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eBay – UNCLE FRED’S LOVE & HATE RELATIONSHIP
By fred | November 6, 2009
eBay – UNCLE FRED’S LOVE & HATE RELATIONSHIP
It is said that you should never bite the hand that feeds you, however several of you have constantly asked about selling on eBay, my experiences and so forth. So let us have a change from Everybody’s Danish and Humor & Stuff from Buddies and discuss the world of selling on eBay. Do I consider myself an expert, no – not really, but I can truly say I learned one hell of a lot about the do’s and don’t of selling there.
Even if I think many of their policies stink – if you asked me if it is a great market place I have to say ‘yes’ with a capital Y. It is a super place to find deals – you can save hundreds of percent in dollars if you know how to buy. I have looked for items on Amazon and there is no comparison, eBay is the market for good deals and saving money – period!
In one way I hate eBay, in another I love it, so first let’s get rid of the hate stuff first
I will say that eBay is two faced, they preach religion of doing things honestly and that good business practices be used, what a clean market place they have, etc, etc. – all from one side of the mouth, then overlooks a stinking mess on the other.
One example is months ago eBay – after getting a lot of bitching from Jewelry sellers, (I am talking about real jewelry not costume jewelry like I sell in my eBay store) – bitching related to sellers listing man made, laboratory manufactured diamonds as “simulated diamonds.” eBay then made the decision that manufactured diamonds / laboratory made diamonds can not be called diamonds or “simulated diamonds” on eBay they must be called by their name “cubic-zircons” or just “CZ” for short. An eBay seller can use the word “simulated” for other laboratory manufactured gems like emeralds, rubies, etc, but not for diamonds.
Back then I must have had a hundred of my listings using the word ‘simulated diamonds’ and someone evidently reported my listings and eBay stated to pull them off sale. It took me almost a week to correct all the listings, eliminating the words simulated and diamonds and redoing my sales listings.
The other day I noted a competitor on eBay using these unauthorized words in selling CZ’s, so I send him a note and told him that his wording was illegal as far as eBay was concerned. He answered back that “Everybody is doing it!” He was right!
To see how right he was and how many listings were using the words ‘simulated diamonds’ I entered those words on an eBay search. I got back over 5,400 listings. I couldn’t believe it! Over 5,000 seller’s items on eBay, all against eBay’s policy of selling diamonds.
After a long procedure, (eBay makes it almost impossible to get to a live person on the phone) I asked how come? The answer was that no one had reported them. That eBay will only take off listings if another member ‘finks’ on the illegal listing. I could not believe it! A company sets a policy but will not enforce it, will only enforce THEIR policies if a member reports a fellow seller. It made me mad as hell, if eBay truly wanted to clean up their listings and get uniformity in selling all they had to do was search the words as I did, took only a few seconds, and send a note to the 5,000 plus that are listing illegally and the job would be over.
I have little respect for a company that sets policy then does not enforce that policy. It pisses me off no end that a seller such as myself lists jewelry correctly in his listings and others get to slide by. I have e-mailed and warned some sellers and even reported some, but there could be over 1,000 sellers involved here, while it pisses me off greatly I am not paid to be the policeman of eBay. Policies such as this are only one of the bitches I have as a seller on eBay.
Another thing most folks do not realize is the cost of doing business on eBay. A basic store such as mine costs $25 per month before the fees start to add up.
Lets say a lady buys a set of earrings in my store for $6.50 with FREE S & H – which is a popular price, not including the $25 store fee the seller has approximately $3.61 cents of that $6.50 in selling and shipping costs as follows: – Monthly listing fees .03 cents average sales time 6 months .15 cents – final selling fee of eBay 12.5% which is .82 cents – PayPal cost of handling money approx. .42 cents – 2 ounce package U. S. postage $1.39 – Box for item shipping .27 cents – shipping envelop .06 cents – 2 logo company sticker .10 cents. Total $3.61
That leaves the seller with $2.89 of the $6.50 sale price. Now if he is a good buyer purchased overseas and invested in buying right he likely paid $0.75 to $1.00 or a bit less for those earrings, if you do not know how to buy you will never be competitive on eBay. Anyway, use the $1 as the raw cost of the earrings. The so called profit of the seller is $1.89 – think of that – for the $1.89 the seller must spend hours taking pictures of the item for sale, then make up a detailed listing for the sales page, then when the sale is made, list the item until paid, send a feedback note on the purchase, etc, etc, at the Washington state minimum wage of $7.80 (a guess) the seller is making far less per hour.
