Old seller but it's a different eBay now.ca &.com. What's the most important things I should know ?

[canabeans99]

I am an old seller but I haven't sold in a long time. If I'm trying to begin again, what are the most important factors regarding payments, shipping, final value fees? Are we allowed to talk about amazon on here at all? Just in small comparison, you know.  Like if it would be better to sell there or on eBay? Most sellers know quite a bit about both so I'm all ears for suggestions. I'm trying to sell some old fragrance stock that may be in high demand but at times it may need to be on .com, not .ca. I here to listen so please give me your best suggestions! 

[33nhl]

It has become how can I put nicely that now if you mail an item untracked and buyer wants to do you in they will file non received and Ebay will refund the buyer and they get to keep the item.

Then you have speculators they buy a collectable cause a certain player is on hot streek then by the time they get the card if value drops or they want to send the card to be graded and then see that the card is not going to get a grade like  MINT 10 so they can resell for more so then the buyer wants to return back or they do a switch put something else in bubble envelope they send it back and get refund meanwhile you as seller are out money and item.

This is what ebay has become

The other with ebay feedback sytem it needs to go as well as now there is more bid shilling then ever before and price manipulation is unreal.

Here is a good example in the old days if you did a bid auction and put a reserve on the item you paid extra, same thing goes now . But now with the Ebay Feddback system hidden that if I was going to bid on an item and then I get a bidder that bids 5 times after me the details that I sue to be able to see that bidders feedback to see what and where they got the feedback from is now blocked thus many seller use ot have multiple accounts and bid on there own items to push prices up.

Now you say well if they do that Ebay collects more in fees  well that's not true cause all the so called fake buyer has to do is make a lame post excuses after the auction is over that he lost job and cant pay thus is requesting cancellation and the seller agrees cause it the seller fake account to begin with.

The seller gets the fees back and then list the item again and gets someone to buy it with buy now or best offer cause the original bid listing still stays in the search option as SOLD ITEMS thus a buyer searching for similar items sold past 90 days sees that this similar item sold for XXX$$ thus make similar offer with buy now/best offer.

If Ebay was when it first started up as an easy way to sell items it no longer is that and slowly many are not selling on Ebay instead they sell on facebook market place or kijiji and its all free and no 10% selling Ebay fees and slowly Iv been heading that way. Less headaches and no fees and listing can stay up for ever until you decide to remove them... 

[femmefan1946]

Auctions are dead.

Less than 15% of listings are now Auction, and most of those have a Buy It Now option.

The BIN is higher than the starting price and can be used instead of Reserve. The pro is that it is free, while a Reserve carries a non-refundable fee. If the item doesn't sell you still pay the fee. The con is that the BIN disappears with the first bid.

You can use Fixed Price/Immediate Payment Required and the listing will stay active until someone actually pays.

Fixed Price is Good Til Cancelled. ONLY. This saves labour but when you get to listing a few hundred items you may have to be aware if you don't want to pay listing fees when you go over.

The number of Free Listings is much higher, now 200 for non-Store sellers.

Fees have changed.

Basically 10% on selling price, 10% of shipping price, 30c non-refundable for payment processing plus 2.9%-3,9% of entire payment processed.

Internet Sales Tax. Many US states have arranged for eBay to collect state sales taxes for them on all sales, even foreign ones. The tax is run through Paypal/Managed Payments * and we pay a 3.7% fee on the tax.

Your customer's Payment will be Held against customer satisfaction. But you can still use the money to pay for shipping labels. The Hold applies to all newbie and returning sellers.

A lot of sellers are now offering Free Shipping.

DON'T PANIC!

Free Shipping puts your cost of shipping into the asking price of the item.

Which is cheaper? A $10 item with $5 Shipping or a $15 item with Free Shipping?

Buyers LOOOOOVE Free Shipping.

But don't use Free Shipping on Parcels (over 500 gr and 2cm) because those rates vary with destination. And never use it for overseas sales.

Most purchases are made on phones.

If you list using a desktop or laptop, check to see what your listing looks like on your phone and tweak as necessary.

The first four words of your Title and the picture are much more important than they were.

*Don't ask about Managed Payments, you are not involved yet.

[canabeans99]

Thank you for all the information. I see the biggest problems seem to be all the different fees and your item must have tracking. Anything big will be hard to ship at a reasonable rate. But, if someone really wants an item, they'll probably pay the shipping. I guess I keep reading about how eBay is literally double dipping in the collecting of tiny taxes. That's not cool. Facebook Marketplace is free but is only OK. The buyers can be a little cheap. Sometimes we need international buyers that are hard to find on Facebook. Thank you for your response! it helped quite a bit! cheers!

[canabeans99]

I've read everything you've written. Good information. I've finally put up 2 listings that just will not budge on FBMarketplace. It's free but it also just doesn't have the reach of eBay. So I'm trying out the 2 and we'll see how it goes. Thank you for all your help. Your time and effort have been good to me! cheers!

[canabeans99]

ebay the tax collector on used items. How does that work? Do they really charge us 3.7% tax on all our payments? How do they hold the buyers payments while we have shipped the item and paid for the shipping? How long do they hold the payment? In these very unreliable shipping times, especially coming from Canada, that could mean 3-4 weeks of no money and the item has left the building? Just wondering. The very best part of old eBay was my Paypal card that had my buyers payment immediately applied, I'd ship the item, then go grocery shopping after the post office stop. That won't be happening now. That was the very best part of eBay. If you're a good seller, and I was, still am, I shipped the same or next day of payment. That's a little sad e-commerce has changed so much now. It has the ability to really make a difference for a small seller, but it's seems much riskier now, with much higher  fees and so many more of them. .....on we go!