big money items to Spain or Italy. Sorry if you're from those countries, but your post office sucks. They open mail and don't tell me they don't. Some of these guys know what power is worth. You can ship with tracking numbers and such to them, but you're going to UPS to do it and it's like $50 to start. Be warned.

17. Use Toploaders and penny sleeves! OMGplease! I hate it when someone sends me stuff without it. I just got a Moat lately and the guy sent it in a regular envelope with no sleeve? WTF dude! Of course it got a nasty corner bend. Grrrr. Good way to get a negative out of me. Common sense. At least the guy refunded the money, but he took a hit for that condition.

18. Use a regular envelope, penny sleeve, and toploader for one to four card auctions. If you cut the paypal shipping ship in half, it's exactly the weight you need to only use one stamp all-together. Nice thing to know.

19. Make a mention of not allowing people with negative feedback to bid. It gives you an excuse to kick their bids off your stuff. I have no clue why some people will have an account just to bid crap up and then not pay, but they are out there. It's asking for negative feedback if you allow them.

20. If you want the most you can get, you'll have to open up to foreign countries. It sucks, but they have a better exchange rate right now. Americans are naturally cheap, rude, and highly argumentative. Sorry, but it's true. I sell the majority of my stuff to Spain, Italy, France, England, and Germany. Want to know how much stuff I send there? I know the postal code for the USPS's computer for Spain is 282. Scary huh?

Anyway, they typically are great for selling older cards since they never had them printed in some places.

21. And lastly, don't use anything but your Ebay messages to talk to people. Too many people try to scam outside of there so don't use your regular mail to talk to them. Always go through Ebay.


If you ever have the problem of people trying to scam or you have someone who didn't send the stuff to you when you buy, you're welcome to contact me on how to screw them back. I got really good at always getting either my money back or making sure their asses went to jail for frauds. I even know the trick of getting small claims to go all the way to the feds so I can claim on their tax returns. I once even managed to get someone who lived in Kashmir, Pakistan. Laws are pretty harsh there for theft. Mean, but oh well, I hate scammers.

Yeah, but doing all that stuff takes a ton of time though. What if you dont have a camera handy. And shipping confirmed mail with tracking costs money and time, and gas price etc.

If you're selling a playset of drains, or basically anything costing $30 or more, take the time to ship it confirmed.

But if you're selling small stuff, a regular envelope with .60 cents of postage (or two stamps) and the cards in a simple top loader will do just fine.

I've used that to ship about 20 auctions or so, without a hitch.

If you sell anything via paypal over $50 send it confirmed. If they get it and want it for free Paypal allows this without delivery confirmation.

Eh, after you do it a few times, it only takes a few minutes to do it again. Just save a template and use that every time just changing the title and how much you want.

I just listed a few dozen auctions in the last hour. Scan and all still didn't take long.

How do you provide the seller with this gurantee:

"Free PayPal Buyer Protection, up to $2,000"

I am a paypal verified member, what else do I need to do?

I've bought a good amount of cards on Ebay. I've also started selling cards. Generally, I only sell cards when I have more than a playset or if they are way more valuable in T2, T1.X, or any other format that I don't play.

1. To get the best deals from Ebay, always pay attention to format rotations, new decks, and other things like that. This is basically a no-brainer.

2. I wouldn't sell anything that's expected to sell for less than $5 or $10 depending. It's just a waste of time unless you have a ton of cheap cards. Statistically, you might be better off hoping that the card shoots up in price in the future.

3. I would suggest only selling 1x or 4x of a card at a time. After watching auctions of dual lands for a few months, 4x usually sells for at least as much as four 1x's. This is especially true on Ebay because if you bid on 1x's, you might end up winning the wrong number of cards. People are more willing to just shoot for the ideal 4x. This also saves shipping costs.

4. For shipping as a seller, I just charge $1 per auction. For combined shipping, I will generally combine up to 8 or 10 cards into the original $1 before going over. I actually don't use the PayPal labels or whatever they are. I type out the address and print it onto envelopes. I use toploaders and penny sleeves and regular envelopes. I've actually gotten more than enough of these extra from winning auctions, but they are really cheap anyway. For sending toploaders through USPS, I think that you're supposed to add extra postage. Any post office station at a grocery store or drug store should be able to give you accurate postage.

