eBay

dove3ducks · ‎10-10-2014

Been away from Ebay 2 years writing a book,just started back...before always shipped before I was paid ,never had a problem .Now using Pay-Pal...they recommend to wait until buyer goes through checkout . Its been great so far .

reallynicestamps · ‎10-10-2014

Wow, only two years? That policy goes back to the days when scammers were faking Western Union emails.

Paypal won't allow you to print a shipping label until the bidder's payment has cleared.

You will find as a returned seller, that you can print the label at that point, but PP will hold the rest of the payment against your good service for a full 21 days.

This also applies to new sellers and sellers in high fraud/high value categories like electronics. It is also applied to sellers with poor reputations, but don't worry about that.

It goes on for a long time too, though I am not clear on the details.

And you are going to be paying FVF on your shipping too. But your other fees will be lower. And there are lots more Free Listings than there used to be.

Did you notice the pictures of the ART collection 18 paintings are on their sides? An easy fix.

rose-dee · ‎10-11-2014

Umm, sorry, you're asking $1.3 million as a starting bid on those 18 paintings, with only 3 photographs of just one painting? As 'reallynicestamps' mentioned, one of those photos is on its side. The other two are out of focus.

However, in my view there is a much bigger problem: lack of professional-looking photos of all 18 paintings in an attractive studio or gallery setting. It looks as if this valuable painting was stuck on its side on a kitchen floor in poor lighting conditionswith a lot of miscellaneous personal stuff in the near foreground. As it stands, this listing will not be taken seriously by anyone who might have a cool million or more to spend on artwork.

Also, your listing description is almost illegible -- the font is far too small and there is virtually no spacing between the lines, making an unintelligible mish-mash of text. As with the photos though, the messy appearance of the text is a minimal issue compared to the overall lack of written detail. You're asking someone to pay over $1 million based on 3 or 4 lines of description. I would think a paragraph on each painting would be needed, including date of execution, brief background on the artist(s), provenance, medium/media used, framing and frame type, any valuation documentation you might have and/or COE, date and place of purchase, etc. etc.

If were expecting a buyer to be interested in over $1 million in artwork, I would hire a professional to do the photography in an appropriate setting and hire another professional to design a custom, detailed listing screen for the description section, with at least one photo of each of the 18 paintings. If you use a 3rd party listing manager like Inkfrog or Auctiva and you have artistic skill, you may be able to do this part yourself (Auctiva allows up to 24 photos in the listing/description frame).

I didn't even get as far as looking at your shipping details, but they would need to reflect the value of the collection and proper, professional packing in crates. I'm thinking in the range of $2,000 to $3,000 at a minimum, depending on destination.

If you don't include a shipping cost of some kind to the U.S., your listing won't be visible on .com, which is where most Canadians and probably nearly all Americans will be shopping. You can specify local pick-up, but honestly, with this kind of money involved in a transaction, that could open you up to local thieves. for your own safety you might be better off using an escrow service or selling them through a gallery at a commission.

Incidentally, did you actually pay the fees to list these at auction? Auctions are no longer the key selling medium on eBay. Most sellers now find that one of the fixed price listing types attract the best end results. You might want to reconsider trying to sell these at auction, and list them on a 30-day fixed price basis with a Best Offer option.

Lastly, your title (subtitle actually) is no longer permitted on today's eBay. It's called search and browse manipulation, and may get you suspended before you even start. You can no longer use a well-known name or brand to suggest comparison to an item you are selling, i.e. by saying "looks like", "influenced by", "similar to", and words to that effect. Here's the link to the current policy: http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/search-manipulation.html

Actually, to be frank, in a transaction of this value, for your own safety you might be better off using an escrow service or selling these paintings through a gallery or auction house at a commission. I'm not convinced eBay is the place to sell high value artwork.

If you're serious about selling on eBay these days, I would suggest you thoroughly study at least the last four Seller Updates. You may get yourself into trouble one way or another with this listing. This isn't the "old" eBay; things have changed dramatically and buyers are now in the driver's seat. Your listing looks like something that may have passed scrutiny 5 or 6 years ago, but not now.

mr.elmwood · ‎10-11-2014

There is a guy around Thunder Bay that has some sort of mystical "lost" Porsche for sale for $21 million. Off and on for sale for about seven years now.

Listing and selling are two entirely different things.

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rose-dee · ‎10-11-2014

I took a second, more careful look at the listing mentioned above, and it appears your photos are meant to represent one larger, framed panel with 18 postcard-sized watercolours mounted onto it -- is that correct?

Wow, you really need to make it much clearer exactly what is being sold and give precise sizing of each watercolour. If even I as a seller thought you had 18 full-sized paintings for sale, similar to the one shown, this is a problem. And watercolours generally have a much lower value than oil paintings, partly because the medium is not as long-lasting. 18 postcard sized watercolours for $1.3 million? Really?

I would give details and measurements of each piece in the textual description, along with a matching photograph. For example, simply saying "Small, under 14 inches" for the whole lot in the item specifics isn't enough. Again, you need to take many more photographs of the individual watercolours so buyers can see details of each piece.

Although you've stated free shipping to Canada, I was unable to get any shipping quote to appear when I entered "United States" and a US zip code. Something is amiss with your US shipping information which will make your listing invisible on eBay.com.

If you intend to offer free shipping to everywhere, then I would at least describe the type of packaging you plan to use. Anyone even considering spending this much money will want to know you have the shipping details already worked out. For example, you might say: "This piece will be professionally crated and shipped via FedEx air courier fully insured and with full electronic tracking", and let the buyer know who is going to be paying for the insurance.

As I said earlier, I think there are better ways to sell this sort of item if the $1.3 million dollar value is actually realistic.