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The Official "Tips to better Ebay selling" Thread

I figured this thread needed to be started. We all go through EBay auctions a lot and all of us see problems with auctions that cause us not to bid on an item. The end result is we buy less cards and many good sellers lose sales for unnecessary reasons. The big thing about selling is to think of what you like to see as a buyer, then incorporate those things into your auctions. So, feel free to chime in this thread with tips to help new ebayers around here (or people who are just not very good at ebay selling), get the most out of their cards. I'll start with a few things (feel free to chime in with any comments or disagreements with any of my recommendations).

1. Provide nice, large, clear pictures. Don't use ebay image hosting services. Sure it's easy, but your pictures are crap. I bought my own website that costs me $9 a month and I can make as big as pictures as I like. I can also add as many as I like. No more 15 cents extra per crappy picture that ebay likes to charge you. Many people on here know of free image hosting sites so ask around.

2. Make reasonable shipping charges. Not dirt cheap (unless you want to), just reasonable. If your selling $100 cards, then $4 shipping ain't a big deal. Problem is when people are selling 1989 Topps Jose Canseco PSA 9 type stuff and charge $4 for the first card and $2 for each additional. You can do what you want but your ebay selling experience isn't going to be too successful.

3. Clearly show your combined shipping rates in your auctions. I see so many auctions where shipping is $4 and it says "Combined shipping for multiple purchases". That doesn't tell me anything. I'm going to assume the worst case scenario. I'm going to assume that you are going to charge me $3.95 for each additional card. I'm not going to bid on your auctions at all. You might only charge 25 cents for each additional card but unless you state that, your going to lose all my business.

4. Do not make a mile long auction with every legal disclaimer possible. Seems like any more on Ebay, the larger the dealer, then the larger the "fine print" in their auction. Nobody is going to take 5 minutes to read all this crap unless their bidding on a high dollar card. Keep it short and simple.

5. Don't make a huge auction reading about how your 1974 Topps common PSA 7 is a "must have" for any serious collector. It's not a really big deal but, all that says to me is that you either don't know anything about cards or your trying to rip somebody off. It hurts your dealer image. Show some dignity. Act like you know what your doing and not like a snake oil salesman.

6. Do not use a question mark in your ebay titles. I know this is tempting because you want to put "PSA?" in all your auctions, but don't do it. It just pisses everyone off who is looking for PSA cards. If you want PSA collectors to see your auctions, then sell PSA graded cards. If you are selling a stack of older cards that truly are worth sending to PSA, then that's a different story. People will actually appriciate finding your auction. But, that is rare to find quality like that on ebay anymore and people know that. Nothing better than looking for PSA cards and finding "1993 Topps Frank Thomas *Rare!* PSA?". I tend to think that 99% of the people on these boards don't do this but there's enough of it on ebay that I figured I would bring it up.

7. Here's a little tip to help your sales. Almost everyone does this already, but on vintage cards, put the card number in your title. I do a lot of searches like this "1975 Topps PSA 9 (15,18,26,37 etc....). What I'm looking for is PSA 9's of just those numbers. Not everyone's name, but the card number. It's too much to type in every name. Also if possible, add the team name to your title. Many people do searches like this "197* Topps Steelers PSA". What I'm looking for there is any steelers card from that 1970's that is PSA graded. Without the word "Steelers" in the title, people doing that search won't find it.

8. Also, don't say that every PSA card your are selling is high end or undergraded. If it truly is, then state that, but not every card your selling. Again, don't come across as a rip off artist.

9. Always put the qualifier in the title. As much as you'd like everyone to think that your 1975 Topps George Brett is really a straight PSA 9, your going to piss off serious collectors when your picture is a 9 oc. Time is money, don't waste people's time. You will kill your future business.

10. If you are selling mutiple PSA cards in one auction, use the word "Lot" somewhere in your title. You would be amazed how many people do the search "PSA Lot".

11. Avoid spamming "PSA" in your auctions. I know it helps people see your auction but again, be above those kind of tactics. When I sell a GAI or SGC card, I know that if I put 3 simple letters in my auction (PSA), that many more potential buyers will see it. I just can't do it though. To me it looks really bad and a couple extra dollars isn't worth looking like that. If I'm selling a $1000 card, then maybe. Maybe at that level, your are helping out a serious collector find the card he's looking for, but not for a stack of $10 stuff. There are many more little sneaky "spams" that people think nobody notices like "set break", "from vending" etc... I notice it all and it turns me off personally. I know what your trying to do.

Anyways, like I said, most people on here know this stuff but it's a good thread to help out newbies.

Feel free to add anything else. I'm sure I missed a lot of stuff.

Comments

  • jimq112jimq112 Posts: 3,511 ✭✭✭
    front and back pictures hosted by somebody other than ebay, with a good contrasting background and at a high enough resolution that I can see the card. I hate not seeing that bottom right corner because of the stupid ebay logo, or getting an 8 or 9 card and finding out if the back was the front it would be a 6.
    image
  • FBFB Posts: 1,684 ✭✭
    OK,

    Here's a few more.

