Inflating prices on eBay surprisingly works

I've had several items on eBay for months. These have been either lots of well-loved clothing or barely-worn clothing, some individual clothing items, and some random household goods. A lot of these are items I would be just fine donating, but have put up on eBay first to see what happens.

A few days ago I started messing around and experimenting with prices and shipping. I switched several things to free shipping, which does tend to make them sell better, but then I need to make sure the price is high enough to cover the shipping in case the purchaser lives on the west coast.

One of my items was a pair of kids' shoes from Primark, worn once. If you're familiar with Primark, you know it's like a cheap version of H&M. The selection is completely random and it's not the place to go if you're looking for a specific item, but it's a good place to stock up, especially for growing kids or if you have relatives who move here from a climate that means they don't own anything for weather below 60 degrees.

I bought the shoes for I think $2.99. I had them priced on eBay for $1.99 with calculated first-class shipping. They had a number of views and watchers, but no buyers. I saw the "send offer to buyers" suggestion, and decided to have some fun.

I set the price to $22.99 with free shipping. (They should cost a maximum of about $5 to ship.) I then sent out an offer to the four watchers, offering them the shoes for $15.99 with free shipping.

Within five minutes, someone bought the shoes for $15.99. Which they had been watching at $2.99. Amazing.

I then tried this with another item, a board game that had been used a couple times and was in good condition. I had it listed at $4.99 plus calculated shipping ($7-10 depending on zone). It retails for $25. I jacked it up to $55 and free shipping. I then sent offers for $50. Again, someone bought it within minutes, for nearly twice the retail price.

I'm not gonna even feel bad about it.

Updated eBay first class postage rates

Like I talked about before, eBay charges the buyer the retail first-class postage rate based on the weight of the item, and charges the seller the commercial rate when the seller purchases the shipping through eBay.

The postage rates have gone up a bit since I initially posted about that, but the same idea still applies – if you charge the lower commercial rate for shipping, your listings look much more attractive. Especially when you get above 12 ounces or so – I think amounts under $5 tend to seem trivial to people, while amounts over $5 seem more substantial. I'm much more likely to bid on something charging $4.38 for shipping versus $6.70.

Just remember: eBay charges you, the seller, 10% of what you charged for shipping AND what you charged for the product in their Final Value Fee. So either add 10% onto what you charge for shipping or make sure the additional 27-50 cents is reflected in the price of the item, along with also remembering to include the PayPal fee.

I just made $25 net selling some random worthless crap I had lying around my house – some 1970s coins I found in change, an airline toiletry kit someone gave me, some drawer pulls, some discontinued IKEA picture frames, a passport wallet, and a halloween decoration. I shipped the stuff using eBay shipping and printed it out on my printer, so I can just drop it in any mailbox or drop it off on the post office counter without standing in line. I packaged it with boxes, envelopes, and bubble wrap saved from things I've bought in stores or ordered on Amazon. All I paid for was tape, which I got from Dollar Tree. It took me under a minute to list each item and about two minutes or so to prepare each one to mail. I also listed another few items that didn't sell, but you can list hundreds of items per month for free*, so no worries.

It's a seriously easy way to make money, once you get the hang of it. And it's generally non-taxable income if you're selling your own possessions and are averaging a net loss overall (meaning if you sell mostly your own clothes and books and things, the few items you do flip for more money end up being cancelled out by all the times you sell a shirt that was $30 new and went for $5 on eBay). It's more money in your pocket though, since most of us would usually just donate all the things in our house that we're done with.

*The base amount is 50 free listings per month, but every time I list items, eBay suddenly sends me an e-mail offer giving me 100, 200, or 500 free listings during that month.

There sure are some crazy mofos on eBay

Someone bought something after business hours last week. E-mailed me the next business day stating it hadn't been shipped, asking "is there a problem???" My policies say I ship within two business days. It was still the first business day. Also, if they had used their adult words and just told me they really needed it quickly, I would have happily upgraded the shipping.

Speaking of, I've discovered that most buyers don't read the seller's policies or read the description of the item. Part of this is due to eBay hiding the description. On mobile you have to click into it, and on the computer you have to scroll all the way down. So when I'm selling anything with an open package, not in package, doesn't include accessories, scuffed, ripped, blah blah blah, I've been putting it in the title and then printing out the packing slip and enclosing it. (I don't usually include packing slips; hardly anyone seems to.) So then they get the packing slip right with the item, and they see that the item they bought is "Ralph Lauren hoodie with wear on cuffs," and they're less likely to complain.

Oh, or, instead of getting $5 free, you could get $30 free

So I did the Dollar Shave Club Swagbucks deal, and it worked flawlessly -- $1 was charged to my debit card, I got credited 600 Swagbucks three days after I did the deal, and the razor and cartridges showed up today, which is six calendar days after I placed the order.

