{"id":2351,"date":"2012-02-24T07:35:25","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T15:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2012-02-24T21:55:01","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T05:55:01","slug":"fruitlessly-fishing-in-the-ebay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2012\/fruitlessly-fishing-in-the-ebay\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruitlessly Fishing in the (e)Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image<\/a>Two weeks ago I took you on an eight-lesson cruise around eBay: Seven Things I’ve Learned Selling on eBay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now I’ve reeled in six Musings of a Flopping eBay Fish<\/span> Seller<\/em>.<\/p>\n

1 Don’t Mess With Low-Profit Items<\/b> — Effective yesterday, if I can’t earn at least $5 free and clear, I refuse to list it on eBay. Period. Why should I? I’m supplementing my too-low income, not merely engaging a hobby or indulging an addiction. If I must, I’ll combine items. For instance, instead of listing a single 1000-Peso Mexican coin, I did a lot of three. Not only does it take the same amount of time to list, I can offer buyers a better shipping rate. And my per hour income is more worth my time.<\/p>\n

2 If You Must Relist, Raise the Price<\/b> — That’s right. Mark Roth<\/a> will give his wannabe buyers one opportunity to buy at his lowest price. If they think they can out-wait him for a lower price, I’ve just forewarned them. \":mrgreen:\"<\/p>\n

3 Offer Free Shipping<\/b> — Yes, free<\/i> is a four-letter word, but it’s what makes the Internet go around. So leap aboard the Ferris wheel (or is it a merry-go-round?). But first count the cost (yours!) of free…and factor that into your starting bid or your Buy It Now price. \ud83d\ude2f Yeah. Really and truly. If I have an item I would list for $8 with $5 shipping, I’d list it for $13 with free shipping. I like to see that round orange FREE shipping<\/i> graphic on my listing! (And the Free Shipping<\/i> in the search results.)<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Check Completed Auctions<\/b> — So I have some old boxes of Amoco Parowax. Are they eBay material? Probably. Do I want to mess with them? Sure. Should I? I don’t know, yet. First (of course), I search eBay to see if there are any current listings<\/a>. If current auctions aren’t moving the things at prices that meet Lesson 1 above, that’s Strike One. Next, I adjust the search results to show only completed items<\/a>. If the results also fall short of Lesson 1, that’s Strike Two and<\/i> Strike Three. I’ll just leave those old boxes of paraffin in the kitchen cupboard where I spied them two days ago. \ud83d\ude06<\/p>\n

5 Check Amazon’s Listings<\/b> — I like listing on Amazon<\/a> because usually I don’t have to take pictures and mess with detailed descriptions. And I can leave my item there as long as I want. Sure, they charge a higher commission and might not charge enough for shipping, but I price accordingly. (On February 15 I sold an old and never opened Lego set for $35 on Amazon, excluding shipping. The day before on eBay, three auctions for the same thing closed at $15.99, $16.00, and $33.99. Why mess around with eBay?!)<\/p>\n

6 Try eBay’s BayEstimator<\/b> — I think it’s still in beta or demo mode, but it seems to work. I think it still needs plenty of tweaking, but you might find it helpful. I know it’s a corny name, but go ahead and give it a twirl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s all for now. This took far too long. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

Do me a favor now? \ud83d\ude42 Please click the Facebook Like button at the right and\/or use the sharing buttons below. Thanks!<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh, and also visit my current auctions<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago I took you on an eight-lesson cruise around eBay: Seven Things I’ve Learned Selling on eBay. Now I’ve reeled in six Musings of a Flopping eBay Fish Seller. 1 Don’t Mess With Low-Profit Items<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[1001,1002,909],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-stuff","tag-ebay","tag-ecommerce","tag-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-BV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}