Hey guys, 
I just started my little shop here ~1 month ago and as many of you were when you started to sell on here, I’m liking it very much but still struggling with a few issues.
I would appreciate it immensely (and I'm sure many others) if you could share some things/advice you've learned by experience with your eBay business.
Any tips would be appreciated, can be related to anything.
e.g.
Increasing item visibility
Making better/more appealing listings
Ways to deal with buyers
Ways to save on shipping
Ways to save on eBay/PayPal fees
Time saving tips
Day/hour to list
Listing method (BIN or auction)
etc. etc.
May this thread get as big as possible!
Thanks in advance! 
"Any tips would be appreciated, can be related to anything."
OK. Here is my list of suggestions for all relatively new sellers wishing to do "business" (purchasing goods for resale) on eBay. Some comments may or may not apply to you. Listed in no specific order of importance;
Sell what you know... Know what you sell.
The online commerce world is moving away from the auction format (a great novelty fifteen years ago) to the fixed price (Buy-it-Now) format. Do not buck the trend.
Understand the rules and the fee structures when selling on eBay. Do not list auctions for ten days if you have to pay additional fees for the privilege: not worth it. By the same token, do not list for a day or three when you can get seven day exposure for the same fee.
Study and know your competition. Check what your competitors sell (price and shipping) before you list your items.
Take the time to understand packaging, shipping method and shipping costs. Be smart about it. If an item can be sent by lettermail (less than 20mm thick) for $1 or $2, do it. By asking potential buyers to pay $10 or more to send the item by parcel post is a waste of your money, even if the buyer pays shipping.
With 50% of listings on eBay offering "free shipping" (shipping costs included in selling price), new sellers need to seriously consider that option to be competitive.
Business is business on eBay (or elsewhere). Do not take problems personally. Leave paranoia at home. Accept there will be losses from time to time, price them in your pricing model and move on.
Leave feedback immediately upon receipt of payment from your buyers. No "ifs and buts". Remember: this is business.
Offer a liberal return policy. Be aware but do not be afraid of buyers abusing it. By offering PayPal, you are responsible for customer satisfaction in any case. Sellers refusing to accept returns often raise question marks in buyer's mind.
Give your listings a "personal" touch. "Copy and paste" information from a manufacturer may look professional but a "personal" touch in listings is more inviting.
Being a business also means dealing with taxes. If you are registered with GST/HST you need to make a decision to absorb or charge GST/HST (the choice is yours. The government does not care as long as you remit the tax). Make sure your listings clearly state how much is being charged, based on the province of residence of the buyer(s). If you are not registered with GST/HST, market and promote that information: "no tax added".
Understand your market place. If an item is expected to be sold within Canada, list in Canadian dollars, saving you and the buyer PayPal's conversion fees.
Finally, KISS
Good Luck.
PS - I almost forgot one of the most important thing to do:
Set up adequate bookkeeping as soon as you start your business. Keep track (and receipts) of all your purchases, expenses and sale receipts. That information is required when you prepare your year end results for income tax purposes. Preparing monthly summaries will make life a lot easier at tax time.
Here is a sample "Profit and Loss Statement" I prepared a few years ago for eBay sellers. Feel free to copy and adapt it to your needs:
I have been saying for years "As Pierre says "Sell what you know and know what you sell".
Another truism "You make your profit when you acquire the widget, not when you sell it'. I know what I can sell anything for. If the margin is not there I pass. My budget is to buy for $10 and sell for $100. After expenses, that is darn close.
Do not make this personal. Business is not personal. People come onto these boards and rant about perceived injustices. They have made it personal.
I have my business in one section of the house, behind a door. I do not allow it to move outside of that room. I can close the door and forget about it.
This is a job. It is work. Some days it is not better than burger flipping.
Some of us have the advantage of decades in customer service. This is just an extension of what we have always done (see Pierre's remark).
- Item visibility. Keywords in the title, additional info in the description. The widget has to be salable. I have never knowingly sold a part for a Ford Tempo or Mercury Topaz. No market. The market is rapidly moving to mobile devices. Your listings, pictures, need to be mobile friendly.
- Better listings. Look at what successful sellers are doing.
- Deal with buyers. Professionally. Always. Always be the better person.
