eBay

kimla_52 · ‎02-17-2023

Hi both my husband and I have opened up ebay stores. My husband has already had 2 people attempt to scam him.

My husbands store received an offer today on an item and we sent invoices and then I checked my store and I received an offer from the same buyer for an item on my store.

I checked their profile and it does look like they are legit buyers, but not 100% sure

How can I tell if they are legit?

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-17-2023

If they ask you to send them your email to pay they are likely scammers. Were the offers the same price as the buy it now? If so, then they will probably ask for your email as that is often a scam too. They then send a fake Paypal or eBay email saying that you have been paid and will receive the money once you send a tracking number. Just reply that they will pay to pay through ebay checkout. When they don't pay in 4 days you can cancel using the reason buyer did not pay. Are there other things that make you think they are a scammer?

You need to work on your shipping costs, services etc. I'll write about that in the next post.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-17-2023

You have listings 2 listings on .ca and the rest are on ebay.com which means that you are dealing in 2 different currencies. That is allowed but really isn't a good idea to start out and you aren't using the right shipping options, expecially on .com.

Your .com listings show that you ship to other countries using ebay international standard. That is service that is only for sellers located in the US. Your shipping to the US shows that you are using usps. If you are using Canada Post and not usps, you must specify that you are 'shipping from outside of the US as a shipping method. Because there is no calculated shipping on .com you have to use a flat rate. I would really suggest that you list just on .ca so that you can use the shipping calculator there. I can explain how to fix your listings on .com for now if you want me to but going forward, you should make sure that you are listing on .ca.

On .ca you are not making use of calculated shipping, at least not at the listing I looked at. It shows that it will cost $15 to ship a book to me in Alberta. I can guarantee that it will cost more than that so you are going to lose money on shipping. You are showing that you are using Canada Post Priority outside of Canada. That is the most expensive method and will cost more than what you are charging. You could tracked packet USA for packages under 2 kg and expedited USA for packages over 2kg. You can check online prices at the Canada Post parcel calculator. There is a lot to know about shipping so you need to do some research about the different methods. I'm sure that other posters will help you too.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/information/app/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

msau4301 · ‎02-17-2023

I'm not sure if your husband store is similar to yours but when I took a peek it looks like you sell some great books including rare first editions. Assuming your husband's store is (or could be) similar it may just be that someone interested in these types of books has been checking out the site and found you both. If you (or your husband) are receiving offers you are uncomfortable with the good thing is you don't have to accept any of them of course. They are only offers and if making you uncomfortable you could take the offers portion off the listings at least while you're just starting out.

If the buyer's profile looks "legit" as you say you can hope that they are (the whole innocent until proven guilty thing). Could just be someone thinks you have some great books and wants to try and get a deal if they can.

If you keep it within the eBay proper channels here, ship with tracking after they pay hopefully all will be fine. That's what we all hope for, myself I don't know how to tell if someone is legit for sure but I have spotted a few suspicious buyers (zero feedback and crazy questions) and I avoid them.

Also, further to what pjcdn is saying about shipping, oddly pj says shipping to Alberta is $15 but it is showing me $37.67 to ship here and I am in Ontario (same as it is saying you are). Something is up with the international shipping you are using.

Good luck to you and your husband. There are always more good people than bad and hope those are the ones that find you!

femmefan1946 · ‎02-18-2023

Shipping is the hardest part of selling online.

Bookmark this.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/information/app/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

Also:

Do you have your Managed Payments accounts set up with a checking account in a Canadian bank?

You can choose to have a US dollar account or a Canadian dollar account, but the BANK must be in Canada.

Do you understand that your early customer payments will be Held against your performance for 30 days?

When that Hold period is reduced, your Managed Payments will default to being deposited into your checking account on Tuesdays.

You have 250 Free Listings without a Store.

You do not need a Store to sell on eBay.

The $25 a month Store subscription allows you 1000 listings without a further charge, but if you only list 250 items you are paying $25 with almost no benefit.

If you only list 100 items you are paying more than you would for the same listings without a Store.

I hope you took a monthly subscription. You can drop that at the end of the month with no penalty.

Your fees are charged on the sellingprice + shipping fee+ your customer's sales tax payment.

And Books are a 15% category.

Collectibles are 12.9%.

(Actually there was just a fee increase, so it might be more.)

flipistics · ‎02-18-2023

@femmefan1946 wrote:
Your fees are charged on the sellingprice + shipping fee+ your customer's sales tax payment.
And Books are a 15% category.
Collectibles are 12.9%.
(Actually there was just a fee increase, so it might be more.)

