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 Replies: 14 / Views: 2,120 |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
195 Posts |
If you have lots of experience selling coins on ebay: Whats the best day/time for ending an ebay auction? (I am on London time) For UK British coins? For American coins? For Australian coins? Anything else need to be wary? Also is it worth it do a "Buy It Now" on coins? If yes is it better with best offer or without? Should I list everything pivate to protect the bidders IDs or public so everyone can see on Advanced search and on the feedbacks what people bought? How can I minimise Paypal usage, as I really don't like Paypal takign another 5% whiolst ebay aready took their 10%. How much do you need to sell to become a business seller and is that worth it in saving fees? Should I get a basic shop on ebay? Are there free listing weekends for business sellers same as there are for private sellers? |
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
I cant speak for the UK ebay system but the basic ideas should be the same there as here. For the US the highest traffic on ebay is on sunday nights. This is both a positive and a negative. Its good because the most people are looking to buy, but at the same time the most stuff is listed so you have the most competition. Generally speaking you want to list when people will be home. Night time is the best for the listings to end after everyone has gotten home from work but not so late that theyre going to bed. If you end it on a saturday end it before everyone is going out, and for a sunday you can end it a little earlier than a week night since most people will be home. At least for me it seems like more people buy after paydays as well as opposed to right before it when money could be a little thin. Buy it nows can be good. Theres an ebay fee calculator you can use to see how much they will take from the sales. Right around 100 dollars it costs you less to list it as a buy it now than it does to list as an auction. Anything over 100 I would do a buy it now (assuming the fee structure is the same) and I will use that for some more unique or harder to sell items as well. If you dont like listing them over an over knowing they may not sell as an auction right away the BIN can be a good way to kind of list it and let it run its course. The best offer is a double edged sword. If you do that you should over price it some imo. If the option is there people will want to use it as opposed to pay full price so you will need to account for that. The only two ways I know to limit paypal usage would be have them send you a money order or a check. Most buyers like paypal so that will severely limit your buyer base. I'm not even sure ebay lets you list if you dont take paypal. I dont have a shop so not sure what goes with that other than lower fees and listing prices but you pay a monthly fee for that. If you only sell a couple things a month its not worth it, if you do a lot of business it is. I would look at the monthly fee then the fee difference between the two methods. Calculate how much you would have to sell a month for that to save you money and if you know youll be over that the majority of the time it would be a good deal if not it would just be an extra cost. |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
298 Posts |
Can speak for the UK - weds/thur/fri 7-9pm seems a good slot, sundays nights are slow. With buy it nows I've found that they hardly get views at all. If you do go that route put them on for 30 days with a best offer. I wouldn't list private, I'm always wary about shill bidding on those listings. You can ask buyers to use a cheque/postal order/bacs but most will use paypal. There is no way around it, just consider it like having to use a credit card company to process your payments if you were in a shop. I cannot remember what qualifies as a business seller as I joined ages ago - the benefits are a single listing fee of 10p for buy it nows or on auctions anything started at 99p, 15p under £5. The main benefit is of course the 10%-20% off of your ebay bill for top rated sellers. There have been 2 business free listing days in the past 5 years and both recently! Of course if you are buying to resell and make a profit you should already have registered as a business ;) |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
4411 Posts |
For Australian coins I have found Saturday from about 11am to 3pm Sydney time is the best period to end listings. Sundays were good about a year ago but have dropped right off. I cant figure out why.
I have the middle priced shop and it is great. doesn't cost me too much per month and since getting it my sales have skyrocketed. The bets bit is 30 day listings which only cost 20c each.
Edited by enworb
02/15/2013 7:11 pm
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Valued Member
United States
331 Posts |
As a buyer I started to really limit my E-bay purchases when PayPal became the only accepted payment listing. I still make purchases but I e-mail the seller to ask if a M.O. Is acceptable. I haven't figured out a way around PayPal.
