Some basic questions about selling on Ebay.

I’m debating whether it’s worth the effort to sell a few small items on Ebay. Maybe a couple hundred dollars worth at the most.

I could place a classified newspaper ad with a phone call. How much hassle is it to sell through my 12 year old Ebay account? My score right now is 582.

Do I have to convert my buyers account to place a selling ad?

What about Paypal? Does that require converting to accept payments? Should I just ask the buyer to mail me a money order?

Is Ebay or Paypal going to report my sales to the IRS? (all $200 of them). Will I get a W-2 at years end?

What am I getting into? I just want to sell a few old items of my dads.

Ebay is such a big business now. Power sellers everywhere. Is there any room for people that just want to sell a couple things?

All ebay accounts can both buy and sell - no conversion is required (or possible).
You MUST use PayPal - using a MO would be both foolish, and against ebay’s rules.

No, ebay doesn’t report anything to the IRS (at least, not for non-commercial accounts).

Yes. ebay is loaded with small-time sellers.

Incorrect. You’ll get a 1099-K regardless of “commercial” or not if you sell over 200 items/over $20k (through paypal, but you have to take paypal to sell).
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/the-paypal-1099-k-dont-fear-it/

If it’s an item that’s listed on Amazon’s catalog, I find it a lot less of a hassle to go through them. It only requires a price and a one-sentence description instead of a whole listing that you design.

If you prefer, you can even send your item to Amazon and they’ll take care of everything from shipping to customer service to refunds for you, for a slightly increased charge.

Yes, it is definitely worth the effort to sell a couple of hundred dollar items on eBay. I’ve sold cheaper things and it’s very easy. PayPal is even easier (and it’s owned by eBay). The only thing I’d add is you might want to consider using** Craig’s List** for some easily sellable items. You can’t ship anything, they have to be picked up locally, but you’d be surprised how quickly things can sell through it. And Craig’s List is completely free of charge.

There is a Beta version that allows small sellers to add items.
I have.

Thanks. I’ll try selling a small $20 item and see how it goes. Hopefully Ebay won’t swallow up too much $$ for the listing.

With a new/previously inactive account… there’s a good chance Paypal will freeze your account and ask you for about a dozen forms of ID and a delivery receipt before they’ll let you withdraw any funds… and that’s assuming the buyer doesn’t try to scam you, in which case they’ll pretty much always succeed. Paypal only protects buyers and assumes all sellers are scammers until you have a couple thousand ratings.

That’s why I do no business on ebay.

Uhh, no.

You must accept Paypal as a method of payment, ie you cannot refuse to accept payment by Paypal once the item has sold, but there is no reason whatsoever why you cannot ask the buyer to pay by money order, and if he/she does accede to that request …all’s well and good, and no rules have been broken.

If you do this, you will not be protected by ebay’s seller protection guarantee.

So, yes, you could use a MO, but you’d be crazy to to so.

I just looked up ebay’s current acceptable payment methods. Here’s a quote:

They also DO accept some other non-paypal payment methods (ProrPay and Skrill), but I can’t see any advantage of those over PayPal.

Depends on what you are selling. Dad’s collection of silk ties might do well on Amazon but there is no match for eBay when it comes to collectables like coins, stamps, baseball cards and the like. There are over 20 million eBay users worldwide and in open bidding prices can sky rocket to unbelievable levels.

Bigger items (like a sofa) aren’t practical sellers on eBay. As mentioned above that would be an item I’d put on Craigs list.

Paypal might be required to offer but you are free to collect any way you choose. Personal check, MO, cash… all acceptable. Of course eBay will try to coerce you into using paypal because they are greedy and want the commission. But you don’t have to.

The buyer protection plan mentioned above is a joke. Just be straight up with your customers whether buying or selling; communication is key. Commission for sellers is about 10%.

I haven’t experienced that. Although I’m primarily a PayPal ‘payer’ (i.e. an eBay buyer) I’ve never had any problems with being an occasional eBay seller (and therefore a PayPal ‘payee’). They’ve never asked for any extra verifications since I first verified my account with them (like a decade ago!) Don’t know if it matters but I was an early adopter of their hash-code-generating, key chain dongle verification devices (I highly recommend them) so maybe that adds to my level of ‘trustworthiness’.

This quote is indeed correct and is there in the “Choose a payment (for Buyers)” section.

However, if you go to the “Accepted Payments Policy” , you will see the following :

All sellers on eBay.co.uk must offer to accept PayPal. The limited exceptions to this are detailed in the Restricted section below.

Sellers listing on eBay.ie are currently exempt from this requirement, but must offer PayPal in their listings if they wish them to appear in search on eBay.co.uk.

These payment methods may be offered in addition to PayPal:

Credit card (including MasterCard, Visa, American Express) or debit card (Visa, Electron, Maestro) processed through the seller’s merchant account

Bank-to-bank transfers (also known as bank wire transfers and bank cash transfers)

Payment on collection

Cheques

Postal orders

Online payment services: Allpay.net, cash2india, CertaPay, Checkfree.com, hyperwallet.com, Nochex.com, Ozpay.biz, Paymate.com.au, Propay.com, Skrill.com, XOOM

I phoned Ebay to enquire about this contradiction in terms (sic) and was assured that there is absolutely no barrier to accepting payment by cheque or postal order, and that the paragraph stating that these methods of payment were unacceptable would be amended.

As you will have deduced from the spelling of “cheque”, my dealings are with ebay.co.uk, but I would assume that policy is exactly the same in the States (although it wouldn’t entirely surprise me if it wasn’t …there*** are ***some slight minor differences in policy between ebay.com and ebay.co.uk, but I wouldn’t expect this particular issue to be one of them).