This entry is already longer than it needs to be. A real seller's guide to eBay should simply be one word: DON'T. When the site was first created, it was a great way for a person like me to sell some excess Magic cards and make a little money. Suddenly, everyone thought they could sell everything they owned on eBay for a shit ton of money. The problem is, most of these are people trying to sell collectibles that they don't know anything about. Even so, one million monkeys at one million computers were eventually able to piece together enough eBay listings to force actual business owners to sell online in order to stay in business. People always come into the store where I work and ask if we make a lot of money selling comics and stuff online. The answer, of course, is that we make almost as much money online as we lose by needing to sell online because people aren't coming into the store, they're buying shit online. Now eBay's decided that they don't want small brick and mortar stores selling on their site. In fact, they don't want anyone selling stuff, they want people to auction stuff again. Recently, eBay has come under new management, and the new management is fucking retarded. They no longer like the concept of an eBay store, because that's just a whole lot of items on their site that are strictly for sale, not for auction. I know of multiple eBay users, all of whom have over 10,000 positive feedbacks and obviously sell very high volumes on the site, and they've all gotten the boot. Oddly enough, they don't want me on their selling some Magic cards either; they want Apple on their auctioning of lots of old iPods and iPhones and other excess warehouse shit. If you're confused, you should be. The banner for eBay's site may as well say "We're trying to put ourselves out of business". If after all this you still insist on selling stuff on eBay, however, here are some guidelines you should keep in mind:
Charge outrageous shipping - eBay is actually trying to cut back on this by deleting listings with what they consider to be extremely high shipping. I have Seen auctions of stuff for 5 cents or less so that people would notice them, then the shipping cost was the actual cost of the item. That idea is cute at best, as it doesn't address why you need to charge outrageous shipping. There's a small percent fee to list an item on eBay, whether the item sells or not. Then if the item sells, there's a selling fee which is approximately 12%, unless it's gone up again. Then you actually need to get the money from the fucktard that bought your item. Even if they don't pay you, you're paying those fees. If they do pay you, it's probably through PayPal which takes another 3-5% of the item cost. You're going to need a way to recoup all those losses, and charging $75 to ship a piece of chewing gum seems like the only way to break even.
Charge 2-3 times what the item is worth - This only works if you have an eBay store or do fixed price auctions, but much like charging
exorbitant shipping, this is also a necessity. Why, you ask? Because every you'll be lucky if half the people pay you. Buyers are no longer
held to any sort of standard so there's no obligation for them to pay, and no repercussions if they don't. Also, if they open a dispute
with PayPal, they will get a refund. No matter what. In a situation where we provided a receipt from the post office showing we shipped the
item, a tracking number showing the item was delivered, and the buyer's signature showing that they accepted the item, PayPal still decided
that the money needed to be returned. Oh, and if you already took the money out of your PayPal account that's okay; they'll just take it
out of your fucking bank account. I wish that was a joke.
Be a douchebag to everyone - As I said, buyers are no longer held to any sort of standard, so they're now all pricks. Sellers can no longer
leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers, only positive. Apparently, if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.
That would be all well and good if many people's livelihoods weren't completely dependent on this site. Someone can bid on something then say
"Fuck you! I'm not paying and you can't leave me negative feedback, so fuck off." Buyers will also now demand positive feedback before they've even
paid, threatening not to pay if they don't receive it. Since you can't let the world know what pricks these people are by leaving negative feedback,
you need to be a douchebag to the Nth degree so at least they realize how much they suck.
Lie in your item description - Why the fuck not? The site is a fucking joke at this point anyway, so who cares? My experience selling on eBay is
mostly Magic cards and comics, and at least half the people selling that stuff don't know anything about it; they're retards who bought the stuff
as an investment vehicle not realizing that it's a hobby. Collectibles like comics and cards are not retirement plans, they're hobbies like golf
or photography. A lot of the materials for these hobbies have a high resale value, but that should not be the driving force behind buying it.
People will come into the store and insist they have some of the really old Magic cards from the 80's. When I tell them the game didn't
exist until 1993, they insist that I'm wrong. I mean, it's only my hobby AND my job, so what the fuck would I know? We also have people calling
all the time to sell comic books that are "never opened" and "still in the original wrapping". If you've ever bought a comic, you already know
that I have to explain to these people that comics don't come sealed like that, and we need to see what condition the books were in BEFORE they went
into the bag. This concept blows their fucking minds. You may as well capitalize on that, however, by putting those sort of fraudulent descriptions
of your items online and hope that some of the same idiots selling this stuff are still out there buying it as well.
Kill people - A minimum of one in ten packages you send out should not be the item you auctioned off, but instead should be a letter bomb. Not
only will it prevent the rest of us from having to deal with that particular douchebag, that's one less person propagating the site's existence.
eBay has gotten fat and bloated like the Roman Empire, and it's time for it to be disposed of. Oh yeah, plus if you send people bombs instead of
the stuff they paid for, you can sell that stuff again! Sweet!
I hope my angry rant has taught you all a little bit about why eBay fucking sucks, as well as given you some great advice on how to maximize your
efforts there. Just remember, never use a black wire for your ground; that's what the bomb squad expects you to do.
Read my other blog entries or I'll leave you negative feedback
© 2008 by Dr. Jeebus