Things to sell on ebay?

[Omerta]

Yeah man, lots are the way to go if you already have the non-console video game media on hand and are just ready to let them fly at a loss for the sake of space in your house.

I'm guessing the OP is trying to figure out things to source and sell on a regular basis and I just don't see it in books/DVDs/PC games. They're an over-saturated commodity right now and it's a race to the bottom on pricing unless you want to sit on them for a REAL long time.

I've personally not had much luck with things like scary movie lots around Halloween because the shipping bones you to death even on a flat rate box compared to what people want to pay. I dunno though, maybe someone else is making a killing off fat stacks of garage sale DVDs they bought in huge bundles at a dime each - but it didn't seem like it was worth the hassle to me.

And cellphones - I tried a 5-ish year old Galaxy a few times and it didn't hardly even get any looks. A guy at work upgraded his phone early and had me put his year old LG Android phone on eBay since he didn't know how to do it. He wanted to get like $50 out of it and it managed to bring in about $250. I've had local lowball offers on my old stuff and usually can at least double it on the bay... which again, is highly unusual.

I'd say the sweet spot is an iPhone or a relatively popular Android within the last two years. It would ideally be an unlocked phone, but most people don't buy directly from the manufacturer so I'd stick with big carriers like Verizon, ATT, Sprint, or T-Mobile. Make sure it works well, it's factory reset, the sim card is pulled, and the serial number isn't blacklisted.

And while I'm writing a wall of text, I'll preach the virtues of brand name clothing. That crap is everywhere in thrift stores and garage sales. If you can grab some Air Jordans or Under Armour hoodies that are in great shape for less than a buck, you could probably sell most of it for at least $10 on eBay - and they aren't fragile like a Saturn game so your packaging costs/methods don't need to be up to our standards either. I've seen a dude on Youtube that hovers around Ross stores for hours with an Amazon app on his phone and digs through their mountains of garbage to grab piles of Nike sports bras and high margin basketball sneakers - and they probably fetch more because they're new.

[Omerta]

Frag - I've been lucky and haven't been scammed for a couple hundred bones yet. And as far as returns go, I make it very explicit multiple times that I don't accept returns. It cuts back on the "Oh my son didn't like it, so I'll treat you like you're Walmart" responses, though they still exist.

If they aren't complete dicks about it, I'm willing to listen though. If I do take a return, I'll tell them I'm sending the money minus shipping after it returns in good shape so I'm not out anything either.

I guess it's just whatever you're comfortable with.

[Tanooki]

I've lucked out so far on that too. I've always selected the no returns bit. If it's something that's more likely to get cracked up in the mail (game/cd jewel cases) I'll put a line in there I will attempt my best to protect it but the mail is rough and I will not take a return on something if the case is cracked (as you said I'm not walmart.)

When it comes to certain electronics I will detail all sorts of stuff, and if it seems like an idiot could still mess it up I'll even link a way or describe if ebay blocks a link where you can get a manual or a video on youtube so any peon can be an expert and again, so far it has worked.

It is true the best sweet spot is that $10-50 range more or less, very disposable income so less likely to get flippant mind changed douchebags and fraudsters.

[Fragems]

I'd recommend just doing the 30 day returns as eBay wants if you become a top rated seller. They won't give you the 2% discount that knocks final value fees from 10% down to 8% unless you do it. Offering "no returns" really means jack shit anymore anyways . Ebay's buyer protection allows a buyer to return any purchase within 30 days if it is "not as described" and honestly most people looking to make a return are going to pick that regardless of their return reason because eBay forces the seller to eat the return shipping . There is no real way for a seller to fight a return either since eBay always always sides with the buyer.

I do however recommend putting your return policy to buyer pays return shipping + a 15% restocking fee so that in the case someone is honest about just wanting to return something because they didn't like it or want it then you don't get screwed.

On another note set your buyer requirements to the strictest settings. Even the most strict requirements aren't that amazing for protecting you from some fraudulent buyers but it at least keeps the worst of the worst from seeing/buying your stuff . You can access the buyer requirements by going into your account tab on your my ebay page and then hitting site preferences in the table of links on the left side and scrolling down the page a bit. Also if you run into someone who really bugs you or ticks you off you can manually input them into a block list that's kind of hidden on the buyer requirements edit page.

Links not sure if they will work but I don't see why not.
Buyer Requirements Edit Page
Manual Block/Exemption Input Page

[Tanooki]

Your links work and it's crap they hide those so well.

I probably should put the restock threat there, but I don't want to look too standoffish about things.

