Submitted 2 weeks ago by GrumpyCat@leminal.space to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I have alot of stuff i would like to attempt to sell but im not sure if i should try something like ebay or host a garage sale before donating it all. I want to try selling first stuff i have around the house.
What do you think, what has worked for you?
What I don’t like about ebay is that as a seller you appear to have few rights or recourse in a dispute, while being a buyer comes with little protection or assurance either.
Just goes to show which party is being protected. I know I’m horrible for buying from Amazon, but easy returns and shipping are worth any money you may save on ebay.
It depends what you are selling. It has to be an item valuable enough to make the shipping hassle and seller’s fees worthwhile. Search for the thing you want to sell, and then hit the Completed Listings filter. That will show you what it has been selling for.
I use eBay to but/sell used bicycle parts and miscellaneous outdoor gear. Also sometimes used clothing if it’s niche or higher-end. Getting screwed by other users is very rare in my experience.
Craigslist is still sometimes useful, though it isn’t active like it used to be. It’s best for things you just want gone: post them in the free section and leave them out on the curb.
Start with a garage sale, so you don’t have to ship as much shit, it’s a major hassle when there’s a lot.
Garage sales are for making a couple of bucks getting rid of stuff. eBay is for odd items that have value, just not to the general public.
I sell to locals first always, but some stuff you just can't. Nobody around me knew for example what a PC Engine Duo was when I was selling off my console collection. eBay is good for that.
I'd garage sale first, local buy&sell websites/apps second, then go eBay for whatever remains of enough value to bother with.
Over a decade of selling on EBay big time and about every other major platform or my own shopify stores. EBay is nice, its streamline to sell on. The caveat to it is, expect to lose 30 percent of your items value or close to it. They calculate their fee after they’ve added shipping and tax and processing card fee. So your 300 dollar item total shipping and all say comes out to 371 then they subtract their percentage which is category based. I cleared 283. That was a GPU I sold with real numbers.
If you can swallow eating that type of margin loss because your cost of goods is low or your margin is super high then go for it, or you are a super savvy shipper. Just check the selling fees and know your strategy and master it. EBay is easy to sell on, compared to amazon, Etsy, insert your platform*
I am an 80 percentile top rated seller in my category overall. I also dominate my niche as THE seller of nearly all of my single product. That being said I’ve sold ww2 items to stuffed animals and anything you can think of. I used to buy whole estate sales and barns out right. Auctions, and about every major platform I’ve been on. I’ve sold international to national. You’d be hard pressed to think of random items I haven’t sold. I know big multi million dollar sellers who run warehouses. ASK ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE. Its late in my timezone so I’m groggy and can’t think. I’ll be fresh tomorrow. I’ll help anyone who needs it.
I only have one question and hopefully you won’t get a warning for sharing it but what is your eBay account?
I’ve sold a few things (games and electronics and such) on eBay within the last year without much hassle.
EBay is worth it for anything that is easy to ship (read: small) and has decent value. Particularly if that thing is fairly niche so you need a wider net to catch people. Do note there are effectively zero seller protections on EBay, it’s not hard for a buyer to scam you.
For anything that is hard to ship, Cragislist or FB Marketplace is a much better stop. And, since you sell with cash, the deal is complete once you part.
In the U.S. at least around me people tend to use Facebook or the Nextdoor app for selling or getting rid of things locally. I don’t like either app but that seems to be what the general public is into at the moment.
Haven’t touched Ebay in ~ 15 years or so and don’t plan to go back to that mess. Last I used it PayPal decided to lock my account in the middle of doing a few buy/sells on Ebay causing both my Ebay rating to tank and losing PayPal in the process. Back then Ebay was so integrated with PayPal that it was hard to do anything there without PayPal so I happily ditched both of them.
FB is better for heavy stuff that’s impractical to ship or you want to sell quickly. eBay will generally net you more money.
Facebook marketplace is unfortunately the place to go, lots of traffic and cheap/easy to use. This is the only reason I still have an account on there because its the best place to buy and sell
eBay is a major pain these days for small sellers that just want to unload some stuff.
A lot of people go there first to run scams, and eBay just blocks sellers left and right.
Try apps like Mercari, Whatnot, Posh/Vinted (for clothing), and Facebook marketplace. I think you’ll find all of these are friendly to one-off sellers and easy to conduct business.
eBay banned me after I sold about twenty things. They refused to say why, or to reverse the ban. Just be aware that’s a possibility.
If you have anything valuable or bulky, I’d take it to a proper auction house anyway.
I’d try marketplace, Craigslist and Nextdoor
Sure! Why not?!
Apepollo11@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve sold a fair few things on eBay. It’s much easier now than it used to be - and if you ship with Evri, you don’t even have to go through the faff of going to the post office.
There was a period, ten-fifteen years ago, when there were so many rules that it really wasn’t any fun to sell on there. It’s much more streamlined now.
My experience nowadays is mostly from selling Transformers toys. Can’t really fault it.
grasshopper_mouse@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hah, the only time I’ve bought things on EBay is to purchase Transformers toys! Though it had been a while.