No wonder so much of the selling on eBay is done by old retired guys like me, having fun, just having something to do. Oh I have much more expensive items, beautiful costume jewelry of simulated stones and 18K gold plate; however the cheaper $6.50 sales are by far the norm. I am just giving you this example to show that it is far from a huge profit business.
I think the twelve and a half percent selling fee is much too high as do all eBay sellers, so it is another bitch.
On the other side of the fence I love the business, the buying mostly that is the fun part, I enjoy corresponding with the mostly lady customers. I have quite a few that buy regularly almost like clock work once a month. Know a number of the ladies by their first names, what they do with all the stuff is beyond me. Some have a lot of daughters; one has a large bunch of granddaughters she buys stuff for constantly, etc.
About six months ago I noted all the books being sold on eBay. I was and still am selling my book ‘Making money is simple – just boring!’ the published version. I only had about 60 copies left then, now I am down to about 15 as I have been selling them in my store also for $10. To republish the book and do it right I would have to spend maybe a hundred or more hours redoing it, redoing all the examples to show folks how it works, I was not interested in doing that. I was into the stock market for so many years I am just tired of that, at least the work part of constant research, still the first half of the book in particular is important to an investor, teaching how to buy in a down market and sell in an up market, the simple math to accomplish that plus the super software available for a few hundred bucks to make money almost by sleeping.
So – I started experimenting by selling my book as an e-Book – started selling it for .50 cents. Got sales right away, however with the eBay selling fee, and the PayPal over .30 cent per sale fee it was a losing matter, which I did not mind, just wanted to see if folks would buy it electronically – I found out they would. For many months now I have been selling it for .99 cents, I state in the listing that folks can get it free for joining my BLOG and some do I guess – it is hard to tell where folks come from. I have been selling from five to ten or more a week, a kick in the butt. At any rate, making .20 or .30 per sale on my investment book (Making money is simple – just boring!) is not a big deal, believe me – still it takes only seconds to send it to an eBay buyer and best of all – it makes me feel good that something I wrote that I think is important in helping people invest properly is getting read by more and more folks.
For kicks I put my purely fiction book ‘Soda Pop Soldiers’ for sale in my store for $1.00 as an e-Book and believe it or not have sold eight or nine the last month. Hey, it is a blast and selling something you wrote, even if you are not getting rich on it is fun.
Now for information about real selling on eBay, the concept that you will get rich right away is total bull shit, pardon the expression. Maybe if you have some super duper item that folks have to have, but who has that? If you want to have a fair business that will help your budget – I will tell you how it is working out for me.
First, you have to build a decent ‘mouse trap’ I call it. Make your site look nice and comfortable. You have to have a lot of items in that eBay store site of yours I call your ‘mouse trap.’ In my case I have over the past several years accumulated hundreds of ladies jewelry items, most selling for under $10 – items such as earrings – bracelets – necklace and earring sets – necklaces – anklets – rings – all the stuff ladies need to make themselves even more attractive.
The lesson it took me a long time to learn was that accumulating all that stuff in your eBay store is not going to sell it for you. There are hundreds of eBay stores all filled with tons of merchandise, the average buyer on eBay just looks at the seven day auctions, seldom do they search the stores. So the problem is how do you get the buyers into this beautiful eBay ‘mouse trap’ that you have worked on for so long, that mouse trap with all your beautiful items so low priced? How to you get the ladies to look in your store at all those items you worked so hard to find all over the world?
