Question About Selling on Ebay

Rather than jump though hoops to find the answers on ebay .. thought i would ask here .

I haven't sold anything on ebay for quite some time

so I'm unfamiliar

1... are you still aloud to use HTML code and photobucket .. 2... someone said on one of the forums that they have or have done already... made sellers offer free postage .. 3..i know about compulsory paypal ..on non pick up items ..what else has changed in the last 12 months .. 4 if you haven't sold anything for twelve months is pay pal free for up to a certain amount of money.

5...what should i watch out for ........are they using dirty tricks on you when listing to get more money out of you .

  1. last time i remember incurring additional charges for credit cards and e-checks.........how do i avoid this.

Going to list the Ivan law myford hobbing attatchment, maybe my amolco

all the best.markj

Reply to
mark
Loading thread data ...

mattathayde had written this in response to

formatting link
:

------------------------------------- mark wrote:

i havent used ebay for a while but i can help a little bit.

1- i think you can use html still just looking at some of the listings but not positive on PB (not positive on this part though) 2- havent see the free postage thing, i bout something a few days ago and paid postage on it 3/4- paypal now charges fees when you use a system that sends the little "please pay me" email (i.e. ebay, etsy, etc) they charge 2.9% plus i think 30 cents for the transaction 5- i think anything that will charge you is listed as a $ for service 6-if you dont want the fees of the echeck and CCs just dont accept them is pretty much the only options

-matt

##-----------------------------------------------## Delivered via

formatting link
Forums Web and RSS access to your favorite newsgroup - uk.rec.models.engineering - 11843 messages and counting! ##-----------------------------------------------##

Reply to
mattathayde

Hello Mark, I got caught out recently in similar circumstances to you.

I'm not sure about the HTML & PB, I think external references to photos are OK as there is that option in making a listing, but I suspect ebay picks up the photo and embeds it into the listing rather than liniking to PB. I think links to 'your site' are prohibited.

eBay final value charges are now 10%, they were 5%ish

It is compulsory to offer Pimpal, but you might get away with refusing it after the event if it's a collection only item. Pp charges are a sliding scale of 5+% up to something like £100 and less after that. However, if you take/try to take as much as maybe £100 in a month they will insist you upgrade to a trading account before they permit you to colect the money - or pay an excess sin fee. On one occasion I went over the limit and got charged 50p by paypal for a £2.50 transaction, plus the ebay fees ending up at a total of about

38% of the transaction value.

fleaBay has gone a long way to completely insulating the seller from the buyer (presumably so you can't do back door deals). Even after doing a trade, you don't get to see the buyers email address unless they have already paid with pimpal, the only route for comms is through the fleabay comms system or put your phone number in the listing 'for queries'.

While a listing is active at least, you can only reply once to a given query. This is aggro if, like me you get a query and respond with 'not sure, I'll check and let you know tomorrow' - can't do that, the comms system blocks out the reply button after one use, but you obviously don't know that's going to happen in advance so you're stuck with the other guy expecting a response which you are not enabled to give. I did a search on his username and tried contacting him that way and the system picked up that I'd previously replied to him, assumed I was trading ilicitly and blocked the message.

Don't mention the work 'Cash' anywhere, I had two items cancelled (unhelpfully after 6 days 12 hours, with bids present!) because I said cash on collection. They picked up the word and said I was trying to elicit an illegal transaction.

All in all I have found ebay recently to have become an expensive thorough PITA and I doubt I'll use it for selling in the future very much. I don't condone the very high postage fees charged by some people, but I can really understand why - 'though you don't actually gain as much as you think, because the pimpal commission is charged on the whole sum including postage.

By the time you're finished, fleabay/pimpal will have had 15~20% of your money, but I suppose at least you get a lot of coverage and might argue that that increases the selling price somewhat.

Richard

Reply to
Richard Shute

Thanks for very helpful reply Richard .. think will list on John and Charles' site

Car boot sales have gone nuts here in North Wales.. at least three giant ones a week, through the whole summer..in a radius of 5 miles. and practically one every day, if i was willing to travel 25 miles i wondered why . ..now i know.

All the best.markj

Reply to
mark

yep was wondering what was going on ..

you used to get the pics lower down in the listing that you insert amongst HTML code .

now i see they must pinch the pics ..downsize them ..and degrade them ..and put them up top..........when you do open full size, the pics been degraded ..too low kb's.

last time i sold stuff ..i used to take my time and make a beautifully presented HTML show....that would show off my items to advantage.

so now i cant ...i cant really present in a fashion that would let people know that an item is pristine ..and worth paying something for.

therefor .........with the other charges the hastle of having a non paying bidder .......or a bidder that receives the item ........and says he hasnt...and you're made to accept a knock and refund etc...i say bugger it .

hope some one starts up a proper competitive auction site soon ..that takes on ebay ..and knocks them to the oblivion that they deserve.

all the best.markj

Reply to
mark

Unfortunately, don't hold your breath. ebay is way too big & all pervasive to give serious competition any kind of a chance.

Regards, Tony

Reply to
Tony Jeffree

that photobucket and html thing must have only happend over the last 7 days or so ..

because i see some auctions that are nearly due to finish, still running it ..example..

formatting link
all the best.markj

Reply to
mark

On a related note, I was quite horrified only a few days ago when I paid for some shipping/postage to a company who offered to accept Paypal among other things. I elected to pay by credit card.

On the point of completing the transaction I was transfered to a page that said words to the effect of 'Paypal has noticed you have a Paypal account associated with this email address and we have taken over the transaction' !!! WTF Past tense, no options, we've hijacked it.

That's fraud in my mind. I didn't want to pay with Pimpal, I didn't agree to pay with pimpal, I tried to pay with anything else other than pimpal, they blocked it.

Anyone else had this? Richard

Reply to
Richard Shute

I would report that to your CC company at the very least. Trouble might be producing the evidence :-(

Tim

Reply to
Tim

There is Ebid, but it's very quiet. I've listed a bunch of stuff and not had so much as a single bid. It is very cheap to use, but until traffic builds a good bit it's not really worth it.

cheers.

Reply to
penfold

Have you contacted the supplier that you were attempting to pay, and made them aware of your annoyance? I would be well pi**ed off also.

Richard

Reply to
Richard Edwards

just found out ..you can get round the non listing of HTML and pics embedded .. with a free ebay prog called turbo lister

sort of dream weaver for ebay

Ive downloaded it ...and you can paste your previous template right into it ..

it enables you to take your time with the listing...editing it on your desktop ..before clicking the submit button

all the buttons are there ..postage start price, start time

looks like easy work to me .

you can do several listings on it ...and set them so they all start at staggered times or at the same time.........then upload them all in one go....with all the form filling done.

all the best.markj

Reply to
mark

I elected to pay by credit card.

The firm concerned was Parcel2Go who I have now found out are 'in bed' with ebay/paypal. Exactly how far and who owns what I'm not sure, but it seems to be another tentacle of the increasingly pervasive fleabay megalith. :-(

Richard

Reply to
Richard Shute

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.