Decluttering and Ebay

[neversay]

Following on from the discussion about lockdown decluttering in a previous thread, last week I decided to put on some items on eBay that have been cluttering up the house and garage for some while. It turns out this handful of items have raised £880 and the next batch could take that to £1500. Over half the items sold for more than their original cost - presumably due to the constraints of lockdown on people's shopping habits and the supply shortages on certain items. I just thought I'd mention it as the joy of decluttering and raised funds are somewhat of a 'win-win'.

[Adamski]

Nice to know. I had been holding off as I thought Jan would be a bad time to sell on eBay, but might give it a go now!

[neversay]

Nice to know. I had been holding off as I thought Jan would be a bad time to sell on eBay, but might give it a go now!

I mentioned it partly because I had just about given up on eBay, Gumtree etc with the amount of effort spent listing, packing and posting, plus the fees, outweighing the time involved. It is all still a real pain, but it's hard to even give things away at present. Gumtree has been pretty useless due to timewasters.

Clearly what's selling is home office gear, gaming, fitness equipment, phones (particularly iPhones) and home improvement. My listings have been for rugs, printers, audio equipment, old VR headsets, rowing machine, car parts, old phones, etc. It's possible that I have just been lucky, but it could be a temporary increase in demand while people can't make it to the shops.

I'm up to £1k now and the garage is clearer. Although thanks to the cosmic Law of Sod, an invoice arrived today for £1.1k!

[eepee]

an invoice arrived today for £1.1k

Don't quite understand that!

Did you mean a notification of payment made to that amount?

Or a selling demand from eBay? If the latter it would imply you have sold over £10 000.

Regards,
ep

[neversay]

an invoice arrived today for £1.1k

Don't quite understand that!

Did you mean a notification of payment made to that amount?

Or a selling demand from eBay? If the latter it would imply you have sold over £10 000.

Regards,
ep

I wasn't clear, apologies. I received a bill for £1.1k from a tradesman for work I'm doing on the house. All the profit from the eBay sales will just cover his invoice. So next time I'm having work done, I'll just cut eBay out and instead let the tradesman choose what he wants from the garage!

[Avantegarde]

It is amazing what you can sell on Ebay. But my experience is that it takes about half an hour to list each individual item (taking photos, uploading photos, writing the listing, checking the likely postage costs, deciding what to do about foreign buyers, checking the draft advert etc). Then about 25% of your gross selling price will be sucked up by ebay listing and selling charges, and Paypal costs. Sorry if you know all this anyway. But unless I expect to clear at least £10 per item I give it away to a charity shop.

[neversay]

It is amazing what you can sell on Ebay. But my experience is that it takes about half an hour to list each individual item (taking photos, uploading photos, writing the listing, checking the likely postage costs, deciding what to do about foreign buyers, checking the draft advert etc). Then about 25% of your gross selling price will be sucked up by ebay listing and selling charges, and Paypal costs. Sorry if you know all this anyway. But unless I expect to clear at least £10 per item I give it away to a charity shop.

This is exactly the conversation I was just having with my wife who had complained that I had turned the garage upside down rather than tidied it up. I explained that most of what remains can be given away or go to charity now as it's not worth the effort of selling. As you say it's quite a 'high watermark' of price to get rid of stuff these days. Even Gumtree without selling fees but it ends up being a royal pain doing the listing, correspondence, dealing with timewasters and scheduling collection. Around here though it has been practically impossible to donate to charity in the last 12 months as when they were open they were swamped with stuff.

The real LBYM solution is to buy less crap in the first place.

[stevensfo]

It is amazing what you can sell on Ebay. But my experience is that it takes about half an hour to list each individual item (taking photos, uploading photos, writing the listing, checking the likely postage costs, deciding what to do about foreign buyers, checking the draft advert etc). Then about 25% of your gross selling price will be sucked up by ebay listing and selling charges, and Paypal costs. Sorry if you know all this anyway. But unless I expect to clear at least £10 per item I give it away to a charity shop.

It's at times like these, I really miss the UK! Here in Italy, there are no Charity shops and second-hand goods are very rare and tend to be frowned upon. Consequently, a visit to the local tips would have most Brits in tears. The things they throw away!! Fortunately, there are often a few people around searching for stuff they can use or sell. Strange that, while a visit to the UK may have some people head over to Buckingham palace, I can't wait for a good tour of all the Charity shops.

