Scubaroo
Contributor
Okay, I just did a search on ScubaBoard, and eBay has been mentioned in 833 topics to date. I've just scored another bargain off eBay on the weekend, a new 300 bar Sea Elite manifold for $126.50, normally $161.45, which comes hot on the heels of my drysuit, which I paid $549 for new, versus $800+ new. Not to mention a new Luxfer 40cf tank and other bits and pieces.
I thought we could start a link with our eBay "tips" for buying and selling - here's my experiences:
Buying
- before bidding, ALWAYS check a user's feedback, even if they are a seller with feedback in the thousands. Often sellers have high feedback, which masks poor selling tactics. A seller with a feedback rating of 1000, with 50 negatives, sounds like a good seller, until you do the math - that's 1 in 20 buyers p'd off enough to post negative feedback. Not very good odds for a hassle free auction. I always search through a seller's feedback and read the last couple of negatives, even if they were months ago, to suss them out and see what type of problems buyers encountered. I then look at the feedback of the person who left the negative feedback - do they have stellar feedback themselves, or are they a serial complainer? Is the buyer selling goods like digital cameras that they don't hold, and simply drop-shipping from the distributer, and then claiming it's not their problem if there's a warranty issue? Are they selling reconditioned goods as new?
- place a token bid on the item so that it stays in your bidding history, and then snipe. Shocking, unethical tactic, but it works. eBay wants you to bid high early - so you get outbid, and they can collect higher fees on a higher final price. But face it - sniping is a legitimate auction tactic. If you put the last bid in, no-one can outbid you. You're the buyer - it's your money you're saving. Let someone else bid an item up to meet the reserve, don't give them stepping stones to an even higher price. And don't continually make small incremental bids that keep you on top as the winner - that just fosters the other people competing for the item to snipe themselves at the last minute, because it shows there's competition for the item. Place a low, early bid, then log back in a few minutes before the auction ends, feigning disinterest until literally the last minute - and then snap up a bargain.
- be alert for shill bidders - dummy users set up by the seller, so that the seller can log in as someone else and bid on their own items to force a higher price. Typically these shill bidders have very low feedback, and may even be feedback from the sellers themselves, on totally unrelated items from months previous. A bidder with a feedback of only 2 or 3, of which one is from the current seller, is an immediate alarm bell, especially if the previous items they bought are totally different - the odds of someone bidding on a piece of scuba gear from the same person they bought a toaster from 3 months ago are just too far out to be legitimate. Report suspected shill bidders to eBay - they're costing you money.
- pay by credit card when you can. Money orders are like cash - the one time I got duped on eBay was with a money order - the only recourse to get my money back was to take the guy to court. Credit cards allow you to file complaint with the credit card company direct. PayPal is no guarantee that you will get your money back in even of a scam either - read their terms and conditions very closely.
Selling
- best time to list an item is 7pm PST, 10pm EST, on Sunday night. Why? Most people are home, or can be home if they really want to bid on your auction. It's the reverse tactic to the sniping tip above - set your auction up so as many people as possible are near a computer to snipe and countersnipe! It's fun watching half a dozen bids come in on the auction within the last 2 minutes, all driving up the final price, all money into your pocket
- photos sell the item. List two identical items, one with a photo, one without a photo, and the one with the photo will sell for a higher price. Why? People know exactly what they're buying. DON'T use stock images - if you want to sell a BC, don't pull the image from the manufacturer's website, even if it is a brand new never used item - get hold of a digital camera and take a photo of it on a hanger on the back of a door - people want to see that you actually have the item, and that it really is new, and it really is the model you say it is in the description. Plus it gives the buyers more confidence that you aren't running a scam.
- PayPal - this one deserves it's own category. If you have a personal account, be aware that you can only accept payments from people with funds actually already in their own PayPal account, or linked directly to their checking account. I got stung with the spring straps I was selling - people kept trying to pay me from PayPal accounts that were linked to credit cards, and when you do the free "upgrade" to a Premier account to accept credit card payments, PayPal sting you exhorbinant fees for just receiving money, regardless of if it was a credit card payment or not. I sold a $370 item on eBay, and PayPal stung me $15 just to receive the money into my account! Despite explicitly stating in auctions that only personal PayPal account payments are accepted, the majority of people will try and pay you from a credit-card linked account (mostly through ignorance of how PayPal works), and you can't take the money without incurring a fee on that and all subsequent PayPal transactions to your account, and when you reject their payment and insist they pay from existing funds, they either pull out of the auction and you lose the sale, or you run the risk of them leaving negative feedback about you. For this reason I prefer money orders for payment - takes longer, but you don't have to deal with the idiots that don't understand the difference between "funds in PayPal account" and a credit card. I won't be using PayPal again for selling items on eBay - their fees are ridiculous.