The buyer requirements I've had as tight as they've allowed for years and revise it as needed. I'm not above blocking anyone for having a single unpaid strike or anything else as it keeps the wankers away much more lowering the chance of getting baked. It's a shame the best you can do currently is 2 strikes over a 12mo period (defaults to 2 and 6mo.) And max it to 4 over 6mo for policy violations. Those will curb a lot of the scum along with anyone with any form of a -1 or worse feedback too.

The dumb one is block buyers from areas you do not ship. 100% pointless I've noticed over the last year maybe two. I refuse sales on my stuff outside of the US, don't do GSP either as it's just scamming buyers. Yet they have a block buyers from where you don't ship and I have it. So what do people do, they just find a US based broker company to buy stuff for them, they get it, then ship it out of the country. I really hate this because I don't know what's going to happen. Can the shipper only leave immediate feedback, or can they wait weeks for someone to get their stuff and make up some story and the seller gets punished? Seems just shady and it can't be stopped.

[Fragems]

The dumb one is block buyers from areas you do not ship. 100% pointless I've noticed over the last year maybe two. I refuse sales on my stuff outside of the US, don't do GSP either as it's just scamming buyers. Yet they have a block buyers from where you don't ship and I have it. So what do people do, they just find a US based broker company to buy stuff for them, they get it, then ship it out of the country. I really hate this because I don't know what's going to happen. Can the shipper only leave immediate feedback, or can they wait weeks for someone to get their stuff and make up some story and the seller gets punished? Seems just shady and it can't be stopped.

Basically it's against eBay's policy so anyone caught doing it gives up their buyer protection. I'm sure people try to get around that but if you suspect that's up just double check the address you initially shipped. Most of the shipping brokers are pretty well known and if you point that out to customer service should side with you as long as you get a customer service rep who knows what they are doing. That being said customer service is a real shit show since unless things have changed since the last time I had a issue they've pretty much completely outsourced to subpar foreign call centers and most of those guys stick really close to a set of prewritten dialogue options for any given problem. About 50% of the time their English isn't the most amazing either so trying to explain more complex issues confuses them and they will either A.) transfer you around dozens of times, B.) put you on a never ending hold, or C.) just outright hang up on you after a while.

[Tanooki]

Ugh don't get me started on indian call centers. When I get that I play two angles. Dumb. Or if dumb fails, I make them come off feeling dumb going through stuff and when they can't answer I either way demand (nicely) a supervisor and amazingly I get the US call center.

I refuse to waste more time than necessary than a partly trained computer monkey with digital cue cards.

I didn't know what the word was with ebay on that which is why it was paranoia for me. The thing is you can always call it out because what you get is some random persons name at an address, and then the shipping label puts some random alphabet soup splatter of like 5-8 letters after the last name. Everytime I've had that I look up the address and 100% of it ends up being some shipping company/broker.

This was the latest one and oddly unlike all the others didn't even try and hide the fact:
Myung Chan Kim REF #818476
14452 S Avalon Blvd
Gardena, CA 90248

They are ACI Express. They have a track record of some angry people who end up getting screwed on paypal chargeback saying the item didn't work. But there's also a lot more I found digging yet more that had no problem with them, so it's not the company but the people abusing it beyond that. This was from 2 1/2 years ago so hopefully it stopped as I sent a CIB Pokemon LeafGreen w/wireless adapter for $78+shipping. That I will fight if it happens so I'm watching it for now.

[Fragems]

Another interesting thing I just noticed since it's something I never really fiddled with is that when creating a buy it now listing regardless of the quantity it counts as one listing even when the items sell. You can also adjust the quantity for the duration of the auction. I find this really odd and even more of a reason that opening a "store" through eBay is pretty pointless.

Never mind the fact that they throw out 2-3 promotions a month offering 1k+ or unlimited free listings for 4-5 day stretches.

[Tanooki]

Good point and I've seen that.

You can get creative to dodge the limits. Often I find when looking for some Gameboy stuff Europeans caught on and get tricky. You take one image of like 9 Gameboy games in a brady bunch looking layout blocking it off. Each addition pic shows each game alone. Then in the listing you have a drop down box, you select the game you want, and then the price adjusted accordingly for the interested buyer. Then you just click and buy like normal, the system grays out the game from the drop down showing it SOLD, and what's done is done. You get 9 GB games in 1 sales listing. When it expires, just reshoot the combined image, throw in the new title, and refresh...another 9 listings under the value of ONE.

[Soldier Blue]

Coffee mugs can be a good thing to sell from what I've researched. Keep a eye out for Hermes brand and make sure it's packed really well or better yet send it priority for a more valuable one