5. It's a lot easier to sell a bunch of things at the same time. The way I sell, I generally get rid of all my T2 stuff at the same time. Doing this just makes sense because you can condense your time. Also, remember to use as many templates as possible to save time.

6. For pictures, I have a really crappy digital camera. The pictures look really bad because the resolution is so low, you can't really see any wear marks at all. Nonetheless, having some visual image of the item is almost a necessity.

7. Whenever possible, I greatly prefer selling cards to other people in real life. Not vendors, of course, because the prices are way off. If I learned anything from selling online, it's that selling in real-life is awesome although generally rare.

A few questions as I am about to jump into ebay again hardcore after picking up a collection:

1. I have read that I should only sell 1 or 4 of a card. I have a bunch of 2 and 3 ofs from the purchase and they are nice cards so, should I just sell a bunch of 1 offs?

2. Should I just start all of my auctions at a penny as I have everything from a playset of revised duals to a playset of winter orbs, or should I set a reasonable starting price?

3. I have extra jittes, EE's, and shackles...with cards like that should I sell them in 3's and make sure I get down to that number myself or do people really have a boner for playsets even though no one ever puts more than 3 in a deck?

4. I have sweet foils and non foils, if I can make a mixed playset should I do it or just piece them out as x foils and x non-foils?

5. I have seen a suggestion to not sell anything that will go for less than $5/10 and another that says nothing under $2...how were these guidelines set up?

Thanks!
JK

Well, starting prices are really only going to do one of two things.

1. Prevent you from taking too much of a hit from the Ebay fees by starting it low.

2. Prevent you from having to sell something expensive for a penny since people didn't bid on it.


So basically what you want to do is open up a second window for Ebay when you're listing stuff and look up the card you're going to sell and see what it's going for already.

If it has a ton of bids on it like say a Tundra, just start it off at .01c since you know it will get bid up to what you want anyway.

If it's something like a Exalted angel or Pernicious deed that may or may not get bid up high, start off the bid at around what you want. It'll cost you a few more pennies to do this and it has a higher chance of not selling, but at least you won't have to get rid of it for dirt cheap.

Sets of three for a hot card like Jittes don't matter too much if it's in a set of three. Cheaper cards are definitely worth your trouble to list as a set of three instead of separate. Most people don't bid on cheaper cards as singles to avoid a pile of shipping costs. Really expensive stuff like Duals and Force of will are better as singles since you'll get your full price.

As for selling things that are worth around $2.00 or so, don't bother. The fees will eat you up. I used to sell playsets of commons all the time, but the fees made me stop doing it since I wasn't actually making anything after a bit.

@dahcmai: Thanks for the response, I totaled up what was feasibly ebayable given your guidelines (using MOTL price) and the return sans fees appears to be ~150% so I'm totally pumped. I'm assuming fees will make it more like 100-125% ( I paid 400 and am looking at about 1000)

A few more questions to you or anyone else:

1. How much is a lot of stuff/junk to open a store. 95% of my stuff is semi playable/not hot right now (i.e. show and tell/living wish) to HOT i.e. Jitte, Thoughtseize, Tundra, Trop. Almost everything is in greater than 1 quantity and any cards that went for <$2 I am only selling multiples/playsets. It looks like I would have quite a bit less than 100 auctions (maybe 75?).

2.Since I am selling more valuable stuff, hopefully minimum selling price of all my auctions is targeted to be ~$4 +/- $1, I feel that combined shipping would be an incentive to bid on multiple auctions. A simple way to calculate it, is to say $2 for the first and $1 for every auction after the first but I imagine I could just make it free for the second item as well? Any suggestion there?

3. I finally got your suggestion about not offering combined shipping on "junk"/commons because they will wipe out your store and ebay will eat your soul in fees.

4. I have received a lot of old extended HOTNESS, deeds, wishes (burning, cunning), vindicate, etc. which are highly desired legacy cards and I notice the price is down quite a bit from even a month ago, do they tend to bounce up again after 6 months to a year as the glut on the market tends to die off?

Thanks again!

The best day to have your auctions end is on a Sunday afternoon/night, right? What's the second best?

A tip from me, I know from experience.

SELL WORLDWIDE. Or at least, to Europe.

It's so frustating that a lot of sellers don't ship to Europe, and you can see that in the prices. A playset Tarmogoyfs US only sells for apr. $90 or so, if you are willing to ship it to Europe, you get at least $20 more!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poesjuh

A tip from me, I know from experience.

