Any Ebay Veteran Sellers Know If It's Worth It from Experience?

I no longer sell as much as I used to. I Pick and choose.

Are there any consignment places you could work with , noit in your city that will accept your things by mail?

Back before the internet.. I know, in the last century! I had a place I worked with in Houston. I used to "Mail" them photographs, with "Typed" lists and requested prices.. so they could then let me know if they would be willing to consign the items..

Now you could just email them your items and see if they are willing to sell them.

Right now I am sitting on the heaviest dishes ever made. I know they are worth good money, but the shipping is going to cause some heart attacks for buyers.. I have had them sitting here for months. I guess I just need to suck it up and be willing to get what I get for them..

I sell on eBay all the time. I sell things for other people in addition to my own personal sales.

Go into your My eBay page and click the Account link. Under Account Summary, click to see Fees. You can see your current uninvoiced fees. To the right is a dropdown box for invoices. Choose one and view it. It will itemize each auction and the fee(s) for them. It even distinguishes between the Final Value Fees for the item and the shipping.

Basic listing is generally free for the first 50 items in a month, but you'd have to pay for any listing upgrades you selected, like using more than one category or having a subtitle. The Final Value fee is 10% of the sale price+shipping charged.

Here is the Fees page: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

PayPal takes their payment processing fee at the time a payment is made. You are never billed for that.

The Seller Dashboard is simply an informational page and there is no cost. You may not have access to it if you have too little recent data to calculate. If you follow the link Mary L posted, it even specifically tells you that it is completely Free

It is possible Wild Woman is confusing the Dashboard with having an optional eBay Storefront, which has a monthly price of $15.95 if you subscribe for a year.

Added: eBay started charging the FVF on the amount including shipping to discourage sellers from inflating shipping. List your items at the price you want/need to make, taking fees into consideration, and keep your shipping costs accurate. You'll have more bids/buyers that way.

Feel free to private message me if you have more questions or need help navigating the site. I don't often return to a question after I post an answer so I might not see a follow up.

Your dashboard account on ebay now costs $15.99 per month. That's just your normal monthly fee.

Obviously you need to do a better job on weighing your items BEFORE you list them so you can mark them accordingly. When you list it - use Turbo lister so that all your items populate at once - and end at the same time - then when you do your postage - do the weight of the item(s) IN THE BOX WITH THE PACKING MATERIAL - and add 8 ounces to the "CALCULATED - Cost varies via Buyers LOCATION" - this will help you in your shipping costs. DO NOT DO FLAT RATE SHIPPING....

It's worth it - if you have a lot of quality items to sell. Take REALLY GOOD pictures and measurements.

If there are hundreds of your item out there? Not worth it. UNLESS every one that has listed has sold. So do your research. As we are heading into February and Spring - people are gearing up for summer stuff and not so much winter items...HOWEVER...with the impending storms - people might have lost some winter gear....etc...so you might be able to sell one or two winter things....

when you list your item - it will tell you what your fees are. And what they will be if the item(s) sells for what you list it for...

I, too, was curious about the dashboard account mentioned by Wild Woman. So I looked it up. It's a service for checking (quickly) how your selling is going. It appears to be useful only for people who do a whole lot of intensive selling. That wouldn't be me. But here's the link (I hope):

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/sellingresources/...

If that doesn't work, google "ebay dashboard account" and you'll get it.

I suggest that you call eBay and ask them to explain to you about the invoices you're getting. I was pleasantly surprised, when I last had to call them (in November), that I connected with customer service, and then they called me back when they could, instead of my waiting on the phone line for forty minutes. Hooray! I don't know about you, but I understand things a lot more clearly when I'm talking to a real person than when I'm reading some rules on a page.

I used to sell regularly on eBay - not great volume, but just a few things at a time. I can't say that I made much of a profit, but for some reason I just enjoy doing it. I took the last five years off, because finally I wasn't making enough money to cover my expenses (I *don't* enjoy losing money). Before Christmas, however, I tried selling a few select things and did fairly decently. I'll try again for a while in the spring. I don't even try to sell anything that isn't getting enough buying interest on eBay, and I am very careful with shipping.

You should get a detailed invoice from ebay, it will tell you your fees for each listing and the final value fees (FVF) for each listing that sold. You can access it from your ebay account. If you open ebay.com and log in to your account, there are 4 tabs at the top - starting from the left - "Activity", "Messages", "Account" and "Applications". If you click on account - you will get a detailed invoice for each month you have been selling. It will be a line item accounting for each listing. It will look like this:

Date listed - Title You gave listing - listing # - FVF on Shipping
the next line either above or below - will have the FVF on the sale price.

Wild Woman must be a power seller - that's why she has the "dash board" and pays a monthly fee. She probably gets a certain amount of listings free each month as well.

I totally agree with researching what you are selling before you list it. If there are too many listed and not selling, what will set yours apart from the hundreds of others out there? If I don't like the picture? I don't buy. So if the pictures suck, your item might not sell.

If you are looking to cut out the fees? Then Craigslist may be the way to go.

No experience with e-bay, but craig's list worked well for me when it was time to shift some used foam floor tiles. It has also worked for cars. Not sure if you have a craigslist for your area.

Best,
F. B.

My friend is using ebay to sell off her items so they can keep their home.

She is finding she is making nothing for the items and Ebay is making a lot. I suggest you find an online venue other than Ebay for every sale.