Does anybody?
I haven't for probably 2 years and have now just listed a couple of items. However although the listing templates have changed I used to be able to list several of the same for sale and now, unless I am missing something I cannot. Would this possibly be because there are no insertion fees this weekend?
Anyone?
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Ebay no longer allow multiple items to be sold in an auction unless sold as one lot.
With a fixed price buy-it-now sale you can list multiple items as explained here... pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/multiple.html
If you try and list several identical items as individual listings the Ebay system will detect this and block you. The way to get round it if you want to is to use photos from different angles, different headers and different descriptions for each item.... and even then sometimes they will stop you.
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Thank you Sir. That was easier than wading through their stuff.
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>> If you try and list several identical items as individual listings the Ebay system will
detect this and block you. The way to get round it if you want to is to use photos from different angles, different headers and different descriptions for each item.... and even then sometimes they will stop you.
Hell, why would they stop you, surely business is business is it not?
Would they treat the same item at a different price in the same stupid manner?
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40% of my small "retirement" business is via Ebay so each aspect they tighten up is soon noticed.
They seem to be using a very broad brush to a) maintain/increase their grip on income streams.. and b)stop scammers.
I often sell very similar but yet different items and I have to be certain not to paste in the same phrases to save me time as they incorrectly pick that up as if the items were multiples.
They seem to use some sort of scanning software on both images and phrases to pick this up.
Another thing they are trying to stop is people (mostly scammers) including contact details within an image so uploads of an item that has writing or a label on it may fail as it's caught by their software.
Further annoyance is they now apply a selling commission to postage charges so I've had to raise mine slightly to avoid loss of income... unless on a very expensive item where you can take the hit.
Edit: Still a cheap way to sell to a huge audience though.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sun 5 Jan 14 at 13:46
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The audacity of taking commission out of postage is taking the Micky. Are they part of the Government perchance?
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Yep that one made me grumble when they announced it the other month. Caused in part though by sellers reducing prices and increasing postage to avoid fees.... like an underpriced 99p memory card with £7 postage... that sort of thing. By adding fees to postage that loophole is closed.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sun 5 Jan 14 at 17:51
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Life in the UK.
Ruled by Fines and taxation.
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I think its a global policy.
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>>By adding fees to postage that loophole is closed.
And therefore it is extremely sensible. Same as Amazon (books, anyway). It really irritates me on Amazon that when buying through the marketplace you cannot see how much the postage will be until you've clicked on the item. Even then it can be hard to spot...
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>>>And therefore it is extremely sensible.
Well from Ebay's point of view but not the buyer/seller. Fees on items listed and fees on sold items seems fair enough as you are gaining an income from that item's sale. However assuming you charge postage at the actual cost (I do) then there is no income or profit from that.
When selling lots of items where the postage cost (an LP for example) is the same as the item price then the selling fees will double which is not really fair.
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Like some things, it seems the minority dodging the rules that affect the honest sellers.
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I would like Ebay to be more transparent on fees especially selling fees.
Recently sold an item at a BIN of £99.99 - listing fees were £1.38 which it tells you at the time but selling fee was a further £9.99.
Maybe I should have known that, maybe when listing it did tell me, but if it did then I missed it.
11% fees
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If I recall, ebay lists your fees when you compose and submit the item for sale.....
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Just the upfront listing fees are shown at the time of listing. There is mention if your item sells there will be a further selling fee and that wording is a hotlink to the scale of fees... not the clearest of pages but it's all there.
If you assume 11% total fees as mentioned by Bobby it's near enough.
Obviously the cheaper the better but I wouldn't look to sell elsewhere unless the fees rose to 17% plus.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Mon 6 Jan 14 at 13:56
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>> Obviously the cheaper the better but I wouldn't look to sell elsewhere unless the fees
>> rose to 17% plus.
With the 4(?)% Paypal charge too, they're quite close actually.
I bet a shop would cost you a lot more than that though.
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You're right about the shop. I have a relative who runs a similar small business to me but from a unit within a larger shop and no online sales. Their unit is cheap compared with owning a whole shop but even so they still have to pedal quite hard to cover that fixed monthly outlay in a quiet month. Also their shop is open... well shop hours. Most of my good sales seem to be in the evenings when a shop would be shut.
