Auction Power Guide

At the beginning of the year I started up a small home business purchasing and re-selling consumer electronics products. Business license and registered with the state (Georgia) as DBA. I am a sole proprietor and the only one involved in the business.

January and February have been kind of rocky. I was learning the best and cheapest ways to ship, the quickest ways to test my products (stuff like memory cards coming from wholesale suppliers that could unknowingly be selling fake/misrepresented cards to companies, etc.) I sell on Ebay only, and I only accept Paypal as a payment method. So every sale, sale date, product description, Ebay fees, Paypal fee, date sold, etc. are all there. When I was a little more naive, I unknowingly flipped some products before I knew of a solid way to test them, so I got some returns and had to refund. Long story short, January and the beginning of February turned into an accounting nightmare in regards to logging everything. I utilize the "Outright" program on Ebay, which pulls all of my Paypal data. So it basically organizes everything, tells me the final profit, the total fees/business expenses for each month and year, the product description, date sold, sale price, Paypal fees, Ebay fees…all of that. The only thing it doesn’t log is the original purchase price and purchase date. I’m pretty much screwed for January and February in regards to proper documentation in regards to bookkeeping, but I do have the final profit amount for both months, all of the expenses and fees, payments received, etc. and I will just have to eat the taxes on the purchase amount vs. re-sold price. So taxing the whole instead of only the profit.

Is there a better way to keep track of this? I did make a spreadsheet in January. It has the item description, purchase date, purchase price, purchase tax paid, purchase shipping fee (I buy all of my inventory online and get it shipped to me from wholesale companies using my tax id), resale date, resale price, shipping fee, Georgia sales tax charged (if they were in my state – I only had one sale to Georgia during January and February and I have logged and paid taxes to the state on that), Ebay Listing/Insertion Fee, Ebay Final Value Fee, Ebay Final Value Fee on Shipping, Paypal Fee and then Finally Profit/Loss at the end.

Yeah, that’s a lot of fields to log for each transaction. Outright seems to do a really good job with keeping up with everything and letting me just print out all fees and sales with proper dates and descriptions. The only thing it doesn’t keep up with is the purchase price. I try to print out the invoice each time I buy something to re-sell and staple that to the printed paypal transaction paper for each transaction, when I have sold it. Is there a good way to keep this from being too tedious? We’re talking probably…$4,000 a month in sales in February. January was rather slow.

At tax time, Outright supposedly makes it easy to just see the total profit, total fees/deductions and such. But it doesn’t have an option to compare my purchase price per item to the re-sale price. So I could print that stuff out…but I’d end up paying taxes on everything for the whole year as a $0 purchase price value.

Any advice from sellers? Apart from "Get a CPA to do it all for you"…I wouldn’t make anything if I did that.

I keep all my items, prices, descriptions, final payouts, etc listed in an excel workbook. It does my calculations for me once I put the formulas in and I have a nice setup now after using it for a while. I don’t have to pay any fees to use it and I’m just very organized and attentive to it. If your business is so large that you can not handle the books on your own, I suggest hiring an employee. It shouldn’t take much training to keep good records. Just discipline.

I sold 3 items on ebay so far and I was wondering when I would have to start paying some kind of fee because it says the first 50 items are free and i haven’t had to pay any fees yet. I’m kinda confused with the whole fees thing so of anybody could help that would be great. Thank you!

The promotion for listing the first 50 items for free applies to the insertion fee only. There will still be fees associated with your first sales (specifically called "final value fees", these fees are a percentage of your sales price and are billed after the item sells on your invoice). The specific terms and conditions for the promotion you referred to are found on this page (scroll down to where it says "free insertion fees": http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/insertion-fee.html#free .

Like most bills, eBay fees are billed on a monthly cycle, and are due at the end of this period each month. You can view your current account information by going to the "Seller Account" page. Go to my.ebay.com and then hover on the tab "Account" found just above the main "active selling" portion of the page. Then, scroll down to "seller account" and click there. That will lead you to your account status showing any fees, balance, and payments. You can also access any invoices on the right by selecting the proper month and clicking "go".

I am in the middle of Ebaying a massive pile of things that I don’t want or don’t use anymore from around my house. I’m about 25% of the way through it all right now and am realizing that I am literally getting owned by both shipping and Ebay fees.