Ebay has changed a lot. Years ago, I could spend hours there, but these days, I find many things cheaper at Amazon. My uncle used to buy and sell military memorabilia there till the rules became stricter and stricter. As he once said, he's no longer to sell an old 10" collectible hunting knife, but anyone can go down the road and buy a 12" kitchen knife! Similarly, disactivated antique bullets (with all insides removed) are no longer allowed.

Not sure about bananas and pointed sticks.

Steve

[richlist]

I find when selling on EBay or other sites it's best to have a system. If there are a lot of items then I will spend an hour or two just taking photos......good photos are the best way to ensure a sale.

I'll spend time drafting my words/ descriptions. Then when I'm ready to list I have everything I need. I find offering items on a collect only basis saves all the hassle of postage. If people ask me to post it I usually suggest that they arrange a courier, then it's their time, expense, risk and all I have to do is attach a label. Alternatively apply a high postage cost to make it worthwhile for you.

I try to avoid paypal by insisting on cash payments. In the current pandemic I ask for the money in an envelope or plastic bag. The whole transaction can be done very safely.

The period since March last year has been my most profitable period in 15 years.

[AF62]

It is amazing what you can sell on Ebay. But my experience is that it takes about half an hour to list each individual item (taking photos, uploading photos, writing the listing, checking the likely postage costs, deciding what to do about foreign buyers, checking the draft advert etc). Then about 25% of your gross selling price will be sucked up by ebay listing and selling charges, and Paypal costs.

I only sell on eBay when they are doing a 'Sell for £1' offer to try to minimise the fees.

The worst I find is the postage. I sent a large box about the size of a small suitcase weighing about 10kg last weekend and it cost me £7 with signature and £60 insurance. But if I want to send a DVD by Royal Mail it is just under £2 - ridiculous.

Sorry if you know all this anyway. But unless I expect to clear at least £10 per item I give it away to a charity shop.

I had a 150 or so DVDs I no longer wanted, so during the first lockdown when I had nothing better to do used the Music Magpie app to see what they were worth (you can just scan the barcode). The whole lot was worth about £4 so I donated them to the local charity shop on the basis that even if they only got 10p each for them they would get more benefit than I would.

I'll spend time drafting my words/ descriptions. Then when I'm ready to list I have everything I need. I find offering items on a collect only basis saves all the hassle of postage.

The trouble with doing that is it limits the customer base to those nearby, and depending on the item it usually results in a lower selling price. I only tend to advertise collection for the sort of item that can't be posted - washing machines, car wheels, etc.

Alternatively apply a high postage cost to make it worthwhile for you.

Postage is an odd thing. Advertise something worth £10 with £5 postage and it won't sell, but advertise as £15 with free post and packing and it will. Conversely advertise something worth £50 and it will sell for £50 whether it is free post and packing or £5 for postage. So these days I price the postage as what feels 'right' and someone might pay, irrespective of the actual cost - although I make sure I tick the 'don't show the cost' on the postage label if I have priced it higher.

I try to avoid paypal by insisting on cash payments. In the current pandemic I ask for the money in an envelope or plastic bag. The whole transaction can be done very safely.

Obviously never accept PayPal for collection items (or if they are sending a courier to collect) - The standard fraud is to pay by PayPal, collect, and then claim you never received the goods. PayPal won't give a damn what evidence you provide it was collected (signed receipts, photos, copy of ID documents, etc.) - no signature for delivery by post/courier = refund the buyer. Although apparently eBay is now trialling a system where if it is paid electronically the buyer gets a QR code which the seller then scans to prove that they handed over the item - although that obviously replies on the seller having a smart phone and the eBay app installed.

[richlist]

I refuse to play ball with EBay with regards to the QR codes.......I just won't comply with this additional bit of admin. I 've sold thousands of items as collect only with many buyers paying by PayPal. Ive never ever had a problem with a buyer saying they didn't get the item and claiming their paypal payment back.

Don't forget, when someone pays by paypal the seller gets the buyers address and as it's collect only they are gonna be local. If someone tried that trick on me then they would get a visit from some of my friends.

