Anyone see anything I missed which should be included?

HOMESTEAD INCOME

TIPS ON SELLING THROUGH ON-LINE AUCTIONS

Ken Scharabok Waverly, TN Scharabo@aol.com

Apparently more and more homesteaders are using on-line auctions as a way to earn extra money. While these tips apply to eBay, most of the same principles will apply to other on-line auctions.

To register as a seller on eBay you will have to provide a credit card number for verification. This is the procedure they use to try to stop teenagers from offering healthy babies or kidneys. You can arrange to have eBay charge the fees you accumulate to a credit card or open as cash reserve account with them into which you make periodic payments.

At any one time eBay has several million auctions going, so you need to tailor your listing to be both specific and easy to find.

Make your title as specific as possible, using as many buzz words as will fit in. Don’t just say, “Nice Basket,” but rather, “Lovely, large, handmade, XYZ-style basket.”

In your description go would of your way to adequately describe what you are offering. Work in buzz words which wouldn’t fit into the title. The reason for this is most people search using key words. If those key (buzz) words are not in your listing, your listing will not come up for them to see.

Be sure to describe any damage and the condition of your item. To me, new means still in its original box. If it is taken out and even not used, I wouldn’t call it new, but rather like-new.

Be aware of alternative spellings, such as hubcap verses hub cap, dalmatian versus dalmation, or mountain man versus mountain men. If someone were to search on hubcap, listings which only use hub cap will not be provided to them. Thus, work alternative spellings in your title or description.

If you have other related items up for auction, mention it also, such as, “Please see my other auctions for additional maternity wear.”

In the description, let them know what the estimated shipping weight will be. I have an old 0-20 pound counter scale which is still very accurate. I also advised them to go to www.usps.com, Compute Postage to determine what shipping will be from my zip code to theirs. This way they are not shocked when they find out shipping may be as much as their final bid.

Once you are familiar with the process, a new listings will still takes about ten minutes each. For heavy volume sellers, services such as www.honesty.com, www.auctionwatch.com and www.andale.com offer software to speed up your listing times. I am not a heavy seller so I write and proof my descriptions in a word processing program, then copy and paste them onto the listing form using the right mouse key.

Images with the auction are always helpful in getting and increasing bids. People want to see what they are bidding on. I have seen digital cameras for a low as $50 which can be hooked up to pass images into your PC. Higher priced models put the images on a 3 ½” diskette which, to me, is easier as you do not needed additional software. For the bulk of my images, I just use my regular camera and have the images returned on a diskette with an additional sheet with all of the images on it. I can then go into my word processing program and change the file titles to something I can recognize. My close-up photos come out a bit fuzzy. If I want good close-ups I take the item into a flea market dealer in town for him to put the image on my diskette for a per-shot fee.

If you have a scanner, it can also be used to transfer images to your PC and from there to eBay.

As long as you have the image(s) in your PC, uploading them to the listing form on eBay is easy. The first image is free, each additional one costs $.15. You just need to tell eBay where in your PC to go get the file. When you click in the image box, you will be taken back to your PC files. Find the one you want and then just double click on it. eBay will then upload it. You can only upload one file at a time direct to eBay. Some image hosting services are more flexible.

You will be asked to assign the item to a category. Try to match your item to a category as closely as possible, as some people do search on a category. For example, if someone is furnishing a new country kitchen, they may be looking under something like Primitive Antiques or Kitchen Decor. You can assign it to two categories, but eBay will double the regular listing feeds.

You have the option to put a free counter on your listing. It will tell you how many times someone has looked at your listing. These can be helpful. If you are getting hits and no bids, chances are your item is overpriced. If you are not getting hits, then you may not have enough buzz words in your title or description or, if they do see your title, it doesn’t pique their interest enough to open up your listing to look at it.

You have the option of 3, 5, 7 or 10-day auctions. Basically 3-day auctions can be used for hot selling items, such as during the beanie baby craze a couple of years ago. 5-days can be used for semi-hot items. 7 and 10-day auctions can be used for items with lesser interest.

You can specific how you want to be paid. I use both the money order and personal check options. For a personal check, I will look at their feedback rating. If it is good, I’ll treat it as if it were a money order. If the buyer is new to the system or has a so-so feedback rating, I’ll hold shipment until after the check has had time to clear.

You can also arrange to be paid electronically through either Billpoint or PayPal. Here a third party collects from them and pays you. I don’t use this feature as I still like to see a paper instrument.

You have the option to indicate a particular region if you are selling a large item, such as furniture or a vehicle, which may need to be picked up, or not to list regionally. I never use the regional feature. Say I was selling a 1974 Corvette to be picked up in Waverly, TN. Just maybe someone in CA might want it enough to arrange shipment to them.

