Wheelistically @ Claire.NU

In case you haven’t cottoned-on yet, I heart eBay.

eBay is a big part of my online life. I was ori­gin­ally very scep­tical of it, the concept of bid­ding silly prices for people’s old tat with no actual guar­an­tee that I’d ever actu­ally receive my pur­chase didn’t really appeal. I’d hear count­less stor­ies, both from friends and in the press, of people spend­ing extor­tion­ate amounts of both time and money on there — becom­ing addicted to the buzz of the final seconds count­ing down and the frantic bid­ding wars. It was only after a close friend badgered me about it daily that I even­tu­ally relen­ted and signed up.

That was about 4 years ago. My ini­tial attempt wasn’t very suc­cess­ful, it was all a bit much to take in for someone who didn’t even under­stand what PayPal was, let alone have an account. I was used to the likes of Amazon. Send­ing cheques off to strangers, receiv­ing scruffy re-used Jiffy Bags full of stuff people had kick­ing around their house and spent the last 10 years smoking over and hav­ing to go back online and rate them for the priv­ilege(!) all seemed like a bit of a Chimps’ Tea Party in comparison.

It took me a while to work out that there’s actu­ally a knack for buy­ing and selling suc­cess­fully on eBay. By tak­ing a bit more care, a bit more time and being that bit more strin­gent, the eBay pro­cess can actu­ally be really enjoyable.

I’ve been buy­ing on eBay for 4 years and selling for 3. Like a lot of eBay users, my efforts involve selling a hand­ful of per­sonal pos­ses­sions that I no longer need, want or have room for. There’s no big oper­a­tion, I’m just hav­ing a gen­eral clear out and can’t bear to throw away things that are still in fant­astic con­di­tion (it just seems wasteful).

Dur­ing the last 3 years, I’ve become a trus­ted PayPal Veri­fied UK seller with a Tur­quoise Star and 100% pos­it­ive feed­back rat­ing. I wanted to pass on what I’ve learnt dur­ing that time and have con­cocted a series of Hints and Tips below.

Hints & Tips For Selling on eBay

Accept Paypal.

No need to worry about rub­ber cheques or Postal Orders going walk­ies in the er, post. Accept PayPal and your buy­ers can pay instantly using their debit/credits cards, the money in their PayPal account or the money in their Bank account. Much better.

Make your sales eli­gible for Buyer Protection.

PayPal offers a Buyer Pro­tec­tion Pro­gramme, a dispute/resolution sys­tem that aims to pro­tect buy­ers from sellers that fail to uphold their end of the trans­ac­tion. Show that you are a trust­worthy and genu­ine seller by tak­ing the time and effort to make sure your eBay list­ings qual­ify for Buyer Pro­tec­tion so that your poten­tial buy­ers will bid with con­fid­ence. It doesn’t take much, but it’s worth it for the boost in your repu­ta­tion and cus­tomer peace of mind.

To qual­ify, so that your sales provide Buyer Protection:

• Make sure your PayPal account has been Veri­fied.
• Upgrade to Premier or Busi­ness PayPal account
• Earn at least 50 eBay feedback
• Earn at least 98% Pos­it­ive Feed­back on eBay
• Sell a tan­gible item on eBay
• Have PayPal selec­ted as the pay­ment option on the eBay listing
• Receive pay­ment to the PayPal account asso­ci­ated with the eBay listing

Make your sales eli­gible for Seller Protection.

Safety works both ways. You want to make sure that if an unscru­pu­lous buyer “pre­tends” to have not received the item you so care­fully wrapped and sent in the post, or uses/abuses their “rights” to get unfair refunds, make ille­git­im­ate Chargebacks (lum­ber­ing you with the fees, no less!), or have fea­tures on your account wrong­fully sus­pen­ded, you have a leg to stand on. That leg is PayPal’s Seller Pro­tec­tion Pro­gram. Read this one care­fully. The rules on this are strict — if you bugger-up on one of these points, you’re up shit creek without a paddle. You have been warned.

To qual­ify, so that your sales provide Seller Protection:

• Make sure your PayPal account has been Veri­fied.
• Upgrade to Premier or Busi­ness PayPal account
• If you’re a UK seller, you must be selling to a US/UK/Canadian buyer
• The address that you post the item(s) to must be labelled as Con­firmed on the PayPal Trans­ac­tion page
• Post the item(s) within 7 days of being paid
• Use a method of post­age that can be tracked online and keep the proof.
  For UK sellers, this means using Royal Mail’s Recor­ded “Signed For” Deliv­ery or Spe­cial Deliv­ery for UK des­tin­a­tions and Royal Mail’s Air­sure Deliv­ery or Inter­na­tional “Signed For” Deliv­ery for US and Canada des­tin­a­tions. Nor­mal 1^st/2^nd Class Post and Stand­ard Airmail/Surface Mail won’t cover it, you need to use a method that requires a sig­na­ture upon receipt and can be tracked on online, e.g. at RoyalMail.com.
• When the buyer pays for the item(s), it must be a single trans­ac­tion from a sol­it­ary PayPal account (no dodgy deal­ings, pay­ing X amount from one account and Y amount from another etc)
• Don’t be sneaky and charge buy­ers for using PayPal (this includes hik­ing up the price to cover your fees, your fees are just that — YOURS.)
• If a buyer begins a dis­pute and PayPal asks for inform­a­tion, reply within the time period specified.