I decided to look on eBay and see whether people buy these razors and cartridges. (Helpful hint: If you want to know what people are actually willing to pay for something on eBay, rather than what people are trying to make you think it goes for, go into the sidebar and select "sold listings only.") Yeah, so, the starter package ("The Executive" razor plus four six-blade cartridges, in a carton with some shaving product and some leaflets) sells for $20-$25. Dayum. Yes, I sure would like that much free money.

Just listed my Dollar Shave Club starter package on eBay. I'd suggest ordering one and selling it on eBay even if you don't do Swagbucks. Because dayum.

An easy way to sell more stuff on eBay: Know your first-class shipping rates

Much of what I've been selling on eBay is single items of clothing, single or small lots of household items (many of which I'm flipping from Dollar Tree or Savers), books, and so forth. Most of these are 16 ounces or under, which means you can send them first class if you buy the postage through a commercial account, which eBay's postage portal is. (FYI, books, CDs, sheet music, and similar can be sent via media mail, but it isn't cheaper until you hit a pound, and I don't believe eBay discounts it.)

For whatever reason, eBay doesn't account for the steeply discounted postage rates they give you. Especially for first-class mail, the commercial account is substantially cheaper than the retail price. But when you enter the size and weight of your item, the price it shows (and charges the customer...) is the higher price you'd pay at the post office counter.

For the clothing item I just sold, which is 14 ounces, eBay listed the shipping at $6.45. The actual price I paid for shipping was $3.55. This is an item I listed a month ago, before I really thought about the shipping rates, so someone did eventually buy it and I got to pocket the difference.

This item did sell, and someone was willing to pay the rather high shipping rate. However it would have likely sold more quickly had I listed the shipping at $3.55. So what I did today was create more shipping policies. See the chart I made? The commercial rate is what eBay charges for first-class packages if you buy the postage through the eBay website, and the retail rate is what you'd pay at the post office, and also what eBay charges the buyer.

The only way I could figure out to reflect the shipping discounts other than manually entering it on every listing was to create shipping policies. I didn't want to make nine separate shipping polices (I might next time I get bored...), but I created two policies, one called "1-8 ounces, $2.60 flat" and one called "9-16 ounces, $3.65 flat." Now, the buyer is paying considerably less for shipping at most weights. (Nine ounces seems to be an anomaly. I'll work on more policies eventually.) For shipping prices like $2.60 vs. $2.62 or $3.65 vs. $3.78, I doubt most buyers notice or care. But at some weights, my items are now listed at $3.65 shipping instead of $6.45, or $2.60 instead of $3.40, which is surely going to make my items sell faster.

Another trick to keeping track of eBay overhead

Since I've been selling so much on eBay, I've decided to start paying my eBay fees as I go, rather than waiting until I'm billed each month. Obviously the downside of this is that I'm giving eBay money that I could rightfully have available to me for a few weeks, but the upside is that this way the debt gets taken care of and the money doesn't accidentally get spent. It's essentially the same dilemma as whether to have enough income taxes withheld to get a refund versus having the money available to you and then owing taxes.

Specifically what I've been doing is this:

1. Someone makes a purchase for $50 and pays for the item plus $4 shipping, and $54 goes into my PayPal account
2. PayPal takes a fee of $1.87 (2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction) immediately, leaving $52.13 in my PayPal account
3. I ship the item, paying $4 for shipping out of the same PayPal account, leaving $48.13
4. I go into my account settings on eBay, where they add the fees to your account in real time even though they only require payment monthly, and see that they've charged me $5.40 for the sale (10% of the total of the item price and the shipping price)
5. I make a one-time payment of $5.40, using the same PayPal account, leaving $42.73 in my PayPal account
6. Now that all the fees are taken out, the transaction is completely over, and I withdraw the $42.73 to my bank account

This is proving to be a lot easier than setting aside money for the fees, or even leaving it in my PayPal account. I don't have to keep a spreadsheet with fees or anything if I just make a one-time payment every time I sell something. If I sell more than one thing before I get to the computer to ship my purchases, I can still make a one-time payment of the total fees I've accrued, and it works out the same way.

This calculator is useful for figuring out in advance how much you'll profit from a particular sale price, though it isn't necessary to use it if you're selling things that cost you nothing to acquire and you're charging actual shipping price. Any item priced at 99 cents or above with actual shipping price charged will net you a profit. The profit is 5 cents though, so you probably want to go with a few cents more to cover your envelopes and labels if you paid something for them. The calculator is quite useful though if you're selling something that did cost you something to acquire, or if there's a minimum profit you're willing to accept for your time. Just pay your fees as you go, and you won't have to worry about keeping data on your overhead, unless you really want to.