You have the option to also offer the item to people in Canada and other world regions. Here payment can be through an international money order or cashiers check in U.S. dollars, but shipping can become a hassle if the item is too large to initiate with the U.S. Postal Service. USPS only requires a simple customs form. UPS will require two invoices with a plastic cover on the outside of the box.

I routinely ship through USPS as it is less hassle than UPS and their shipping rates are competitive. Plus, if you use Priority Mail a lot, the USPS will give you free shipping cartons and supplies, such as sealing tape. Plus, for volume sellers, USPS (or UPS) will come to your place to pick up the prepaid packages for a fee. (To avoid having numerous postage stamps, you can obtain equipment to weigh and produce prepaid postage labels.)

If you make insurance optional, be sure to clearly indicate you will not be responsible for lost or damaged items. Here you can also charge them for the price of a Delivery Confirmation Notice, which will cost them an additional $.40 or $.50. In this manner if someone says they didn’t receive a shipment, you have proof they did. For a fragile item, I insist on insurance and go out of my way to mark FRAGILE on all sides of the box. Old joke: At USPS fragile means toss underhanded. Insured items are handled separately from the rest of the mail and I think get far kinder treatment.

You can set a reserve price. Say you won’t sell an item for less than $40, but want to make the opening bid amount $5.00 to get bidding fever started. eBay won’t tell them your reserve price, just if it has or hasn’t been met. If it isn’t met, there is not a sale, although eBay will charge you as if it did. I don’t use this feature. I just set my opening bid price at the least I’m willing to take for the item.

You can use the Sell It Now feature. Say you would be happy with $40 and input it for that option. If the first bidder bids $40, the sale is finalized. If the first bid is lower, the auction runs the length of time you indicated. The problem I see with this is bidding may have been run up over $40 so you missed out on additional bidding.

If you list more than a quantity of one, it is a Dutch auction. Say you list five items at $3.00 each. The final auction price will be the lowest successful bid. Say Bidder A takes all five at $3.00. Bidder B and C takes one, but, since all have are spoken for, they have to bid at least $3.25. If the auction were to end this way, all would pay $3.00 and Bidder A would get 3, while the other two would get their one each. Dutch auctions normally don’t close for more than the original minimum bidding amount. Still, it beats having to enter five separate listings.

Most of the other options are self-explanatory and you can tell eBay to remember your favorite options so you don’t have to keep reentering them.

Some other aspects:

What can sell? Just about anything within certain limits. You can likely find a buyer for a stuffed armadillo. Have two weeks of time-sharing in Jacksonville Beach, someone will likely take that time off of your hands. eBay does prohibit listing certain items, such as those from endangered species, firearms (even BB-guns), ammunition and live animals. You can read their listing acceptability policy through their Site Map page.

You can somewhat research what your item may sell for by using the key word search on completed auctions feature, which keeps auction listings for 60-days after auctions close. You can also try to find out information about the item through search engines, such as www.google.com.

Expect most of your bids within the first 36 and last 36 hours of the auction. This is because eBay offers the option of searching on items nearing the end of their time and on newly listed items. I’ve seen some of my auction bidding triple or more within the last hour, which is why you want to have the auctions close when you think most of your potential bidders will be on the system. (Last minute bidding is known as ‘sniping’.)

Auctions work funny. I have an item really run up in price, relist another afterwards and it either doesn’t get a bid or no where near what the previous one sold for. Makes one wonder what happened to the backup bidders.

As soon as possible after an auction closes I contact the successful bidder to get their shipping address and any other information I may need to complete the transaction. I then get back to them, again ASAP, with what the final price, to include shipping, will be.

On bad bidders, such as those who never send payment, there is a way to deal with them. After you have given up trying to get payment, on eBay’s Site Map find the entry for Request Final Fee Credit and fill out the form. eBay will send them a notice reminding them they have a legal obligation to pay. If payment is not received within ten days, you can request a refund of the auction fees. At that point eBay will send them a warning. Three of these get them permanently banned from eBay buying or selling.

If eBay gets enough complaints against a seller, they can also be banded. Bidding up your own auctions is a sure fire way for this to also happen. I know of one guy who had an item several of his employees wanted, so he said they could bid against each other. eBay noticed the bids were coming from the same PC as the listing, terminated the auction and banned him. He was able to get reinstated but not easily. (If you do have a bad experience with a seller, turn the problem over to the Safe Harbor aspect of eBay.)

I have had to deal with a couple of bad buyers, but never a bad seller.

Building up a nice positive feedback rating is important as it helps to establish your creditability as a buyer or seller. Go out of your way to avoid negative feedbacks. If you feel unjustified negative feedback has been left against you, you can provide a counter comment, but negative feedback will only be removed by eBay on rare occasions, such as outright vulgar or slanderous comments.