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>>Most of my good sales seem to be in the evenings when a shop would be shut.
I don't know what you sell, but you wouldn't have me as a customer.
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Oh do tell... because you don't buy in the evenings or....
Last edited by: Fenlander on Mon 6 Jan 14 at 15:15
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As in "you wouldn't have me as a customer if you had a real shop BECAUSE I wouldn't be poking around a junk yard in the fens!"
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If I had a junk yard in the fens that might be quite insulting.
But as I don't live in the fen and have never run a junk yard I'm OK with it.
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I'd love nothing more than to be able to poke around a junk yard in the fens in the evenings.
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Ebay needs to tread with care over fees. They have a virtual monopoly on online sales now, but if they start getting greedy they'll be open to someone leaner and hungrier coming along and climbing over them.
I should think the business has a very high profit margin, they do nothing other than run and police a website.
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eBay have always put theirown profits before the interests of both their sellers and buyers.
The imposition of compulsory Paypal - eBay owned - as a listing essential gives sellers no real choice of how they may be paid.
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Ebay is not a charity, of course they exist only to make money, its not a public service. If you don't like it, don't use it.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 6 Jan 14 at 18:27
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Gumtree is a free alternative, although I found when selling a £500-odd item that I got a steady stream of inquiries from scammers. Cheaper but less safe than ebay in my experience.
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Isn't Gumtree owned by eBay?
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>> Isn't Gumtree owned by eBay?
Apparently - "In May 2005, Gumtree was acquired by eBay’s classifieds group, for an undisclosed sum."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumtree
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Presumably a little 'hedge fund' for the monopoly of eBay.
Keep Gumtree cheap/free to use and stop anyone else moving in, and if it becomes increasingly successful start tweaking it to earn more.
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Hello Fenlander. What do you sell if you don't mind me asking.
Martin.
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There's always uk.ebid.net, which has much lower fees. The quid pro quo of course is that there are far fewer items, although their front page announces about three and a half million.
I can never find anything on there I want to buy.
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>> There's always uk.ebid.net, which has much lower fees. The quid pro quo of course is
>> that there are far fewer items,
No. The quid pro quo is that there are far fewer *buyers*.
eBay have a virtual monopoly that IMO would be very difficult for anybody to get anywhere near.
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>>>Hello Fenlander. What do you sell if you don't mind me asking.
What might be called in the broadest of senses collectibles.... paintings, ceramics, optical, mechanical, scientific, toys etc. At the modest end of pricing and if it doesn't fit in the Alfa then I don't buy so no big furniture.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 7 Jan 14 at 10:59
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A mate of mine makes a very good living from all manner of items mainly bought at Country auctions, usually general sales when the dealers can't be bothered. He majors on tea and Dinner services and generally splits them up and folk buy replacements for their broken items. Loads of stuff goes to Aus and Germany. Might be an idea for you if you aren't already 'at it'. May give it a go myself. Too ruddy cold and windy to build much. Ta ta for now
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Yes great pleasure in a bit of thought turning something something abandoned in the local auction's "boxful for a fiver" to a wanted item on the national stage... sometimes a profit too.
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One day, you will be a meawl-yon-air Rodney.
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Too expensive and risky to sell, and weighted so heavily in the favour of the buyer it is simply ridiculous.
Quite handy to buy stuff.
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>> Too expensive and risky to sell, and weighted so heavily in the favour of the
>> buyer it is simply ridiculous.
You're right, DP. You should open a shop instead and then see how expensive it is to sell and how heavily weighted in favour of the buyer real life is.
I'd say it's rather different, it's very heavily weighted in the favour of the dishonest.
Dishonest/incompetent seller, then the buyer has to pay for the return postage, tracked - which is possibly more than he paid for the item in the first place.
Dishonest buyer, then if he sends back a slip of paper, recorded delivery, then you're stuffed.
But most people are decent and honest. As NoFM2R will tell you, most small businesses fail because of a failure to budget for contingencies. Annoying as it is, you have to set up your business model to allow for, say, 2% of your sales going wrong.
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>>>One day, you will be a meawl-yon-air Rodney.