    1) Try to ship out items within 24 hours of receiving a Paypal or Money Order. Or as quickly as you feel comfortable with a check. If its a person I've dealt with before - I treat checks just like money orders.

    2) Use "Delivery Confirmation" receipts on all shipments. I still make money when charging $3.00 for the first graded card and $.40 for each additional while adding Delivery Confirmation. And, it allows me to prove that the card shipped as well that the customer is telling the truth when they say that it hasn't arrived yet.

    3) If you can - email the customer when you ship their item. It lets them know when to start looking and that you have been responsive in shipping out quickly. You can also provide the Delivery Confirmation # if you like.

    4) If the graded card looks OVERgraded in the holder - please mention that its a Low End for the grade. It might keep bids down slightly, but in the end - the card isn't coming back once its purchased.

    5) Cap your shipping costs if possible using the USPS Flat Rate envelopes and boxes. I've shipped out 75 PSA graded cards without insurance for under $10 with Delivery Confirmation in flat rate boxes and charged the customer $12 even when the $3 first card/$.40 additional came out to almost $30. They appreciate it in the long run.

    Frank
    Frank Bakka
    Sets - 1970, 1971 and 1972
    Always looking for 1972 O-PEE-CHEE Baseball in PSA 9 or 10!

    lynnfrank@earthlink.net
    outerbankyank on eBay!
  • Real good tips and a great thread! I've especially had a bit of unexpected early success using "PSA lot" in the title line, or with PSA lot sales in general. Seems like a few have gone for more than if the cards were up individually. Here are a couple more things I've done that at leat seem to be working well.

    - Adding some nice raw cards of the same player to an auction for a graded card. Since I have a ton of stuff from 81-89 that I will probably never get graded, I've been adding 4-6 nice raw cards to auctions that I think may not get much attention. Recently did this with a mid-PSA-grade Ripken RC lot and it went well. Also did the same with some, with Clemens and Gwynn. I'm throwing in some decent 7-9 range cards too, not just junk that wouldn't grade well.

    - In addition to checking existing auctions, check out sites with sales history like vintagecardprices.com. These are great tools that help you assess not only recent prices for a card you want to sell, but also go a long way in predicting demand.

    - If you can, check out other open auctions for semi-rare/high value cards before posting your own for sale. I pretty much always do this except for vintage and super-high end early 80's stuff. It's simple economics... if you have a high-demand card, it will likely go for a lot less if there are 3-5 available at the same time, vs maybe 1 or 2. I've been burned on this a few times, but it's usually by the huge dealers (4SC, etc) that obviously have too much volume to check other peoeple's auctions first.
    Jim G
    All-time favorite athletes:
    Steve Sax, Steve Garvey, Larry Bird, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Andre Agassi, Karch Kiraly, Wayne Gretzky, Ichiro Suzuki, Andres Galarraga, Greg Maddux.
    "Make the world a better place... punch both A-Rods in the face (Alex Rodriguez and Andy Roddick)!"
  • I think you all touched on the important issues. The only thing I can think to add is, don't run private auctions. Bidders have a natural mistrust of any seller that does that. They always suspect the seller is using a shill bidder. I think the most important point was the statement: "Think like a buyer, when you sell". It is basically the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the basis of long term success when selling.
  • purelyPSApurelyPSA Posts: 712 ✭✭
    The whole pumping of auctions is one of the worst aspects of eBay. Rrogers5psa is the worst. I don't think he's run an auction where his card wasn't advertised as being on the highest end of the scale, and he says - in every auction! - that the card should be a grade higher.

    I won't buy from him just because of his approach. I don't care how cheap his stuff is.

    On the other hand, glibersher once put up a SGC 92 auction of a high number '61 Topps card - and he stated in the auction he felt it wouldn't cross to a PSA 9. He didn't have to do that. I was incredibly impressed with that admission and I check to see if he's selling anything every now and again, just because of that.
  • Steve, I agree with everything you said. I will, however, say this about a lengthy description.

    I can't even begin to tell you how many times I put something in a description and I ALWAYS
    get a question about it. The biggest STUPID question I get is-"How much to ship to Canada?"
    when in most of my auctions I say-"I SHIP USA ONLY". I also love it when this same auction
    ends and the winning bidder is from CANADA!

    When I DO allow Canadian bidders, I want to make sure they understand the ground rules.
    I welcome them to bid, but, someone always seems to want to change the rules (MY AUCTION
    RULES) around to fit THEIR NEEDS! I have had some very bad issues trying to ship insured
    to CANADA without charging an arm and a leg for it from my local post office.

    When I am the bidder (or searching on ebay), my biggest pet peeve is when they add
    PSA to the title and the card is NOT PSA! This is actually spamming and AGAINST EBAY
    rules, so, I, being the kind self I am, usually blast em for doing so, as you said, because
    they are wasting my time and hundreds of others time!

    Just my 2c worth.

    Tony
    KalineFan
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