The method I use is to keep items until I have several to list and have the auctions close on Sunday late evening. Logic for this is I figure that is the time when people have the most time to get into eBay to look around. Just count back the number of days from whenever you want to auction to close. (One person, who sells women’s clothing, has his listings close towards the end of Monday Night Football during that season. Another recommended closing them just after working hours on Fridays on the theory a lot of office workers (perhaps without home PCs) surf the net on Friday afternoons.)

Batching helps with record keeping as I can print out a summary of all of the auctions which closed that evening and then use the printout as a worksheet. Since most payments will be received within a two-day span, it limits runs to the Post Office for out-shipping.

What you sell is potentially taxable income, so keep records, such as how much you paid, as if it were regular income. With no records, the IRS may decide it is all taxable income.

Some people are producing full-time, significant income buying and selling through on-line auctions.

Selling over through on-line auctions can be a bit intimidating at first, but you will soon get the hang of it. If I can give you any assistance you can contact me at the e-mail address cited above.

(Thank you to all of the Countryside Forum participants who helped on this article.)

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 27, 2001

Answers

Thanks Ken for this effort. I don't yet use ebay so can't comment, but I will be using this information.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001.

I would add somthing to the effect of contacting the seller for ANY questions. I have and almosot have bought things that needed more explaination,, if they dont get back within 2 days,, I dont buy it.

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), October 27, 2001.

Just a typo that needs to be fixed here...."You can specific how you want to be paid". Change to specify.

-- Lisa in WI (lehman16NOSPAM@vbe.com), October 27, 2001.

Thank you for all the people who have been meaning to sell or have tried to sell on E- BAY... Although I have had no luck in this area, I have contributed Ideas that has made my nephew a good monthly income. I applaude his efforts and want to do as good for myself. My obstacle is taking a quality digital photo verses taking a e-mail photo with my new Sony DSC P-5, As much as I try to learn about pixels and digital photo uploading I am more confused now than ever. I tried to upload photos to a online album and I messed up. WAS IT THE SIZE THING?.....and can a good enough e-mail photo work? Help appreciated and given.

-- Mkapples (mka@shocking.com), October 27, 2001.

In your description go would of your way

Compute Postage to (lc p)

a new listings will still takes about ten minutes each.

but eBay will double the regular listing feeds.

but, since all have are spoken for,

whenever you want to auction to close.

Selling over through on-line auctions

-- prof (proofreader@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001.

Just a few opinions:

If you're selling regularly on Ebay, get (borrow/share) a digital camera. Learn some basic image editing, cropping, sizing, montaging. Potential customers will ask for additional photos of unique items. I use a minimum of 2 photos per item and have posted 16 photos of an item (many by request).

Some of the $30 digital cameras take photos which are very poor, perhaps your article could contain advice on a few lower end digital cams. USB, com port, floppy does not matter. Purchasing conventional film, printing, scanning ect are all time intensive, costly and slow.

Some ISPs give customers space for a personal web page. Many times this space can be used to store photos.

If extra images cost you money on ebay and you do not have alternative storage, use montages. Take three (or however many) photos and combine them into one.

Shipping: Consider fixed shipping charges. Be fair with this one. With a bit of experience, you'll soon learn that shipping to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada is quite predictable if you know the approximate weight of the item. In the past I've simply averaged shipping cost and posted that, sometimes I lose a dollar sometimes I gain a dollar. If at the end of the auction (you'll know the destination at that time) I find that my shipping is inflated, I reduce the amount. Using fair fixed shipping charges means the buyer does not have to search and guess at prices, it also means less emails asking "how much to ship to Pattoga?".

Eventually you will encounter non-payers. Do whatever you can to end the matter quickly and without hassle. Do not take it personally, do not be upset or rude, simply get over it and move on.

Best time to list items: Without knowing the traffic statistics for Ebay, alot of these "list at this time because of this" is simply guessing. My advice is to simply make sure the item is listed through the weekend and do not end an auction at peak automobile traffic times. I'm guessing that how you present your article for auction is perhaps more important than when exactly it ends. It may help if you ask youself "when will the people who want this item be on Ebay?"

Send an email to the buyer when you receive payment. Let them know you have received payment and confirm the shipping destination at that time (to allow for corrections). Ship out packages on only two days, say Tues. and Fri.

Pack the items well and with care.

-- Jake (Jake@home.com), October 27, 2001.

Ken, Looks good to me! Lots of good info! How about a mention of eggbay.com, their is not a lot of activity over there but it does have many things of intrest to Homesteaders. I have never bought or sold over there myself but maybe with a little plug in your article activity might increase and benefit many homestead folks. Good Luck and keep up the good work!

-- Mark in N.C. Fla. (deadgoatman@webtv.net), October 27, 2001.

Hi Ken,

I started selling some of my artwork on e-bay a few months ago. Haven't made a great lot of money but it's fun!

