Selling on ebay.

Not only that, but the offer to sell is an implied contract. Unless you stipulated the maximum amount of time that you would wait for payment in the listing, you might not be able to re-list it for months. I think that is why eBay says you have to file an unpaid item claim. So they can resolve it for you. Since it isn't worth filing a lawsuit for specific performance of the buyer for most of these items, I think you should let eBay act as the referee. When they resolve the case, re-list the item. IMHO

For all you know, the buyer may be a minor and doesn't have the money saved from their allowance. You just can't force payment !

 

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I must admit this is one of the strangest of threads that I've .....

But ya know whut ........

It's a really, really great tutorial for someone who's never sold on E-Bay.

If you could somehow package the messages together and do a bit of video and drag it out over time, you could have a new reality series!!!

EBAY STARS!!!!!

 

EBay really sucks when you calculate their fees plus the PayPal fees. For lower-priced items the total fees can exceed 15%.

I am not sure though what the alternative is – any suggestions?

 

Or as high as 50% for a $1.00 item. But the local dealer here only wants to offer about 25% FMV, so eBay is a better return. Besides, if you need to recycle duplicaters, it saves the buyer from getting ripped off by a dealer ? I mean if I can't make anything off it, why not give somebody else a break ?

But I would like to find a place where circulated coin collectors (amateurs like myself) could trade.

 

BINGO:thumb:

there are very many trading card trading sites………i collect dimes and i often see other denominations for cheap but would never buy them because i don't collect them………if a trading cite took off it would boost sales like you couldn't believe. I have also i always thought that it would be a great idea to sell packs of coins. I mean seriously who doesn't like a surprise/gamble once and a while.:hail:

 

I might try some assorted rolls. With no duplicate coins ? I gotta re=roll them anyway, so just pick a different one from each sort cup. Started to do that with a box of nickles, but got lazy. LOL

You know, I imagine there are many like myself that are home bound or don't have affordable access to bank coins. And there aren't that many fair dealers it seems. I mean, a local guy is offering 8x face on silver. That's a whole lot less than I get on eBay.

 

ebay has a fee for listing the item that you will have to pay even if it don't sell.if item sells you pay the listing fee plus final value fee plus paypal fee.and it seems to keep going up.

 

Actually, you can list up to 100 items per month in an auction format with a starting price of $0.99 and no reserve for free. They allow 1 pic in the listing. Additional pics are 15c. But there is no insertion fee. You pay only if the item sells. Then there is the final value fee of course.

This is more economical for a casual seller as myself, with very few listings as opposed to paying a monthly fee.

 

my letter to eBay

Has your company lost its collective mind ?
Where on earth did you come up with these "average price" figures ?
I certainly hope your "final value fees" are not based on these so called "average prices".
Nobody in their right state of mind is going to pay $110.00 for a 1943 Lincoln Cent.

The 1943 Lincoln Steel Cent is so common that even in MS (mint state) they are not worth more than $10.00.

Your company really could use a complete make over in the way coins & currencies are auctioned.
Coins & currency need to be treated differently when it comes to reserved pricing and final value fees.

I am not referring to the legalized gambling that the "unsearch Lincoln Wheat rolls" merchants are hawking.

Your company could use some numismatic professionals to run coin & currency auctions and their associated fees more along the lines of Heritage & Teletrade.

Let's say I have a Lincoln Wheat Cent that is valued at $2.00 in the RedBook and I want to make that Cent available to someone on
eBay who could use it to complete their collection. There is no way for me to guarantee that I will realize $2.00 from the sale of that
coin unless I set a reserve price of $4.50 because of your flat rate reserve price fee and your extra photo fee ( there are 2 sides to
most coins ) and your final value fee and PayPal's fee. You make it impossible to turn an "honest" profit on ungraded coins.