SELL WORLDWIDE. Or at least, to Europe.

It's so frustating that a lot of sellers don't ship to Europe, and you can see that in the prices. A playset Tarmogoyfs US only sells for apr. $90 or so, if you are willing to ship it to Europe, you get at least $20 more!!!

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Europe is much more problematic for PayPal, though.

You shouldn't be shipping to a non-Confirmed/Verified address anymore, and that's much less prevalent in Europe.

You also shouldn't be shipping with a non-verifiable shipping method, which adds minimum $10 outside of the US.

I don't know how it is from a sellers perspective, but shipping from the US to The Netherlands is for me mostly about 3/4 $. And that is to a non-confirmed address.

The reason that a lot of people have that in Europe is because they don't have a CC, at least, that's the reason for me. I have bought about 80 items the last 2 months, and so far with no problems whatsoever.

But that's just from a buyers perspective, if you think the problems worth it you'll propably get about 10% more if you sell to Europe, depending on what you sell obviously.

I've never personally seen Europeans being willing to pay more than domestic customers, and the troubles having to deal with the Europeans that try to get by the taxes and such just make it a royal pain.

On top of that, the shipping is usually worse too. With most domestic orders, I can just print the paperwork right from Paypal's page, drop it off in my outbox, and I'm done. With international, I need to go get the customs forms, write in the price, etc on those little slips, and then pay for whatever choice of like 20 different ways to ship, AT the post office I've stood in line in for probably 30 minutes.

OKay so some questions. I am putting some stuff up but I really want to make it so there are no ways to get scammed by them complaining I haven't shipped. I have read Dahcmai's post and I need some more info.

I would like to make sure they know that I have sent it and that I know they have received it. How can I do this for cheap, Dahcmai (or anyone else that knows.)? So I go to the post office, what do I tell them about how to ship it?

I am also giving them the option of insurance so if it does get lost, I don't get owned. How should I go about this? The auction values don't go over $40.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jak.

OKay so some questions. I am putting some stuff up but I really want to make it so there are no ways to get scammed by them complaining I haven't shipped. I have read Dahcmai's post and I need some more info.

I would like to make sure they know that I have sent it and that I know they have received it. How can I do this for cheap, Dahcmai (or anyone else that knows.)? So I go to the post office, what do I tell them about how to ship it?

I am also giving them the option of insurance so if it does get lost, I don't get owned. How should I go about this? The auction values don't go over $40.

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If you are shipping inside the United States you can ship with delivery confirmation. This costs roughly 80 cents and the package is scanned when it is delivered to their doorstep. As for outside the United States this is where shit gets expensive. Send it registered and DO NOT LIE on custom forms.

As far as insurance goes just state in the auction that insurance is available if the buyer is interested but at their own cost (usually $2).

I am setting up the insurance and have selected "optional". It now wants a dollar amount. Is this what they pay or how much it covers? If it is how much it covers, what should I do it for? Most items are $10 to $40, so should I do the value?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jak.

I am setting up the insurance and have selected "optional". It now wants a dollar amount. Is this what they pay or how much it covers? If it is how much it covers, what should I do it for? Most items are $10 to $40, so should I do the value?

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http://www.usps.com/insurance/welcome.htm

Fee . . . . . . . . . . Insurance Coverage
$1.70 ................ $0.01 to $50
$2.15 ................ $50.01 to $100
$2.60 ................ $100.01 to $200
$4.60 ................ $200.01 to $300
$5.55 ................ $300.01 to $400
$6.50 ................ $400.01 to $500
$7.45 ................ $500.01 to $600
$7.45 plus $0.95 per $100 or fraction thereof over $600 to $5,000.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Getsickanddie

http://www.usps.com/insurance/welcome.htm

Fee . . . . . . . . . . Insurance Coverage
$1.70 ................ $0.01 to $50
$2.15 ................ $50.01 to $100
$2.60 ................ $100.01 to $200
$4.60 ................ $200.01 to $300
$5.55 ................ $300.01 to $400
$6.50 ................ $400.01 to $500
$7.45 ................ $500.01 to $600
$7.45 plus $0.95 per $100 or fraction thereof over $600 to $5,000.

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OKay thanks. I set up an auction basing it a lot on Dahcmai's (yours really looks great). I provided the information on shipping costs, insurance, certification, etc. Hopefully the transactions will go a lot smoother than they have in the past, ie not knowing how to ship and always having the chance to get screwed. It also looks nice and giving more information may cause more bidders. Thanks Dahcmai, Getsickanddie, and Afro!

