eBay article part 2
First off I want to give a shout out to Trey K from CBSI for sharing my previous article. It garnered some decent attention and good discussion within the group. I also got some good questions from people so I thought I'd elaborate on a few things.
I just want to warn sellers of the risk of selling on eBay. And the huge pain it can be.
The main question I got was how often does someone try to scam you? Honestly I would say about 1 in 10 sales. And the most common scam is people wanting a partial refund. They will say something like "hi the book arrived today but it's probably a 9.0 and not NM so can you refund me 25% and I'll just keep the book, I hope we can resolve this". All they are trying to do is get the book you sold them for a cheaper price. And how could they possibly know the grade if it's not slabbed.
And that's another thing I wanted to touch on, when I list a book for sale I will list the condition, for example if it's near mint I will put NM condition. I don't assign it a number grade because how could you? We aren't "professional graders" as people like to say in their listings. But I've been buying and selling books long enough and have slabbed enough books to know that my grading skills are spot on at least 90% of the time.
You always have to provide a tracking number as well. Whether the book is worth a dollar or a thousand dollars, you need a tracking number. Because you will always have people that claim they never got their item even if they did, if you don't provide the tracking there is nothing you can do and you will lose every time.
Now I also don't want to scare people off, you can make good money flipping books on eBay. Like I said 9 out of 10 times the buyer pays and leaves positive feedback after they get the item and you move on. But there will be scammers guaranteed. I don't know anyone that sells on eBay who has never been burned before.
But this is why eBay is a necessary evil. We need to use their platform to sell books so they feel like they can treat us as they please. Because they know eBay reaches millions of people and gives us the best opportunity to sell books fast.
When I talked about eBay not protecting sellers they really don't do anything for us. Honestly most of the time they screw you over.
Here's an example I dealt with personally. I sold as comic to someone and I like to ship out the item within 48 hours of receiving payment. Now eBay will give an estimated delivery date for the item, it's not a guaranteed date. So the buyer pays and a couple days later I shipped the book, I always provide a tracking number as well. And I want to say if I remember correctly the buyer lived in Arizona and I live in New Hampshire so it'll take a few days. I always ship first class unless it's something heavier and priority would be about the same amount, then I'd ship priority, but in this case it was just one book. Now 2 days after I shipped the book the buyer messages me saying he hasn't recieved the book. I told him when I shipped it and that I provded tracking. Now for the sake of argument and to make it easy to follow lets say the item was sold on the 1st and payed for the same day and shipped on the 3rd. Let's say the estimated arrival date was the 5th-7th. So let's say the buyer had messaged me on the 5th. Now I don't ever hear from him again after that. But on the 7th he opens a case against me through eBay. And claims the item was damaged and not as described. The kicker is the item wasn't delivered until the 8th. So I have to contact eBay, and at first they always tell you to try and resolve the issue with the buyer. I sent several messages to the buyer and never got a response. eBay tells me well there's nothing they can do and if he doesn't pursure the case it will close itself and the funds will be released. I even tried to argue my point of how could the case even be valid for claiming the item wasn't as described and it hadn't even arrived yet. And their customer service people actually argued with me. eBay has the WORST Customer service I've ever dealt with. And this wasn't a cheap book I belive it sold for $90. So get this, the buyer gets the book, eBay gets their seller fees and I don't get the funds for over 30 days. I don't remember exactly how long the funds were frozen but it was definitely over 30 days. Which is just insane to me. And too boot the guy leaves me negative feedback, which eventually got removed, this guy was then blocked. But it's just ridiculous the way eBay treats its sellers. If there was nobody selling on eBay they wouldn't make any money.
If you guys have any tips for sellers that you want to add please leave a comment below
Let me know if you guys ever experienced anything like that.
I just want to warn sellers of the risk of selling on eBay. And the huge pain it can be.
The main question I got was how often does someone try to scam you? Honestly I would say about 1 in 10 sales. And the most common scam is people wanting a partial refund. They will say something like "hi the book arrived today but it's probably a 9.0 and not NM so can you refund me 25% and I'll just keep the book, I hope we can resolve this". All they are trying to do is get the book you sold them for a cheaper price. And how could they possibly know the grade if it's not slabbed.
And that's another thing I wanted to touch on, when I list a book for sale I will list the condition, for example if it's near mint I will put NM condition. I don't assign it a number grade because how could you? We aren't "professional graders" as people like to say in their listings. But I've been buying and selling books long enough and have slabbed enough books to know that my grading skills are spot on at least 90% of the time.
You always have to provide a tracking number as well. Whether the book is worth a dollar or a thousand dollars, you need a tracking number. Because you will always have people that claim they never got their item even if they did, if you don't provide the tracking there is nothing you can do and you will lose every time.
Now I also don't want to scare people off, you can make good money flipping books on eBay. Like I said 9 out of 10 times the buyer pays and leaves positive feedback after they get the item and you move on. But there will be scammers guaranteed. I don't know anyone that sells on eBay who has never been burned before.
But this is why eBay is a necessary evil. We need to use their platform to sell books so they feel like they can treat us as they please. Because they know eBay reaches millions of people and gives us the best opportunity to sell books fast.
When I talked about eBay not protecting sellers they really don't do anything for us. Honestly most of the time they screw you over.
Here's an example I dealt with personally. I sold as comic to someone and I like to ship out the item within 48 hours of receiving payment. Now eBay will give an estimated delivery date for the item, it's not a guaranteed date. So the buyer pays and a couple days later I shipped the book, I always provide a tracking number as well. And I want to say if I remember correctly the buyer lived in Arizona and I live in New Hampshire so it'll take a few days. I always ship first class unless it's something heavier and priority would be about the same amount, then I'd ship priority, but in this case it was just one book. Now 2 days after I shipped the book the buyer messages me saying he hasn't recieved the book. I told him when I shipped it and that I provded tracking. Now for the sake of argument and to make it easy to follow lets say the item was sold on the 1st and payed for the same day and shipped on the 3rd. Let's say the estimated arrival date was the 5th-7th. So let's say the buyer had messaged me on the 5th. Now I don't ever hear from him again after that. But on the 7th he opens a case against me through eBay. And claims the item was damaged and not as described. The kicker is the item wasn't delivered until the 8th. So I have to contact eBay, and at first they always tell you to try and resolve the issue with the buyer. I sent several messages to the buyer and never got a response. eBay tells me well there's nothing they can do and if he doesn't pursure the case it will close itself and the funds will be released. I even tried to argue my point of how could the case even be valid for claiming the item wasn't as described and it hadn't even arrived yet. And their customer service people actually argued with me. eBay has the WORST Customer service I've ever dealt with. And this wasn't a cheap book I belive it sold for $90. So get this, the buyer gets the book, eBay gets their seller fees and I don't get the funds for over 30 days. I don't remember exactly how long the funds were frozen but it was definitely over 30 days. Which is just insane to me. And too boot the guy leaves me negative feedback, which eventually got removed, this guy was then blocked. But it's just ridiculous the way eBay treats its sellers. If there was nobody selling on eBay they wouldn't make any money.
If you guys have any tips for sellers that you want to add please leave a comment below
Let me know if you guys ever experienced anything like that.
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