Ebay To Buy Or Sell Canadian Coins?

Lets start with the cons:

Buying: Every once in a while you might get a deal on a coin or two, but it doesn't happen very often because of the amount of traffic ebay gets, the number of buyers usually dive the price up quite a bit. Sometimes higher than it is worth if you are in a different country than the other bidder and seller.

Selling: ebay & PayPal fees.

Pros:

Buying: If you are willing to pay collector prices (which I would assume you are), ebay is great because of the wide variety of selection you can choose from. Most of us do not have this available to us within driving distance.

Selling: Well worth the fees IMO for the same reason of the cons to a buyer. Many buyers interested in different things that you may have to offer.

Yes, ebay in itself is definitely rewarding.

Buying on ebay is good. Read up on buyer protection and use it as required. Factor in whether the seller is charging GST/HST or not and how much the shipping is. Set your max price BEFORE you start bidding and walk away as needed (my general rule was total cost <=80% of list as a maximum). For most coins, another will always come along. Don't buy any coin where you can't clearly verify the grade and condition from the pictures unless you want to take a chance. Even TPG'd coins can be overgraded in some cases. If you find a coin you like then always run a search for comparable ones and for completed listings to get an idea of what it's going for. It's always funny to see an auction bid up higher than a Buy It Now for the same coin.

If selling on ebay then remember the onus is on YOU for everything. Seller protection requires proof of RECEIPT not just shipping. Again, read up on the details and know at what value signature is required in addition to tracking etc. Also keep in mind that nobody is going to pay $15 shipping for a $10 coin. Take the packages directly to the post office and, if shipping with tracking, ensure you watch them get scanned in. DO NOT buy shipping labels from Paypal; if there's a problem they'll point to CP and CP will point to them and ebay will remove the money from YOUR account regardless. My experience with shipping lower value items by first class mail outside of Canada (US, Europe, Australia etc) was that 'losses' were 5 times higher than shipping within Canada. ebay and Paypal fees are about 12-15% depending on the format and value of the sale etc which makes it difficult to break even on a coin unless you purchased it for <=60% of list. These fees are progressively reduced as you increase your volume of sales.

The two biggest ripoffs on ebay in terms of buying is the allowance of bid sniping automated programs, and the fact that ebay does not give X time after each bid for a responding bid, like in a real auction. These two phenomenon place legitimate "real bidders" at a severe disadvantage to some algorithim set up by a "less than melt" bid sniper.

The biggest ripoffs for sellers are that coins can sometimes slip through the cracks and sell for very cheap. I picked up a Barber quarter for $2.25 a month ago, and the seller was local, so he didn't even get the gussied up shipping fee.

Also of note is that ebay will side with buyers in disputes most of the time, and that they now take fees out of shipping prices as well.

Not to put a downer on this great topic, but if you're selling, don't forget to file it as income on your tax return.

Of course, you can claim all expenses (associated with your sales) such as eBay/Paypal fees, grading fees, shipping etc....

The CRA is watching ebay these days very closely.

Thanks for the informative input on this topic.