Ok, to make sure they get it is actually pretty simple.

Do one of two things and it's up to you on which one you like.

1. Registered mail - It's slow as shit, I'll warn you now. I once had a large package of 7 sets get tied up in Brazil's Customs for 2 months because not only was it a package and customs people get leary about the whole big box of unknown things, plus it was registered and that means it gets signed by every single mail guy it touches hands to. Ok, that's pretty abnormal, but it goes to show. Most of the time it takes about 3 weeks for even a letter.

Registered mail is the perfect way to make sure something arrives though. They have to sign for it. No saying they didn't get it. You can even find out who signed for it.

If you want to make sure it gets there and there's no disputing it, this is the way to go. I don't send much this way myself, but I will do it for a Black Lotus or Mox or some such for sure if it's a foreign country.

2. Delivery Notification - My personal fav. It's simple enough, but only works in the US. You get a number and you can go to USPS.com and see where that package is. I like to send a message to people and give them the tracking number, it makes them feel all safe and stuff.

Problem of course is it doesn't work for foreign countries and well, face it, the US is hurting for cash so sending stuff overseas is the way to go right now. (I just sent out around 50 auctions worth and 2 were US addresses).

To be honest the mail isn't that bad. I've never had but one item lost and I decided to bite the bullet on it and eat the cost. It was worth it to save face and keep that 100% rating. After all this time and no one had said they didn't get something I figured the guy was telling the truth. It was Spain after all. Spain has a shitty postal system. Sorry if you're from there, but it's true.

Oh and one thing, there's a size requirement on Delivery Notification. So if you want to send one card or so, use a bubble mailer. It has to be bigger than this little card they try to put it through to check size, so stick a bunch of wadded up paper or packing peanuts (preferably) inside so it will be too big for the sizer and you can get Delivery Notification on it. Or use a box like VCR tape size.


I'll write that primer when I have extra time. Luckily I type fast, but I like to proof-read a lot. There's a ton more I can tell you. I have spreadsheets I use to add up costs and fees (makes it really easy for friends cards), pre-made HTML crap I typed up so you don't have to type up junk every time, and a bunch of other stuff I bet people would like to have. Listing something takes me about oh...2 min, 40 seconds. I'll show you how. It's not too hard once you know some of the tricks.

I don't claim to know it all, but at least I can get you a heck of a start. I'm still trying to figure out those weird programs people use to make those fancy pages.



@Jazzycat - Sorry I had to go back and reread some stuff. I don't get on here to often really. In answer to your questions.

1. I forgot how much the store was, but It think it was around $15 a month. I have so much crap go through anymore I totally miss the charge for it and don't care anyway. Keep in mind if you set one up though that they charge you for every single item you have in there each month. So if you have some junk sitting there every month, it's eating you penny by penny.

I check occasionally to make sure I have the lowest price and if I don't I lower it or pull the item off if I can't match what's already out there. I tell ya, I'm amazed Troll and Toad hasn't messaged me about undercutting them by a few pennies every time. I must piss them off. $19.95 to their $19.99. So mean, but hey it works.

2. Combined auctions are all well and good and it really does get more bids, though watch your prices for shipping. People like to scam any amount they can get away with. Don't go free or you'll end up with a guy who will outbid everyone trying to get a deal. I'm still testing different amounts trying to balance it out so people get a decent deal without cutting me deep if they get a lot at once.

4. Hmmm, well that's a tricky one. It's a matter of hitting it when it's hot. I like to wait for extended season for a lot of stuff. Strange how that format affects prices but it does. I swear there are people that literally sell off collections to buy into whatever format is being played at the pro-tour. I am sitting on a pile of Ravnica duals right now waiting for extended to start and then I'll list them. Just pay attention and look them up occationally and when they are hitting what you want, sell, sell sell. I guess it's like stocks.

@ Anusian - Best days Not real sure on that. I have decent luck with stuff ending on Sunday night at around 7-11pm. That's me though. It's weird but Wednesday isn't bad either.


The Europe thing - They pay more. Flat fact anymore. I'm starting to get orders from Japan now and that's new. Scary how the currency is affecting things. If I'm unsure about someone's unconfimed address, I just message them and ask if that address is correct. They don't mind answering that.