I know that the fees are standard and there is nothing that can be done about them, but my concern in this question is the shipping. I’m a frequent shopper on Ebay as well and constantly buy things like $1.50 cables with free shipping from China or books for $7.00 with free shipping from the US. However, when I go to the USPS (the place I’ve found to be the least expensive to ship from so far), I generally get charged much higher prices than what these people that sell to me must be getting.

I was recently charged $6.85 to ship a book in a bubble mailer envelope and $13.xx to ship a 5lb set of pool balls. I always tell the post office clerk that I would like to ship my items using the least expensive and slowest route possible. If the sellers that I purchase from are being charged these shipping prices, then they are making little or losing money on sales.

I’m hoping someone could give me some insight on how these sellers are shipping their items. There must be something I’m missing. I can’t continue to sell items such as books when I’m selling them for $5 if I have to ask $6.85 for shipping.

Thanks in advance!

for items weighing 13oz or less, use first class mail/parcel. it goes the same way as sending a letter and is charged per oz

for books, use media mail.

if you are shipping priority mail, and the package is heavy, look into using flat rate.

the reason why the chinese cables can ship free is probably because they send what is the equivalent of first class mail since the package is light. books are shipped media mail which is a lot less expensive than other services.

http://postcalc.usps.com/ use that to calculate prices for your listings (but you need a general idea of weight for your packages).

all you really need to do is not offer free shipping for now(until you become more familiar with postage). have calculated shipping in your listings so that the buyer pays for it and you dont worry about how much it will cost you. but you need to know the weight of what you are shipping

With the spiraling eBay fees and competitive pricing, the last thing eBay ebook sellers want to worry about is buying new resalable content. However, there are many sources that you may not have thought about which provide you with free resalable ebooks that you can successfully add to your inventory. This article details just a few of them.

1) Ebay:- That’s right eBay is a great source to pick up free ebooks (OK they’re not quite free but very cheap). Many ebook sellers run auctions that start at 1p to attract customers. If nobody bids on these auctions you can pick up a very cheap resalable ebook.

Furthermore, some sellers run 1p ebook listings in their eBay store. That means that you can actually purchase the item as a Buy It Now for 1p and in some cases receives it instantly. Again another way to pick up a very cheap resalable ebook, courtesy of eBay. Do a search on eBay for “ebooks resell” or something similar, and then list them lowest priced first to see what you find.

2) Newsletters:- When you signed up for this newsletter I gave you two free ebooks. Some newsletters that I am currently a member of give me 5 free ebooks every week. I would recommend joining ebook related newsletters as not only do you receive valuable tips from that ebook seller, you also get free products to add to your eBay store. Have a browse through eBay for the top ebook sellers. If they have a newsletter joins it. It costs nothing and you are likely to benefit greatly.

3) Ebooks: – Usually when you buy a new ebook it contains links to many bonus ebooks with resell rights. Although you may have to pay for the first ebook, this is another way to get a plentiful collection of free resalable ebooks.

4) Online Forums:- Many users at online forums will give away free resalable ebooks or give away links that allow you to access free ebooks with resell rights. Just have a browse through the posts and see what you can find.

5) Ebook Websites:- Many websites that sell ebooks have a free download page. From this you can download free ebooks which quite often come with resell rights. Type “resell ebooks” into Google or any other major search engines, and have a browse through these websites. I am sure you will find more than enough ebooks to keep you going for a while.

Although free ebooks with resell rights are likely to be outdated in relation to the ones you pay for they are still a good way to bulk up your inventory at relatively little cost. The larger your store inventory is as an ebook seller, the more chance that you will get a sale. If you bulk up your inventory with free resalable ebooks which you then sell alongside the more expensive, up to date, resalable ebooks you are sure to enjoy increased success. Good Luck with your Ebook Sales!!!

Kumarsunil

Given the average cost (in volume) of eBay is about 18% of gross (considering an average sell through rate of 50% on your listings), I don’t think adding another 15-20% in Adwords PPC is the way to go.