The sellers of graded coins can do ok , but why sell it on eBay if it is graded ?
The sellers of unknown content rolls or bags of coins are just another form of playing the lottery , yes it is gambling. There should be
a cap of 6 times face value for US copper coins and 12 times face value for US silver coins , WHEN they are rolls or bags that are sold with the unknown or unsearched description. If the seller cannot provide an actual clear & viewable image of the obverse and reverse of each coin in the auction , then they are selling an unknown item.

I will still buy "unsearched wheat cent rolls" , but I know that it is in essence taking an extreme financial risk and not an actual numismatic pursuit.


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This is precisely why I am researching other on-line auction sites such as "iOffer". Someone MUST have a better way than eBay !

 

I've been selling on ebay for a month now. What a headache. I listed about 100 things. A common single dime or quarter or even a half is a waste of time. It takes just as long to list, then package a dime as it does something more expensive. When you got 15 dimes to package... Aye carumba!!!

I inherited a bunch of Nintendo 64 games. Those sold real well.

I'm taking a break now. Next time I will be more selective in what I sell.

 

It can be really tricky trying bundle multiple coins together into 1 lot in order to make the sale cost effective , based on the anticipated realized sale price. There might be 1 or 2 coins in a lot of 10 that some person really wants , but the reserve price is set such that they cannot afford to bid and the seller can't afford to sell the lot for less.

 

Man, the wife and I read every day for a couple of hours. We go through books. We buy at all the bookstores when our author's releases hit. I pre order on line, etc. Well, I get a couple of bucks for them when they sell, so I can buy for the coins. Has worked OK so far because I am recycling instead of donating. But for profit ? IDK ? Fees are way too high to be competetive.

 

I do pretty well with coin sales as a hobbyist. I have gotten to the point where I can support my coin purchasing habit with out spending money out of pocket. One major key to selling coins on eBay is to do a search for ended auctions on the items you wish to sell, to see if they are being at least sought after before posting them. This is why the see ended auctions search feature is available to eBay sellers!

 

Back in "the day" (I'm talking late '60s, early '70s) the only place I could sell coins was to the local dealer...and he would only buy my coins because I was a regular customer.

As a rule of thumb, I could expect to get "about" 50% of Red Book...sometimes more, most times less. It really depended on the particular coin...but 50% was what I used for an estimate.

15% is really good if you're getting "Red Book" for your coins.

If you're selling "crap coins" on eBay, you better get your money on the "back end" (S&H) because the fees will eat you alive.

If you're looking to make money buying and selling coins in general, stick with high quality, key date coins. They offer the best opportunity for price appreciation...plus, the prices will be high enough to make the sales fees worthwhile...(imho).

Keep in mind that you make your money when you buy a coin; not when you sell it.

In other words, the decisions you make when you buy a coin determine it's investment potential. When you sell a coin, you're simply mitigating your losses.

 

You make vaild points in your letter. However, it's a free market and buys are sellers make their own decisions. Ebay is a for profit business. You can't blame them for attemping to reach max profits margin for their stockholders. Their fees allow buyers and sellers to reach a worldwide market place. The same as any other place is going to charge you for using their space and marketing your product.

Ebay has enabled to sale coins for more then I'd get anywhere else. Likewise, it's enabled to obtain coins at a lower price then elsewhere. Just like going into a coin shop, show, flea market, etc, if you learn to be a savy consumer/investor, you'll do fine. If you find you're not making the profit you desire selling on ebay, go elsewhere.

 

I concur with that. I can get 30% greater net return on silver coins over what a dealer here will pay, and I don't need to travel to his shop. I can buy for about 50% of what the dealer wants for the things I have bought.
And since the dealers must be losing business to eBay traders, they need to increase their margins to stay in business. That makes eBay trading even more attractive.

 

Point taken.

I do still wonder how they arrived at an average price of $110.00 for a single 1943 steel Lincoln Cent. I was unable to find any current or completed auctions that came close to that price.

 

Could be from people putting on sky high buy it now prices.