Anybody ever sold anything on line? Can you give me any pointers?

Robdar

I work for an art store. Today, after checking the Bradford Exchange, I discovered that 2 plates that we had in the store were considerably underpriced. Each plate was priced at $49.95 but I got them for 30% less because of my employee discount. On the secondary market, one plate is selling $150 and the other for $243. Needless to say, I want to sell them. Has anybody here ever used Ebay? Could you explain how it works? Or, do you know of a better place to sell my plates on line?

I appreciate your input.

Robyn

ballistic

I've just started and one of my test items sold already!!! It's very exciting when you get into it!!!

confusedjw

First go to eBay and register and after that there is a step by step to list an item for sale. As you look at the eBay page at the top there is a bar and SELL is one of the items.

The "harder" part is putting a picture up.

Sign up and check out the SELL and then post back with questions on the picture if needed

qwerty

It helps on Ebay if you have a few friends that can up the bid for you- if the item is not selling well, or to push the price up a bit towards the end of sale.

Just don't let them be the ones that buy the item, tell them what your reserve is so they don't go above that price.

Qwerty

drwtsn32

We sell tons of stuff on ebay. Search for the item you want to sell and watch the auction. See what price it got to when the auction is over. That will give you a good idea how much you can probably get.

When you actually set up an auction on ebay, it usually pays off to start the auction at a low price (like $1), especially if you are competing with other sellers. The low price will draw people to your auction and they'll bid on it instead of the competitors' auctions. We find that by starting it low, the ending price is usaully higher than if we started it high to begin with.

If you really do not want to sell the item below a certain price, you can configure a "reserve" price. This price is not visible to the bidders and it allows you to back out of the sale if you don't get as much as you want. However, having a reserve price may detract bidders from your auction.

So I think it's best to have no reserve and have a low starting point. If you are uncomfortable doing this, configure a reserve price. That's better than starting high, IMO.

Oh yeah, definitely write up a good description and take photos. I sometimes see auctions with no photos -- major mistake.

Lastly, you may have a hard time selling items if you haven't used ebay before. You start with a zero rating and people will be wary of buying from you since you have no history. You might want to BUY a few items on ebay to get your rating up before you try to sell.

drwtsn32

Qwerty, I hope you're joking... that is completely unethical not to mention against ebay rules.

Robdar

Thanks for the responses.

So, you have to bid? Can I refuse to sell it if it doesn't bring the price that I want? Are there other on line stores to sell my plates? How does the customer pay? Do they pay for shipping?

Ballistic, what did you sell? Did you get what you wanted for it?

Robyn

You can sell something as a "buy it now" item and just set a fixed price. No bidding occurs in that case.
If you decide to sell an item in auction format with bidding, you can set a "reserve" price so that you don't have to sell it unless it goes over a certain value (which the bidders cannot see).

Thanks, Good Dr! How do you recommend doing it? By "buy it now" or at auction? Robyn

Anybody ever sold anything on line? Can you give me any pointers?

Share this