I’ve had the most success targeting eBay users right on eBay versus going off site. Have you tried the eBay Keywords program? Its currently managed by AdMarketplace -http://www.ampkeywords.com/. The average cost-per-click tends to be lower and it is extremely more targeted than Adwords thereby leading to more conversions.

*START EDIT*
I did some additional research and discovered that the eBay Keywords system is no longer active (spoke directly to eBay about this). Admarketplace is still likely a good place to get started on PPC.
*END EDIT*

Are you including anything in your shipments? It is much easier to get business from an existing client base than to land a new client. Maybe a coupon for reduced shipping or something (considering its an eBay store).

Depending on your type of product, there may be some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques you can employ. This can range from articles to microsites about your products. If you are the manufacturer of the product, you have a lot of options in this arena.

Another route, again dependent on your type of product, is to work with Amazon and few of the other resellers out there. I have a friend who was doing about $5M a year on eBay and he has moved nearly 50% of his volume over to Amazon in the last year.

If you are going the route of considering different outlets and your monthly sales are greater than $10K, you should probably consider Channel Advisor – http://www.channeladvisor.com – These guys allow you to sell on multiple eBay channels as well as Amazon and some of the other engines from a single interface.

Finally, and not least, you should have your own eStore outside of the eBay fees. This becomes more apparent as your sales volume increases and you build a return business. I’ve always advised that eBay should be considered a marketing vehicle. You should make every effort to get folks over to a site where you can enjoy the reduced cost of repeat sales versus being hit with new acquisition costs each time you sell something. My company deploys Product Cart and MIVA. Both are good systems and can be setup and hosted fairly inexpensively. Channel Advisor has a cart with their system as well.

Hope that helps!

I am doing a school report in oppose and in favor of ebay fees.

I would like to know specifics of what may happen if eBay didn’t ask their sellers for fees or for as much as they currently ask for.

Examples:
Employees can’t be paid
Maintenance can’t be paid
Full service can’t be provided…

Ebay didn’t charge fees originally. They were completely free. The more they increase their fees, the more they lose power sellers. In 2008, with the new CEO "genius" in charge, they made some changes, one of the major changes was they lied to their sellers and made it seem like they were charging less fees (by making the listing price cheaper), but they increased the final value fee, so people were paying an arm and a leg in fees once the item sold. There was also some feedback changes (sellers could no longer leave negative feedback for buyers who dont pay, and feedback hurts a sellers rankings in search), and other changes (they put digital download sellers out of business overnight, gave them a few days warning and suddenly came out and said digital download items weren’t allowed anymore). All of these changes, especially the fees, caused the powersellers to leave and go to other sites, especially craigslist. The surge in sellers going to craigslist caused ebay to decline in visitors. Less sellers means less items (the power sellers and digital download sellers accounted for thousands and thousands of listings), and this means less visitors because those items get listed in Google, and many visitors find ebay by googling items first instead of going directly to ebay. This was ebay’s downfall. In winter 2008, for the first time ever, Craigslist matched ebay in monthly visitors (I checked on Alexa.com). Ebay continued to tell their investors that they were losing visitors because of the recession, which wasn’t true because Craigslist continued to increase around the same time. Ebay keeps increasing their fees to make up for the loss in visitors and actual sales, so its only a matter of time when this catches up to them, they cant keep it up forever.

I live in San Jose, where ebay is located, and they layed off more than 2,000 people in the past 2 years. They have more fees now than they ever did, but have much less employees than they did when they were free. Fees have nothing to do with service, employees, or maintenance….fee’s are only related to profits. The site could still run without fees, and they could generate income from selling advertising space on the site like Myspace does. They do sell advertising space, but its not enough and they will continue to try to squeeze more fees out of their sellers until their sellers are finally gone. Do a "completed listings only" search in advanced search. 80% of the items on there don’t sell. It was the opposite 5 years ago, and it’s not the economy, it’s less visitors. My websites still get sales and my sites are worldwide just like ebay is.

Amazon has lower fees, and doesn’t charge a listing fee, and continues to outdo ebay in generated income.

If you do, PLEASE give us some tips 🙂 After years of trying different things and asking on Ebay I’m still having no luck. The "suppliers" always seem to be either too high priced or they are selling broken junk. The clothing side is such a headache with all the fake stuff, trendy items changing every week, etc. I’m just looking for something reliable. I don’t need to make a lot of money say a few hundred per month. TIA for any tips!

