How to get started as a seller on eBay?

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by calcol, Mar 3, 2021.

  1. calcol

    calcol Supporter! Supporter

    I’ve been a buyer on eBay for almost as long as it’s existed. I have over 1000 purchases (very few are coins) with 100% positive feedback. I’d like to sell some coins and other items.

    I want to have my selling account separate from my buying account for several reasons, one being preserving my 100% positive buying feedback. At the outset, I would like my selling account to reference my buying account so that potential customers on the selling account see that I have excellent feedback. But apparently, eBay forbids multiple account holders from having one account reference another. Is this true? If so, why and is there a work around?

    Other than starting small and slow, any other tips for a new seller on eBay?

    Cal
     
    Noah Finney, yakpoo and Matthew Kruse like this.
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  3. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    None of that makes the least bit of difference to anyone, buyers can only have 100% percent feedback. Sellers can only leave positive feedback for buyers, there’s no other option.

    There’s really only two reasons to keep the accounts separate. The first would be so people can’t see what you buy if you’re flipping things. The second and more important would be to prevent sellers from retaliating on your account if you have an issue as a buyer with someone.

    If anything sell off your account you have now since it’s been around a while and use the new one to buy.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2021
  4. cpm9ball

    cpm9ball CANNOT RE-MEMBER

    To get started selling on eBay, the first thing you have to do is make an appointment with a psychiatrist.
     
  5. Heavymetal

    Heavymetal Well-Known Member

    Like the difference between swimming in salt water vs fresh water here in Florida...there can be sharks....or gators. Be careful but prepare for blood
     
  6. potty dollar 1878

    potty dollar 1878 Well-Known Member

  7. ToughCOINS

    ToughCOINS Dealer Member Moderator

    The only suggestion I can offer up is to make the username of your second account so similar to the first that buyers may easily infer them to be both be held by the same member.

    For example, with my original member name being toughcoins, in your situation I'd call my second account toughcoins_selling.
     
    calcol and yakpoo like this.
  8. yakpoo

    yakpoo Member

    Blood.jpg
     
  9. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    It really doesn't make any sense to use the new account as the selling account. You would use the old established account and make that the selling one and then just buy off the new one. Makes 0 difference is buyers just made the account or it has 10,000 feedback
     
    dltsrq and YoloBagels like this.
  10. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    My advice is to sell under your current account. The entire feedback system is stupid and almost everyone has 100% feedback. It is so prevalent that buyers rarely even consider your feedback percentage. When a buyer wants to investigate a seller, they will visit the feedback back and look for negs or neutrals. If the seller doesn't have any, they make click the button for "feedback left as seller" to see what comments people are leaving, but if they do that, they won't see all your feedback as a buyer.

    Additionally, there are many lazy buyers who will simply look at your total feedback number and percentage without bothering to investigate whether that feedback is from buying or selling. In those cases, your existing buying feedback will help you.

    Other than that, my advice is to provide the best photographs that you possibly can. Good photos are the key to getting good prices.
     
  11. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    And also as a side note, eBay just SIGNIFICANTLY jacked up their fees. Coins are now 12.35% so price accordingly
     
    charley likes this.
  12. ToughCOINS

    ToughCOINS Dealer Member Moderator

    I know that . . . just answering the OP's question.
     
    Inspector43 likes this.
  13. calcol

    calcol Supporter! Supporter

    Thanks for the suggestions ... very helpful. I probably won't take the plunge until summer when there are fewer folks spewing Covid.

    Cal
     
  14. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    That is because of the managed payments.

    Before Managed Payments:

    Standard Seller: eBay Fee 10% + Paypal Fee 3.2% = 13.2%
    Store Subscription: eBay Fee 6% + Paypal Fee 3.2% = 9.2%

    After Managed Payments:

    Standard Seller: eBay fee 12.5%
    Store Subscription: eBay fee 8.5%

    In addition, eBay has adopted the $0.30 transaction fee that Paypal used to charge in order to screw people who sell low priced items.

    When you add it the $0.30 and shipping costs, my selling costs as a percentage of net sales is 15%.
     
  15. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    Which is my problem with it. It was marketed like it made it easier and implied would be cheaper when in reality it’s neither. The only real positive if that a buyer can’t open a PayPal case as well, but I just don’t see how coins aren’t going to take a hit on there from this.
     
  16. Lehigh96

    Lehigh96 Toning Enthusiast

    It is cheaper though, by 0.7%, which is not an insignificant amount.

    My problem with managed payments is how long the money takes to get to my bank account, and that now I don't have money in my Paypal account for purchases.
     
    -jeffB likes this.
  17. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    For now, though on higher value items (which I would never sell on ebay anyways) it's not clear if the fee caps were removed or not.

    I have a big problem with that too. It should be instant like paypal is, not give them free interest for several days
     
    philologus_1 likes this.
  18. charley

    charley Well-Known Member

    That is a lot of $ out of an owners' pocket. I don't see any advantage to selling on Ebay, at all.
    or, at an auction, in my opinion.

    My opinion, but then again, I am a personal knowledge of the person that is conducted via physical interaction between a buyer and a seller type of capitalist, about such transactions.
     
  19. hogwash

    hogwash Member

    cpm9ball said it all.
     
    charley likes this.
  20. Tusky Ranger

    Tusky Ranger Active Member

    Why don't you try USACoinbook.com? It's only for selling/buying coins. I use it a lot and have dealt with some really nice folks.
     
  21. Hiddendragon

    Hiddendragon World coin collector

    The advantage is for a lot of coins there's no other venue to sell them and get anywhere near their fair value. If you're collecting high-grade Morgans or something you will always be able to sell them. But if you're selling francs from the Belgian Congo, how likely are you to find someone who will pay you what they're worth? There are people out there who really want them, but the odds of that being your local dealer or someone you run into are small. Ninety percent of the coins I sell on eBay I purchased from my dealer's foreign junk bins for a few cents each. I know what they're worth and how to sell them, and I have a good idea of what's worth my time and what isn't. But eBay is the only venue where it's possible to do this.

    Because of the fees though you need to have a high margin between what you paid for them and what you sell them for to make a profit. If I buy a coin for 15 cents and sell it for $2.50 shipped, I can make about a dollar of profit. That's not a lot but if I sell 300 coins a month I made $300. However, if you buy a coin for $8 and sell it on eBay for $10, you're probably not making any money after fees even though it looks like you're making $2. You really need to do the math.
     
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