Anyone got any tips for getting bids on stuff? Apart from, uh, “don’t have zero feedback”?
Type in all capital letters.
Advertise around. And talk to bidders. Post good info. Maybe put up a stat counter to see how many ppl atleast look around.
Maybe you might want to start small on ebay and get feedback from something cheap that wouldn’t care about feedback. That or buy something from the sister site, Half.com, as it doesn’t care about feedback. The two sites share feedback by the way.
Don’t get stuff from anyone with under 95% rating.
Don’t get stuff from anyone with less than a few hundred votes.
Watch where they’re shipping from. If they’re located in China then the $35 shipping fee will be 10x more than that guitar pick you’re buying. The regional filter is your friend.
Don’t leave feedback until you get it.
Read through the negative feedbacks. Sometimes it’s just the buyer being stupid; see if the seller has tried to resolve the dispute or gave a reasonable reply (ie., item got lost in the mail and buyer didn’t pay insurance; it happens).
Watch what payment options they accept. Some of them don’t accept debit, but will accept Paypal, which is a hassle unless you’ve already got money in Paypal.
Bid the maximum amount you’re willing to pay and just leave it. Ebay will automatically bid for the least amount possible. If you’re going to bid in small increments you might get hooked and end up thinking “Damnit, why did I pay that much?”
For selling, I think it helps if you’ve got a digital camera so you can easily upload pictures of the product you’re selling.
Yes, pictures are very helpful. I don’t think I’ve ever bought an item that didn’t have at least one original photo posted. A detailed description is good (with proper spelling and grammar, yes!).
Selling, watch out on your starting price and your shipping price. Be sure those are reasonable - a lower starting price is more likely to get someone to bid. People like to think they’re getting deals. If you have a reserve, sometimes it may discourage some people from bidding if they don’t meet it on the get-go.
Accepting any kind of PayPal transaction helps a LOT.
I haven’t sold anything yet, but these are the things I’ve look for when I’m buying. Good communication, reasonable pricing, clear policies… yup, there you go. I’m not sure what else to say.
Actually, if you link your bank account to paypal (which I seem to remember you had to do; I could be wrong, but that’s why I remember it took me so long to get a paypal), it’ll take funds directly from your bank account if you don’t already have the money in your paypal. It’s really nice.
No, that would be the debit option. Ebay takes something like 2% from your sale if you’re the seller and the buyer chooses the debit option with the Ebay-linked-to-Paypal-linked-to-bank-account thing, so some of them would rather have the money transaction done directly done through Paypal, but it’s kinda inconvenient for the buyer if they don’t already have money in Paypal.
Ya, thats how I do it, as I dont sell anything, just buy.
and as long as its through paypal, i dont know what ure ralking about with ‘debit’. I know a few, esp if they run a store, will take visa, or other plastic, and the rare take a check, but most its paypal.
Most of the time, the seller will just accept “Paypal”, which is really accepting payment with your <i>Paypal account linked with your bank account</i>, which works on about the same principle as debit. However! Paypal will charge the seller a small fee for this, so some of the sellers will want a more “private” fund transfer of your Paypal account -> their Paypal account, which doesn’t have any processing fees for the seller. And, for which, neither Ebay nor Paypal directly automatically takes money from your bank account.
Make sense?
I always thought you had to link it to your bank account if you want to sell stuff and want to receive money. If you’re buying I thought you just use the Paypal account to mask your credit card info.