Selling TFs isn't fun

[Thurmus]

I would be interested in participating.

[GoktimusPrime]

The Transformers Pay It Forward thread has now been created.

[Megatran]

Selling is taking up more of my time than I thought.

It doesn't help when Auspost calculator isn't accurate and then having to spend more time chasing up buyers to refund a few coins.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Nope it isn't. When i first started ebaying i had a blast selling stuff. Now i hate having to use ebay. It sucks so baaaad.

[griffin]

I agree.
As I noted in the ebay discount sale topic, it took me three days to take photos and edit them of the 190-200 items I was planning to list.
It then takes a while to list each item (selecting all the particular variables that aren't the default settings, plus searching sold listings to see what is a fair BIN price is because auctions on Australian listings don't often get much attention).
So I managed to stop at about 32 items because that already took me about 5-6 hours... and because the prices I had to list them at to include free shipping wouldn't make it worth listing anything under $30.
(I don't trust the shipping estimates, particularly when you have to combine shipping - if you underestimate it you lose money, and if you overestimate you risk negative feedbback for over-charging the buyer unintentionally.)

On top of all that are all the questions and offers you have to answer, as well as the "false buyers" who buy something that wasn't available to their area, or it was an "accidental purchase", requiring items to be relisted and opening a dispute for the buyer to agree to as well or else ebay thinks you sold the item.

Then, as if it couldn't get any more time-consuming (for no extra return), you have to deal with a Transformers toy that has electronics and batteries in it, which Australia Post now will no longer ship by air.... and since they don't have seamail to China, I spend significant time ringing around other shipping companies (including a delightful 31 minutes on hold for one company), just to find out that most others don't airfreight items with batteries, or if they do, they charge between $150-$350.

After all that, I've only sold 11 of my 32 items, and they are only a day or two from needing relisting (which I'll need to reduce some prices if I want to offload them).

And I haven't even gotten to the ebay and paypal fees yet.... which I'm sure will just make my day when I find out what they amount to.


Ebay is definitely best for scalpers and owners of investment items, who have the small number of the rarer items that desperate people are willing to pay a fortune for, and cost the sellers very little to acquire, sell and post.

(if we had a collectables fair in Brisbane like most of you other capital cities have, I'd sell them there)

Okay, rant over.

[VERT]

And yes Griffin the fees. Ebay take some from the final price. Then some of the postage cost...so your at a loss just sending it. And let's not forget the paypal fee. For the last 8 months my ebay fees have been up to and including $350 a month

[kurdt_the_goat]

I haven't used them myself but u guys know there are various means of listing to Ebay yeah? Apps and services that make it much quicker. When you think of some sellers listing and relisting hundreds or thousands of items, they must be using them to do it so quickly!

[drifand]

A lot of customers change their minds last minute.
I feel that is too much of a hassle to sell my toys on eBay or gumtree.
Too many no shows and unreasonable request has surfaced time to time.

[Omega Metro]

It's really not that difficult when selling on EBay. Once you have a listing that is perfect and covers all the postage costs etc, all you need to do when you want to list a similar item is just change the title, description and photo. Everything else stays the same. It takes me about 1 minute to do a new listing. Trust me, I've been doing it for years with over 3000 feedbacks. It's actually a lot quicker than trying to sell something on a forum like this.

[griffin]

The big time-waster is searching for details on each item like when it was released, as well as looking up sold listings to see what I should list it for so that I don't waste my time by over-pricing it, or missing out on money by under-pricing it.

I do copy listings after a while, but depending on the price or rarity, I change the shipping options (like where it can be shipped, and if it has free shipping) but each time I thought of something else, I would have to go back and add it to the previous ones.
And now that I can't sell toys with batteries overseas, I have to make sure that is taken care of as well.

With all those variables, I don't think I could trust an automated listing.