The taxes and import fees. Yeah, I know Germany and a few other countries have that. One cute thing you can do is ship stuff in an envelope and it bypasses the fees and taxes. No charge for letters. I sell a lot of sets so there's not much I can do about it. I'm not going to lie about it. I've had plenty of people try and get me to do it, but If I'm filling out some customs form, I'm telling the truth. I have no idea what happens if you lie on it, but I don't want to know what happens if you get caught. Now if it's someone you know or someone you can trust, send it as a "gift", there's a box to check for that and there's no duty fee on that.

Awesome. Someone sticky this?

I need to probably ship overseas, but I am just hesitant because I am still trying to learn about shipping in the US. I may try it soon.

K. - Tre Bardery

Oh yeah, here's something I do to buy things to sell.

Try bidding on foreign areas stuff. I'm actually trying to pick up some Ravagers right now, I bet I get them cheap since I hit up the Singapore guys.

I bid occasionally on stuff that looks like a scam on purpose. As long as it's a real card, I'll give it a shot. I got a pile of Arabian Night stuff once for like $12 and it had a Juzam, Ali, and a Library in it because the guy had feedback for crap. Did the same for some betas. Ended up making a 800% payback or so on it. I couldn't beleive some of the stuff people actually sent out to me. I don't expect to get a lot of them and just watch the days before I file with Paypal to get my money back. Occationally I lose some money, but I make way more than I lose. It's a gamble, but it pays off a lot.

Collections are great sometimes if they don't list much of anything important. Add up what you think you could get out of it and take off 30% to be sure. Bid that much. I do it a lot. You won't win many, but the ones you do are gold. That's the key to Ebay, learn to walk away from a deal. I laugh when I see people get into bidding wars.

I don't have a storefront to buy cards so I'm just buying from Ebay.


Oh yeah, spell stuff wrong when searching. It's amazing how many times people will spell things like this. Mox Emereld, Mox Paerl, Beserk, Ancestrall recall, and such. Shaharzad alone is good pickings. You'll be surprised, but I'm not the only one who knows that stunt.

Thread cleaned up and stickied. Excellent posts, dahcmai.

Okay, so this guy bought a set of Chrome Moxen from me probably around two months ago. I sent them out certified so he would have to sign for them. It protects me so I used it. He messages me about a month ago saying he didn't recieve them. I asked if he got a postcard or anything telling him to pick it up. He said yes so I thought it was over with. Two weeks ago he messages me again saying he hadn't recieved them and told me to help. I asked again if he went to go pick it up. Of course, he says no. Now, I got the package back because he never picked it up. I message him asking me if he would like me to send it again and how much I would need for him to pay me for shipping. He responds by saying he would like me to ship them again. I ask for payment and haven't been answered for four days. What do I do? I really just want to sell these and be done with it but this guy is difficult. Is there a certain time I have to wait until I can relist them?

Could someone please tell me how to use the buy it now option? I just got started and for some reason the buy it now option was virtually impossible to find when I created my first listing. I tried to use ebay's help section, but the options they told me to use were completely non-existent.

When you get to the section that says at the top in yellow "Choose how you'd like to sell your item" It's right next to the spot where it says to put in the price you want.


As for the guy who didn't pick up the package, send it again. He's a tard. You're going to meet plenty of those. If he still doesn't pick it up, then charge him for the next send and add a little for your trouble. Be clear to them. Some people are serious idiots, you'd be surprised when they get a slip that says they have something at the post office to pick up they seriously don't know what to do. It's truly scary how dumb people can be. I'd message him and tell him he only has so many days to pick it up since the post office isn't going to hold it for him forever.


Thanks Bardo. I'm slowly compiling all of this stuff into one long post that should answer everything you could want to know other than third party programs since I don't use those.

What if he doesn't pay? Not that 3 bucks is a crazy large ammount, but it will still end up being a waste of my time and money. He hasn't contacted me in over a week. If he doesn't contact me, is it bad to not ship?

Well, that's up to you really, though expect to get some bad feedback if you don't ever get it to him. He'll remember eventually even if he doesn't post it right away. If he paid through paypal, you kind of have to get it to him or it really is your fault. You could always just send it with a Delivery Notification so you know it arrived and it can sit on his doorstep for as long as he likes then, you don't need to do anything else. It's probably cheaper to send packages that way anyway.