There is an infinitely small risk that could be the case.... but in truth an 'onest livin' will do.
Edit: Actually DP as a seller's business model it works well.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 7 Jan 14 at 16:41
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EEEK. Just sold a small item into BT26 ??? Northern Ireland. Will it go normal postage (2nd signed for) or have I made a HUGE cuff up cost wise?
No replies from Surrey please! x
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Same normal post, same cost.
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At least you didn't make the mistake I did. Sold a HDD recorder and weighed it as 500 grams so charged postage as appropriate (£4.80). I should have been paying attention to the scales as it actually read 5kg (£12.90).
Pillock.
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How do I remove a bid????
MD
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This link should take you to the page where you can do it.
offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?RetractBidShow
Assuming you want to remove a bid on something you have previously bid on.
If it's an item you're selling go to the help page... ocsnext.ebay.co.uk/ocs/home? and type in "How can I cancel a bid" then it should show you items you are selling and you click on the one affected.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sat 11 Jan 14 at 20:39
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No Sir. I wish to remove a bid on something I am selling. Gut feeling and all that!
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Sorry Fenlander. Didn't read to the bottom. Job now done. Huge thanks for the links. I would have been on it for ever without your help.
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I had 3 child car booster seats to sell. They are Volvo seats and very good, being relatively narrow and not at all bulky, unlike some booster seats.
As per ebay rules, I could only list one at a time, but in the listing for one seat I mentioned that I had three available. As suspected, the winning bidder wants 2, which I am prepared to do, selling each at the winning price. But how do I 'do' the transaction? Selling one is fine, but how do I deal with the second? Can the buyer pay me through Pay Pal outside of the auction?
I'm new to this malarkey! Any help from wiser members gratefully received.
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If you are happy to pay the fees due on the second seat just do a buy it now listing at the same price. No need for a photo or much detail if the buyer has agreed he'll do the buy as soon as it's listed.
Assuming you are posting you can make the postage cheaper on the second listing if they are able to go as one package.
Yes it is possible for the buyer to manually pay you through Paypal but it asks the reason for the funds being sent and if he ticks the box to indicate a purchase through Ebay you might get in all sorts of problems with Ebay as it's classed as fees avoidance and they can apply sanctions to your account.
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Add in the extra price in the "extras" box in the invoice you send. (Used to be such a box, anyway.)
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Can anyone explain this?
I've recently sold something on e-bay, something I think is worth about £1500 (although obviously the reality is it's worth what someone will pay for it).
Before Christmas it made over £1750. I started the bidding at £800, had no reserve and no 'buy it now'..but..the clown that won it (with 1 feedback) disappeared, the usual e-bay problem nowadays.
So on it went a second time. This time I started the bidding at £1,000 and put a 'buy it now' of £1400....
...it went the full 7 days...and made over £2200!
Why on earth didn't one of the many bidders at the higher end, buy it for the £1400 during the week?
Just when you think you can begin to work human beings out...
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>> ...it went the full 7 days...and made over £2200!
>>
>> Why on earth didn't one of the many bidders at the higher end, buy it
>> for the £1400 during the week?
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>> Just when you think you can begin to work human beings out...
>>
It helps you to understand why certain Nigerians get rich by sending scam emails out, and why some businesses used to write to the Crossroads Motel trying to book rooms for their reps. There really is one born every minute.
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>>Why on earth didn't one of the many bidders at the higher end, buy it for the £1400 during the week
Because the moment anybody places a bid that is higher than the reserve the buy-it-now disappears.
If I'd wanted to buy your item, and thought I might get it for less than £1400, but that there was a risk that somebody would have bought-it-now at £1400, I'd have put a bid on at £1000 as soon as I saw the item. This then gets rid of the buy-it-now and forces it to go to auction. I'd then have left a sniping bid for, say, £1300.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Tue 14 Jan 14 at 10:18
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>> Because the moment anybody places a bid that is higher than the reserve the buy-it-now
>> disappears.
>>
>> If I'd wanted to buy your item, and thought I might get it for less
>> than £1400, but that there was a risk that somebody would have bought-it-now at £1400,
>> I'd have put a bid on at £1000 as soon as I saw the item.
