Selling on eBay

ALL,

You cannot realize how much fun it is selling ?all our worldly goods? on eBay plus you do pick up a little cash and that's just like money!  If you?re a man, first sell your wife?s stuff because that's not very important anyhow.  On the other hand, if you?re a woman do the opposite because what?s good for the Gander is good for the Goose too.  By the way, my wife watches me like a hawk.

For the full timer after you dispose of those things you no longer need you might consider the following.  As you travel purchase small items (items you can carry in your toad or RV) at campgrounds or local garage sales you may see along the way.  Selling on eBay can become a small part-time business as you travel and you can do it from wherever you park your RV assuming you have a PC with an internet connection and a digital camera.

It?s a real kick.  For example here is a partial list of ?stuff? I have sold.  So far I have sold 40 items.

Speakers for a PC         $10.00
Tie Clip Gold             $106.00
Electric shaver                        $15.00
Gold Coin Mexican 20 Peso     $215.00
HP Deskjet 340 printer                         $15.00
Two remote controls for DirecTV            $34.00
Hamilton Wrist Watch                        $110.00
Canon AE-1 camera                  $157.00
RF remote antenna for DirecTV              $20.00
Stamp First Day Cover                        $12.00
PC software                                $15.00
Olympus C-2100 Camera      $190.00
RV Sewer Solution                  $25.00

Here is a description of what you might do if you choose to sell on eBay.

1.  Look around your house and/or RV (check that storage shed) and identify 5 or 10 things you may want to sell.  Without joining you can go into eBay and go to BUY and look for the same items you may want to sell in order to see the same or similar items and prices.  BTW, eBay has descriptive how-to-do-it sheets that describe everything you may want to know BEFORE joining.   

2.  If you want to sell, for your security, open a NEW checking account.  You need only put $100 in it.

3.  Join BOTH eBay and PayPal as a seller and follow the steps to get verified.  You will need to give PayPal your credit card number (no big deal) and the ?new? checking account number.  You are already a member of eBay if you have bought stuff on eBay.  You join PayPal so the buyers can pay you through PayPal and so you can transfer the funds between your PayPal account and your new checking account.  You do NOT have to disclose you Social Security number.

4.  Start selling.  To list an item for sale (auction) it is a fill-in-a-form procedure.  Before I put something on eBay I write a description using WORD but I store it in a TEXT (.TXT) format.  In that way I can  cut and paste the description into the description block on the eBay selling form.  Also, take 1- 6 photos (up to 12 are possible) in low resolution (640 by 480) format.  On the selling form you will see that you can copy the photos from wherever they are stored in you PC to the eBay selling form.  Good close up (macro) photos sell an item!!!  This is a a must.

Somehow I think you would enjoy the auction process.  It?s fun watching the auction and, no matter what you get in dollars, it is fun auctioning no longer "useful-to-you" items.  For a full timer it can because a business.

JerryF

Hi Jerry
we sold a lot stuff on ebay before coming to the states
we were lucky because they had a free listing day so we put anything and everything on there
free of charge .I did an add for the wife but didnt have enough courage to list her.I sold my boat
and even listed the house.
Have a look on the UK site for motorhomes and you will find loads of american RVs for sale

Ian,

How do I find the UK site?  I have never seen it and would like too.

JerryF

When you get the home page scroll down to the bottom you will see a list of world wide
ebay sites just click on united kingdom

Jerry,

While plain text is good for many things, you may want to use some of the added features of a web page creator, like FrontPage, to add extra punch and formatting options. Use it like Word to create the look you want and then just copy the resulting html into the ad.

Karl said:

you may want to use some of the added features of a web page creator, like FrontPage

Click to expand...

Arrg ... wash your keyboard out! At the very minimum you should be recommending a standards-compliant web oage creator. Much of FP requires use of Billy Boy's own browser to render the page correctly.

Karl,

I probably would use something more elaborate than "plain text" if it were a business but I knew that shortly I would run out of "old unused stuff" to sell.  So, guess what, after 41 sales I may have reached that point.  I'm several thousand dollars richer but I am now out of inventory. 

My latest was a surprise.  I used to do shortwave radio but lost interest about five years ago so I put my trusty Sony ICF-2010 short wave radio on eBay and it fetched $301.00.  It drew more lookers than anything else.  Over 600 people looked at the radio, 41 put it on their "watch list," and 16 people bid on it. 

A couple of months ago was my biggest surprise.  After "careful" research and a Butterfield & Butterfield appraisal (est $700) I put a Coverrubis oil painting on eBay.  Butterfield did not want to auction it because a $700 item was not worth it to them.  The surprise was that with 2 minutes to the auction end the bid was at $250 and in the last 60 seconds it jumped to $935.  I know that many eBay bidders jump in with, let's say, 30 seconds to go but this was my first experience with that technique.

The last item I sold was a Canadian Maple Leaf 1 Troy ounce gold coin.  This is a bullion coin, not a collectors coin.  With gold at $427 per ounce I put it up with a starting big of $400 and a "but-it-now" of $450.  Within one hour it was snapped up for $450.

I may find a few more items to sell but, for now, I'm having symptoms of eBay withdrawal.  This includes looking at the balance in our new eBay checking account and looking at the eBay auction site even though I have nothing for sale.

JerryF

Tom,

I'm just suggesting using the editor to create the html. That's standard, and will render correctly with any browser if you don't use the fancy-schmancy stuff. Sure beats hand coding , which I can do, but why re-invent the wheel? Sure, there's lots of other editors out there but I'm still using Ofice 2000 and FP came with it.

Jerry,

I know what you mean about last-second bidders; I'm one myself. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but it's still a thrill. Somehat less exciting but easier to manage is entering a maximum bid and let Ebay up the ante for you electronically. Your selling strategy is equally important, and many people make the mistake of putting in a too high starting price that drives many potential buyers away without ever bidding. Reserves are good too, but must be based on value and not emotion.

Karl,

Here is an good example of the auction concept in action.  I put a set of 18KT gold and platinum horse shoe cufflinks up for auction with a starting bid price of $150 and a buy-it-now price of $200.  Instead of buying them instantly for $200 someone starting the bidding at $150 which, as you know, cancelled the possibility of buying them instantly for $200. In the final analysis they were bid up to $226 which was good for me.

On items with a clear and identifyable value, such as gold coins or these cuff links, I usually set a high starting bid price, that would have been my reserve price,  rather than set a reserve price because eBay charges too high of an up front fee to set a reserve price.

JerryF