I am looking at selling off some of my stuff. some is photo gear some is other stuff. This will not be an ongoing business with any serious volume, just personnel stuff.
I have put a few things on the For Sale forum here. Looks like e-bay is the venue for most of it. Seems like PayPal is the pay method of coice there.
What should I know about e-Bay and PayPal?
Drew Bedo
www.quietlightphoto.com
http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo
There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!
They charge fees. Fees might be okay as the cost-of-doing-business but for small items might make it all not worth your while.
Lots of things:Originally Posted by Drew Bedo
1) Use the Fixed Price format, with the "Immediate payment required" option, to avoid non-payers and scammers.
2) If a buyer says they're having trouble paying, and asks for your PayPal email address, they're trying to scam you.
3) Use signature confirmation on any sale where price+shipping is $750 or more.
4) Insurance is your option; the buyer doesn't need it, although you can charge them for it if you build it into the shipping charge.
5) If the buyer claims the item is "not as described", eBay will force you to take it back, pay for return shipping, and refund the buyer's full payment.
6) PayPal's fee, which is taken as soon as the payment is received, is 2.9% plus 30 cents.
7) eBay's fee, which you are billed for once a month, is 10% of the buyer's total payment, including the shipping charge.
8) Don't sell anything on eBay that you can't afford to lose.
No, $250 is the limit. Make sure the signature is required for anything over $250.
My one bit of advice is to not let the anti-eBay or PayPal stories, which I'm sure will continue to come, worry you that much. It's still a tiny fraction of sales/purchases that end up being a problem.
I say this as someone who has bought and sold hundreds, likely thousands of items, mostly photography and pro audio stuff, with only a handful of issues. Mostly on the buying side.
Your information is several years out of date. $750 is the limit. Requiring a signature for amounts less than that only inconveniences your buyers, while not giving you any added protection.
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/s...policy?id=4345
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mp...ler-protection
Ebay charges fees on the sale price of the item AND the shipping cost, so figure that into your cost.
They also collect sales tax automatically, and remit it so you don't have to...avoids a big headache for small-time sellers.
My thinking is that if it's not a $10 item or more, it's not really worth listing.
It can be fun making stuff go away, and watching your PayPal account grow, so you can get stuff you want/need.
The post previous to mine makes some good points.
How does “2)” work? Recently I bought a BIN and couldn’t pay because eBay wouldn’t link to PayPal. This persisted for 2 days with multiple attempts per day. I contacted seller and explained and offered to direct PayPal it to him. He preferred I call and he manually processed the credit card. How could direct paying via PayPal be used fraudulently. I’m rather naive about fraud practices and always amazed at the diversity of options.
Back to selling on ebay. If you want to prevent "not as described" claims, I started putting "AS IS - For Parts - not guaranteed to work" for cameras. Sometimes I'd say "it was working fine when I listed it, but it's a 50 year old used piece of equipment, I cannot guarantee that after shipping it will still work the same.
For lenses, "AS IS - may have scratches, dust inside, handling marks on the body, stiff focus, oil on iris blades that I did not notice. The pictures will show the condition as well as my description" Or such.
Yes, you will get less people bidding, and less of a sale price. But when ebay buyers started hitting me for partial refund and "try after you buy - return" scams for 75% of my sales, I gave up on that. You will find out very quickly how many of the current generation and global buyers think they can get 90 day free return like for a mass produced item at a Walmart, from a small time individual selling 75 year old cameras. You will spend time dealing with that, getting your money sucked out of your bank by eBay to give to fraudulent scammers in Outer Mongolia, having to accept returns on YOUR dollar that shipping costs more than the item is worth, and more. Stand by for a wild ride in frustration. But it's the only show in town that will realistically get most of your things sold.
Garrett
flickr galleries
Be aware PayPal can come back and take the money directly from the Bank Account you use for a long time after a sale. No warning and no questions - they hear from the buyer with some kind of complaint and can jerk the money out - months after you thought all was fine and before you have any knowledge there may be a problem with the buyer.
” Never attribute to inspiration that which can be adequately explained by delusion”.
Exactly. If you sell a $600 Summicron Leica lens, 3 months later you see a $600 deduction. Log into eBay and find the buyer has initiated a "not as described" claim. They have a LOOOOONNNNG time to do that these days. Used to be a 2 week inspection period. Then a month, then 90 days. It think it's like 6 months now. So Fred Hipster buys your Summicron, leaves it out in the rain or drops it, and get's his money back months after you forgot about it. You may or may not get the rusted hulk back in the mail. Ebay doesn't care.
Garrett
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