I was wondering if someone could explain to me everything I need to know about opening a coin store on ebay. Ive been reading info on it but it is so confusing and I know some of you guys have ebay stores so you have prior experience. Thanks Jason
You pay Ebay X amount of dollars every month, depending on which store you open. You pay them X amount even if you dont sell anything. In exchange for X amount of dollars, you get X amout of free listings, and you get discounted final value fees. Coins for instance is 6% instead of 10%. You also get some other insignificant things such as traffic reports, you can create sales, etc.
blimey......everything? ebay community has decent advice on opening a shop, relevant to most items......after that just a case of checking , in detail, things like postage prices/postage services,countries you dont/shouldnt post to, export restrictions/customs forms,return policies,guarantees,grading, or not to grade. Once you get started, you'll learn from your own experiences, which is usually the best way. You'll get burnt occasionally, meet some great buyers, some complete idiots too.......
would you mind giving me an example like one of your past sales and what the cost went up to with fees or whatever
If you have a coin store, you pay a monthly fee to E-Bay of $19.95 but your FVF (Final Value Fees) drop from 10% down to 6%. What that means is that if you don't sell at least $500 in coins each month, you are paying more for your monthly fee than you are saving in the discount on FVF's. The Paypal fees are fixed at 2.9% +$0.30 per transaction regardless of whether you have a store or not so don't worry about that. Having a store also allows you access to some other marketing tools such as sales etc., but if you don't sell more than $500 per month, would you really need those tools? If you reach Top Rated Seller status, which is really not that hard, you can further reduce your FVFs by 20% which takes them from 6% to 4.8%. But again, my recommendation is that if you don't sell at least $500 worth of inventory each and every month, it is not worth it to open an E-Bay coin store. Paul PS I forgot that you can reduce the monthly fee to $15.95 if you purchase a one year subscription for your store instead of paying month to month.
Btw, E-Bay has a tool that is designed to help you decide which store is best for you. http://www.fees.ebay.com/feeweb/feeillustrator
Lehigh's figure are good, but I would disagree with one point. I do not think you need to do $500 each and every month, but you do need to average over $500 per month for the year. And take note that the 6% rate is only for coins. If you sell $1,000 worth of something else, that would make it. For most other items you only get a 1% discount from 10% to 9%. That means you have to have $1,500 to $2,000 of non-numismatic sales to equate to $500 numismatic sales.
Also, if you plan on dropping a few thousand dollars worth of coins just one month then I think you can just pay $20 for the single month. I think that's what I'm planning on doing. I think i meet all the requirements for top rated seller, minus adding the tracking info lol. Does this status happen automatically?
Yes, it is automatic and if you qualify you would already have it. You get it with or without a store. Look at your feedback and follow the seller dashboard. There are requirements and you status in there.
Thanks Paul. That is GREAT information. I've been paying 10%. It adds up when you're selling as much as I have lately.
Thank you everyone for the advice... I don't think I have 500 worth of inventory to sell even in a whole year so I guess it isn't worth it for me