I just wanted to pass this on, from a teammate of mine who had a bad experience insuring cards with USPS:

Quote:

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They have an awkard run-around policy towards "collectables"

After it happened the guy at the post office told me a couple of things. First off he said that when I first mailed the cards and was told to establish a value for the insurance the person at the time was supposed to notify me that what he called "baseball cards" and other collectables are capped at how much they can be insured for. He went into detail but confused the fuck out of me so it might now make sense to you guys because it didn't to me. He used pokemon cards as an example and said something like they don't cover appreciated valued of collectables and when they reimburse you for something they pay the store front value. He used a pokemon card example and said that like if he had a $50 pokemon card (he said pokemon cards so much after correcitng him i wanted to hit him) and it got lost that the post office won't pay me $50 bucks but the value of actual pokemon card...so like the cost of a pokemon card booster pack. (like under 5 bucks right?) for that edition. I tried explaining him how magic cards work and how they are individual rares from different sets that have their own value (LIKE ALL FUCKING COLLECTABLES). He just repeated whatever robot response he gave me. I started getting agitated and told him it doesn't make sense because they know collectables can gain value, and their value can be established because there are magazines, websites, etc that give you an idea of how much they are worth. I also told him that he's fucking wrong because I know people who lost magic cards and got the office to reimburse their money back. I told him according to his logic all old coins are worth only their printed value and old comic books are only worth the 15 cents that say on the cover. I also told him that it also doesn't make sense because I didn't ship booster packs I shipped lose cards. He kept repeating the same thing and I lost my cool and just flat out said that he was retarded and that no other post office operates like this and he responded about how they all follow the same policies and some other jive. I told my friend the story and he said just go file at a different post office and I went to the one by my school but they sent me back to the one in my town where I mailed the package from.

I'm pretty certain that the whole system doesn't work like that and this guy is an idiot or he was giving me trouble. I kept calling them and going back enough where I got a rep and their responses to me were just worse and worse and more unforgiving. I filed a complaint and figured that this post office was run by people with foam helmets and i would try the internet and find a way to go above them. But when I wanted to do more but my brain couldn't even wrap myself around all the different fucking departments, numbers, and mail addresses at the postal website, then talking to people who kept collecting my personal information and having to retell the same fucking story multiple times over and over and nothing happened I got fed up and felt my sanity is worth more. I hate dealing with huge organizations like that because I can never figure out where to start or how to approach the situation and always get fucked. I felt overwhelmed by how massive they are and figured that I just got ate up in their bullshit system.


I originally didn't make a thread about it or go into detail because I think it HAS to be just the post office in my area because I'm pretty sure the rest of the universe isn't as retarded as them, like it can't be possible like they have to be wrong it doesn't make any sense, and because I felt it was mostly my fault too for not handling the situation. I know that the situation was still salvagable after my cards were lost and I dropped the ball and rolled over instead so I was kind of embarassed about that too (my friends gave me massive amounts of shit for it too)

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So you get an idea of what you might have to go through with them. I'd deal with UPS if you're selling anything >$50 or so.

It might be just your guys who do that. I had lost a Moat in the mail once and got the money back no problem.

Here's a good tip. I'll show you step by step how this works.

Ok, here's one auction for a playset of Phyrexian Dreadnoughts.

Clicky

Looks like it's going to go for around $120 or so. Maybe more. The guy doing this one knows what he's doing. Free shipping, nice bonus, but not needed really. It looks good I guess. Nice looking page though. Better than I can do. I really need to learn how to use Auctiva (that's the pretty page maker).

Anyway, He has a good rating, a nice set of pictures and spams crap about paypal giving a guarantee. Good job to this guy.


Now I caught this one and I hope it's not one of you. He obviously didn't read this thread. If it does happen to be one of you, well, I hope I teach you something so you get the most for your money next time around.

This particular guy has low feedback so he's going to get less for what he's selling anyway. Goes with the territory. I don't mind bidding on these since I'll just file quick with paypal if he decides to give excuses and not send.

I bid on these and won. Now see if you can see why I got these so cheap. Yeah, I picked up a set of Dreadnoughts for $53.82. Not too shabby. Especially since I just showed you what a decent price is.


Auction 1

Auction 2

Auction 3

Auction 4


I got them separate, but that's ok since he offered shipping combined for 4 cards for the same price anyway. That's a nice bonus and I actually do read to see if people do that. Nothing worse than paying $2.00 shipping 4 times over.

