questions about selling

[chengda85]

hi I've never sold anything before and I have a couple questions.

Is the shipping calculator accurate? i'm in Canada. what happens if someone buys my item, when I actually go to the post office to mail the parcel, the price is higher than what the shipping calculator showed?

How do I prevent fraudulent buyers from taking my item then filing a claim on paypal saying I never mailed them the item?

[Anonymous]

Way too much info to list in this forum.  You have some reading to do. Get the info, here piecemeal or go to tutorial sites on Ebay.

Have fun

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

Chen, you are starting from a negative position of everything going wrong. You are starting with a list of "what if". Hang around this board, and Seller Central down south, and you will never sell. Every day there is a new list of "what if".

I use flat rate shipping for Canada. Sometimes I am dead on, lose a $, make a $. Overall, I am even.

Bad buyers are .001%. Factor that intoyour business costs.

Better still? Make canadapost.com and usps.com your friends. Got an accurate scale, tape measure, box cutter, packing material, tape, space to work? Good enough camera? List something and see what happens. That is how I started.

Ten years ago I had no idea what I was doing, still don't, never will. Every single day is a new "Now, WTF do I do?".

Selling on eBay is not for everyone. I am 35 years of retail liquor. My hide is so thick an elephant gun won't bring me down.

There are a couple of sellers, on this board, that I look up to. What they have accomplished astounds me. Then, there is a scary lot of very bright people here. Scary smart.

That is something I always "took away" from eBay Live and EOL, how very smart everyone is.

[reallynicestamps]

Yes the shipping calculator is accurate, if the information you put in is accurate. Use metric measurements.

Don’t go to the PO. Print out your shipping labels through Paypal. Save on Expedited shipping if you want Confirmation of Delivery on higher value items. Drop your parcels into the nearest red mail box. If you feel nervous, there is a mail box at the PO. Stuff from mail boxes goes directly to the very very busy terminal.

If it turns out that you made a mistake in entering the measurements, you eat the difference. This is what the Handling part of the Shipping and Handling fee is for. BONUS, if you print your labels through Paypal , the postage amount does not appear on the label.

You prevent fraud by being upfront. Describe carefully and photograph only the item you are selling (eg no stock pictures for used items). Tell the customer when you shipped. Tell the customer the shipping invoice number, even if it is not Confirmation of Delivery.  Give the customer a pessimistic probable arrival date. (eg If in your experience it takes 7 days to get to the customer, tell her it takes 9 days.)

And finally, Delivery Confirmation is expensive. Insure your parcels either with the automatic PO insurance on some services, a third party insurer like shipinsurance, or by self-insuring which just means adding a dime or so to every S&H fee to cover the vanishingly small number of claims.

If you can’t handle the pressure, don’t try selling here. Use Kijiji or Craigslist free, meet your customers in person and get paid in cash. Fewer sales, but less heartache.