Featured When to Say No to Ebay?

That is exactly what they do. We end and relist from scratch after about 90 days, as used to be advised. Their search engine changes parameters often, so we make title and body changes, even change picture order. Some sellers even save their listing's pictures to a new name before relisting. Anything to make it seem new to the algorithm.

They change the algorithm so often, so it is impossible to know which, or indeed, if any of the changes help get an item more visibility. This is all very time-consuming for sellers, on a platform that is losing its relevance. Certain categories/times of the year still do well on eBay, of course.

 

I bought a painting for $$$ a while back on eBlech....
The seller claimed it to be by so & so....
I had it checked to by experts ...and it was not !

I demanded satisfaction , but the seller accused me of ripping him off , by not bidding thousands.....for what he called an authentic masters work !!!

 

The platform does have its issues for sure. I did/do feel that sellers are treated as secondary to buyers. Recently I have had a streak of luck appealing defects and even got a negative feedback removed which didn’t happen in the recent past as much. Maybe they are coming around.

I love when people say to me “you say you accept best offers so why won’t you accept mine” when they are making what’s an unacceptable offer in my opinion. Like they are miffed and upset and I’m being dishonest in having that option checked and not taking their lowball.

 

I know a LOT of people end and sell similar with changes like you mentioned. I don’t pay for a “store” so I have limited free listings. So I haven’t tried this method much. I made a second new listing of the same expensive item on my account. Different title a bit and that listing oddly doesn’t show up in eBay searches either. I don’t like to lose my watchers but enough people do end and sell similar that there must be a benefit. I know some swear by it. I guess if you have a store you can do bulk end and sell similar. Obv if you’re making custom revisions that can’t be done in bulk though. Wishing you sales!

 

Finally have a free bit of time to come back here and read through everything. I really appreciate all your knowledge and experience!

From what I'm seeing, Ebay is the (slightly) lesser of multiple evils. Its definitely the one I'm most familiar with. Without the sold item search, Etsy personally feels less trustworthy when it comes to prices, but that doesn't really equate to selling there. As an unknown, and with your comments, I think I'll stay away for now.

I like the idea of Vinted! It has generally lower prices, but like you said definitely a good place for the cheaper stuff, practice or learning stuff, stuff to get gone etc. I might try FB for that too on occaision.

Leboncoin as far as I have used it, are for larger items/real estate. We've used it often for appliances and furniture, but I don't see much when it comes to jewelry.

I guess I just have to bite the bullet and get started, be as honest and authentic as possible, and maybe keep my $100+ items off the internet until I get a feel for the environment.

Perhaps it'd be a good idea to keep shipping to continental at first? I don't want to shoot myself in the foot but it sounds like a lot of issues come from international shipping.

I'm very grateful for your time and expertise put into this thread! Thank you.

 

To complicate matters, there are several French-based sellers who sell on the Dutch Marktplaats. Dutch people read English, and as long as you say that the item is shipped from France, so they know beforehand, it is fine.
Listing is free.

This is the category 'Sieraden en Tassen' Jewellery and Handbags:
https://www.marktplaats.nl/l/sieraden-tassen-en-uiterlijk/

There are sub-categories, if you need advice just ask.

 

Now there's an idea! Thank you very much, I'll have a looksee and definitely let you know if I have questions! Thank you

 

I took a look...and found out that I can get more out of Dutch than I ought to be able to. Looks like a good site.

 

It is related to English, and even little children can speak it.

Yes, something for everyone, top quality, junk, and everything in between. And still bargains to be found.
I used to sell there too, and maybe I'll be able to again in future, health permitting.

 

Good idea.

I think eBay is getting the message, btw. They're "extending" the time Top-Rated sellers have to come back and sell more by a few months. They haven't given ANYTHING away free for sellers in ages. It's too little, too late of course.

 

What I do on etsy regarding sold items is, I fav items before they sell that I have or are very similar and then when they sell, I can see the sold price.

I took a fast look at Vinted and it seems that many of the prices are extremely low. I have to see more of it, but thanks for mentioning it.

 

Great information for finding the sold price for at least a few items on Etsy...I didn't know that was possible.

Regarding eBay, I've been selling there for many years and have had very few problems, but I sell mainly vintage clothing, accessories, textiles, occasionally jewelry, rarely fragile breakables.

A few months ago I had my first chargeback experience and was pleasantly surprised at how easy eBay made it for me to dispute. They sent me a message that a buyer claimed an item wasn't received, and said if I wanted to dispute it I needed to attach supporting documentation, which I did, and they would forward it to the financial institution. I made jpeg images of the USPS tracking/delivery, ebay's listing showing it was delivered including the buyer's ID and name, and a screenshot of the buyer's positive feedback after receiving the item. Maybe the buyer made a mistake or had gotten away with fraudulent chargebacks before, but anyway, it was quickly resolved in my favor.

For the last two months I've been helping my sister sort through and organize a 50 year accumulation/hoard of antiques, etc. It will be sold in several phases on HiBid through a local auction company. I'm organizing, photographing, and writing descriptions of her vintage costume jewelry since I wasn't impressed with how the auctioneer displayed costume jewelry in previous auctions.

If my sister's HiBid auctions do well, or even OK, I may start selling some of my "inventory" that way through the local auctioneer rather than on eBay. The auctioneer ships nationwide, and although his commission is higher than eBay fees, he would save me a lot of time and money not having to package and ship. I would, however have to take my items to his warehouse, which is 45 miles one way.

 

...back when eBay was actually fun!!!

 

Thank you for the continued discussion! It makes for very interesting and enlightening reading. Apologies for not getting back to you all sooner, I've been rather MIA this last month.

I have started taking sale photos of my items, which I will tenatively put on ebay. I'm interested to try out Marktplaats as well, and the couple of higher end pieces I'll save for auction when I can find one locally.

How about online auction sites, like catawiki and liveauction? I feel like it might be beneficial to find a specific audience, but I've not looked into their fees etc.

 

@laura9797 used a company called Hi-Bid. Here is a link to a post she put up in the marketplace section. She may be able to help you with questions if you contact her through the private message system.

I have been considering trying them out & may try them out sometime in 2024.

 

This is on topic enough that I didn't want to create a whole new thread. I'm considering going with Vestiare Collective for my YSL earrings, but just before I put up the ad I check online reviews. Any reviews on reddit seem very negative, but elsewhere they're okay. Of course from their site it looks great. Has anyone had experience with them?

 

Never heard of them.

 

I have been selling on ebay since 1998 part-time. Things I sell have changed over the years to keep-up with buyer demand. The site changes over the years have been good and bad. I have tried many sites Mercari, Chairish, Etsy and few others and ebay has always out-sold them all. Ebay is not easy, from the time it takes to list, following ebay rules and trying to stay ahead of stagnant sales. I find most of the scammers or crazy people are sellers too. As far as scammers go, I have a handful over the years and I have avoided negative feedback and dollar losses for almost all of them. My biggest $ loss had nothing to do with ebay, but with USPS damaging a $3,000 mini dining room set, securely packaged and insured. The box arrived dented in. I never got reimbursed by the private co that handles insurance for USPS's high value claims. After jumping through all the hoops, more photos, proof insurance, buyer address, asking the buyer to bring item to local post office to inspect, etc, they finally said my claim timed out and I would have to sue to get refunded.

 

I'd have taken them to small claims, and written nasty but totally factual Yelp etc reviews. But I'm a mean old itch sometimes.