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Out of curiosity why would paypal limit you as a buyer?
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
Quote:
Out of curiosity why would paypal limit you as a buyer? Likely a personal opinion - Paypal has alienated a lot of people over the years. |
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
Likely a personal opinion - Paypal has alienated a lot of people over the years. That would make sense, I was just curious since I always hear sellers complain about it but have never heard it the other way around before. I've only really been active with them for the last 2 years and I think ebay has owned them for most of that time so I'm not familiar with some of the things they may have done in the past to turn people off. |
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Valued Member
 United Kingdom
195 Posts |
I just don't like that with Paypal it often goes beyond 15% of fees, as I don't have anything in the hundreds to put on ebay which after a certain ammount the ebay fee at least would be capped I find this very unfair. I wish eBid with their 3% would be just as big as ebay, like it is now ebay only has competition from Amazon, but putting old collectable coins on Amazon I don't even know if you can do that? Plus Amazons fees are quite high, I put some old books on there and got burned by the shipping costs, if you have a heavy book you can charge maybe £4 for shipping it abroad, but in actuality it will cost £12-£15 to send a heavy book abroad. Edited by Cointosser77
02/16/2013 11:44 am
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
195 Posts |
Ok I had enough of (fe)eBay, they don't get the numbers of views and the fees are just extortion, and paypal fees too!
Is there really not any better place to sell coins?
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
To offer a comparison, ebay is the 17th-ranked website on the Internet in terms of total traffic, garnering the eyes of 3% of all Internet users. eBid barely makes the top 15,000. I'm not going to try to change your mind - you seem quite certain about how things are - but I will offer one suggestion I mention quite often here: If your business model can't absorb ebay's fee structure, the problem is likely the business model. You cannot make money selling $5 items on ebay, or anywhere else unless you're only paying 50 cents for the items. It's just not possible. This is the dirty little secret of selling coins - you have to have a margin of at least 30% built-in, and the lower the value, the higher that margin must be. There's a reason why the only truly cheap coins you'll find at a B&M store are in what they call the "junk bin." It's a loss leader for the dealer. I wish I could offer a surefire way to make money selling coins, but unless you're selling stuff worth a bare minimum of $25 or better, that way doesn't exist. |
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Valued Member
United States
318 Posts |
Your target audience for collector coins is probably not "going out" very often on a Saturday night, at least not us married guys with kids. I would say during the middle of the day on weekdays is not horrible due to guys like me: middle to upper-middle class desk jockeys with a few dollars of disposable income and internet access at work. Evenings from 8p - 11p is sweet spot; after dinner and homework help but before bedtime. Midnite to 9am probably worst. I like to see two different shipping options when I buy on ebay; "Wow I needz it now I will pay extra 4 expedited overnight wantz RITE NAHW" and "I'll send you a check tomorrow and you ship super saver UPS pack mule when you get a chance" once I calm down and am more concerned with getting the best deal. My own prejudices kick in when I see a seller state "I only accept X as payment". It leaves me free to speculate the worst as to why. Maybe that's just me. |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
195 Posts |
Well "I only accept X as payment" and if that's not Paypal then it's clear to avoid the fees of Paypal. If you sell soemthing for 99p Paypal charges 20p + 3-5% on that including shipping and ebay charges 10% which in end you dont even get 50p and the eBay/paypal crooksortium takes the most |
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Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Quote: If you sell soemthing for 99p Paypal charges 20p + 3-5% on that including shipping and ebay charges 10% which in end you dont even get 50p and the eBay/paypal crooksortium takes the most That is the absolute truth. Obviously, selling stuff for 99p isn't a viable business model. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3733 Posts |
and there is another paypal fee after everything else. if you are in Canada, and your auctions are in US dollars, then there is a conversion fee when you go to deposit it in your account.
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Replies: 14 / Views: 2,120 |
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Posted 02/15/2013 6:56 pm