Make Your List­ings Rock

Rules that make eBay Auction/Buy It Now List­ings Rock:

1. Detailed, accur­ate item descrip­tions. Don’t put a clever spin on it and call it “rus­tic” because it has signs of years of wear, tear, use and abuse, that’s just not fair. It might earn you the ini­tial sale, but you’ll soon have an angry buyer, pos­sible eBay strikes and PayPal dis­putes on your hands if you’re a little too “artistic” with the descrip­tions. Be hon­est. Be clear. Give as much detail as you pos­sibly can. A book with the descrip­tion:
   

   Shelved and used lightly since its pur­chase in 1979. Corners show signs of shelf-wear, there is a faint crease on the top-right corner of the cover (see image) and there is some minor sun-bleaching on the spine. Other than this, the book is in good over­all con­di­tion with the bind­ing and pages intact.

   is a lot more inform­at­ive and hon­est than:

   Vin­tage paper­back, great con­di­tion con­sid­er­ing its age.

   The second descrip­tion is very sub­ject­ive and doesn’t really give the buyer a clear idea of the con­di­tion at all. The age of an item does not neces­sar­ily com­mu­nic­ate accur­ately its con­di­tion. Some people take great care and pride in pre­serving and stor­ing their belong­ings in sealed, acid free sleeves and con­tain­ers, oth­ers just have things kick­ing around in their pet-ridden homes or on the cof­fee table next to their ashtray.

2. Say where the item has been sourced from. Whole­sale stock? House Clear­ance? Someone’s old dusty loft? Your own per­sonal, prized col­lec­tion? People love to know where there item has been prior to it arriv­ing at their door. Not only can it give a bit of indic­a­tion as to the con­di­tion of the item (sealed ware­house stock vs. stuffed in a box in someone’s damp base­ment), but it also tells the buyer about you as a seller so they know what to expect (big brand VAT registered retailer vs. a yummy mummy clear­ing out some of the kids’ old toys and clothes). This doesn’t have to reflect badly on you as a small-time seller, plenty of people buy on eBay with the exact pur­pose of pur­chas­ing second-hand, “recycled” or “reclaimed” goods.
   Some­times, a back-story can really help sell an item. As a col­lector myself, I am always really inter­ested to know where items were bought and in what cir­cum­stances. I like to know that I’m buy­ing from a fel­low enthu­si­ast as it gives me con­fid­ence about the item’s authen­ti­city and reas­sures me that they have prob­ably taken really good care of it and will pack­age it well.
3. Say if you smoke or have furry/feathered pets. Or, say if you don’t. Ser­i­ously. As a non-smoker, there is little I hate more than finally man­aging to covet that lim­ited, spe­cial edi­tion, now out of print rar­ity from 1983 only to find that yes, it’s in great con­di­tion, but it fuck­ing stinks of stale fags or rolling tobacco. I know Smokers can’t smell it or see/feel the filthy, dis­col­oured filmy layer that cigar­ette smoke coats everything with. But, non-smokers can and it’s abso­lutely foul. I can pick up a plastic CD case and tell by touch in an instant that it comes from a Smoker’s home. Any non-absorbent sur­face gets coated in nasty Smoker’s grime and this to me has as much to do with the “con­di­tion” of an item as tears, holes and miss­ing pieces. Even if you can’t smell it your­self, you really should state if an item comes from a Smoking envir­on­ment.
   Always state if you have furred and feathered friends as some people have dread­ful aller­gies and/or severe aver­sions to “pet smell”. I’ve seen people leave bad feed­back say­ing that the items smelt and that they were not told the items would come from a “dirty home”. It’s bet­ter to be hon­est than risk neg­at­ive feedback.
4. Take good pho­tos. You don’t have to be David Bailey or have a high-end cam­era, just use a bit of savvy. Don’t do any­thing arty. No funky fil­ters in Pho­toshop and no “moody” Black & White shots. Make sure the photo is clear, accur­ate and not blurred or “fuzzy”. Make sure the item fills the pic­ture. Think about the back­ground, no-one wants to see your cat’s arse in the corner, or the state of your old sofa or manky car­pet, it’s very off-putting. Choose some­thing neut­ral that drapes well — like a fluffy white bath towel — to use as a back­drop. I drape a cream com­forter on my bed and pho­to­graph my items on that. I’ve even heard that some people put their items inside a (dry) white enamel bath tub when shoot­ing — appar­ently, it gives good lighting.
5. State your Selling Policies. Buy­ers are reas­sured by clear guidelines. State what you do and don’t offer, this saves a lot of poten­tial aggravation/misunderstanding. If you want to be eli­gible for Seller Pro­tec­tion, you should tell buy­ers that you only accept PayPal and that you will only ship via recorded/trackable means to Con­firmed addresses in US/UK/Canada. Being strict does mean exclud­ing a few poten­tial buy­ers, but bet­ter to be safe than sorry.
   Be aware that although inter­net auc­tions are exempt from Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion (Dis­tance Selling) Reg­u­la­tions 2000, items sold via eBay’s Buy It Now and Second Chance Offer are not exempt. If you sell items via Buy It Now or Second Chance Offer, you should be aware of and make sure your selling and returns policies adhere to the Dis­tance Selling Reg­u­la­tions. See “Know Your Rights” at the eBay Safety Centre.

Ori­ginal Source Credit and Thanks to the FAQ and Terms and Con­di­tions sec­tions at PayPal.com

Com­ing in PART 2: Your Selling Identity/Branding on eBay, Seller-Buyer Com­mu­nic­a­tion and The Fine Art of P&P…