Things I've learned from eBay

Over the years of selling on eBay I’ve learned a few things

1: If a chain electronic B&M store or online store makes a mistake in pricing and you get an amazing deal you can flip on eBay, just remember that there are least a thousand other people all over the US that got that same bright idea, and your ability to get a decent price is going to be compromised for months as a glut of this stuff lists the sale listings.

2: Sometimes the oddest things sell like crazy, and yet deals you think are amazing will just sit there.

3: Old non-tube amplifiers and receivers are generally pretty worthless unless they are a high end mark name. Surprisingly older, high quality cassette tape decks in good shape can fetch a very nice price.

4: When setting fixed price for shipping it is invariably a California resident who buys the item (I’m in Maryland).

5: USPS is on average a risker crapshoot than UPS, but for overseas items it’s only afforable way to go.

6: If good feeback rating will let you sell higher priced items more easily.

7: Paypal fees rape you when selling higher priced merchandise.

8: New, high end, brand name shoes on eBay are often insanely cheap.

Feel free to add your experiences

  1. The insanely cheap brand new high-end shoes are probably stolen.

  2. You should schedule your auctions to end on a weekday evening, as that’s when most people are surfing.

  1. As soon as you bite the bullet and pay more for a collectible than you originally wanted to because it’s the only one you’ve seen in a year, five or six will become available as soon as your auction ends.
  1. Item sales run in cycles. The category you made a lot of money in last year could be dud right now; hang on to the item for a little while, do some research, and list it when the category picks up again.

13: Paypal fees rape you when selling really inexpenive merchandise, too.

  1. The thing that you just gave to charity because you had held onto it for a long time while scouring ebay to get an idea if it would be sellable and keeps coming up with a Big Fat Zero, will suddenly be the hot collectable item.
  1. If you decided to sell-out and cash in on the trend of " ghost in a jar" auctions, yours, which would be funnier, more spooky and eveyrthing perfect, would never get any hits.
  1. If you get screwed by a fraudster, find out his actual address (FL not NM) and e-mial/call e-Bay numerous times, they may help by shutting his account down. If he switches to a new one, and you inform e-Bay it’s the same person, it may get shut down. If you call the AG’s of both NM and FLA and lodge the complaint. you get a nice bill from your phone company.

  2. Upon learning of this, you get your perfectly good account disabled after flooding the fraud’s auctions with bullshit bids.

Hey, he literally stole my money, I’ll do what I want with his account. Which is completely done now. Yay me! :smack: