ebay
 

this isn't a technical question but it is a point about etiquette. i allow offers to be made on items as a courtesy to the community(sometimes i'll toss up a 10,15 or even 25-33% discount on particular items that i just want to get rid of), keep in mind when you sell on ebay 8-10% of the price of the sale comes right off the top and goes to ebay, then another ~2.5% goes to paypal, right off the top. then there is shipping costs which you pay AFTER taking it in the ass by paypal and ebay, which happen to be the same company..

if i'm selling something for say $55 with FREE shipping, and you offer $15... eat a fucking dick! it's disrespectful.

i will have a lot more items for sale in the near future but if i keep getting just stupid offers then i'll take that option out for even those who are looking to save a few more dollars. selling on ebay isn't exactly a cheap commerce, no need to punch seller in the nuts by wasting their time further.

by the way, i have to drive 20 miles to the post office to even drop off shipments every other day, so yeah.

thank you.

Why get aggravated and waste time by responding? Next time, just type "lol" instead of no. They'll get the message, or just ignore them altogether.

Also, never knew sellers had to pay so much to sell on eBay

Tree fiddy, final offer.

i won't use ebay anymore myself, i hate them. selling stuff anywhere else is easier, and less fees

yeah i pretty much do, it might give an idea of how some sellers view douchebaggery though. unfortunately offers have a limited quantity for whatever reason in ebays infinite wisdom to do so.

personally i fucking hate ebay with a passion, they're a bunch of greedy cunts. but it does serve the widest audience without having to run to 10 different websites to get the same exposure. even people looking for parts here often wind up there so it is easier in some ways and a royal pain in the ass in others because there's so many cheap fuckers out there.

i have an issue of just telling people how i feel, and i hate these people. i don't waste an hour of my life to give you a part for free that helps put food on my table. i already don't make much of anything doing this job, if i felt i could go back to working at the dealerships personally i think i would, i used to make a hell of a lot more than i do now. oh well, i steered into this rut and now i'm stuck in it, could always be worse and i'm thankful it's not.


i'm thinking about just making high quality medical grade sex toys instead. lol, you thought i was kidding...

better start buying up all the Sachs engines and "bridgeport" them

I'll leave the bridgeport part to the imagination lol

wouldn't be the first time that joke has been brought up about "porting" lol.

I agree with you 100%, some of them people are cheap assholes, I had an item on there for 45.00 with free shipping, and this one guy kept offering 1.00, I was so pissed off

if someone is doing it just to be an asshat like that i'd simply block them from all sales. easy peezy, but theres a difference between an asshole like that and someone who is just lowballing you.

edit: well maybe there isn't. they both want unrealistic deals at the expense of others.

my company is an exclusive ebay seller. shooting to break 1000 listings this year. The best thing you can do to lower the fees is open a "store" on there. It is an upfront fee, but the percentage you save in the first month pays for itself.

We also buy all shipping material and have a fed-ex account further adding to savings. But it still adds up at the end of the month when they want that cut of your earnings.

But yea, look into a "store". That and activate selling manager pro. Makes life much simpler.

Small parts that can be sent USPS flat rate are nice as the small box is $5.50ish to ship and it is a 2 day service if memory serves. I believe the next box size up is $7.50-11.40 But don't quote me lol.

i have a store set up, and i ship by weight since the flat fee services are generally overpriced unless you have something really heavy and compact, which is quite rare. most standard packages make it in nearly the same time as the priority packages, so i don't bother with that whole flat rate BS anymore. it has it's moments, but for the most part it's a rip off.

for large packages like irons or rotor housings, use Fedex. cheaper, faster and more reliable.

Ah. Yeah, the only next step beyond that is to reach the tiered ratings / power seller. We just missed gold last month. So you and us are certainly sharing the ebay/paypal zero lube surprise butt seckz.

He may supply 2 testicles and a dildo with that Sachs engine!..lol!

lol

This thread is awesome.
Last time i sold on ebay I probably lost money after shipping $10 used ftp lenses to Puerto Rico and having to pay fees even on the shipping? Wtf? So you have to overprice shipping to cover the fees on shipping ?

That would not be not Ebay's fault though Phil.Just a simple oversight of where you had to ship to and NOT cancelling the Transaction after finding out.
Like you without doing anything,I agreed to ship a hood scoop to the Netherlands From Canada..(YEP I said price SHIPPED!)..
I should have bought vaseline..

I've been doing a lot of selling on eBay in the last couple months and it is irritating when one of the "craigslist tire kickers" migrates over to eBay. I had one a while back send me an offer of $5 and free shipping for a custom modified and painted piece, and justifying by telling me, "I just need this for the parts, it's not worth anything due to the poor paint job..." Then he had the audacity to tell me "...this is a good deal." Keep in mind this piece I had listed up for $65. I sent him back this, "Where do you get off thinking that insulting my workmanship will get you this any cheaper? I don't know about where you come from, but around here people don't take kindly to the Dwight Schrute school of negotiations. You offer has been rejected and you have been blocked from my auctions."

Relevant:

ebay
 

You should have plenty of tubs laying around already, and not only for rebuilding your engine :lol:

That's why I do NOT rebuild engines.
I don't want to have guys walking into my garage with a boner!

(PS: do not be under the car and Ask for the "pry bar"...HAHAHAHA!)

This goes both ways
 

I bought an FD alternator off the Bay a couple of months ago. Seller had several alts on No Reserve auctions. I bid a reasonable starting amount, $50, but the auction closed and I was the only bidder. I 'won' at $1.25. $15 shipping.

He should have cancelled the transaction if he didn't like it.

Instead he sent me an alternator that was bad. It WAS NOT the alternator in the pictures on the auction. Different stickers in the auction pictures and it was very dirty. The alt I received was clean with no stickers at all. In testing, it faulted when it was first hooked up at three different parts stores. They never were able to get the machines to even attempt to spin the alternator. They were unable to diagnose what was wrong, ie regulator, diodes etc. I had two different testers tell me that they had never seen this before.

So my Ebay options are to return it shipping on my dime to Florida recover my $1.25? Lodge a complaint which if I win results in me shipping it back to Florida on my dime to recover my $1.25?

Bullshit. I'm done with ebay sellers.

When ebay was actually an auction it was the market price maker. there are still some things that are best sold there because of exposure. But do not any more sell at eb auction with a low starting price or you are likely to give it away as there are so few real auctions, that there are now virtually no buyers looking. Most Rotary part sellers there are for there are looking to sell over market. At the present time right here pretty well sets the market (and it could seem low/hi to you) and the protection is as good or better than ebay for both buyer and seller. Low ball offers are not much problem, a simple no is sufficient, but a low offer that you may consider a "low ball" may be that your perception of the market value is off. I have sold too cheap on here and have learned that my stuff was way over priced also. Only a sale will determine the actual value and only for that day, tomorrow may be much less or much more. And I always remember that we ALL want bargains!. Ebay at the last resort. Shipping is a pita no matter how you sell or buy.

True that.

Regarding bargains: I don't want to skin anyone-this is a community. I have given stuff away to local friends that could be sold, I have also been given some needed parts. That's the way it works.

If I'm buying, I just want a fair, reasonable upfront price. That can be a contest for some people when buying/selling used stuff. Generally if the asking price is not fair or not in my budget, I won't pursue the item. I can't recall making an offer below asking on used stuff in years. If price is fair, I'll buy it. I don't dicker or beat down used pricing.

I lean heavily on communication. If you can't or won't communicate timely and accurately, you probably will have trouble selling to me.

I resent gouging. I posted WTB for an item. Local guy pms me $400. Not much later, I see the guy post it up for $250. Not cool. Better to just note and remember for the future.

When I buy new, I either go local or to Amazon.

Jack

In the early 2000s I sold loads of stuff on eBay. Maybe up to a thousand items (though it seems only about 10% of people leave feedback even when reminded). At the time I used an auction management software called "Shooting Star" which made it very easy to manage the auctions, print shipping labels, keep track of payments, etc. I also had an accurate scale so I could get accurate shipping costs for people as to not make them overpay.

But even with 100% diligence on my part I found the buyers to be a massive pain in my rear. They would angrily email me about border charges, even though I don't run the border. They would come back after winning with offers to pay half of the winning bid. They would not leave feedback even though my auction management software would send them reminders. I'd send out perfectly good parts, hear a complaint that the part didn't work, then when returned to me, it would be a completely different part that had obviously been through abuse (members of this forum did this to me, and you know who you are, and should be ashamed).

It became too much of a hassle for the amount of work it took because in the end I might have made $1000.

Haven't sold anything on eBay for a while but I have a bunch of good stuff (like TII throttle body FMIC adapters) that I'm going to list when I have some time, and see how things go. Bought stuff lately, and had a buyer absolutely pissed because I accidentally feedbacked "item not as described" even with a glowing recommendation and 5 stars. Oops, my mistake. But I can't correct it. Now don't send me abusive emails saying that it's costing you sales because I was born, but not yesterday. Maybe it's the legitimate negative feedback over the last 3 weeks costing you sales?

"item not as described" really really fucks with you now. Like... really. It is a complete buyers market now, and sellers at buyer mercy. Selling manager pro "used" to leave auto positive feedback for both buyer and seller after X amount of time. Now it only leaves seller feedback for buyer, and we all know as you said, buyers can't be bothered to leave feedback unless you cup the balls during the order.

but the item not as described counts as a tick towards "above average seller" (I may have the name backwords here). Which gives you a TON of perks: Top listed in category, rate deductions, etc etc. "item not as described" never used to count against this unti last years policy update.

Still though, fuck him for sending a letter harassing you about a simple mistake. He has the power to call ebay up after you tell him its an accident and get that removed. He is being an ignorant lazy dick head.

actually i make about 1/3 what i would make in a month off my ebay sales alone, but then again i'm selling off a lot of stuff i have no intention of holding onto anymore which isn't a renewable source.

sad part is how ebay has no support whatsoever, got a problem? good luck trying to contact ebay to get a $100 final value fee credit back in a timely manner, which is kinda like super fucking annoying when you never got paid for an item in the first place and the buyers -never- agree to cancel the order in less than a week.

usually goes like this:

offer 5-15% under asking price
accept offer
2-3 days go by, no payment, resend invoice
buyer sends me a note saying they found item 'X' for cheaper and if they can cancel order
i say sure and cancel the order, asking them to cancel the order on their end
relist item
wait a week to two for the order to cancel
wait a month to recollect my final value fee credit since its likely it already passed into my current month's bill


people don't understand that when you do that shit we have to wait for the order to cancel, ebay charges us the 8-10% selling cost of the item up front until you agree to cancel the order. otherwise they assume you paid for it somehow- of which i have no fucking clue because ebay only accepts paypal now and must be paid through the website so it's just a bullshit method of them being able to hold your money. so usually you pay the fee then recollect it next month for an item you didn't even wind up selling.

example: you buy a $100 rotor housing, as soon as you click buy the seller has a 10% invoice fee for their current month whether you have paid for it or not until the seller can prove you didn't which takes time. so the seller pays the 10% final value fee and then recollects it once the back and forth process is settled that you wound up not being paid for an item, this usually takes 1-2 weeks which means it's likely the $10 will make it to your bill for the current month and then you will get a credit for it next month. so not only did you not get the $100 for the rotor housing, you paid $10 in fees for it until next month when you get that $10 back.