Best way to sell your coins online?

I didn't read any replies in this thread.

If you want to be successful at selling your coins for the best possible price.

Spend some time and money and learn to shoot the coins at high resolution and let the coin sell itself. Linking an image in the body of your listing is unecessary. You can upload 8MB pics to ebay. Circular crop the image.

I recently got one of the nicest most reassuring notes that I have ever gotten. I had to ask a particular buyer why he was buying my widgets when he has hundreds upon hundreds of coins for sale.

OH! include free shipping. reuse bubble mailers - it costs me $1.75 and includes DC thru ebay



Linking to an image is time consuming and an unecessary step, but here is how you do it.

How Can I Put Images In My Auctions?

There are 3 methods you can use to put images in your auctions:

Method #1 --
Enter the URL for your image in the Image URL box when you start your new auction. When using eBay™, this is how you get the little green icon to show up with your listing. You must enter the complete URL for your image, it will look something like this: http://www.ranchoweb.com/buttons/rw.gif ... (Obviously you change the URL to the URL for YOUR picture!)

Method #2 --
Put the following HTML tag in the item description box when you start your auction:

<IMG SRC="http://www.ranchoweb.com/buttons/rw.gif">.


You can repeat this HTML tag for each image you want to include in your listing. If you want a line break after each image, you can put a <BR> tag after it as well.

Method #3 --
Use the ranchoweb.com Fancy Ad Generator.
It is fast and FREE!!!

Read more: http://www.cointalk.com/users/26972/#ixzz1JlAkJqQX
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My first few auctions ended today. I used good pictures, especially since they were for low grade coins. I was actually surprised that my 1858 flying eagle sold. You could barely make out the outline of the eagle, and the date was legible but barely and the rest of the words on the coin were completely gone with many imperfections in the coin. I posted three good photos, one obverse, one reverse and one an extreme close up of the date to show that it was visible. I only got $3.50 plus $1.00 shipping out of it, which to me was good because the coin was nothing but a cull IMO, not even good enough for a filler. But the buyer should know exactly what they got from the high quality photos of it and the fact that I explicitly said it was a very poor quality coin in the description.

I want to strive for 100% positive feedback so I want the buyers to know exactly what they are getting and I also plan to offer a 7 day return policy to give buyers peace of mind. From now on I am going to use a flat bed scanner when possible for my photos. I think the details are better and the colors more true to life. As was previously discussed in the thread, I will now also upload pictures to picasaweb and past the HTML code to view the pictures in the ebay description box. This will allow me to put multiple high quality photos without having to pay the ebay fees of putting multiple pictures, savings, although small, will be passed on to the buyers.

I'm not sure about free shipping as of yet. I am selling low grade coins that I don't expect to get much money out of. I feel that people probably won't be willing to bid a dollar or two more for the item that has free shipping opposed to one that has $1.50 shipping. I think they would bid the same amount regardless of the shipping fee (as long as the fee is fair and not overpriced) Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm also not charging more to ship an item then it actually costs me in postage and supplies. When I begin to sell higher priced item I will probably include free shipping, but I want to get more feedback as a seller before selling more expensive items.

 

I do the shipping through paypal, with delivery confirmation/tracking number, so that costs an extra 19c. But it's worth the extra peace of mind. It's also very easy, eBay links your right to the paypal site, paypal prints out a shipping label right from your home PC/printer. No big investment needed, just a PC and a printer. You just tape the label to the envelope, and then put the package/envelope in a US Mail drop box, no visit to the Post Office or waiting in line needed. I was selling 1oz silver coins, so total weight was around 2-3 oz with packaging. I'd charge $1.95 for shipping, which covered the cost of the envelope, and all the shipping charges. I use bubble wrap envelopes to ship my coins. You can buy them in bulk from Walmart, they end up costing around .35c each. Then I'd put the coin in a flip or 2x2 and wrap the invoice around the coin for added protection.
Once you've done it one time, you'll be surprised at how easy it is. Good Luck. :thumb:

 

Okay, I got ya.. they are low value coins. why not tape a flip to cardboard and ship for the cost of stamp and offer uprgaded packaging. lots of sellers do that with coins under $10 - just make sure your envelope is under 1oz

1 out of 15 buyers opts for Priority mail with my listings.

just a suggestion.

make sure to post your auctions in the forum for those. http://www.cointalk.com/f8/

 

True that. I just printed my first label. I went to wally world earlier today and they had a postal scale for $24. I figure it would be worth it so I don't end up over or under changing for shipping plus to print the paypal labels from home I have to know how much the package weighs. I also bought self adhesive labels that work for the paypal shipping sized labels. they were $4.44 for 20 labels, so I may switch to just printing them on plain paper though and taping them since that would save a little cost. I also bought #000 Duck brand bubble wrap envelopes a pack of 10 was $4.44 plus 6% state sales tax. I figure that's about 47 cents an envelope, so not bad, but I will probably use just a plain 6.5 inch envelopes for single coins.

