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Thread: How to get the most out of Ebay

  1. #1
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    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!

  2. #2

    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

    -----------------------------

    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.

  3. #3
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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.
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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

  5. #5

    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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?

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    @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!

  13. #13

    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    The best day to have your auctions end is on a Sunday afternoon/night, right? What's the second best?
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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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!!!

  15. #15

    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    Quote Originally Posted by Poesjuh View Post
    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!!!
    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.
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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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.
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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    Quote Originally Posted by Jak. View Post
    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.
    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).

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    Re: How to get the most out of Ebay

    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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