Sooo, I have found it a lot easier to start auctions out at .99 cent, and having a shipping price that is a little higher.
Years ago, just before eBay jacked up its fees, I was selling some of the vintage crochet and knit patterns I've since posted on my LJ blog here, I offered them as either Word files that I'd email the successful bidder, or as PDF files, their choice.
I started the auctions at 99 cents, on rare occasions I might get more than one bidder and perhaps get the astronomical price of a dollar-something, once I even got 2 bucks for a pattern. But I didn't have shipping fees, so even at 99 cents it was all gravy.
I maybe ended up making about $15 bucks over the course of a month, when eBay jacked up their listing fees. It then became too expensive for people like me to list cheap items. I noticed that people who had similar auctions to mine, who also offered electronic patterns/plans etc., stopped listing.
People who offered actual physical items for cheap prices, 99 cents to a couple of bucks per item, I noticed now had astronomical "shipping and handling fees"...
Obviously the cost of shipping hadn't skyrocketed overnight, it was their way of dealing with eBay's ridiculous listing price hike, the only way to recoup the listing fee on inexpensive items was to jack up one's "handling" fee.
So eBay lost a lot of listers like me at that time...also the people who'd used it to make a few bucks when they cleaned out their attic/garage/cellar, again it was too expensive for those people only looking to make a few bucks rather than use eBay as a source of continual income.
Plus my spider senses go off and I would have to give person my address for them to be able to send me the money order.
When I was doing my e-pattern auctions, there were a couple of bidders (who ended up being successful bidders) who asked that I snail mail the printed pattern to them as they didn't have PayPal (PayPal was a new thing back then)...
I accomodated them, only because I already had a "Mailboxes'R'Us" mailbox that I could provide as my return address, and I insisted that I would only accept payment via a Post Office money order that also included an additional 50 cents over the stated shipping and handling fee to cover paper, ink, and my time to bring it to the Post Office to mail out. I also insisted that they would have to send me a SASE along with their payment -- that saved me the additional expense of postage and envelope, plus minimized any error in address.
I definitely would NOT accept personal checks, and I would not accept international orders (with the exception of Canada, as one of the successful bidders was from Canada but could send me a U.S. Post Office money order), and they would have to understand that it would take at least a week or more from the end of the auction for them to receive the item in the mail.
None of these bidder objected to those conditions, they DID pay by PO money order, and they included a SASE so all I had to do was print out their pattern, put it in their SASE, and drop it in the mail.
Understandably that only works for paper or small items.
I never had the problem before because before paypal that was the only way to get money when selling on ebay but now I'm sort of wary of the idea.
That was another change eBay initiated that drove most of us small sellers away -- not only did they start insisting that we HAD to take PayPal (and of course PayPal gets a fee), but eBay also started telling us that we HAD to accept credit cards!
I mean, what were the people who were only using eBay as a tag sale to clean out their attic/garage/cellar supposed to do?
And for a 99 cent item that I emailed to the successful bidder, eBay was now telling me I had to pay a buck-something per item as the "merchant fee" for any credit card transactions...
Years ago, just before eBay jacked up its fees, I was selling some of the vintage crochet and knit patterns I've since posted on my LJ blog here, I offered them as either Word files that I'd email the successful bidder, or as PDF files, their choice.
I started the auctions at 99 cents, on rare occasions I might get more than one bidder and perhaps get the astronomical price of a dollar-something, once I even got 2 bucks for a pattern. But I didn't have shipping fees, so even at 99 cents it was all gravy.
I maybe ended up making about $15 bucks over the course of a month, when eBay jacked up their listing fees. It then became too expensive for people like me to list cheap items. I noticed that people who had similar auctions to mine, who also offered electronic patterns/plans etc., stopped listing.
People who offered actual physical items for cheap prices, 99 cents to a couple of bucks per item, I noticed now had astronomical "shipping and handling fees"...
Obviously the cost of shipping hadn't skyrocketed overnight, it was their way of dealing with eBay's ridiculous listing price hike, the only way to recoup the listing fee on inexpensive items was to jack up one's "handling" fee.
So eBay lost a lot of listers like me at that time...also the people who'd used it to make a few bucks when they cleaned out their attic/garage/cellar, again it was too expensive for those people only looking to make a few bucks rather than use eBay as a source of continual income.
Plus my spider senses go off and I would have to give person my address for them to be able to send me the money order.
When I was doing my e-pattern auctions, there were a couple of bidders (who ended up being successful bidders) who asked that I snail mail the printed pattern to them as they didn't have PayPal (PayPal was a new thing back then)...
I accomodated them, only because I already had a "Mailboxes'R'Us" mailbox that I could provide as my return address, and I insisted that I would only accept payment via a Post Office money order that also included an additional 50 cents over the stated shipping and handling fee to cover paper, ink, and my time to bring it to the Post Office to mail out. I also insisted that they would have to send me a SASE along with their payment -- that saved me the additional expense of postage and envelope, plus minimized any error in address.
I definitely would NOT accept personal checks, and I would not accept international orders (with the exception of Canada, as one of the successful bidders was from Canada but could send me a U.S. Post Office money order), and they would have to understand that it would take at least a week or more from the end of the auction for them to receive the item in the mail.
None of these bidder objected to those conditions, they DID pay by PO money order, and they included a SASE so all I had to do was print out their pattern, put it in their SASE, and drop it in the mail.
Understandably that only works for paper or small items.
I never had the problem before because before paypal that was the only way to get money when selling on ebay but now I'm sort of wary of the idea.
That was another change eBay initiated that drove most of us small sellers away -- not only did they start insisting that we HAD to take PayPal (and of course PayPal gets a fee), but eBay also started telling us that we HAD to accept credit cards!
I mean, what were the people who were only using eBay as a tag sale to clean out their attic/garage/cellar supposed to do?
And for a 99 cent item that I emailed to the successful bidder, eBay was now telling me I had to pay a buck-something per item as the "merchant fee" for any credit card transactions...
Reply
Leave a comment