Feel free to add your own tips!
I thought we could start a link with our eBay "tips" for buying and selling - here's my experiences:
Buying
- before bidding, ALWAYS check a user's feedback, even if they are a seller with feedback in the thousands. Often sellers have high feedback, which masks poor selling tactics. A seller with a feedback rating of 1000, with 50 negatives, sounds like a good seller, until you do the math - that's 1 in 20 buyers p'd off enough to post negative feedback. Not very good odds for a hassle free auction. I always search through a seller's feedback and read the last couple of negatives, even if they were months ago, to suss them out and see what type of problems buyers encountered. I then look at the feedback of the person who left the negative feedback - do they have stellar feedback themselves, or are they a serial complainer? Is the buyer selling goods like digital cameras that they don't hold, and simply drop-shipping from the distributer, and then claiming it's not their problem if there's a warranty issue? Are they selling reconditioned goods as new?
- place a token bid on the item so that it stays in your bidding history, and then snipe. Shocking, unethical tactic, but it works. eBay wants you to bid high early - so you get outbid, and they can collect higher fees on a higher final price. But face it - sniping is a legitimate auction tactic. If you put the last bid in, no-one can outbid you. You're the buyer - it's your money you're saving. Let someone else bid an item up to meet the reserve, don't give them stepping stones to an even higher price. And don't continually make small incremental bids that keep you on top as the winner - that just fosters the other people competing for the item to snipe themselves at the last minute, because it shows there's competition for the item. Place a low, early bid, then log back in a few minutes before the auction ends, feigning disinterest until literally the last minute - and then snap up a bargain.
- be alert for shill bidders - dummy users set up by the seller, so that the seller can log in as someone else and bid on their own items to force a higher price. Typically these shill bidders have very low feedback, and may even be feedback from the sellers themselves, on totally unrelated items from months previous. A bidder with a feedback of only 2 or 3, of which one is from the current seller, is an immediate alarm bell, especially if the previous items they bought are totally different - the odds of someone bidding on a piece of scuba gear from the same person they bought a toaster from 3 months ago are just too far out to be legitimate. Report suspected shill bidders to eBay - they're costing you money.
- pay by credit card when you can. Money orders are like cash - the one time I got duped on eBay was with a money order - the only recourse to get my money back was to take the guy to court. Credit cards allow you to file complaint with the credit card company direct. PayPal is no guarantee that you will get your money back in even of a scam either - read their terms and conditions very closely.
Selling
- best time to list an item is 7pm PST, 10pm EST, on Sunday night. Why? Most people are home, or can be home if they really want to bid on your auction. It's the reverse tactic to the sniping tip above - set your auction up so as many people as possible are near a computer to snipe and countersnipe! It's fun watching half a dozen bids come in on the auction within the last 2 minutes, all driving up the final price, all money into your pocket
- photos sell the item. List two identical items, one with a photo, one without a photo, and the one with the photo will sell for a higher price. Why? People know exactly what they're buying. DON'T use stock images - if you want to sell a BC, don't pull the image from the manufacturer's website, even if it is a brand new never used item - get hold of a digital camera and take a photo of it on a hanger on the back of a door - people want to see that you actually have the item, and that it really is new, and it really is the model you say it is in the description. Plus it gives the buyers more confidence that you aren't running a scam.
- PayPal - this one deserves it's own category. If you have a personal account, be aware that you can only accept payments from people with funds actually already in their own PayPal account, or linked directly to their checking account. I got stung with the spring straps I was selling - people kept trying to pay me from PayPal accounts that were linked to credit cards, and when you do the free "upgrade" to a Premier account to accept credit card payments, PayPal sting you exhorbinant fees for just receiving money, regardless of if it was a credit card payment or not. I sold a $370 item on eBay, and PayPal stung me $15 just to receive the money into my account! Despite explicitly stating in auctions that only personal PayPal account payments are accepted, the majority of people will try and pay you from a credit-card linked account (mostly through ignorance of how PayPal works), and you can't take the money without incurring a fee on that and all subsequent PayPal transactions to your account, and when you reject their payment and insist they pay from existing funds, they either pull out of the auction and you lose the sale, or you run the risk of them leaving negative feedback about you. For this reason I prefer money orders for payment - takes longer, but you don't have to deal with the idiots that don't understand the difference between "funds in PayPal account" and a credit card. I won't be using PayPal again for selling items on eBay - their fees are ridiculous.
Feel free to add your own tips!