PS. My "main" business right now is computer service and consulting. Again, I couldn’t figure a way to sell that on Ebay. I do new custom computers and those naturally go for ridiculously low prices on Ebay. I couldn’t even figure a way to cover my costs doing that.
Can you guys talking about the flea markets give some specifics? Believe it or not, I’ve tried that. Don’t get me wrong, you *might* be able to clear 5 or 10 dollars per item but SORRY in this day and age that’s not cutting it! Going to a flea market, spending all that time, buying all that stuff, paying all those Ebay fees to make a few bucks. Not worth it. In fact, usually you’ll be in the hole if that’s all you make.

Go to Flea Markets and tag sales in your area. It will take a while getting to know which items will go for high prices on Ebay but i did this one summer, I made a decent amount of money. Just make sure you arent buying junk, anything that is REALLY pretty can usually sell if you buy it for a couple dollars. Brand names do help a lot.

I am not planning to open an eBay store. Just wondering if there are tricks to selling on eBay that I don’t know about. Like how to increase traffic to my items, how to advertise, and how to increase bidding. Most useful tips get 10 points.
I have sold a couple of items on eBay but usually not a lot of people bid or put on watch list. I eneded up with just 2 bids and sell for very low price. I wonder how I can get more people to see my ads in the first place.

One great way to attract buyers is to have a low starting bid. I typically start the item at the price I paid for it (I usually rummage through thrift stores and dollar stores for my items – ones that I know could sell for more). For instance, if I find an NFL jersey for $5… I list it for $6, which covers my ebay fees & paypal fees, plus my purchase price. $6 is INCREDIBLY low for a football jersey!

However… you also have to find items that people WANT. Sports items are great… IF the team is doing well or has a strong "die hard" fan base. Children’s clothing also does well (name brands, especially in bigger "lots"), newly released CD’s & movies, some pet items (dog jackets, for example), etc. If you see something you think might sell (that is guaranteed to BE there later)… go look it up on ebay and see if others are getting bids on similar items. I used to just think up as many things to search for as I could and see what did best.

Another big thing is to offer low (or free) shipping. You can either work the shipping into your starting bid price (although that costs more in fees), or just charge people the actual cost to ship. You’ll want to use a shipping calculator through ebay though as most people want to know in advance how much shipping will be, since there’s tons on ebay who will charge $30 to ship a pair of pants or something!

Anyway… other than that… I guess try to have a variety… and if you find something that sells well… buy a BUNCH of it to sell! 🙂 I found Barbie dog jackets on clearance for a dollar one time… bought 35 of them and made several hundred dollars on them! Ya just gotta have an eye for what sells… oh… and make your title catchy and make sure it states what’s being sold.

I’ve been selling on ebay for a long time, and now i have a good amount of friends, etc., that want me to sell for them, but I want to do it right. How do I charge for like the ebay fees, and such. Do people charge a percentage of the final value when selling for others, etc.? I want to get a little in return for my efforts. : ) Any suggestions?

Actually being a Trading Assistant is the certified ebay reseller you describe.
http://ebaytradingassistant.com/signup/

There is also an eBay Trading Assistant Discussion Board where requirements, information and tips-of-the-trade are exchanged.
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum/Trading-Assistant/106

I’ll tell you a few of my personal tips.
1. Never, never list anything that you don’t have in your possession and control over. If your consignor finds a local buyer, changes their mind or refuses to release the item after a successful sale; you become a Non-Performing-Seller, get a strike against you and may get Negative Feedback.
2. Nobody who hasn’t sold on eBay has a clue about the effort involved in photography, writing Descriptions, staging a item and proper shipping. Friends and relatives are aware of how easy it’s become for you but don’t realize how steep the learning curve is. Me personally, I’d avoid selling for those I wanted to keep close to me. I’d offer to help them open an account, guide them, encourage them, but that’s me. If you do decide to sell for those special people be prepared for some changes in the relationships.
3. Depending on the value of the item (higher priced gets lower %), a fair commission for selling ranges from 15% to 40% of the price realized AFTER all eBay & PayPal fees (perhaps shipping too).
4. The bottom line can be broken on shipping. Be aware of all the options & costs available. Free shipping now gets higher placement in *Search* so be careful of hi-weight, hi-cost items to ship if you offer it.
5. Never ship anything without some form of on-line verifiable delivery confirmation.
6. Also, see my previous answer to a Y!A question from a neophyte eBayer.
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=An6vEuMnsc7K8NvdD1G3W4Dh5gt.;_ylv=3?qid=20090906191246AA1CsJx&show=7#profile-info-zyYv4N7iaa

