Raise £350 for Christmas - the new eBay challenge

[DinosaursHateUnderpants]

Post your listings and questions here. The purpose is to raise money for Christmas and I'll start by showing my (so far) meagre listings here

Joining in too

I saw this thread this morning & it spurred me on to do some more listings before I joined the thread this afternoon.

I made £124 in the last 3 wks but already spent most of that on xmass pressies & new shoes for the kids.

I have so much stuff to list but most of it is clothing. I was going to list a further 4 items today but eBay just told me that I can only list 1 more branded item within the next 30 days as I have reached my
Limit. This must be a new thing as I used to list loads of stuff a few yrs ago.

So now I am doubting if I will reach £350 by xmass but will give it a go!

Might open an account in DPs name to get round this issue.

Anyway good luck all!

Re the when to list issue: I gave up on
This as ppl seem to pay at all sorts of times.

Maybe state your cut off times in
Listing ie pay by Friday for Monday posting as I only post once per wk?

I've photographed 2 boxes of clothes to start with, and I'm putting my breastpump on cos they always sell and it'll spur me to keep it up hopefully

I totally forgot about 10 day listings! Thanks deemented.

Here is my somewhat hopeful list: www.ebay.co.uk/sch/rstubbs101/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25 only negative was that you can only put a reserve of more than £50, so had to put my CK bag on without... And the photos came out much darker than I expected, but never mind.

Hope everyone is picking up lots of lurkers on their item

Go you, and thanks to Dino for the inspiration. I should have done this weeks ago. In the thick of listing everything just now

listed a few items. Plus re-listed a couple of bits too. Can't take advantage of free listing because my account is still bloody showing as below performance! So bloody annoying and i don't know how to bring it back up again!

I am going to confess that sometimes I can't be arsed weighing everythingso I just plug in a random P&P charge. Usually I do myself and not the buyer, but it's just SO dull ...

I'm losing the will to live!!!

I've now got 18 things listed, including all the bitty craft kits which are even all packaged up in envelopes (they we're a nightmare to sort out and I'm not going it twice!) I've got 2 books that seem to sell for a decent price then I'm giving up for the evening.

It's the postage that annoys me too. A lot of the craft kits could at a push fit in the large letter category, which would be 60p postage... but I'm playing safe and putting them all down as parcels, but with barely anything extra for the envelopes/petrol/hassle. Most of my envelopes are recycled anyway.

Right get these books listed... then I'll browse through all your listings (and possibly blow any money) while eating my tea/supper.

So far I have 1 watcher!
But if it all sells that's £180.99!!!

Phew! 19 items listed, and that's just a start - I gave up. All low starts so if they all sell with a single bid I won't even make, er £25! But it's good to have the ball rolling.

I have loads of clothes which could be sorted into bundles but I'll need peace and quiet and access to the DC's wardrobe for that so I'll postpone it.

I have had a peep through the listings posted already and Tortoise some of your little girls stuff is just lush. DD's not even walking yet and I have bags of stuff for her so I must resist ...

Here's mine

Yay!! All done, for tonight.
Listing books is So easy!
And one of them is out of print so seems to sell at a very good price.

Decapitated :o I'm hoping my MIL doesn't hunt me up on ebay too. All the perfumes and toiletries are things she's bought me over the years.
It doesn't matter how often I tell her I have really sensitive skin, so can't use soap, don't have baths, stick to a few very mild products. She keeps buying me things so I can pamper myself and relax.

And then spend the rest of the evening itching like mad. :o
Maybe that's why she does it.

Ooh Tortoise your stuff is lovely. Luckily for my purse it's too small for my DD and we won't know what DC2 is until it arrives.

I think i need to up my game i only listed 4 things and then gave up!!!

Broken netbook got just over £40 :)

Ooh, can I join, made £100 last week selling some maternity stuff, this thread might motivate me to list the rest!

5 watchers already this morning

This is where my OCD kicks in and I start checking for bids every 30 seconds ... even though I don't have to do anything for a week

I have 2 items sold already (but a looong time to go - hopefully they'll get more bids!)

I didn't put a 'buy it now' price on anything, but someone has emailed asking about it. Can I go back and add one now?

I've done that before but I can't remember how - I think just "Revise your item" or something. I don't think you can add Buy It Now if someone has already placed a bid though.

Yes the person asking has already bid. Hmm. Ah well.

I have 3 watchers, no bids so far!
Im the same Decapitated! Have to keep checking for watchers or bids too.

I'll join! Listed some unworn shoes, box sets of dvds and some toys this weekend!

We've found that auctions that end on a Sunday or Monday evening between 9pm and 9.30pm do the best - 10 day listings are good if you can wait, so start them on a Thursday to end on a Sunday and they'll be seen across 2 weekends. Failing that a 7 day listing is next best. And again if you can wait and for the items you really want to capitalise on, listings that end just before or just after month end pay date seem to get more bids and better prices.

We've only got a few things on that end this evening as we made a concerted effort to get stuff on before we went away but I know we have another 15 things scheduled to go on later and then apparently my mum has loads of stuff to give me :) Lisitings here.

I'd never used the relisting automatically function much before Summer but use it religiously every week now, saves so much effort.

Tortoise - I think the only way you are going to improve your ratings is to overly impress buyers by posting the day after they've paid but if you can't do that say when you will post in every listing AND put a preprinted compliment slip in each parcel saying thanks for buying, hope you like it and reminding them you've posted within XX days as you stated in your listing. We send every buyer an email following payment and then again after dispatch and a compliment slip and in every one we start by saying "This will be/is being sent to you within 3 working days of your payment as stated in our listings" - it seems to remind them what they signed up for IYSWIM. Our DSR improved massively after we began to do that.

Why is is that on the smaller royal mail parcel delivery option it says I can only charge £1.25 postage? The DVD boxsets are all going to cost £2.20-£4 to post... if they sell for a low figure I'm going to lose money?!

Also... if someone emailed asking what the reserve was, would you tell them?

Thanks everyone for all the advice, has made this all so much easier (though I am still easily confused apparently!)

list boxsets at a higher start price to allow for the extra postage costs

is up to you if you want to tell someone a reserve price - it is your auction. I guess they want to make you an offer?

Yup, have just done that, there are three that already had bids on though so will just have to cross fingers that other people will drive the price up to an acceptable level and learn from the mistake!

If someone did make an offer via email what would the procedure be? Could we proceed as normal via ebay/paypal or would we have to arrange it between ourselves? I'm a bit nervous of taking things out of the legal protection of ebay.

Thanks Dinosaurs. Last lot of items i sold i sent quickly and as far as i know all was ok. Also sent email to say dispatched. But DSRs didn't appear to change. I don't know how long it is going to take to get back up to standard. So frustrating!

if the buyer wants you to end the auction early you need to add a buy it now price

don't do a deal outside ebay - you lose all seller protection, the buyer loses buyer protection, and if found out you could lose your ebay account