- Shipping costs. Dumpster dive. I found that costs were never my issue, bottlenecks were. Since I moved to bubble mailers with a little assembly line, shipping time and effort is so much easier. Costs are what they are.
- Not everything is meant for mail order.
- Fees. They are what they are and allow you to market to the entire world. I have shipped to 50+ countries. The exchange rate is paying most of my fees these days.
- Time saving. Use a simple template for listing. It is very easy to "sell' similar" rather than start from scratch every time. Bubble mailers are a massive time saver over making boxes. Paypal shipping, for me, is a huge time saver plus other benefits. Organization, assembly line, stock numbers.
- I have a store so listing time makes no difference. With listing promos, I simply list auctions when I feel like it. I do not subscribe to "best times".
- I get much higher prices with BIN in my store. BIN with IPR means no waiting for payment. No deadbeats, higher prices.
There is no way you can be prepared for everything. 35 years in liquor stores and I would start each day the same "I wonder what is going to happen today?". eBay is the same.
There is a truism that a lot of sellers do not want to accept "The customer is always right". They fight tooth and nail against customers. They call them names and get in arguments. Would you shop anywhere that would treat you like this? Then, do not do it to others.
The golden rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" does not apply. Treat the customer the way they want to be treated, not the way you want to be treated.
There are a lot of scary smart people on this board. They have made every mistake and will make more. There is no way of preventing anything or everything. Do not waste your time trying to be prepared for every "what if". There are millions.
Everyone, here, sells different widgets in different markets. What works for one seller, does not work for another. There are blanket concepts that apply, but, there is no single right way.
Your math is incorrect. Expenses:
- office overhead
- packaging supples
- Internet connection
- car expenses
- general and administrative
You are calculating your profit before expenses, I calculate mine after expenses.
There is a myth about what jobs pay. I had a job at $25 per hour. Sound good? Well, let us do the math. The net was 62% of the gross after all deductions. That leaves $15.50 per hour on a 38 hour week.
Wait, how many hours does a week consume. Getting up, getting ready, traveling to work, coming home, etc. That is 45-50 hours per week.
At 50 hours, time consumed, per week, the hourly wage is now $11.78.
Now subtract just the car expenses to get to and from work. That leaves $10.75 per hour. Does $10.75 sound like a lot to you? Doesn't sound like a lot to me.
eBay is the same type of math.
- office overhead
- packaging supples
- Internet connection
- car expenses
- general and administrative
You are calculating your profit before expenses, I calculate mine after expenses.
There is a myth about what jobs pay. I had a job at $25 per hour. Sound good? Well, let us do the math. The net was 62% of the gross after all deductions. That leaves $15.50 per hour on a 38 hour week.
Wait, how many hours does a week consume. Getting up, getting ready, traveling to work, coming home, etc. That is 45-50 hours per week.
At 50 hours, time consumed, per week, the hourly wage is now $11.78.
Now subtract just the car expenses to get to and from work. That leaves $10.75 per hour. Does $10.75 sound like a lot to you? Doesn't sound like a lot to me.
eBay is the same type of math.
@i*m-still-here wrote:Elmwood, I see a little better how that works for you now, but just a little.
What you've offered is a very personalized accounting but it doesn't apply to everyone.
It certainly doesn't apply to me.
In fact, this Internet business has extremely low overhead compared to all others I've run in the past, and for me the 15% I mentioned above is in the right ball park.
However, I'm not considering taxes an expense as you did.
Taxes are just a fact of life.
If I include my internet connection, car expenses, and location like you did (all of which I'd have to pay even if I didn't sell on line), then my expenses would still not even be close to yours.
Now, I did have to wonder if you buy those items for $10 and then spend time cleaning and repairing them before you sell as that would make a difference for you, and maybe that's why you have to buy so low to make a profit?
However, that does not generalize very well.
Not true. I would not need a car, internet, space, or utilities. Everything I expense is a direct cost to the business. Without the business, none of those items would be needed. I have 400 sq ft dedicated to business. Without the business, I do not need that space, mortgage value, property tax cost, insurance cost, lighting, or heating.
I buy low because overhead costs what it does. That you choose not to count your overhead is your business. I clean and repair very little. Not worth the time.
Let me re-phrase. I believe I have expressed myself poorly.
