Buying and Selling on eBay: Tips, Tricks, Problems & Questions - Page 111

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.
 

I would expect that suit to sell for $225 in a 10 day auction

So here is a question I have, and something I find extremely painful when dealing on Ebay and buying things on forums like this.  Shipping always seems to be a problem when getting good from the US to Canada, where I live.  For some reason I end up paying about $20 to get a shirt shipped and about $40 for a suit.  Now that price is not that bad except that it seems to take 2-3 weeks for most of these items to arrive.  I have a small business that I run in Canada and for $25 I can next day ship goods from Toronto to anywhere in the US.  So why do I always get stuck having to wait such a long time, and does anyone (especially those from Canada) have any good way to get around this?

Move to the US...

J/K

This is a point of frustration for us US sellers too. It really makes no sense for it to take so long, and be so expensive, to get to you. After all, the last time I checked we are still on the same continent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by table21 

So here is a question I have, and something I find extremely painful when dealing on Ebay and buying things on forums like this.  Shipping always seems to be a problem when getting good from the US to Canada, where I live.  For some reason I end up paying about $20 to get a shirt shipped and about $40 for a suit.  Now that price is not that bad except that it seems to take 2-3 weeks for most of these items to arrive.  I have a small business that I run in Canada and for $25 I can next day ship goods from Toronto to anywhere in the US.  So why do I always get stuck having to wait such a long time, and does anyone (especially those from Canada) have any good way to get around this?

It's because you pay more in taxes to have stuff shipped faster

• Sell it myself, as an inexperienced seller with not too many ratings
• Consign it with someone experienced, probably from SF
• Sell it on the B&S fora here

The last second Christmas shopper rush has hit me!! 

6 unexpected high BIN sales in the last 18 hours. Wish me luck to get them there on time. I offer no guarantees. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrDV 

I went ahead and listed on ebay through the holidays even though I had not had much success in the past during December.
Capnwes' recommended I use fixed price and best offer to protect my auctions.
I've had a very good month, thanks for the advice.
Now I must decide wether to stick w the fixed and best offer format or go back to auction, or do experimenting w a little bit of both.

I have found that both formats have their place. As I am sure that you have found,  I always allow a "Best Offer" option on the BIN format. You are going to get them via messages anyway, this just formalizes the process. I also recommend setting automatic decline / accept level to help save your time for low offers or ones that you feel that you would accept. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by yossi 

(I'm cross-posting this question from the "ask a question, get an answer" quick-question thread. )
I don't intend to make selling on eBay a thing I do on the regular as an added source of income. But I do have some nice stuff that I'd like to sell, and I frequently come across good stuff in thrifts that I'd like to flip.
Is there a good rule of thumb for when it makes sense to

• Sell it myself, as an inexperienced seller with not too many ratings
• Consign it with someone experienced, probably from SF
• Sell it on the B&S fora here

? I'd like to maximize profit to me. I don't want stuff to sit around forever, but I don't need to get it out of my house tomorrow or anything.
E.G. sell exotic high-end brands here; don't sell expensive stuff on eBay if you're not an experienced seller; sell stuff yourself if you expect it to got for less than $40, etc?
Forgive me if this has been addressed already; I did some searching but didn't find anything.

I do not know a rule or guidline. If eBay selling is something that you really feel that you are able to do, by all means give it a shot. However, I would suggest that if your volume is less that 20 items a month or less that $1,000 per month, I would think that it is better to consign your items and do something else with your time. These are just my initial thoughts on the threshold amounts that for most people would work. Consignments are specialised, with Spoo specializing in the more high value items.

As you can see by this thread, one can spend a lot of time listing, selling, collecting, shipping, and dealing with the after sales side of the transactions. Ebay makes it more difficult now for the small time seller, i.e., holding your money for two weeks or more and limiting the items that you can list.

Hope that this helps and good luck.    

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Smith 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brianpore 


If everything sold at the BIN price it would be $898,003.74 over 450 items.

I'd much rather have your inventory

I'm sure your global sales are a lot better then mine.