If we have any members who are really good at selling on Ebay, maybe you could share some selling tips with us. Stuff like tips on shipping, good times to end an auction and stuff like that. My mom does Ebay and she gave me a few tips but I think that selling coins is different than other items.
My primary tip would be: Don't sell on eBay. Their selling fees border on scandalous, and their rules are seller-unfriendly, scammer-friendly. I used to be an eBay powerseller until they came up with their newer sets of fees and rules about a year ago, and that was the final straw. That being said, if you do decide to sell with them, I always found the following helpful: 1) It's all about the picture. If you have quality coins, you want to show them off. Nobody wants to bid on an item they can't see. 2) Be very selective with your key words. Don't use junk like L@@K or other nonsense. Use as much of the title room as you can so you'll be found by more keyword searches. 3) End your auctions at a time when most people will be home, online, and able to bid. I had most of my auctions end Sunday night, and I always did very well. I timed it so I could hit all three U.S. time zones reasonably well, usually about 9 PM EST. 4) Write very precise policies: Whether or not you take returns, within what time frame, and who pays return shipping; if raw coins, mention your grading credentials; payment time frame, types of payment accepted, etc. 5) Until you get a large amount of positive feedback, start small. Only list a few small-value items at a time. You won't get really good bids until people perceive you can be trusted. 6) Be very customer-service oriented. Communicate with your customers rapidly and effectively. At the same time, watch out for scammers. Don't let people fool you. 7) Offer free shipping if at all possible. If you are charging for shipping, build insurance rates into your shipping cost. Any item with more than nominal value should be insured. Don't ship something uninsured you can't afford to lose. 8) Start items off at $0.01 with no reserve. I always did this, and only lost money on less than 1% of my auctions. The low start attracts large numbers of watchers. Personally, I don't bid on auctions with a reserve price. I think I only used a reserve price once, and it wasn't necessary. 9) Hate to harp on this again, but really consider venues other than eBay. Try posting coins here in the Open forum. If you absolutely must use eBay, consider all of your costs (posting fees, selling fees, PayPal fees, padded envelopes, postage, insurance, etc) and see if you can still really make it worth your time. Good luck!
Those are good tips. The pros for selling on ebay is that there are A LOT of people who buy there. The con is the huge fees. So, pretty much I'm down to selling items there in which I know I will have a large profit margin. Selling a 2010 Kennedy Half Dollar from your roll will be hard to do and make money at it, however, flipping the latest hot item such as the WHHarrison mint rolls or the Lincoln Chronicles or 2009 Nickels and dimes can be very profitable. I ended my auctions between 9 and 10 EST and tried to do it on Wed, TH or weekends. Good luck
That is correct, Small margin items are no good!! Forget selling For under 20% between e-bay and pay pal your money is gone
eBay will try to nickel and dime you with all the fees... One way I've tried to reduce the fees is by hosting my own pics and linking to them from the auction page. There are a few free hosting places out there, and you'll be able to show larger pics of your coins.
I'm currently selling in the neighborhood of $50,000 a month on eBay and it really isn't difficult if you use common sense - which most sellers don't. Don't use cute titles. Give a clear description of what it is you are selling. Use ALL CAPS IN THE TITLE as it is the only "free upgrade" you have. End your auction in the evening when most people will be home. Friday, Saturday, & Sunday are good nights. Make sure you don't end on a holiday or major event (World Series, Presidential debate, etc). If selling world coins, make sure the same is true for other countries (i.e. don't have French coins ending if France is playing in the World Cup that evening). Don't sell really cheap stuff. The fees will kill you. Don't pay for any of the listing upgrades. They just aren't worth it and don't work. List the coins in the correct category. You'd be surprised how many people screw this up. Don't use two category listings as they cost more and are rarely needed - especially if you used a correct title. Use big and clear pictures. Make sure they aren't too big that a person has to scroll or wait for the download. I prefer to put the picture up at the top of the description. Use the eBay gallery as it is free, but I suggest hosting your own pictures. It's cheaper and you can change them out during the auction if you need to. Give short, easy to understand info about the coin - not a story. Not all caps. Not multicolored text. No flashing picture. No unnecessary pictures. Clear and clean. Know the eBay and PayPal rules. You WILL GET SCREWED if you don't know the rules. Know how you need to ship and with what type of confirmation. Know that you cannot change terms of PayPal by writing in the auction (i.e. buyer accepts responsibility if no insurance purchased). PayPal doesn't care and they will take the money from you. If you ship internationally, you will have to take the risk the buyer is honest as there is no way to get delivery confirmation that will satisfy PayPal except Fed Ex or UPS express shipments. Know that in the eyes of eBay, you are a seller and therefore you are scum who is trying to rip off the innocent customers. List all info the buyer will need in the auctions. Let them know that you're charing $3 for shipping and you accept returns in 5 days. FYI, the return privilege for items purchased on eBay with PayPal is around 180 days if paid with credit card. You will lose a Significantly Not As Described (SNAD) claim. Period. End of discussion. You will also have to refund any shipping you changed. Do NOT give free shipping. This is a scam so eBay gets more fees. Charge a reasonable fee for S&H so that your costs are covered. It's also not a crime to make a little money on S&H. Don't worry about feedback. The system is broken and useless. Let buyers threaten and leave negatives all they want.
I agree with everything he said except I adamantly disagree with the last two. Buyers will neg you if they perceive you charged more than actual shipping costs. If not a neg they'll ding your DSR, which effects your discounts. Feedback is screwed as sellers can't neg, believe me I've had good reason to want to leave it for a buyer, but can't. I hate this buyer bias. As a seller you don't want any negs. If I see a seller with less than 99.9% positive FB, I don't buy from them. PERIOD. If you see a seller with multiple negs, run like your hair is on fire, because if you deal with them you'll be sorry.
Use the postal service and use PayPal's features to pay postage and print shipping labels. Makes your life easier. The USPS will send you free boxes for shipping. If you charge actual shipping, no one will complain and you will shelter yourself from a modicum of ebay fees. Don't be too scared of the fees, just be vigilant. Don't go crazy cross-listing and buying listing premiums... that starts to add up.
I sell using a true auction format - all start at 1c with no reserve. I tried free shipping long before eBay was pushing it and never noticed any difference in my final sale prices. It clearly hurt my bottom line. Many other coin sellers I've spoken with have stated that they have not noticed any increase in price and in fact a few said they felt they were getting lower prices. For fixed price, free shipping may work, but not for auction format. I said ignore your feedback because you will get negatives no matter what you do. I have feedback of 99.9% which is 1 negative out of 3577 feedback given during the last 12 months. The buyer never contacted me to say there was a problem. Since he knew I couldn't give one back he didn't care. When I buy, unless you have a lot of negatives, I just ignore them. It's just the way the broken system is. I also received some neutrals after I blocked a bidder who was a chronic returner. He left neutrals on items he was happy with becuase he knew I couldn't retaliate. Feedback is useless.
