Tell me about selling on E-bay

[Jiri Hrdina]

I have started to sell some of my more valuable hockey cards on Ebay and I'm finding it difficult to gain traction. Most of my listings do not generate any views. I've followed all the recommended steps including make sure the listings have as much detail as possible, and good photos, but I'm still not getting traction.

Is it worth paying extra for the promotion on Ebay? Or what else have people done in order to make this work?

I realize that you are competing against millions of listings, but I'm just looking for any effective tips and tricks.

[greyshep]

I cant speak to the hockey card market but I feel like ebay has declined fairly significantly as a spot to sell things? I cant think of the last time I went there to buy or sell an item.

Maybe just not a lot of eyeballs on your ad since there isnt much of an audience?

[TorqueDog]

eBay seems more like a 'store' than an auction site these days, and I use it mostly for OE car parts or a hard-to-find video game or something like that -- I found an old copy of a Rowan Atkinson mockumentary on VHS that I'm getting converted locally.

I tend to agree with greyshep; most of the things I would look to buy/sell on a day-to-day basis, I would likely go to FB Marketplace, then Kijiji, and lastly eBay.

[442scotty]

Buy and sell regularly on EBay. Mostly buy. Dont bother with hype to spend extra money and boost a listing. Just list it cheaply and be patient. Everything sells eventually. If you’re happy with your selling price just let it ride. I hate the fees they charge but the safeguards they have for buyers and sellers can’t be beat. Enjoy the ride.

[Suave]

Ebay is good but takes awhile if you don't have any sales or feedback. Sales seem to come in bunches so once you sell one then it seems a a couple others tend to come through. Guessing the algorithm tends to promote listers with recent sales.

[RichieRich]

Interest in hockey cards this time of the year might be low compared to earlier and mid season, or approaching playoffs? Timing is everything on any used item.

[Johnny Makarov]

Starting this year if you sell over $2,800 in the year they will report it to CRA.

[shermanator]

Like every marketplace, Ebay is full of sellers who think their cards are worth more than they are and buyers who think your cards aren't worth what you think they are. If you are getting no views on your listings it's either because there is no interest in the cards themselves, they're priced too high, or people simply can't find the cards.

If your cards are desirable and are priced right they will sell eventually so just list and forget.

A lot of people choose to deal off ebay as they want to avoid the fees that inflate the price. Facebook can be a good place to buy and sell cards but there is a non-zero risk of getting scammed.

[Huntingwhale]

I was doing this for a bit since last year with my older xbox 360 games that had some value. It ended up being worth it for games that were worth a lot, not worth it for cheaper games. Sold about 20ish games at good prices before it kind of fizzled out being worth it, so went back to selling them on local marketplaces in Calgary.

Never did any kind of promotions or anything. I figured it someone wants it, they will find it and promoting to be a waste unless it was a super popular item. I pretty much just listed and forgot about it until someone messaged me.

[mikephoen]

I sold between $30K to $40K a year on ebay almost entirely in collectible cards for the last decade or so that I had my store. We basically only used it to sell items that had value, but were hard to sell locally. Here's a few tips I picked up along the way.

If you've just started out and have no rating, you're going to have to sacrifice on your asking prices to get sales. Using the filters on ebay, you can look at what previous items similar to yours sold for and then you'll have to price yours at or below the cheapest recent sale. Sellers with excellent ratings can get slightly more for their items, but even then, unless you're selling extremely rare things, price is the most important factor in what sells and what doesn't. Good pictures are also a must. The title of the item is important (make sure you have the info that people will search in the title. You can look at the info people used on items that actually sold to get a good idea of what is needed). The body of the listing isn't important at all, so don't waste a ton of time on it. Card buyers are going to only care about good pictures.

As a Canadian seller, expect to lose money on shipping. If you charge what it will actually cost to ship express, then that will also scare off buyers.

When it comes to collectibles, ebay can be really good if you're selling rare/valuable items. It's pretty bad if you're selling common or cheap items. I forget now what our lower limit was for cards, as it's been a few years, but I think it was $40 per card. Anything less than that and the economics really started to break down. That was selling as a business though, with paying employees to list things. You can probably go down as low as about $20 per item if you don't value the time you're putting into this, but I definitely wouldn't go lower than that.

One other thing to consider is that these days, the only people who get ripped off on ebay are the sellers. The buyer protection is insane. If you don't ship with tracking, then if someone wants to rip you off, and tell ebay they didn't get the item, you will lose. Don't even waste time trying to fight it, it's just a cost of selling on ebay. If you ship with tracking, ebay might cover you if they say they didn't get the item.

Good luck with it, just don't think it's going to be easy money. It's a lot of work to run an ebay store successfully.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

I sold between $30K to $40K a year on ebay almost entirely in collectible cards for the last decade or so that I had my store. We basically only used it to sell items that had value, but were hard to sell locally. Here's a few tips I picked up along the way.

