Buying Used Items on eBay

Look at the pictures.  Zoom in on corners and edges.  Don't accepts a blurred, too dark or too light photo.  Ask for close ups or different angles regardless of the item $20 or $200 when it arrives at your door it's yours.

I bought a pair of shoes for work.  New Balance 411.  The description and titles both claimed "Like New" and "New Without Box."  The pictures were a little blurry, but best I could tell they were nice shoes.  Here is the problem:

No pictures of the inside of the shoes and not pictures of the underside or soles of the shoes.  I needed shoes like yesterday, so I bought them and was very disappointed.  For them to have been "Like New" and "New Without Box," they had animal hair and some kind of dried yellow substance on the inside.  The tread on the shoes indicated the shoes had been worn more than once.  Including small rocks lodged in the cracks or the tread and some dried white substance was stuck to the sole.

I voiced my disappointment in a matter of fact message to the seller.  Long story short.  I could send them back or accept $10 dollars off.  I was concerned about losing my return shipping, so I counter offered $15 dollars off.  The seller offered the initial $10 again and let me know it would be cutting into his profit.  I told him I was disappointed but would not take the issue any further.

No More eBay Selling For Me

I wanted to try another round of selling items on eBay with the new billing cycle and my first free 50, but when I was cleaning up a room today and vacuuming around the bins of clothes and piles of books that didn't sell for pennies more than shipping I realized this is going to be another one of my fails.  Epic fail because I tried to make money on eBay for months.  To this day, I'm not so sure I made more than maybe a couple hundred bucks and that's generous.  Not much more than I would have made on a single afternoon hosting a garage sale.  I will not be encouraging anyone that asks me about the experience to try the process.  I kept meticulous records, followed my sales and what I ended up with was a fiasco of fees and shipping and crap laying around my house for months and months.

As I box up the left over things to take to a charity, I realize that eBay is not what it used to be.  Maybe it never was?  As I said in a previous post, it's high volume, low profit margin.  Unless and that a big unless you have that one item that sells for a crazy amount, You'd be better off to just tote the junk to a charity event and let someone else fool with it.

Anyone that is making five figures on eBay is doing six figure transactions and has a full time staff.  This is not the miracle wage earner that some would like to make us believe it is. 

Ebay Debaucle Continues

Here's another tip for aspiring eBay sellers.  The statement dates are basically the 15th to the 15th and advertising months are considered 1 - 30th or 31st, adding a an additional layer of fog to the eBay selling process.  I purposefully posted only 50 items this month beginning July 3.  Those 50 items were over by July 10.  I sold one pair of pants for $13.  Those 50 items were listed "free" of charge.  My statement for the June 15 - July 15 is $5.60.

Because I already posted my "free" 50 items on July 1, so get in sync with the billing cycle, I believe that means I can't post again until August 15.  Why?  Even thought August 1 begins a new month and means I can post 50 items "free" it also means it will be on this billing statement that began four days ago.

Scam.

The eBay Experiment

Well, a new month rolled around and I purposefully went in and posted exactly 50 items.  The first 50 items are supposed to be free.  They were.  I sold one item.  A pair of pants for $13.00.  We shall see what my fees are on that one item.  Overall, I am disappointed in the seller experience.  If I had advice to give it would be to study everything.  Read everything and figure up all your fees.  Don't forget PayPal gets a cut, and eBay gets an additional cut above and beyond whatever disclosed fees are stated at the time of posting.  If someone has made any significant money it has been at extremely high volume with an extremely low profit margin.

Buy It Now -- Or Best Offer

Yesterday I was able to post a bunch of my stuff for free using a Buy It Now and a Best Offer option.  I posted the item with the Buy It Now I had originally posted and allowed an automatic acceptance of the opening bid amount.  Make sense?  For example:  Let's say last week I had a shirt up for $10 opening bid and a Buy it Now of $13.  It was going to cost another 30 cents to post it.  Creeping my fees up to 90 cents.  I went in and chose "fixed price" for $13 accepted a "best offer" of $10 for FREE.  I probably saved myself somewhere around $20 which may not seem like a lot, but when my profits are down to a dollar here and there, $20 is a lot.

Runaway

I thought about something really frustrating.  So far, and I'm sure it's low because I probably didn't catch all the fees, I have spend $68.75 on "advertising" that I have not gotten paid back for by selling the item.  What if that item never sells?  What if I wanted to walk away from the whole thing tomorrow?  I am out $68.75.  I have probably spent $300 dollars advertising for the catamarans.  All my profits from eBay sales have gone into selling those boats.  I am so angry for ever buying it and thinking my husband would do something with me I wanted to do.  I'm not just angry.  I'm the kind of angry that makes a person ill.  Physically ill.  I don't know what to do.  I really, really don't know what to do.  I frustrated, I'm tired, there's never enough money.  No matter how many times I leave the lights off, turn the air conditioner up, don't flush the toilet, skip meals, don't shower, stay home, scrimp, save, do without.  Oh my God.  I just want to run away.  I want to run out the door and never, never come back.  I want to run and run and run and run away never looking back.

I guess I thought selling my stuff on eBay was the answer the way it is for other people.  Maybe I'd make a couple bucks.  Not when you spend it all on advertising a boat.  I feel like throwing up.  The problem with all of this is I've got nothing left.  I'm dried up.  There's nothing there.  I'm done.  There's no relief from the constant pressure of there not being enough.  I want out.  I want it to be over.  I don't care.

Taking the Cake

This takes the cake.  I got a very helpful e-mail from someone I sold a shirt to on eBay.  She had some helpful  advice.  1st Class Package.  Anything up to 13 ounces ships for next to nothing.   Well, not literally next to nothing, but two and three dollars compared to $5.50.  I did a little approximation and that little mistake probably cost me NO LESS than $60 just on the clothes I've sold.

I've been choosing Parcel Post and Priority Mail.  So there's my tip of the century.  If you have something light to ship, make sure you check out:

1st Class Package for 13 ounces and less.  The combined circumference of the package has to be 84 inches or less.

A Little Less Angry

I went back to my bank statements and discovered where I had made the transfers and where they had taken out my fees.  I'm still a little frustrated that it's so difficult.  I need to get out a calculator and figure up what I think is my profit based on that.  Wouldn't that be the true proof.  Here are your expenses, here is your income.  I should be somewhere around $340 according my painstaking record keeping, but I don't think it's going to turn out to be that much.  However, it may be more than $40 I thought yesterday.  I'm not going to be un-disappointed because I even figured in the packaging when I made up my figures.  I have to be missing something.

Who Should I Be Angry At?

Two or three months ago I started selling my stuff on eBay.  I thought it would be a way to make a little money to help out our shortfall.  What a crock.   I'm so frustrated today I can't see straight.   I transferred a whopping $160 from my paypal account--just like last month.  Left $40 in there for this months postings.  Today my fees from eBay were $150.  WTH.

.30 to eBay
.30 to PayPal
.029% to PayPal
.09 % to eBay
Shipping
Packaging
Stupid people that don't read descriptions and look at photos

I still can't tell if I'm making money!  I have watched over each sale like a hawk making sure I keep a cushion and the more I look at it, at best, I think I'm breaking pretty close to even.  It's a lot of work for what looks like $40 for the last three months.  I can't find ANYwhere on eBay that tells me this is what your profits are.  Totally disappointed right now.  I thought this would be a way to make a little money.  However, once I'm not tied to eBay with all their little nit picking fees, I'm totally thinking about not doing business with eBay as a seller or a buyer.  Grrr.