2 days ago I was trying to sell (Ebay) my P90X Videos that I had purchased to get some money back? A couple of hours before it was to end the auction was removed by the rights owner saying it was not authentic. It is very authentic!!! Not sure what to do. Others are selling theirs and not being kicked off. What are they doing so special that I’m not. HELP! (By the way P90X kicks #@$)

Ebay has rules for sellers that must be followed. Here is a copy of the seller rules from ebay that should help explain things better. I have been selling on ebay for over two years and the companies who own the patent rights to any product have the right to tell ebay to take down any listing they feel is fake or not authentic. It has happened to me and I had to prove to ebay and the company in question that the item was really theirs and once I did they allowed the listing and I sold the item and the buyer was contacted by ebay and asked if they were happy with the sale and if they felt the item was real. The buyer told them she was on both issues.

Rules for Sellers – Overview
eBay’s policies are rules and guidelines that help to create a safe, fair and enjoyable trading environment for all eBay members. As a seller, you are responsible for reviewing and understanding eBay’s selling policies, as well as all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the User Agreement.

Learning about eBay’s selling policies before you list an item will help you to avoid unintentionally breaking rules. eBay’s selling policies are updated to respond to marketplace, Community and security issues, so it is important to check them regularly for changes.

Violations of these policies may result in a range of actions, including:

Listing cancellation

Limits on account privileges

Account suspension

Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings

Loss of PowerSeller status

Every seller must know and follow:

Rules about Prohibited and Restricted Items – What items can and cannot be listed

Rules about Intellectual Property – Items and listings that have the potential of violating certain copyrights, trademarks, or other rights. Intellectual property owners can report listings as part of eBay’s Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program.

Rules for Listings – Actions that are not allowed in listings

Rules for Accepted Payments – Forms of payment that sellers may accept from buyers

In addition to the above rules, here are some additional policy violations not permitted on eBay:

Seller Non-performance – Sellers must honor the transaction contract. Sellers cannot fail to deliver an item for which payment was accepted, significantly misrepresent an item by not meeting the terms and item description outlined in the listing, or refuse to accept payment for an item at the end of a successful sale.

Shill Bidding – Sellers must not bid on their own item, or have family members, roommates or employees bid on their item.

Unpaid Item/Final Value Fee Credit Abuse – Sellers may not file for a Final Value Fee credit on a transaction where the buyer paid for the item.

Tax Policy – Sellers must pay relevant fees and taxes.

Both buyers and sellers cannot interfere with a transaction or offer to buy or sell listed items outside of the eBay site (see Rules for Everyone – Overview).

To report a policy violation:
Locate and review the policy page that deals with the violation.

Click the Report link at the bottom of the page. For example, see Excessive Shipping and Handling policy.

Enter the item number(s) of the listing that you want to report.

Click the Send button to send your message to eBay Customer Support.
You can also report a violation by clicking the Contact Us link on the left side of any Help page, selecting Listing Violations and choosing the appropriate topics.

Note: Only report a case once. Multiple emails about the same case slow an investigation.

After your report is received:

eBay will consider the circumstances of an alleged policy violation and the user’s trading record before taking action.

Disciplinary action may result in listing cancellation, limits on account privileges, account suspension, forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings, and loss of PowerSeller status.

If a complaint can’t be proven with certainty, eBay may take no action.

Due to privacy issues, it’s not possible for eBay to discuss the results of an investigation.

Posts made in eBay’s Want It Now area must also comply with eBay policies. For more information, see the Want It Now Policy page.

To learn more, you can take the tutorial on Shill Bidding and other Trust and Safety tutorials.