If you've just started out and have no rating, you're going to have to sacrifice on your asking prices to get sales. Using the filters on ebay, you can look at what previous items similar to yours sold for and then you'll have to price yours at or below the cheapest recent sale. Sellers with excellent ratings can get slightly more for their items, but even then, unless you're selling extremely rare things, price is the most important factor in what sells and what doesn't. Good pictures are also a must. The title of the item is important (make sure you have the info that people will search in the title. You can look at the info people used on items that actually sold to get a good idea of what is needed). The body of the listing isn't important at all, so don't waste a ton of time on it. Card buyers are going to only care about good pictures.

As a Canadian seller, expect to lose money on shipping. If you charge what it will actually cost to ship express, then that will also scare off buyers.

When it comes to collectibles, ebay can be really good if you're selling rare/valuable items. It's pretty bad if you're selling common or cheap items. I forget now what our lower limit was for cards, as it's been a few years, but I think it was $40 per card. Anything less than that and the economics really started to break down. That was selling as a business though, with paying employees to list things. You can probably go down as low as about $20 per item if you don't value the time you're putting into this, but I definitely wouldn't go lower than that.

One other thing to consider is that these days, the only people who get ripped off on ebay are the sellers. The buyer protection is insane. If you don't ship with tracking, then if someone wants to rip you off, and tell ebay they didn't get the item, you will lose. Don't even waste time trying to fight it, it's just a cost of selling on ebay. If you ship with tracking, ebay might cover you if they say they didn't get the item.

Good luck with it, just don't think it's going to be easy money. It's a lot of work to run an ebay store successfully.

I've sold a lot of cards on Ebay too, although my volume, at it's height was more like $15-20k.

Most of the things you say are correct. Although Ebay has new shipping programs that are pretty economical to the USA. They have a flat shipping light package option, that comes with tracking. The price used to be about $8 CAD but has gone up to $14 CAD.

As you sell cheaper cards, that $14 CAD makes less sense. A cutoff of about $40 is probably the right amount for that shipping option. For cards less than $40 I ship lettermail with a postage stamp. That bears its own risks though. About 1/30 sales will result in "lost package", which is just usually someone making a false claim. You have to treat that as a sunk cost and make sure you aren't using the lettermail option for expensive cards.

You can also choose to be somewhat selective on your buyers. For example, put in the description that you won't sell to anyone with less than 100 ratings and hasn't had an account for more than 3 years. That will weed out a lot of the scammers.

Looking back at some of my sales now.....Damn prices were good. I sold a Tkachuk BGS 9.5 YG for $400 after the first cup. Sold the same card this year, after the recent cup win for $127....

[missdpuck]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

I sold between $30K to $40K a year on ebay almost entirely in collectible cards for the last decade or so that I had my store. We basically only used it to sell items that had value, but were hard to sell locally. Here's a few tips I picked up along the way.

If you've just started out and have no rating, you're going to have to sacrifice on your asking prices to get sales. Using the filters on ebay, you can look at what previous items similar to yours sold for and then you'll have to price yours at or below the cheapest recent sale. Sellers with excellent ratings can get slightly more for their items, but even then, unless you're selling extremely rare things, price is the most important factor in what sells and what doesn't. Good pictures are also a must. The title of the item is important (make sure you have the info that people will search in the title. You can look at the info people used on items that actually sold to get a good idea of what is needed). The body of the listing isn't important at all, so don't waste a ton of time on it. Card buyers are going to only care about good pictures.

As a Canadian seller, expect to lose money on shipping. If you charge what it will actually cost to ship express, then that will also scare off buyers.

When it comes to collectibles, ebay can be really good if you're selling rare/valuable items. It's pretty bad if you're selling common or cheap items. I forget now what our lower limit was for cards, as it's been a few years, but I think it was $40 per card. Anything less than that and the economics really started to break down. That was selling as a business though, with paying employees to list things. You can probably go down as low as about $20 per item if you don't value the time you're putting into this, but I definitely wouldn't go lower than that.

One other thing to consider is that these days, the only people who get ripped off on ebay are the sellers. The buyer protection is insane. If you don't ship with tracking, then if someone wants to rip you off, and tell ebay they didn't get the item, you will lose. Don't even waste time trying to fight it, it's just a cost of selling on ebay. If you ship with tracking, ebay might cover you if they say they didn't get the item.

Good luck with it, just don't think it's going to be easy money. It's a lot of work to run an ebay store successfully.

Yeah, the post-sale extortion attempts I’ve gotten in the past few years are nuts. It’s definitely not like it used to be.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by blankall

I've sold a lot of cards on Ebay too, although my volume, at it's height was more like $15-20k.

Most of the things you say are correct. Although Ebay has new shipping programs that are pretty economical to the USA. They have a flat shipping light package option, that comes with tracking. The price used to be about $8 CAD but has gone up to $14 CAD.

