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I’ve just started using eBay recently. It has been quite the learning experience to say the least. It has allowed me to get rid of few things and make a little money. A lot of my tips may be obvious, and seem like common sense, but not everyone seems to be aware of them. They are all from experience.

Here are my tips:

Set up a PayPal account right away. Use a strong password, maybe unique from any others you use. It is hooked into your bank account. It takes a little while to be verified. It also allows you to accept credit cards right away, and you don’t need a merchant account with some other credit card processing agency.

If someone pays by e-check or with money that is not already in the PayPal account it can take up to 4-5 business days to make it to your account. Taking money out of your PayPal account, with the free bank transfer option takes 3-4 business days. Leave money in your PayPal account, to cover shipping and eBay fees. I transferred money out because I thought I had more coming right in, and ended up having to go to the post office to pay for shipping in person. (this little goof caused me to bounce checks while I had several hundred dollars in transit to my checking account. : (

A transaction on eBay can easily take up to 24 days before you see money in your bank account. A worst case scenario; 7 day auction, 7 days for them to pay, 7 days for an e-check to clear, and 3-4 days to get the money into your bank account. This one has happened to me already. : (

Learn with a fewer inexpensive transactions. Until you get a few auctions down right.

Be prompt, ship right away, pay right away.

Communicate with the buyer or seller. After an auction ends send a invoice ASAP.

Take lots of pictures. Give a complete Description. Look at other auctions for the same item. This can give you an idea of asking price, as well as description ideas.

Do a little Research on item.

Use the USPS shipping option in PayPal. Get free boxes from the post office. they will even deliver them to you free.

Get a scale. Here’s a pocket one from ?Harbor Freight it goes to a little over a pound, but I recommend getting a bigger one like this. It can weigh objects up to 11 lbs. Print shipping online and just drop things off at the post office.

Use a tracking number. I’ve never been screwed, but I’ve always used a tracking number. I use USPS for its ease. They provide boxes, other than a little tape, a sheet or two of paper, and newspaper for packing, I really don’t have to spend a lot of time or money to ship.

I always enclose a packing slip, from PayPal all this can be printed nicely, professionally, and free.

Pay attention to vendors taxes and state taxes. If you are doing a lot of transactions pay attention to sales taxes and vendor taxes. The tool exist in eBay to make this easy.

Don’t Use a weird name to register if you plan to use it for any length of time. I registered a name when I was not sure this whole “eBay” thing would take off. My name seems a little sketchy but its not horrible.

Don’t Post sales at weird times, be careful of California time. Quite a few of my sales come from California. There is much debate over the best time to post a sale, time of day and day of week.

Don’t set a really high reserve if you can avoid it.

EBay’s search engine does not seem to be perfect. Take a little time to look for the item you plan to sell, and look for historic prices to get an idea of if you can sell it and for what price. So write a good description using as many key words as possible, but be accurate. Describe all faults, and if the item has been tested or you have the ability to test it.

I sold a vintage calculator recently, I posted the auction and within 10 minutes had question about a buy it now price. I did a little more research and found that a lot of collectors were interested I ended up getting a little over $200.00 for it. I’m glad I did not do the instant buy it now option.

The feedback idea seems a little played out. Everyone is afraid of bad or retaliatory feedback, so everyone it seems steps lightly around it and is afraid to post bad feedback even if deserved. I am a little afraid to post even slightly negative feedback on a buyer that had to have the no payment option enabled.

Pay attention to fee’s. It cost about $0.35 to list an item for an initial $0.99 and it goes up from there. There is a fee for everything. If you list a picture in the gallery view that is also $ 0.35. The PayPal fees can also eat things up. I posted an item that ended up selling for $0.99. It cost me $0.35 to list and $0.56 to receive a payment in PayPal. Making my sale net me a grand total of $0.09. It would have been less effort to toss the item in the trash.

Think about where you host your images. My ISP that I was using to host images for several auctions flaked and probably cost me a percentage of my final sale price as a result. The auction had an hour to go and the ISP hosting my images was unreachable. The image I paid to have in the gallery view was not visible; I had two different people ask me to send the picture along. I appended it to the auction but it still looked flakey. (Not the delicious flakey either)

Set all this up and become fluent before you really need to use it. There is a learning curve.

