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

[1ofTheCoolKids]

How NOT to sell on eBay:

Former Eastern Shore Resident Sentenced to More Than Five Years in Federal Prison for Conspiring to Sell More Than $3.5 Million in Stolen Goods and for Tax Fraud

U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake today sentenced Saurabh Chawla, age 36, of Aurora, Colorado, to 66 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release on federal charges of conspiracy, interstate transportation of stolen goods, and tax evasion. Judge Blake ordered...

www.justice.gov

 

[capnwes]

How NOT to sell on eBay:

Former Eastern Shore Resident Sentenced to More Than Five Years in Federal Prison for Conspiring to Sell More Than $3.5 Million in Stolen Goods and for Tax Fraud

U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake today sentenced Saurabh Chawla, age 36, of Aurora, Colorado, to 66 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release on federal charges of conspiracy, interstate transportation of stolen goods, and tax evasion. Judge Blake ordered...

www.justice.gov

Scared me for a second, as a former Eastern Shore resident, I thought they might be coming for me.

 

[ghoststar]

Hello all,

I'm a Top-Rated Seller on eBay under the store name "ghost-star". I've been selling men's clothes and accessories on eBay since 2003, and currently have several hundred unique items. So if anyone has a question regarding selling on eBay, I'd be happy to provide any insight.

My store: https://www.ebay.com/str/ghost-star

 

[ghoststar]

It should probably be noted (if it hasn't been already) that much of the advice posted in this thread prior to 2020 are no longer relevant or simply incorrect. This is not through any fault of the members, but rather due to the ever-shifting policies of eBay, especially regarding selling.

 

[Tweets]

15 days was bad enough but this is flat out riduculous. If you want to give them 6 weeks to return it, at least don't hold my money. I bet 40% of my return requests never actually get returned.

 

[haloitsme]

15 days was bad enough but this is flat out riduculous. If you want to give them 6 weeks to return it, at least don't hold my money. I bet 40% of my return requests never actually get returned.

6 weeks is pretty lame, but hey... better than European rules. If they file a return within the 14 day return window (if stated 14 days) they can wait months to return the item. You as a seller then have to evaluate if the item lost value and deduct the amount. Easy with electronic, hard with garments, especially t-shirts.
But let’s be honest, who waits so long?

Also with the 30 day return window, if I get a return it is usually within 3-7 days after arrival. So,I don’t see a big issue their.

 

[txwoodworker]

Ebay sends periodic reminders for 6 weeks, this will have an impact on return success. It just illustrates further how little control you have over "your" business when working with ebay. I've been doing this solid for 8 years as a hobby, glad it's not a job.

 

[haloitsme]

Anyone selling on Grailed? Fees look lower.
Maybe an option?

 

[goatamous II]

Anyone selling on Grailed? Fees look lower.
Maybe an option?

i do sometimes
it's 9% grailed fees + paypal fees

obviously a different market than ebay where the buyers there are looking for more hype items
you can only bump your listing once every 7 days and after 30 days you're forced into a 10% price drop if you want to bump. Buyers know that you have to do a price drop, so unless you have a hype item that sells fast, it's basically a market of window shoppers waiting for you to hit rock bottom

If you have a listing with 10+ watchers that hasn't been bumped in 8 weeks, you have the ability to de-list and re-list without dropping the price and maintaining your watchers, restarting the 30 day cycle.
Alternatively, you have to manually delete your listing and re-list it

 

[Patrologia]

Sheesh, what the ...?
I'm not a lousy seller, at least I never have been up to now, but I'm suddenly getting return requests on half my sales. (Granted, I've put ebay on the back burner, so my sales have slowed down.) The part that I posted about a page or two back is in return limbo (I created a return label for him, but he hasn't actually sent it yet. We'll see what happens.)
Now I've got a return request because a suit doesn't fit like someone wanted. With measurements all over the listing! And I see a flurry of "didn't fit" in the last few pages here. If this keeps up, I may pull down the rest of my ebay and just put everything on Posh, or get set up with one of the others. I don't like them as well, but posh at least seems to come with fewer hassles.

 

[noob in 89]

Poshmark and depop sellers never give measurements; I don’t see how they function that way.

Anyone selling on Grailed? Fees look lower.
Maybe an option?

No harm in just duplicating your listing there. I’d keep your stuff on eBay until you know it’s something that will sell there. I see a few things going for a third of what they’d fetch on eBay.

 

[txwoodworker]

OK, this M-Fer.
I sold a vintage turntable, he said it had issues, fine. Maybe something happened in shipping, I'm not going to try to fight it, because... yeah.
The thing comes back today with about half the shipping material I used to send it to him, and it's basically a box of parts. Poor thing did nothing but create good and bad music for 40 years or so, and this ****** punts it back to me.
Silver lining, called ebay and they're covering it for me. It's not coming from him though, but it should.

 

[Patrologia]

OK, this M-Fer.
I sold a vintage turntable, he said it had issues, fine. Maybe something happened in shipping, I'm not going to try to fight it, because... yeah.
The thing comes back today with about half the shipping material I used to send it to him, and it's basically a box of parts. Poor thing did nothing but create good and bad music for 40 years or so, and this ****** punts it back to me.
Silver lining, called ebay and they're covering it for me. It's not coming from him though, but it should.

View attachment 1672909

I hate when people don't care enough to preserve what's there. Even if you can't make it work, someone else probably can.

On another note, why is it that we (some of us) post images of ebay names instead of text? Is the thought that they might find reference to themselves here and ... retailiate?

(Asking because I'll probably be adding a couple of names in the next few days)

 

[MJMcRibb]

OK, this M-Fer.
I sold a vintage turntable, he said it had issues, fine. Maybe something happened in shipping, I'm not going to try to fight it, because... yeah.
The thing comes back today with about half the shipping material I used to send it to him, and it's basically a box of parts. Poor thing did nothing but create good and bad music for 40 years or so, and this ****** punts it back to me.
Silver lining, called ebay and they're covering it for me. It's not coming from him though, but it should.

View attachment 1672909

How were you actually able to call? I tried to find a working number forever to no avail.

 

[txwoodworker]

The posting of images versus text makes the names unsearchable.

Start at https://www.ebay.com/SELLERHELP click on a issue, scroll down to the bottom to:

go through the tree until you get to

Did the chat box, then just asked to talk to a person, put in my number and they called me right away.