As you sell cheaper cards, that $14 CAD makes less sense. A cutoff of about $40 is probably the right amount for that shipping option. For cards less than $40 I ship lettermail with a postage stamp. That bears its own risks though. About 1/30 sales will result in "lost package", which is just usually someone making a false claim. You have to treat that as a sunk cost and make sure you aren't using the lettermail option for expensive cards.

You can also choose to be somewhat selective on your buyers. For example, put in the description that you won't sell to anyone with less than 100 ratings and hasn't had an account for more than 3 years. That will weed out a lot of the scammers.

Looking back at some of my sales now.....Damn prices were good. I sold a Tkachuk BGS 9.5 YG for $400 after the first cup. Sold the same card this year, after the recent cup win for $127....

Back when I did ebay, we used DYKpost for US packages. They're a local remailer. With them, you have a US post office box in Montana and you buy US tracked postage online using that return address. You take your package to DYKpost and then once a day DYKpost drives all the packages from their Calgary customers across the border and mails them from some small town in Montana. It worked pretty well, and it brought the price for tracked shipping to the US down to about $5-$6 included the DYKpost fee. It might be more now, but other than the having to drive to the DYKpost warehouse to drop off packages multiple times a week, it was convenient and cheaper than the other options.


Edit: I used Shippo to buy the US postage. I think there might have been some other company I also used at one point, but I think Shippo had a good website that was easy and fast to use.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Back when I did ebay, we used DYKpost for US packages. They're a local remailer. With them, you have a US post office box in Montana and you buy US tracked postage online using that return address. You take your package to DYKpost and then once a day DYKpost drives all the packages from their Calgary customers across the border and mails them from some small town in Montana. It worked pretty well, and it brought the price for tracked shipping to the US down to about $5-$6 included the DYKpost fee. It might be more now, but other than the having to drive to the DYKpost warehouse to drop off packages multiple times a week, it was convenient and cheaper than the other options.


Edit: I used Shippo to buy the US postage. I think there might have been some other company I also used at one point, but I think Shippo had a good website that was easy and fast to use.

There are a few reshipping services that definitely make sense if you have enough volume. They'll save you a few dollars per item. The downside is that they make dealing with shipping and customer issues more complicated.

I just sold Bennett and Tkachuk rookie cards for about $100 each, and the shipping was only $6-7 each. Shipping costs were a bit of a non-factor there. That's a great price for shipping with tracking and insurance.

Another issue is that Ebay has started charging sales tax on items, which cuts into profit too, which is based on the max buyers will pay. For comic books, you only pay GST though, which is nice, as they are PST exempt. I guess not a factor in Alberta to start with.

[rohara66]

Sign up for a Canada Post small business account to get discounted shipping rates. You don't need a business number or anything.


The savings to the USA are huge, like 50% savings for tracked shipping options.


And like posted about if you sell over a certain amount in a calendar year ebay will report all your sales to the CRA and then you get to deal with that mess.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by rohara66

Sign up for a Canada Post small business account to get discounted shipping rates. You don't need a business number or anything.


The savings to the USA are huge, like 50% savings for tracked shipping options.


And like posted about if you sell over a certain amount in a calendar year ebay will report all your sales to the CRA and then you get to deal with that mess.

DON'T use Canada Post to ship to the US! DYK post is 1000 times better as long as your product is not made in China. FU Trump! lol

I just sold a book to the US but it was printed in China so DYK would not send it. I had to use Canada post and the small business account. Sure it gave me $7 off, but it was still $26 and 9 business days to get there. DYK would have been $11 and be there with 3-4 business days.

[firebug]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

DON'T use Canada Post to ship to the US! DYK post is 1000 times better as long as your product is not made in China. FU Trump! lol

I just sold a book to the US but it was printed in China so DYK would not send it. I had to use Canada post and the small business account. Sure it gave me $7 off, but it was still $26 and 9 business days to get there. DYK would have been $11 and be there with 3-4 business days.

Canada Post tracked package via Ebay has been the cheapest I've found. It's about $8 for up to a pound. Once things get closer to two pounds I can often get FEDEX rates for $18 bucks or so. In the 'good times' Chit Chats was about $1 less but I can drop the tracked packet stuff off any post office rather than having to drive to their location.

I mainly sell clothes so dress shirts etc. can be sent for about $7. Suits or shoes are closer to $18.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by rohara66

Sign up for a Canada Post small business account to get discounted shipping rates. You don't need a business number or anything.


The savings to the USA are huge, like 50% savings for tracked shipping options.


And like posted about if you sell over a certain amount in a calendar year ebay will report all your sales to the CRA and then you get to deal with that mess.

Yikes. $2,800 threshold for CRA reporting is not that much.

Really glad I sold off the vast majority of my collection when I did. How do they even gage your "income" from that stuff? Do they give me a write off when I open $1000 worth of boxes and pull $100 worth of cards?