Ebay is an online auction site where one can sell their unwanted items.
The procedure is simple, but ebay is expensive. Ebay fees usually amount to about 15% or more of the total selling price. This including the paypal fees which is also owned by ebay.
So if you are selling for profit, you have to estimate how much your item will sell for and add that 15% to the purchase price of whatever you are selling.
Say you are selling an 32″ LCD TV you’ve paid 150 dollars for. You have to look at the completed listing page on ebay to get your average sale price for that item. if the average is 230 dollars, you deduct your 150 purchase price and 15% of 230 dollars which is 34.50 and add those two together and you find your total cost of your TV at 184.50 and your profit 45.50.
Do this every time or else you will loose money if you are buying an item for making a profit on.
Many people think ebay is something of an authority. They are not! Ebay is nothing else but a corner consignment store.
Their rules don’t adhere anywhere but on ebay. If you cancel a transaction or if you don’t follow through with your purchase there are no consequences whatsoever.
As a buyer you can’t even get a negative feedback if you decide not to buy the item you’ve won. As a seller you can get a negative feedback if you don’t send the item won by someone or if the item is not as described.
Feedbacks and ratings has very little effect on any ebay member. If the buyer don’t buy an item they’ve won, they can go to the next auction and bid again. If a seller don’t post the item won by someone, they can go on and sell the next item. If the product being sold is a good product there are going to be plenty of buyers for it regardless of the feedback rating.
Some people might care for the feedback rating but most don’t, because what a feedback rating is, is an ego booster for the possessor of that rating. Has little value overall.
If a buyer paid for an item by paypal and the seller did not sent it, the buyer can start a dispute procedure and get their money back from paypal in most cases. If a seller is fraudulent the buyer can go to the police and report it.
Ebay is also a comparison site! When people want to buy or sell something, more and more times they say “let’s see how much is it going on ebay for” thus comparing how much is a product’s relative value.