Last month I ran into my first real problem. A lady sent me a money order that never got here. ( She was a genuine person obviously not some fly by night. ) But from now on I will request that people paying by money order or check must send the payment with delivery confirmation. That way I have to sign for it and they can be sure that the money really did or didn't get here. In future I think I will do the same with all the items I send out. It was horrible having to keep this lady waiting for something she'd payed for and to keep telling her " I haven't recieved your payment yet." So my advice is spend that extra dollar and cover yourself (and insist that the buyer does the same) because not everyone is going to believe you.

Pauline NC

-- (tworoosters_farm@altavista.com), October 27, 2001.

Ken, I just bought something I'm going to list on eBay following your guidelines here. I've been a buyer there but never a seller. I'll either let you know how it goes or (possibly more likely) email you for help in preparing my listing info. Have you had much experience selling bigger ticket items there? I'm going to sell a six or seven place car transport trailer that ought to be worth $25-30,000.00. Is that out of the range for Ebay?

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), October 27, 2001.

Thanks for noting the typos. I had already caught most of them.

On digital cameras, I use the K.I.S.S. principle since I wouldn't be able to figure out instructions on how to even connect it to a PC, much less transfer and manipulate images. Call me a dinosour, but I find the diskette friendly to work with.

If I were to become a power seller, then additional equipment might be justified. However, I just don't do that much volume.

My loading time is slow since I only have access to standard telephone lines and they were not designed for high-speed traffic. Even though I have a 56K modem, 26.6K is the most I can get out of it normally. For someone on fiber optics or other high-speed lines, I am sure listing times would be greatly reduced.

Since I have both AOL and DirectTV, I would go through their satellite. This would require a second dish. Cost would largely be offset by my dropping area-wide calling. For those not familiar with this, I pay extra to have my local area expanded. A connection to a server in either Nashville or Clarksville (about 70 miles) is a local call.)

There are book out on using eBay, such as eBay The Smart Way: Selling, buying and profiting on the web's #1 auction site by Joseph T. Sinclair. Even though written published in 1999 it is already slightly outdated as eBay evolves.

My recommend is to go after a bad seller like you were a pit bulldog. Leave negative feedback for them even if it means retalitory negative feedback to you. Have eBay send them a notice, then warning. Get them out the system. To do otherwise is just passing the problem on to someone else. Do cut them some slack at first. If they don't respond to e-mails right away, they might be on vacation or are having computer problems. I would say if nothing in ten days, initiate the warning system.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 27, 2001.

Pauline NC

Delivery Confirmation only works with priority and I believe media mail. I know it doesn't apply to first class. That makes another $1-3 on the buyer.

Did the money order ever get there? If NO then the buyer can apply for a trace then a refund. If the money-order was cashed it will show up on the usps log.

my experience on ebay has been 90/10 to the good.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

There are some scams to look out for if you are new to selling on eBay, but I can't remember where I read about them. Anyway, one is that a buyer bids on something that they have one of at home, broken. When they receive your nice unbroken tea pot (for instance) they substitute theirs and send it back for a refund, saying you hadn't packaged it well enough. I know there is a website somewhere that outlines several scams such as this, and if I find it I'll post the URL.

-- Elizabeth in E TX (kimprice@peoplescom.net), October 28, 2001.

If a buyer declined insurance, they do not have a leg to stand on if you clearly stated their doing so relieved you of any responsibility for lost or damaged shipments. With UPS, the first $100 of insurance is covered by the shipping fee.

They would need to take the package and item to their local postmaster. They are authorized to pay a claim up to a certain amount. If higher it goes to a central office who will contact you to confirm some of the information.

For UPS, they would need to contact their nearest UPS outlet who will arrange for a driver to come out to pick up the item and packaging. UPS will start the claim from there.

In either case, it is up to them to initiate the claim locally. Don't become involved any more than you absolutely have to.

Delivery confirmations cost $.40 for priority mail or $.50 for parcel post.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 28, 2001.

Ken on your item Item # 1478885961 the E-Book I think you would get better response if you put it on a 3.5 disk or on a CD. Just my .02 cents. Considering that your system was down If you asked e-bay they would most likely remove the negative feedback. So far my feedback have all been positive (84). With the mail slowing down I think I'll wait a bit before puting anything else on ebay for sale. Good Luck with your article.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Well Ken you got me motivated to list some items on eBay again. If anyone is still reading this thread check out my Auctions on eBay by doing a seller search username deadgoatman Give me a little constructive critisisim. I used BayPal to list the Auctions and it worked great and was real easy!

THANKS

-- Mark in N.C. Fla. (deadgoatman@webtv.net), October 28, 2001.

Don't forget your computer illiterate friends and relatives. I list and handle the auctions for them and collect 10% and auction fees of the top.

-- Randall (rvanorman@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.