I do not want to work for pennies. My average sale is in the thrities, per widget. Three a day and I am doing very well. The work is tolerable and the ROI is good.
Many sellers operate as a hobby, and, lose money. As a friend of mine said when he was teaching accounting classes: "Hobbies cost money, interests are free, businesses make money". I am in business.
I do not want to work for pennies. My average sale is in the thrities, per widget. Three a day and I am doing very well. The work is tolerable and the ROI is good.
Many sellers operate as a hobby, and, lose money. As a friend of mine said when he was teaching accounting classes: "Hobbies cost money, interests are free, businesses make money". I am in business.
Other posters have also touched on something important: understanding your profit margins!
Too often we see relatively new sellers with limited business experience thinking they are making "big" money because they pay $10 for an item and sell it for $20 That would be a 100% mark up ($10 on $10) or 50% profit margin ($10 on $20). In Canada, mark up is calculated on cost while profit margin is calculated on selling price.
From that mark up or profit margin come expenses - most of them are calculated as a percentage of your selling price.
For example: eBay fees may take 9% of your selling prices, then another 9% of your shipping charge. PayPal will come along and take another 3% or so in fees then another 2.5% or so to convert your funds from US$ into Cdn$ before transferring to your bank.
So, that $10 gross profit lost $3.60 in eBay fees and another $1.10 to PayPal, leaving you with only half of it for all your other expenses and your time.
Then you have packing materials and general expenses such as equipment and inventory insurance, etc....
Let's not forget your time. That is a bit more complicated to evaluate. Let's us say it takes you fifteen minutes to prepare a listing (take pictures, prepare wording, research the price, etc...) and you want to make $10 an hour, does this mean that your labour costs are $2.50 per sale? No. Why? Because often you do all the work and the item does not sell. You still have to put some value to your time. Time is also needed to purchase your items, receive them, pay for them, account for them. Then you need time to follow up on sales, answer questions, deliver to the post office, etc... Somehow, you need sufficient margins to pay yourself properly.
You also need to make a return on your business investment. If you carry $5,000 inventory (for example), you need to make a profit to get a return on your investment, in addition to your time.
You also need to mark up your goods to reflect losses that will happen (customers claiming damages, non receipt, etc...) While many claims may be legitimate, Reality of any business is that you will have to write off some transactions. The total value of those losses will be paid by the profit made on your honest customers. That is reality, just like everything you buy at a retail store typically include 1%-2% margin to cover their pilferage and shoplifting.
Profit margins in mail order are traditionally very high. Otherwise it will not be possible to be profitable.
An article you may find interesting: http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/budgeting/5-retail-markups.htm
Good Luck.
PS - By the way, profit is not a dirty word. It makes the world go round!
"In short: how can I get around that issue?"
You cannot.
Once you list on eBay and accept PayPal, you are accepting their terms and their policies.
Look at any of your listings. They state:
Returns:
| No Returns Accepted |
Coverage:
Pay with 
and your full purchase price is covered
"Full Purchase Price is covered". That is what eBay/PayPal tell the buyers, regardless of your policy.
Click on "full purchase price" and eBay offers this definition: "100% of your original purchase price and shipping fees. "
Their terms and conditions: http://pages.ebay.ca/paypal/buyer/protection.html
So, my point is that since eBay/PayPal force you to guarantee your customer satisfaction, you may has well embrace the policy and market it to your advantage instead of showing negativity to your potential buyers by stating that you do not accept return.
Look at it from the buyer's perspective: when you buy something, anything, anywhere online from a stranger, don't you want to know you can return the item for full refund if there is a problem with it?
"don't want to keep worrying"
As stated earlier: this is business. It is not personal. Leave paranoia (worrying) at home.
"used stores like Value Village are also All Sales Final."
Please do not Mary.
She regularly shops at Value Village and returns goods the following day because they do not fit properly or she has found a small problem unnoticed at time of buying. She always gets full refund... with a smile.
The rate of fraudulent returns is very. Much lower than B&M stores. I have had a lot of excuses, but, only one fake return. Why bother worrying about it? Nothing you can really do.
At every success, dance like no-one is watching. With every problem, shake it off like nothing happened.
At every success, dance like no-one is watching. With every problem, shake it off like nothing happened.