Stuff I've learned from eBay

1) A disproportionate number of you people are named Colleen and Nicole. I've sold about 50 things, and there have been four Colleens and six Nicoles. Why?

2) Sometimes there are people on eBay who do shit like, let's say they live in Brunei, they have an extensive purchase history on the U.S. eBay site, they win an auction, then they apparently had no idea that shipping a huge item to Brunei is extremely expensive and figured it could just magically be shipped for a few dollars instead of several hundred. Hypothetically speaking of course. 

3) eBay people are often able to write in normal human-type English when they message you with questions and shipping info and so forth, but then when they go to leave feedback, become possessed and can only write things like A++++ GREAT WOW SELLER YES YES PERFECT A-OK THANX DOORKNOB ANKLE COLD

4) Rather than stuffing each package into the mail chute at the post office, you can just bust up to the front of the line and ask for one of them bins the people with businesses put their mail in. SCUSE ME SCUSE ME I GOT OFFICIAL POSTAL BUSINESS YO. 

5) It's totally random what does and doesn't sell. Some of my stuff that's way underpriced is hanging out for weeks getting no bids, and some stuff is going for more than it would cost to just order it from the place it was purchased. I suspect people are addicted the auction/winning aspect and it feels better to have gotten a $5 item for a dollar plus $6 shipping than to order it from Target with free shipping. And I'm going to continue taking advantage of this dynamic, because I need money, and at least the stuff is going to someone who can use it instead of in the trash. 

Selling stuff on eBay with minimal overhead

So, my experimentation with selling stuff on eBay is going remarkably well. I've had an eBay account since 1998, which I previously used mostly for buying things and periodically for selling things I was done with that were worth quite a bit of money, like sporting or music equipment. I maybe listed one item a month, if even that.

Today's pile of stuff ready to ship

A couple months ago I decided to start actually selling. As I mentioned before, I first listed a bunch of free items I had snagged from Amazon. That went well, so I started by listing a bunch of stuff I had lying around that I normally would have donated or given to friends -- kids' and adults' clothes, books, household gadgets, baby stuff sitting in a box in a closet, extra hardware and office supplies I'd bought too much of for projects, and so forth. It's going remarkably well, and I'm making quite a lot of cash off of stuff I would normally have been happy to give away. I'm now looking into buying at garage sales and thrift stores and doing some flipping.

From perusing forums about selling on eBay, I'm seeing that most people are reluctant to get started because the necessary supplies are expensive, shipping is confusing, and the fees are unclear. So I'm putting together a basic tutorial on how to do sell things easily and cheaply.

How eBay fees work:

When you list something on eBay, the first 50 listings per calendar month are free. Relisting an item that doesn't sell counts as a listing each time. Before you hit "list" on an item, it will tell you what the fees will be. Certain features on the listings, like large, bold titles and so forth cost money. Don't use these; there's no need. Once you get over 50 items, it charges you 30 cents per listing. This is refunded if the item sells.

Once an item sells, eBay charges you 10% of the final price AND 10% of the shipping price. It doesn't take this out of the money the customer sends you; it adds it to your monthly bill. What I typically do is: Every time I sell something, the money for the item plus shipping goes into my PayPal account. I buy the shipping through eBay, which deducts it from my PayPal account. Before I withdraw the money, I look at my eBay fee tally (this is in "account settings," located at the top left of the site) and see the two fee charges for the auction. I then withdraw the total profit less the fees, and leave enough for the fees in my PayPal account so I know I have it when the bill comes due. I really wish they'd just deduct it, but they don't, so this seems to work best.

Here's an auction I just shipped off today:

Item: $5.00
Shipping: $2.83

Customer sent me $7.83 via PayPal
I get $7.30 in my PayPal account, because PayPal takes a fee.
I spent $2.60 on shipping via eBay (there's a discount for shipping through them)

So far, the profit is $4.70. Then I go look in my Account Summary tab, where the fees are listed. I see that eBay charged me 28 cents for the shipping and 50 cents for the item. So I subtract that, and withdraw $3.92 to my bank account. I've pocketed a total of $3.92 for this item. I leave the 78 cents in my PayPal account so it's there at the end of the month for the fees.

How to ship eBay items:

If you have any cash at all to put up front, I recommend getting a scale. I have this one, which was $20. It weighs up to 55 pounds in 10ths of an ounce. For a bit more, you can get one that attaches to your computer via USB to use with the eBay shipping portal, but this seems to me like it's just more stuff to break and malfunction, and it takes me like two seconds to read the number on the scale and type it in.