Could you put a paypal label on a regular envelope or does it have to be a think envelope? I know it would cost more than a stamp since you have to put a minimum of 1oz for the weight, but it would give me a confimation number too. I like to have that for both mine and the buyers peace of mind. I don't want somebody trying to scam me by saying they never recieved a coin that they did. Unfortunately there are those kind of people out there. But atleast it would save 45 cents on the padded envelope which is a little excessive for one coin.

EDIT: Better yet, is there a way to only buy a confirmation number and stick it to a standard size envelope with a stamp on it?

I will probably do what EyeEatWheaties said and offer multiple shipping options also.

Thanks for all the help!

 

Buddy, you have to buy your bubble mailers off of amazon.com. They're a lot cheaper. Here's 500 #000 at 8 cents each: http://www.amazon.com/500-Kraft-Bubble-Mailers-000/dp/B000PV1Y5O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303043721&sr=8-1 or try these: http://www.amazon.com/000-Kraft-Bubble-Mailer-250-case/dp/B000RM1BWM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1303043721&sr=8-2

I don't sell a lot of coins, but I did have an amazon store that I sold some CDs, movies, and books from, and I found this is the way to go. I was originally buying the mailers from a B&M store, but that was just too expensive.

 

Oh yeah, I done figured that out. I started searching online last night for small bubble mailers and small boxes in bulk. I will probably honestly never use 500, but it never crossed my mind to look at amazon, which is unusual because that's usually the first place I look when I'm planning to buy anything. I'll probably go with the 250. Can't believe I didn't check amazon, duh. Thanks for the suggestion and the links, much appreciated!

 

I tell you truth I like selling and buying on Craigslist.com. It's less headache's! If I am selling I make the person come to my area and meet in a public place. If I am buying I meet them half way!

 

Hmm, that's never crossed my mind actually, my brother buys and sells on craigslist a lot. I am going to try ebay out for a while and see how that goes. At least that way I can let the market determine the sell value by having many people bid. Besides, right now I am selling low grade inexpensive coins that I doubt people would be willing to go out and meet someone to buy. The only concern I have is somebody saying they didn't receive one of their coins. I sold a lot of 24 IHC for instance and plan to sell other lots like that, but I'm concerned that a buyer might receive the package and make a claim that "I received all but the 1909 coin, send me another or give me a partial refund". I actually got what I thought was a brilliant idea and video taped my placing each coin into mailer and sealing it with the shipping label already on it.

Not recieving a coin is frustrating too. I ordered a few from a guy and didn't receive a Sacajawea proof that I paid ~$10 for in my package. I contacted the seller and he swore he put it in the package, well I swear that he didn't. Now I don't think the guy was trying to rip me off. I think it may have been an honest mistake and he probably thought I was scamming him trying to get an extra $10 coin. Finnally after many email correspondences he agreed to send me another coin, BUT HE NEVER DID. It actually slipped my mind for a while, by the time I ever thought of it again the 45 days or so to file a paypal claim was long over. Atleast it was only $10 and not a lot more. And hey, everyone makes a mistake. I may mistakenly forget to put a coin in a package too, I figure my video taping it, If I ever get a complaint about a missing coin I will have proof that either they lost the coin when opening the package (I try to package in such a way that this is unlikely though) or they are flat out trying to scam me or perhaps I did make an honest mistake and forget to place a coin in the package. It would be on video no matter the case.

I tape me counting out the coins out for order, then I show the mailer to the camera with the address label already on it I show each coin to the camera and place it in the mailer and seal it once all the coins are in. I suppose somebody could claim that I simply opened the mailer after the filming, removed a coin and reprinted the address label and put them in a new mailer, but first, I have a little faith that most people are honest and this will never be an issue, and second if it ever was, the person would know they're lying about it and own up to their lie if I sent them a tape of me packaging the coins.

This may be a little paranoid and overkill though, what do you think? Like I said, I didn't receive a coin in an order I placed before and while I don't think the seller was ripping me off but just made an honest mistake, it was still frustrating and came down to my word against his. I want to avoid this situation with any of my buyers.