When advertising collect only I nearly always sell at a fixed price. I decide how much I want/ what is a fair price/ the market value and then advertise as that amount or slightly higher. I sometimes also include the option for buyers to make an offer.....which often helps.

[AF62]

If someone tried that trick on me then they would get a visit from some of my friends.

But doesn't the buyer also know where you live as they collected the item... (are your friends bigger than their friends?).

[richlist]

On a serious note......Im not someone who is going to sit back and allow a buyer to take my goods and not pay for them, especially when they are local and I know their address.

This situation has never happened to me in 15 years with thousands of sales so im not expecting it to be a problem anytime soon. Clearly there must have been a few cases for EBay to introduce the QR system.

[TopStar74]

It's at times like these, I really miss the UK! Here in Italy, there are no Charity shops and second-hand goods are very rare and tend to be frowned upon. Consequently, a visit to the local tips would have most Brits in tears. The things they throw away!! Fortunately, there are often a few people around searching for stuff they can use or sell.

I am surprised! I had a Romanian friend who lived most of his life in Italy and he said, nothing like what he sees in the tips in the UK are ever there in Italy. To him we seemed to be an extremely wasteful society which valued nothing. He was brought up in Rome. He would feel a serious guilt of conscience about waste whenever he went to throw some small thing at the tip and discovered a steady unending queue of cars all waiting patiently to throw out perfectly good things in the tip.

[neversay]

On a serious note......Im not someone who is going to sit back and allow a buyer to take my goods and not pay for them, especially when they are local and I know their address.

This situation has never happened to me in 15 years with thousands of sales so im not expecting it to be a problem anytime soon. Clearly there must have been a few cases for EBay to introduce the QR system.

That reminds me I once sold an old Amazon Fire TV box on eBay and the buyer claimed that the box hadn't arrived. It sounded fishy so I provided the details of the Device ID to the Amazon support team via chat. They confirmed that the device had been re-registered and while they couldn't disclose the person who had registered it, they inadvertently disclosed the location and user id.

With the buyer's name and address, and location details of the device, I was able to do some internet research about the user's history. It turned out the buyer's father was the local postmaster and both had prior convictions for theft. As Amazon wouldn't block the device, I sent the buyer a message explaining that the item certainly had been received and the box was being used by used by his friend {user id } at {location} so if he didn't pay me within 24 hours those were the details I would pass to the police.

As it happened, I got a Paypal payment within a few minutes.

[stevensfo]

It's at times like these, I really miss the UK! Here in Italy, there are no Charity shops and second-hand goods are very rare and tend to be frowned upon. Consequently, a visit to the local tips would have most Brits in tears. The things they throw away!! Fortunately, there are often a few people around searching for stuff they can use or sell.

I am surprised! I had a Romanian friend who lived most of his life in Italy and he said, nothing like what he sees in the tips in the UK are ever there in Italy. To him we seemed to be an extremely wasteful society which valued nothing. He was brought up in Rome. He would feel a serious guilt of conscience about waste whenever he went to throw some small thing at the tip and discovered a steady unending queue of cars all waiting patiently to throw out perfectly good things in the tip.

Interesting. Perhaps it's different in big cities. We're in the middle of nowhere and there is nothing that people can do with old stuff apart from take it to the tip. For many years, my wife was sending all our kids' old clothes to Poland because nobody in Italy was interested. Thankfully, there is now a charity that collects these things for the down and out in Milano. Guess what? It's run by a British woman!

When we lived in Stevenage, I tried to give our old 3-piece suite away, still in pretty good condition. Nobody could take it because it didn't have some kind of inflammable safety label on it. It broke my heart having to throw it away.

I started decluttering some books years ago, and luckily, working in a place full of Italians and other Europeans means that any books in English get snapped up within hours of sending round a general email. I usually try to do all this when my wife isn't around, since she's a worse hoarder than me!

Steve

[funduffer]

When I moved house and downsized about 5 years ago, I had quite a bit of stuff to get rid of.

I used Ebay, the local sales auction house, and the local press classified ads.

I did far better with the classified ads than the others I think for the following reasons:

Free ads for items below £100
Locals read the ads so would be prepared to come and collect the goods - no postage
All online - you put in your own ad and photo.
You can repeat the ad if you don't sell, reducing the price if necessary.