>> This then gets rid of the buy-it-now and forces it to go to auction. I'd
>> then have left a sniping bid for, say, £1300.
>>
Thank you...that makes sense...I knew it looked strange, but couldn't work it out.
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What am I missing here? I have just listed another piece of tat at £1.00 starting price, but where does one put in a reserve or does that only appear for higher value items?
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Go into Edit Listing which will bring up the same page as when you were about done listing the first time with all the info filled in. Just above where you put the start price in there is a blue link "Add or remove options". This will bring up a box where you can tick to add a reserve price. Once done it just adds the words "No reserve price set for this item" with a blue word "Change" after which is the link to get another box up where you can set the reserve.
However....
People (and Ebay, why do you think they've made it such a faf to set up) hate reserves. IMHO it is far better to set the start price at a backstop minimum figure you are happy with and then everyone knows where they are.
If it isn't clear why folks hate reserves...
At the moment I'm about to bid on an item of hi-fi. There are two examples of the item listed from different sellers at the moment. The item is worth £300 max but might sell for £230 or so on a bad day. The one in a lesser condition is a no reserve auction and at about £100 just now. The nicer example is around £110 but reserve not met. If that seller has a daft reserve like £300+ then I'm wasting my time bidding as I'll not go that far... and in bidding on that one I might miss the other no reserve example which I'm pretty sure I'd win.
I never ever use a reserve as it will always lose a percentage of potential bidders.
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The psychology of crowds - a bidding frenzy - is ruined by reserves. I never use them. Sometimes people end up paying silly prices - especially if the listing finishes 9pm ish on a Sat/Sunday.
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Thank you to both Fenlander and the Mad One!
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Other reason to hate reserves. You think it's worth £100ish. You bid £100, reserve turns out to have been £105 so you didn't bid quite enough, but a fiver makes no difference really.
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>> The psychology of crowds - a bidding frenzy - is ruined by reserves. I never use them. Sometimes people end up paying silly prices - especially if the listing finishes 9pm ish on a Sat/Sunday.
>>
I bought some items a few days ago with a finishing time just a few minutes before midnight.
I suspect I won due to some bidders having fallen asleep.
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>> >> The psychology of crowds - a bidding frenzy - is ruined by reserves. I
>> never use them. Sometimes people end up paying silly prices - especially if the listing
>> finishes 9pm ish on a Sat/Sunday.
>> >>
>> I bought some items a few days ago with a finishing time just a few
>> minutes before midnight.
>> I suspect I won due to some bidders having fallen asleep.
>>
That is why I use a sniping system.. Odd finish times often mean great bargains.
I paid £2.30 for £11 worth of Scotts vouchers (for Levington compost and Weedol) !!:-)- - due to expire 31st December 2013 -on 21st December 2013 at 4pm. I had asked the seller about quick delivery beforehand. Received 23rd and used the same day.
Minimal competition due to poor description and limited time span of vouchers and odd auction finish time.
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The other thing I almost never do is have an auction with a buy it now option. It sends out mixed messages. If you have a price in mind then list on buy-it-now for 30 days and wait it out. If you fancy taking a chance as I said above start it on Sunday evening for 7 days at a min acceptable price to you and see where it goes.
Often this will depend on the item type. For example most digital cameras, for a certain condition such as original box & all accs, will sell in a fairly narrow price range. People who buy such things seem to want them promptly and see little point in waiting the length of an auction when the price will end up around that of the buy-it-now ones anyway. So I always sell cameras and other similar items at buy-it-now prices. As many people use the search on "price inc postage" function I make sure mine is the cheapest by about £5 and often sell within 1-3 days, in many cases within a few hours.
It's been hinted at above but if you must have an auction with a buy-it-now then make sure the auction start price is high enough to deter folks taking out you buy-it-now early and wasting that option for you.
For example I buy cameras quite a bit and there may be several I'd like come on during Sunday evening. If they have start prices of say £50 and reasonable buy-it-nows of around £250 I'll bid £50 on them all taking out the buy-it-nows. That leaves me the possibility one of them may auction for well under value and I'll buy it.
Note that you can't put the auction start and buy-it-now prices really close, Ebay will only accept a buy-it-now that is 40% higher than the start price.
