Howdy folks, I've done some buying at ebay and have had good success. However, I'm thinking about starting to do some selling. Any thoughts? Suggestions? Tricks? What about the IRS? thanks for any light you can shed on this idea, rono
Hello Rono, I'm not an expert at selling on ebay, but I'll give you some info that I have. I assume you have an account with ebay because you have bought before. I have a paypal account also which can speed the process of payment in most cases, and it's somewhat more secure than having the person send a money order or cashiers check. Some buyers are more comfortable using this service. It just gives them an option to sending the check. Take good pictures ahead of setting up your listing. Use a low resolution so that the picture file is small, less than 100 k. Detail is pretty good, and it loads faster for listing and viewing. Also, watch similar items to what you are selling for a few days. You'll get a feel for pricing. Wording is a key in listing your items. You want words in your title that will bring the item up most often when buyers are searching. Be specific. Opinions vary on how to set your pricing and whether to use a starting bid or a buy it now bid. Unless I've got an item that I can't take the risk of getting a low ball price, I start out with a low bid. More people get into the bidding on these in general. I've used all combinations and have had luck with all of them, but I've used the low bid price most often. This is just a start. My opinions only. And I hope others will fill in the blanks I've left out. Good Luck
Just to clarify, you should use a high resolution and then reduce the size of the images (I generally make the images 800 pixels wide and let the height be whatever it is, often 600 pixels), not use a low resolution. If you need help reducing images, there are quick and easy free programs out there and I can list a couple.
The points mentioned so far are all good. Another thing to consider is the time that you want your auction to end. Many people say that having them end on Saturday or Sunday night is best because the most users are on ebay at these times (I personally use Sunday night ending times). Also, you must consider how you are going to describe the coin. Some people like to attempt to assign a grade to the coin, while others prefer to just let the bidders determine the grade. There are pros and cons to each method. Either way, you should have a high quality, detailed picture so that the coin can be viewed easily.
One more point, always show both the obverse & reverse of a coin. I won't bid or even consider a coin if I can't see both sides.
I have a Sony Cyber Shot I've been using for my pictures. I know how to adjust the image size on the camera, but I don't know how to adjust the resolution on it. Any ideas what it would be called on my camera? Thanks.
If you are going to be listing alot of items I would suggest getting a hosting account with a hosting company---then upload all of your photos there...then pull the photos off the server---that way you save some money from Ebay---and if you are listing alot of items that can help. A few tips on hosting companies---do not pick one of these companies that says Unlimited Space--and Unlimited Bandwidth---that is a bunch of hog wash---no one can really do that---if you think they can get an account at one of those places and uploade 1.2TB of stuff on their server and start pulling all of that info off of their server alllllll the time---you would get kicked off faster than you got on. Speedy
Many cameras have options for resolution quality - frequently they are on the menu as "Normal", "Fine" and "Very Fine" or "Extra Fine". Your memory card's capacity will go down as the resolution goes up.
Nick66. I have a Sony Cybershot. The image size is the resolution. Bring up the menu, then select "file" when the sub-menu appears, 2nd from the bottom you will see "Image Size". Click on that and it will bring up a list of 6 different sizes (640x480 thru 1472x1104). The larger the numbers the higher the resolution but the fewer pics you will get on your memory stick. Just highlight the one you want and click on it.
Most cameras have two settings... the size of the image, and the resolution within that size (see Roy's post two up from this one). Resolution and size are two different things. You can't increase the size of the photo (well, technically you can, but it gets really ugly really quick), nor the resolution so the best policy is to shoot big @ high res, and then reduce as needed. It isn't hard to do, there are free programs that quickly and easlity do it, and you can do more than one at a time using the batch function (sometimes it's even less complicated than that, just a matter of selecting the ones you want and clicking one button). If you list the exact model, I'll look it up and try to give you further direction if needed.
I use an Epson 4490 Photo scanner for high rez photos then resize to fit either ebay or this or other website..obverse/reverse only. cost somewhere around $250 can't be sure., scanner is also great for photos of the fanily to copy or what. Then if needed (just leaned of to work the thing) a panasdonic digital camera with zoom in for side and angle shots. There is also a microscope by Intell called QX3 that plugs into your computer, sold at places like BestBuy and like and cost around $50. The Qx3 was meant for children for there studies but a nice little gadgit for us older kids..takes close ups from 10x- 30x
If you wish.... Treat your customers the same way you would as if they walked into your business. Repeat customers will appear. John
Regarding images: The two options on a camera refer to resolution and jpeg compression. The items saying normal, fine, extra fine correspond to the amount of jpeg compression (which will also correspond to the size of a file). If you compress too much you will notice compression artifacts in the image and it will look poor. I'd personally take shots at highest resolution and then resize and compress to my liking. There are free programs out there that you can get to help you with that. Regarding Paypal. I'd strongly recommend always accepting Paypal. You may not like the service, but the fact is that people will generally spend more if they can use Paypal. It's almost like free money. You have it in some account that you can cash out if you like, or you can just spend it.. And generally people just spend it. They will also be able to use their credit card and maybe spend more than they should. So this is a good thing to a seller. If you do Paypal, my recommendation is to get a business/premier account, get verified and all that. Then, make sure you follow all the Paypal rules and you'll be protected from chargebacks. That basically means ship within 1 week, ship to the confirmed address and use a trackable service.
Wow, thanks for all the input. As mentioned, it's something I'm considering but want to consult with the experts first. From earlier discussions about flicks, I'm thinking that I will make myself a photo rig using a couple of incandescent lights (they've got flexible clamping shielded lights at Lowes for $10, mount them on a piece of plywood covered with cloth and use my pentax digital in macro mode mounted on a small tripod. This should enable me to get good flicks once I play with it a bit. How big a tripod do I need - 8"? Less? As for biz ethics, this is the internet and I can do an archive search and go back well over ten years and still find posties I made on UseNetNews - back before the WorldWideWeb was invented and it was just raw internet with gopher searchs and FTP downloads . . . er, you leave tracks forever. My name and rep mean a lot to me. I've always used rono because it's a family nickname and with a real name of Ron Overton, it seems to work. Lastly, I'm not looking to get rich, but simply to find a decent outlet for some dupes and extra stuff I buy from the mint that might take off. For example, I bought 10 2006W ASE and hardly need all ten (unless son and wifey get busy and create more than my 2 grandkids). I'm approaching retirement (wifey's already there) I see this as a way to generate some additional cash flow to help me buy coins to add to my collection. Anyway, thanks for all your comments and suggestions, peace, rono
