Ebay is brutal to new sellers

[letsgobluebombers]

So I've had an ebay account for like 10 years but only as a buyer. Last night I go and try and create my first listings to sell some stuff I have no need for that might sell well on ebay. Have some issues that require me to call in to support to fix — not a great start but the person I spoke to was very helpful.

Post a couple items, go to sleep and wake up to find that my account had been suspended because it was flagged for concerning behaviour... which I guess was posting items to sell? Using ebay for the purpose it exists to fulfill? 

Took another heated call with the support staff to resolve the issue, and I felt bad because I was a bit salty towards the guy who I talked to because I know it's not his fault but wow. But if this is my experience in just the first few hours of being an ebay seller what am I in for? Absolutely ridiculous and I haven't even been subjected to the outrageous fees that I see other users complaining about. 

Always thought of ebay as a good resource to buy and sell stuff, but this has given me real cause for concern, especially seeing how easy for them to just scrub my account and listings from their site on a whims notice.

Anyone else have a similar experience when they first started selling or am I just that lucky?

[ptpark]

I think that eBay was concerned that your account had been hacked, so they needed to actually communicate with you to enable your account again.    I was not hassled when I restarted selling, but that may be because I had sold a number of items in the ancient past.   You may find that buyers are a bit hesitant to buy from you until you've sold a number of items, but I suspect you'll find things go more smoothly after a couple of months.    Hang in there!

[reallynicestamps]

I suspect the hacking concern to be the problem since you have never sold and last bought a year or more ago.

At the moment, I don't see anything listed on your account. Did things go pear-shaped again?

I recently re-opened a new account and have been facing some of the problems you speak about.

I didn't have much trouble with Customer Service, but then I'm a sweet little old lady. A spoonful of sugar and all that.

Get away from the Simplified Sell Your Item form as soon as possible. The Advanced is longer, but gives you more options and is easier to understand.

Also, watch for dropdown menus. They can help you a lot.

Don't get too worried about fees.

You have 50 free listings here and (something eBay doesn't mention) another 50 free on dotCOM.

Stay away from all the addons, like sub-titles and reserves and you should be okay.

EBay does tell you before you hit list how much your listing fees will be-- and those are not refundable.

The selling fees are 10% of you sale price (so if you sell a $10 card, eBay takes $1) and 10% of your shipping cost (so if you ship for $1.00, eBay takes $10 cents) . Then Paypal charges you 30 cents per transaction plus 2.9-3.7%* of your customer's full payment.

There is also on dotCOM a micro-payments Paypal service, but not for us Canadians. It charges lower fees for low value sales.

*The higher fee is for payments from non-Canada accounts. Most - like 90% --of those will be US,  and the extra fee is well worth the huge market.