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>>>bought some items a few days ago with a finishing time just a few minutes before midnight. I suspect I won due to some bidders having fallen asleep.
Yes timing is so important. One of my best buys ever was some expensive hi-fi speakers that were fininshing 10am on a Monday. Most of the guys that might have been in there at the end would have been working and they came for a fraction of their value.
Photographs were rubbish too which helped keep the price down.
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>>>Other reason to hate reserves. You think it's worth £100ish. You bid £100, reserve turns out to have been £105 so you didn't bid quite enough, but a fiver makes no difference really.
Yes exactly and from the perspective of the seller they only need to set the reserve that £5 higher than anyone will bid and they waste a whole week then needing to relist.
And sometimes a relisted item will not attract the level of bids it did the previous week due to going stale.... not always because as Wespig says above you can get more... but it's a risk. I want to be done and dusted in the first week to keep the turnover up.
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>> And sometimes a relisted item will not attract the level of bids it did the
>> previous week due to going stale.... not always because as Wespig says above you can
>> get more... but it's a risk. I want to be done and dusted in the
>> first week to keep the turnover up.
>>
tinyurl.com/nuzlsso was relisted.
£4,950 first time round.
Worth seeing what it goes for..
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I sold a rare Porsche book " Porsche - Excellence was Expected " on ebay with no reserve. It was in excellent condition. Started at £1. Final price £110. I bought it new 9 years before for £32.
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>>tinyurl.com/nuzlsso was relisted.
S'nice but, I'd want to know the in and outs of a cats bot regarding the accident, and probably still not buy it.
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I recently bought a "Jaguar" hard boot liner for my X type so I can visit the tip with garden stuff and not mess up the carpet.
I bought at a good price from a relisted (lowered price) + collect (a difficult item to send).
I have just out of curiosity looked at the same items "recently completed"
I can only assume many sellers have little idea of value.
" I paid £150" , " new £100", "Starting price £75."
Some went, or did not go for £10 ( no bids) - £ 20. I paid more than this but happy with my buy
Collection is the problem with such an awkward item.
There are certainly bargains out there.
I need to shift a few items but it will be my first time.
All good info above. Thanks
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>>>Collection is the problem with such an awkward item.
Yes collect only items are very unpredicatable on price... a £100 item can easily go for £25 or less if it is in a difficult area to reach... there are regular bargains. Many times the less experienced seller will not realise how easy and cheap it is to send stuff via an online parcel contract and so list something that could easily be sent as collect only so keeping the price down.
For this reason I search each week on such items within a reasonable radius of me that are collect only then once bought at a lower price relist with carriage offered and that's one way to get a worthwhile return.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Wed 15 Jan 14 at 12:14
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Unethical, but possible.
Have a "spare" eBay identity, to bid on an item with a reserve.
Once you know the reserve, withdraw the bid.
You then know whether it's worth bidding on with your actual buying identity.
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In the old days that was quite common Roger... also to probe what the actual top bid was of the current high bidder. In a similar way sellers would do this with a spare account to expose the actual amount bid by the current highest bidder so they could then bid £1 less with their second account and maximise their price.
If I suspected a seller had done this on an item I was bidding on I always cancelled my bid.
Ebay has become far more tightly regulated now, some of it is annoying but it has made a lot of the dodgy ways too difficult to be worth the bother.
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You've just confirmed something I was convinced has happened to me when I first started buying on EBay, it really put me off along with snippers that's why I tend to stick to BIN unless really have to.
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A bit more advice required if Fenlander or anyone else can oblige. I have had a request to send (if won) a small plumbing item (low value) to Belgium. I have looked on the Post office site and it appears that they only take small packets and not medium which these items go out at. What are my options and at what likely cost? It weighs with packaging around 600gms.
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Can't you get it into the small parcel size with a min dimension box? Then it would only be £6.40. Have you noticed there are two different shapes of small parcel?
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You might get away with putting it in a big padded envelope and sending it as a letter, although at over a pound weight it's a heavy one. Three or four first class stamps to show willing, post and keep fingers crossed.
God I'm such a spiv sometimes.
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>> Belgium.
Ah. Well, they'll weigh it then. No latitude.
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E-bay selling - Fenlander