I also recommend ready the guides already on eBay. Some are quite useful.

I hope this is a useful guide.

Thanks

Dan

Next, A few other tips, interesting items, as well as scams on eBay.

On CNN today there was an article about a girl named Olivia, a girl who managed to inspire an I hate Olivia MySpace group. Also see the Bullyblog on this particular bullying story. Although a particular search on google for myspace pages only yielded 36 results, so it remains to be seen if this is really a new meme. She had a siezure in front of her class, and the class made fun of her. I can’t imagine where the teacher was. Kids are really cruel sometimes

She will be in the good company of others with hate pages like Zachary Allan Starkey.

Nothing shows up with a Google trends search or on memepool.

According to a CNN tv blip this morning, and I would guess the NTSB, about 19 teens die in car crashes every day, in the United States.

SafeCo is offering a program to put a GPS in your car that would let you monitor the driving habits of your teen. The plan is in pilot stages right now, but it could lead to lower premeiums, as it has been shown already to reduce claims. The SafeCo system is about $25.00 a month. They claim a third party handles all the data so they only see it in agregate, and it will not be used to influence your premiums. This data is subpeonable by legal entities though. CNN unfortunately does not have video online right now of the broadcast story I just saw.

There are several other companies doing this. One Rocky Mountain Tracking offers their service for several different types of vehicles, for different types of functions including fleet tracking, loss prevention, and checking up on your spouse.

Here is another company offering essentially the same service but different sets of terms Safe Teen Driving Club /the GPS they sell is $599.00 and the monthly service is $29.95 with a one year commitment.

AIG seems to be the first auto insurance company that has implimented this type of technology specifically in this way. Here is AIG’s partner site called Mobile Teen GPS
AIG states,

“AIG Auto Insurance will not track individual customer’s daily driving behaviors and data gathered during this pilot will not impact a customer’s rate or renewal eligibility. AIG Auto Insurance will offer this service to the pilot policyholders at a substantial discount off the normal device and monthly service fees.”

They sell it as a way of increasing privilages for the driving teen as the parents “Know” they are being responsible. Thier FAQ area is interesting.

There are three price levels for plans and coverage which is a little different from the other companies which have just one price point.
The Starter plan at 14.95 /month gives you 20 locales
The Value plan gives you for 29.95 / month 100 locales
and finally the Safety plan offers for 39.95 a month 300 locales.

It seems you can get hit on your credit card for every local your kid goes over or if you get allerted more than a certain number of times per month.

I predict that cell phone companies will get in this business if it is technically feasiable.

This Tattle Tail site even lets you tattle online if you see soemone with a bumper sticker telling you about it. Tattle-Tail -Like that will never be abused in a high school setting. -(sarcasm)

They do have a great money making opportunity though for groups or organizations. Your group gets $5.00 and $10.00 for each 1 and 2 year sign ups, but your org has to handle all the money and mail it in to them. Too bad there isn’t a web affiliate, it would be pretty lucrative compared to other add revenue.

To contrast this relatively simple idea with Hunter Pro’s web site I’m a little over whelmed, which does not appear to let you purchase from them. It’s not quite ready for regular people to jump in on that web site.

Lightening GPS offers a several different devices including one that can be moved from vehicle to vehicle for a one time activation of 69.95, and a but relatively expensive monthly service: $69.95 /month for service but up to 2000 location queries a month.

The Wall Street Journal has a lengthy article with comparisons of the various prices/ features. But they make no mention of the legal liabilities smoething like this carries. Imagine your kid getting a heavier sentence because of your “concern” with one of these spying type devices. I included a link to a article where this has already happened.

A completely different form of “tracking” is a camera that only recordes the last 10 seconds before an “event” like a crash or other rapid change in acceleration. via TechDirt

This is a little better trust wise than the other system, but they mention in this WSJ Article it can be subpoenaed in legal precedings.

Here is mention of a vehicular homicide case that officials are trying to get access to the device recorder to either convict or raise the penalty

Here is the National Motorists Association position on the idea of recorders in vehicles.

Finally here is good example via a carblog called Stangs Uleashed with a real situation in which a driver was being charged with a larger crime based on whats in the recorder.

Here are a few other blogs about this as well:
Telematics Journal
Mike the Actuary’s Musings

Via Metafilter