If you can't afford the scale yet, you can still ship without it, which I did at first. If it's a heavyish item, like a box of books, you can weigh it by holding it while standing on your bathroom scale and subtracting your own weight. Round up to the next pound. For items that are lighter, you can estimate it by comparing it to a can of soup or other item of known weight, or you can look up the item on Amazon (or wherever it's sold) and see what they give as the shipping weight. Estimate high, and charge the buyer for the shipping.

When you list your items, it's usually best to use calculated shipping, unless it's a fairly heavy but small item that you can stick in a Priority Mail flat-rate box. Choose the cheapest shipping, because people will be more likely to buy your item.

For under 16 ounces (single items of clothing, etc.), use first-class mail. Otherwise, use Parcel Select or Priority Mail, whichever is cheapest. Enter the weight and size of the item in the eBay listing and it will tell you what the services cost, and you can choose which ones to offer. If you're selling something like a textbook that you think someone might want right away, you can also offer overnight shipping and whatnot.

The fastest and cheapest way to ship is through the eBay website. You get a discount over what the post office charges, and it immediately sends the tracking number to the customer. You will need a printer, which you can find on craigslist for free. For your first few items, print the label on plain paper and tape it to your package. Make sure not to tape over bar codes. After you've sold a few things, buy some cheap labels. I got 200 of these labels for $7.47.

You'll also need something to ship your items in. If you don't already have Amazon Prime, subscribe to it! There's a deal through Swagbucks right now. It's totally worth the yearly fee, because you can get just about anything shipped to your house for free. And stuff that gets shipped to you comes with packaging materials. Save all the boxes, bubble envelopes, bubble wrap, and so forth, and store them where you store your eBay stash. Now you have free packaging material. If you need something large or specialized, there are tons of people on craigslist giving away boxes, tubes, and packing peanuts. For clothing, shoes, or other items that are bulky but don't need the protection of a box, buy a package of poly mailers. I got 100 of these for $12.16. I bought huge ones so I can sell big lots of things, but you can also fold them over for smaller things (as seen in top photo), and they barely cost more than the small ones. I'll go back to worrying about the environment once I can pay my bills.

Questions? Post a comment and I'll do my best to answer. 

This eBay thing is working out well, but it's also making me hate people

So, I've listed a ton of stuff on eBay. Most of it is clothes, books, gadgets that we had lying around the house. Stuff is doing quite well, and I'm happy with the number of bids I'm getting on things.

However, I'm coming across a trend that's annoying me as someone who tries to live as frugally as I can. Certain brands of stuff, regardless of condition, and regardless of whether they're unique or interesting or hard to find, go for a ton of money. Yeah, OK, this isn't a new concept to me. I've taken economics classes and I've lived in this world for more than a minute. But seeing it in action is aggravating me.

I listed this sweater, used, not even in very good condition, that was in some hand-me-downs someone gave one of the kids. I recognized that it's an expensive brand, and it was something we weren't crazy about and probably would have put back into the donate/give away pile. The sweater is a plain cotton one with no branding or stitching or anything on the outside to signify the brand. I thought it was Old Navy until I saw the label. It makes even less sense than Polo and Nike and that whole branding scene where you know at a glance that it's a "good" brand. But this sweater has a ton of watchers and is racking up the bids. It's not even in good condition and is pilled and stretched out.

In the meantime, the "normal" kids' clothing I've posted at very reasonable prices is mostly going slowly. Seriously, people are bidding more for this damn sweater than the starting bid for a set of four pairs of jeans, four hoodies, and a bunch of shirts, which is just sitting there at the moment. And this might not be designer stuff, but it's nice stuff -- GAP, H&M, Aeropostale and so forth. I just can't imagine, even when I've had quite a bit of expendable income, spending money on one boring sweater when you could literally get a whole wardrobe for the same amount of money. Or at least a unique/interesting sweater. It's just a totally different world where people care about that stuff, I guess. I remember reading a young adult fiction book -- maybe a series? -- where the teens would go around school putting their sweaters and jackets on their chairs with the designer labels exposed instead of wearing them. Do people really care about this sort of thing with kids' clothes? Like, the labels might be seen once in a while when the kid leaves the sweater lying in the middle of the damn living room, so it has to be correct label? Who are these people?!

It has come to this

So, remember when Amazon had that thing going on where you could get a whole bunch of free stuff?

Most of the stuff didn't fit anyone in our household. I gave away a few things to friends and family, planned to donate the rest of the huge haul, then things happened and I never got around to it.

Last night I decided to eBay the stuff. As you saw in a past post, I'm beyond broke right now, and people will buy anything on eBay. I feel really guilty that I'm profiting from it instead of going with my original plan to donate it, but I guess at least it came from a large corporation that I assume benefited from the tax writeoff more than from having items around that weren't selling, and at least most of the people buying shorts and hoodies on eBay are probably people in similar situations who could benefit from some heavily discounted necessities? Still, I feel gross.