Worth a try.

[bungeejumper]

When we lived in Stevenage, I tried to give our old 3-piece suite away, still in pretty good condition. Nobody could take it because it didn't have some kind of inflammable safety label on it. It broke my heart having to throw it away.

Indeed so. Without the fire safety label, you can't give any item of soft furnishings to a charity shop, or (AFAIK) sell it either. That's a bit of a nuisance because some people routinely cut labels off their furniture, but it's all in a good cause I suppose. More details at https://reuse-network.org.uk/why-are-fi ... important/ .

I started decluttering some books years ago, and luckily, working in a place full of Italians and other Europeans means that any books in English get snapped up within hours of sending round a general email.

Lucky you! I had the opposite problem when I got rid of all my old German novels from university, down here in hip multilingual cosmopolitan Wiltshire. In the end I tipped them all into the book collecting bin at my local Sainsburys, feeling a bit guilty because I knew they'd take one look at the titles and groan, and then send them all to pulp/landfill. Still, at least I tried.

BJ

[stevensfo]

When we lived in Stevenage, I tried to give our old 3-piece suite away, still in pretty good condition. Nobody could take it because it didn't have some kind of inflammable safety label on it. It broke my heart having to throw it away.

Indeed so. Without the fire safety label, you can't give any item of soft furnishings to a charity shop, or (AFAIK) sell it either. That's a bit of a nuisance because some people routinely cut labels off their furniture, but it's all in a good cause I suppose. More details at https://reuse-network.org.uk/why-are-fi ... important/ .

I started decluttering some books years ago, and luckily, working in a place full of Italians and other Europeans means that any books in English get snapped up within hours of sending round a general email.

Lucky you! I had the opposite problem when I got rid of all my old German novels from university, down here in hip multilingual cosmopolitan Wiltshire. In the end I tipped them all into the book collecting bin at my local Sainsburys, feeling a bit guilty because I knew they'd take one look at the titles and groan, and then send them all to pulp/landfill. Still, at least I tried.

BJ

Yep, German books are not terribly popular here either, unless they're for the German section in the local European School. There's also the fact that most Germans I know have a better grasp of English grammar than the average Brit, so they would only want the books to search for mistakes.

I have actually taken books to the tip, quite a lot actually, and still feel bad about it, but it was at a time when almost everyone was having to stay in their local area due to lockdown (but the tip was open!!) and coincided with an urge to rid the shelves of absolute trash, the sort of books that I'd be embarrassed to give away.

But like old clothes, the numbers never seem to go down. I reckon they all come to life and make their way home at night!

Steve

[AndyPandy]

It is amazing what you can sell on Ebay. But my experience is that it takes about half an hour to list each individual item (taking photos, uploading photos, writing the listing, checking the likely postage costs, deciding what to do about foreign buyers, checking the draft advert etc). Then about 25% of your gross selling price will be sucked up by ebay listing and selling charges, and Paypal costs. Sorry if you know all this anyway. But unless I expect to clear at least £10 per item I give it away to a charity shop.

There is a website called eBid. It pitches itself as the low cost alternative to eBay. Since December I've been listing items on both eBid and eBay. It's a little early to spot any trends. All items have had similar levels of views but I've only sold two so far - both on eBay. All my stuff is fixed price.

EBid Fees are a lot less than eBay. e.g. 5% final fee for a regular seller's account. They do do a Seller+ Account which is £70 for a lifetime of no final fees and a few other perks (I've gone for this as I have a lot of stuff to sell).

Some comparisons for eBid

+
Low / 0 final fees
Cheap add-ons e.g. second category, front page listing
No limit to items. I have thousands of items to sell, eBay is limiting me to 230 across everything currently. Up from 170 after I sold my first item - whoopee do.
Feels quicker to list items
Quote "eBid is an official Marketplace Partner of Google. We will upload your items to Google Shopping within minutes of you listing them if Google Shopping is available in your home country.". This is quite impressive. I've followed the rules for listing and my items do appear on Google shopping very quickly for no additional cost

-
It's not eBay. It's got a fraction of the traffic

It's been around since 1999 so hopefully won't go the way of QXL - it just needs more footfall. Might be worth a look.

https://www.ebid.net/uk/