It's worth mentioning that those are the eBay USA prices. I believe eBay Canada is 12.9% for books.

femmefan1946 · ‎02-18-2023

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4822

I hear there will be a fee increase in the near future, but at the moment dotCA is at 12.9%.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4822https://www.ebay.ca/help...

and dotCOM is at 14.95%.

Thanks for the correction.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-18-2023

I think that fees for books on .ca are going up to 13.25% on April 1.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-19-2023

The $15 shipping is a flat rate within Canada being used on the 2 listings done on .ca. The $US listings done on .com show $28US ($37.87C) to Canada. They are using eBay international standard which is not available unless the seller is in the US. They have 2 prices to the US, one with media mail (also not available in Canada) .

@kimla_52

I don't think you realized that some of your listing were done on the US site but when you do listings on ,com, the domestic shipping is always for shipping to the US. So if you are shipping from Canada you need to figure out a shipping cost from Canada to the US. To describe the service use one of the shipping from outside of the US options.

In order to show shipping from Canada when you are listing on .com Canada is international, not domestic but you would still price shipping as if you were in Canada.

Best scenario though is that for now, you list only on .ca and use calculated shipping.

msau4301 · ‎02-19-2023

Okay! I only looked at one random listing. This would explain why sometimes one seller has such varied shipping costs from item to item. Thanks for clarifying, I agree she should start off only using .ca, there's so much to wade through at the beginning.

byto253 · ‎02-20-2023

To dissuade scammers, I suggest also getting rid of the zero feedback by purchasing some small cheapo items like qtips, elastics or ebooks, etc. from a large seller that shows they leave feedback for their items. A lot of the oversees ones sells stuff for $2 or less with free shipping and do auto feedback.

Having a +5 feedback from buying will at least remove the big shiny beacon that a zero provides, particularly with the high value items you have on offer.

Until you are better established, I would suggest determining the best price you would want or the market value and put prices at then with no offers, and immediate payment required. That will stop most scam attempts right away. The zero feedback, offers taken, and high value is attractive to low lifers.

Even with a listing that has no offers, some folks will still send an offer through eBay messaging. If I am ok with those offers, I just reduce the price of the listing to that amount and message them that I have done that and they can just buy it directly from the listing. If they have not after a day or so, the price can be put back to where it was.

Also reiterating what others have said, keep all messaging and payment inside the eBay eco-system. The top flag that it is a scammer is wanting to bring communication and/or payment outside of eBay.

38e_avenue · ‎02-20-2023

Not necessarily a scam. I get offers from the same buyer on different items in different stores at the same time. The buyers are more than happy after I inform them the shipping can be combined 😄

No problem here with "0" fedback buyers. They are often new buyers, who found your item through Google and did not have Ebay account yet. According to my experience, the worst are the 2 to 5 feedback buyers.

kimla_52 · ‎02-21-2023

How do I change from .com to .ca. I tried to revise the listing from .ca but it keeps putting me back to .com.

reallynicestamps · ‎02-21-2023

You don't.

Because of shipping and currency differences, the site cannot be changed.

So.

When you close the listing

https://www.ebay.ca/help/ip?topicId=4146&contextid=c7b13326-b680-49d4-a1eb-7deeb9b2254d:186756b6a4a&...

you can then list it on dotCA.

But you start from the beginning.

That's the "sell" on the top right of your page.

I hope you kept your pictures.

kimla_52 · ‎02-21-2023

How do I know which items I put on .com and which I put on .ca. I didn't even realize I was doing that

msau4301 · ‎02-21-2023

I only list on .ca so not familiar with listing on both sites but if you look at your listings the ones that are showing the amount in US dollars are on the .com, those showing Canadian amount was listed on .ca.

Those that list on both may know a quicker way to find them together but in the mean time maybe looking at the currency listed will help!

kimla_52 · ‎02-21-2023

Thanks . Looks like I pretty much have to relist everything except for 3 items.

reallynicestamps · ‎02-21-2023

cat's cradel kurt vinnegut 1963

This is very unlikely to sell unless you correct the spelling to "Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut 1963"

While there is a place for incorrect spelling (I always list LoTR books with Tolkein AND Tolkien for instance) you have 82 keystrokes available and those are your best advertising.

You might also want to cross check your book titles and editions on Addall, to see what is available online. Addall is an accumulator site that covers dozens of sellers.

https://www.addall.com/SuperRare/UsedRare.cgi?title=&author=brian+daley+&title=han+solo+and+the+lost...