You have to develop some hooks to drag the ladies into your store – that is the trick to getting more and more sales. As I said it took me awhile to figure this out. I now have from 40 to 60 auctions constantly going at all times, I learned this from selling the books, when they were just in the store for sale they sold very little, however when I put them up for auction where folks see them – they sold much faster.
What I do is start all listings at .01 cent; this costs you only .15 cents per item for a week. I increase the price of the Shipping & Handling to include the cost of the item, so if the item sells I do not lose money, don’t make much either, but who cares? Sometimes in doing this the higher S & H causes the buyer to back away and not buy that item – and I don’t care if it sells or not. What happens is that the customer by clicking on that item automatically is now in you’re carefully made ‘mouse trap.’ You have all these categories loaded with super items, most buyers will click on a few categories just to see what they have, what the items of jewelry look like and the prices. As I said, IF YOU HAVE A SUPER MOUSE TRAP the trap is sprung, the buyer is hooked and they buy.
The 40 to 60 items you use as leader I really do not want to sell, most will show a small profit only, the buyers would be smart to just buy them. However the one super thing about a lady or most ladies is that they just do not want anything – just because it is a cheap price, most ladies are looking for jewelry that will match cloths, or outfits they have, a dollar or two more or less does not concern them. They want the jewelry to properly accent their vision of the way they want to look.
So – after well over two years the store is finally getting daily sales, if I wasn’t such a stupid square head I would have figured this out sooner. If my best buddy the Fuzz Fazekas wasn’t so damn rich and was doing this I would bet that an old retail merchandiser like him would have figured it out sooner. Crafty best buddy – old Ed Saraffian would also have figured it out sooner – so what – those old bastards are smarter than me – who cares – I finally figured it out.
So if you just have normal everyday items to sell, whatever they are – you can boil the success rules to the following:
- Buying at the best prices, finding excellent low priced sources of supply – bidding on large lot jewelry auctions, or whatever you are selling, – knowing how to buy at the lowest prices for the best merchandise in the U. S. or overseas is the number one rule of success.
- Price your merchandise so it will sell, not sit there and cost you .03 cents per item rent in your eBay store for months on end. Check your competitors constantly!
- Build an attractive store with a large selection of whatever you are selling and items related to those items. Lots of categories and or selections for folks to snoop in when you get them in your store.
- Use the “hooks” the seven day auctions starting at .01 bids, protect yourself with your cost of product in your shipping and handling – however the overall price has to be attractive enough to get folks to click on your hook, to get em in your store, get em in you carefully made up ‘mouse trap’
Stuff like making sure your product is properly protected from damage when shipped, treating your customers with respect and courteously, etc, etc, is all part of business if you don’t know how to do that don’t even attempt to start any business where you work with the public.
Ladies want replies to questions as fast as possible, they want to know the exact size, the exact drop of a pair of earrings, size of a bracelets, etc. If you do all that they will buy, BUT once they buy the ladies want it shipped ‘yesterday’ not tomorrow or the next day, they want it shipped immediately. DO ALL THAT AND YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL – hey, I love the ladies they are being awful nice to your old Uncle lately.
Just figured I would attempt to let all of you that seemed so interested know what eBay is all about – my love affair and hates associated with this huge world wide selling machine.
I am still learning – at 80 years, besides having fun writing, keeping up with my BLOG – all this is keeping an old fart like me alive.
I am awful proud of my “Mouse Trap” called Costume Jewelry Etc – I found my old birth certificate from when I was born in 1929 – it had a logo of a bird on a tree branch in full color on the cover – I have been using that as my store logo, the ladies love it. If you want to see a super duper store on eBay, search “eBay stores” and eventually it will let you search for my store. Stop by, hey, you don’t have to buy anything, I am just showing off a bit! I have hundreds upon hundreds of hours in time put into that store, taking pictures, writing listings, pricing, etc.
Love ya,
Uncle Fred
Topics: Internet Selling-eBay-Amazon-Others Discussion! | No Comments »