No flashy page, but that's ok. Not much talk about the card itself. Not too good. Only some stuff about the shipping. He doesn't even mention if that card in the picture is the one you get or some random pic he got off the net.

All of his feedback is from buying on top of it. That's scary to people who read into feedback. At least buy a few things and get your feedback over 20 before selling, it helps a lot. Single digits make people nervous. Most people won't bother to look and see if it was done by selling or buying, but everyone notices how high it is and if it's all good or not.

He does list condition at least, but really needs to give a little more detail if possible. Not a big deal but it helps.

Ok, other than the stuff I listed did you notice why I got it so cheap?






Read that title again.

MTG PHYREXIAN DREADNAUGHT


What's wrong with that?

Dreadnought is spelled with an "O". Ouch. Costly spelling mistake.


I literally have email notices set up to mail me for when people spell things wrong. You'd be amazed at how many people do.

I have bought plenty of Mox Emerelds, Beserks, Bazaar's of Bagdad, and a few choice things that are commonly spelled wrong like I spelled here. Baghdad has an H if you missed it. I get that one a lot. Notice I have two Bazaar's in my store, guess how I got them.

Now Ebay will correct your spelling for the most part when searching, but not when you sell. Spell it bad enough and the search engine will ignore your auction alltogether.


Something to remember.




Quick last note:

I bid twice on these for a reason. I typically bid once to bait in bid schilling. Bid schilling is where you have a separate account and bid on your own items to raise the price up. Ebay frowns on it quite hard, but some people still try it. Anyway, the first bid was the minimum. If I get outbid quickly or a overbid and then retracted, I know I'm getting schilled and avoid it like the frigging plague.

At the last day I raise it up to what I really would pay. Explains why I do that. It's a good practice to be in.

This is just a what if scenario because shipping confirmed costs a lot more and takes a lot more time. I really hate doing it on stuff that costs $50 or less. Anyway, I have perfect feedback (100%) and I offer insurance, what would happen if he says he never got them?

I have a question about shipping from the United States to Europe.

I'm selling off a few dual lands and a playset of Force of Wills right now and I've been asked the question "How much to ship to country X" several times (right now the auctions list US shipping only). With US shipping I typically just use toploaders and bubble mailers for < $50 and delivery confirmation for anything > $50.

How do you ship internationally with the equivalent of delivery confirmation? When I ask at the post office, they quote me a price of nearly $30. UPS is even more expensive than that. I'd like to take advantage of whatever selling protection is offered by paypal (to avoid having to pay for insurance) and it looks like I need to be able to confirm shipment and delivery. Is there an inexpensive way to do this? Any thoughts?

Thanks!

There's no good way to send international. If there is I haven't found it.

Registered is good, but slow.

You can do this like i do and it's kind of cheesy, but it works out in the long run. I charge too much for international shipping. Sad to say, but it's true. It's only about $2 more and sometimes less. I save the money I have left over to account for the times when someone's mail is lost and I just pay it out of my own pocket. At least then I can offer a guarantee on everything to make it and not feel bad about it. Kind of like insuring myself.

I've only had to pay it out once so far on a set, but it's a nice piece of mind to have that little insurance handy to do so. I don't spend the extra I take in until I need it for times like that.

If it's really expensive (like a Lotus or such), I'll go ahead and front the cash for UPS or FED-EX. It's like $50 so keep it in mind if you go that route. Then you get a tracking number.

Firstly, I don't have a store.

Is there a way to have a BIN and a regular price, where you charge shipping if someone wins the auction but do free shipping if they use BIN? I can't figure it out and I think it is a nice way to reward people who are willing to pony up.

The only way to do it is to not list the shipping in the auction itself where it places it in automatically. You can mention how much it is, but make it so they have to type in the amount they are paying. It's a pain, but it can be done. I just tell people, I'll refund it. It's easier.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dahcmai

I literally have email notices set up to mail me for when people spell things wrong. You'd be amazed at how many people do.

I have bought plenty of Mox Emerelds, Beserks, Bazaar's of Bagdad, and a few choice things that are commonly spelled wrong like I spelled here. Baghdad has an H if you missed it. I get that one a lot. Notice I have two Bazaar's in my store, guess how I got them.

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how do you get notices from ebay for things ?

yeah, I got a playset of bloodstrained mire the other day for pretty cheap.

what store, I dont see a link.