Ebay - I want to now start selling but sure it will be a disaster!

[twitcher]

Hi everyone, I just wanted to get some ebay advice - I've been buying for a long time and have 100% positive feedback, but I'm really nervous about selling.

For me, buying is so easy, just bid and win(hopefully) and send a cheque. Simple.

But I'm convinced I will not be able to sell as well - I will lose track of who has won what/be too slow in sending stuff/give a bad description of something/package it all wrong - and so get negative feedback - and STRESS!

Can you give me loads of advice as to how to go about this - a step-by-step idiots guide from beginning (adding a photo, etc) to end.

Much appreciated!

I do the same as Pagan. print of the notification and include it in parcel.

I buy bubble wrap from local nesagent quite cheaply and if we ever get stuff delivered at home (printer, books) that comes with wrapping eg foam packaging, polystyrene bobbles etc I keep them and re-use for my parcels.

Sold two clairol hair dye boxes this week for £4 + P&P. Have changed the colour I use and was going to chuck them out. And then I thought ...Ebay !!!

Ebay won't let me register!I get as far as typing in all my details but when i come to trying to buy anything it just says invalid al the time. has anyone else experienced this or has DH paid them not to lwet me buy (or sell) anything?

Turbo Lister is a free tool from Ebay, find it under services, which saves LOADS of time as you do all of your listing, pricing ect and just upload it to Ebay when your ready, none of that waiting for pages to loads when you do each item seperatly online.
As something sells I put name, address on label and item desription on parcel with post it note and have 2 piles, 1 not paid and 1 paid. Post it notes pull off when items paid for, then i move the parcel to the paid pile.
ALWAYS get a certificate of posting, its insurance for items lost in the post up to £28.

I had this yesyerday when trying to bid littleweed, ebays just had a free listing day and the site is very busy, try again later.

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lisalisa, here goes.....
if you are buying and you win the bidding you will be emailed instructions on how to pay including an address. Before you bid you need to check that the seller will accept cheques if that is how you intend paying. There is a system called paypal which is a secure payment site which is easiest to use for buying/selling although there is a small charge for accepting payments through here. I find this the quickest and best method of accepting/sending payment.

you have to trust your seller so you only buy off people with 100% positive feedback scores (or near enough). And someone with a reasonable number of feedbacks. A good sellar would not want to get a negative feedback which is what you would give someone who didn?t ship something.

Re P&P the buyer pays it. It is added on as a separate cost to the item and this is usually listed in the item description. So in the example of the haircolour I sold. I sold it for £4 plus £2 P&P. So the buyer paid me £6.

Yes, I always wait for cheques to clear before sending goods unless it is someone I have dealt with before ? in which case I would possible send earlier but only once I had received cheque.

I find by keeping in touch with my buyer/seller as long as they know what is going on you always get good feedback. So if I receive a cheque i would email thanks to them and confirm i will send item when cheque clears. Then when i post item would send another email advising. etc. I always find people respond well to this.

Not sure about the IR question ? never occurred to me !

You can find a lot of this info on ebay - the help stuff is really good.

I tried putting an item on to sell and found the photos I use on my normal website became microscopic in ebay, what pixel size should the photos be so that people can actually see them?

not sure lemonice , dh has an old style digital camera that takes a floppy disk and i just transfer straight from the disk and they come up ok. Hopefully someone else will know.

If your selling your own things you dont need to tell the IR anything, its when you buy to sell you do, at least thats what I have read on Ebays Q and A boards.

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your welcome lisalisa

getting the photo onto ebay is easy - just upload (using browse) a digital picture. if you have a digital camera and can get your photos on your pc or on a disk it is easy.

paypal is a credit card system. you open an account with them and they take money off if you are buying, and add money on if you are selling. There is a small transaction fee for transferring money back onto your credit card under a certain amount (think it is £50).

I was the same as you. Bought for ages but was nervous about selling.Then I bit the bullet and have never looked back. Although the first item I put on didn't sell so I was sure I'd done something wrong ! Now I sell loads of stuff. You'd be amazed at what people will buy.

Just go for it. There are loads of email promts so you'll know who has bought one. And on "My Ebay" the summary page is really good to. You can keep track on each sale of exactly what has happened. Also ALWAYS send recorded so you get proof of postage for anything you sell, that way if something does get lost in the post you can (possibly) track it.

If you're a bit nervous for your first couple of items just do one at a time - then there can't be any confusion. Once you see how simple it is you won't have a problem with a number of sales at the same time.

I promise you once you have sold once you'll be clearing out every cupboard in the house to sell

Good luck.

Hi Twitcher

Firstly, Ebay provides the 'idiot proof' step by step listings guide. It's really easy to follow and not at all confusing.

I seel a few things on Ebay and it can get a bit confusing keeping track of what is where, who won it and all the rest of it. I get around it by filing things into individual folders. For instance, my outlook account has a folder devoted to my Ebay work. That folder has sub-folders titled -

LIVE AUCTIONS - This contains the emails Ebay send to confirm each individual new sales listing. They stay in here until auction end.

EMAILS FROM EBAY/PAYPAL - Does exactly what it says on the tin ! I hold all emails from Ebay and Paypal (unless it's junk mail from them)

EMAILS SENT TO EBAYERS - I keep a record of every email I have sent to other ebayers, going back 2 months.

PAYPAL RECEIPTS - I use Paypal as my online payment method of choice and so I keep a record of all my notifications of payment received so I know who owes for what.

ITEMS SOLD & PENDING - When an auction closes, I put the email from Ebay which tells me who has won it, in here. They are only moved to Archive once the transaction is complete.

ARCHIVE - Old emails from people asking about an item. I keep these for 2 months and then delete them.

On your Ebay account you'll have a section called 'My Ebay' which will give you an idea of what stage each of your auctions are at, how long to go, how many bidders, how many watchers etc etc. This is really useful and can be found if you click on the 'selling' tab of my ebay. I still like to keep a record for myself though.

HTH

Thanks to you both, that's really helpful.

More questions - what about packaging, where do you source cheap brown paper/bubblewrap, etc. from?

Do you send a covering note out with the goods you send?

Do you keep hard copy records of anything, or just store it all in Outlook (just worried in case a virus wipes it all).?

Feeling mildly confident about selling now!

we found a calculater which dh put up on ebay for 49p starting price. we were shocked when it sold for 26quid. we thought it was odd as when it wason auction we had several emails from people asking what make.model number it was etc. it wasnt even a scientific one, just a basic braun calculator.

so go and sell anything and everything, especially calculators!!

Wow misdee, 26 quid for a cheap old calculator - I'm rummaging thru the tat in my house right now!

Go for it!!! Like Kayleigh says you'll be astounded at what folk will buy. My FIL cleared out his basement of junk. He'd bought lots of "as seen on TV" gizmos but never used them. Got over £40 for them in the end.

I sell whatever I can, it really is astounding at what folk will buy even when you can walk into Argos and get it cheaper.

The My Ebay thing is great. As soon as I have notification that I've been paid, I print off the email and include it with the parcel so I never get items mixed up.

Only hassle is the trips to the Post Office

We've become an ebay affiliate which means that if you go on to ebay from mumsnet - button at top of page - then we get tuppence ha'penny a time - more if you're a first time user. So if it's not too much trouble we'd be exceedingly grateful if you wouldn't mind, grovel, grovel... (can you tell i'm on my knees?)