selling camera on Ebay. What should I watch out for?

It's been a while since I did my last Ebay sale. At least two years.

Now I decided to sell my slightly used white EP-1 with kit lens.

There are many pitfalls and dangers lurking there, so before I post my auction, I would like to ask members of these forums for any useful advice on how to do my auction.

What should I watch out for and how to word my ad text?

What restrictions should I set for potential bidders?
What price to start the auction?

Is it better to include shipping or to charge extra?

I should say that I am in the USA.

--
Andrzej
http://lowflyingbananas.zenfolio.com/

Others will undoubtedly reply with more specific info.

One piece of advice is don't - like ever - even think about selling to someone from Africa - especially Nigeria or Sierra Leone. Biggest fraudsters of the lot.

Only work with PayPal - never with any other facility - especially not Western Union. No matter how attractive - 99.999999999% are fraudsters who can appear to present valid documentation. Just say NO.

Ignore this and you deserve everything you get.

--
Zone8

The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer's understanding of his subject and mastery of his process. -Edward Weston
http://www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/ZPS

I buy and sell on ebay fairly regularly, including camera equipment, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

1. Only use paypal.

2. Only ship after you have received the money

3. I'm not saying not to ship to other countries, but I don't. I looked in your profile and noticed you live in NY, same as me. Lots of people from Canada like to bid on these auctions and 99% are clueless about customs and duties for shipping an item from the US to Canada. I have had sales fall through because people won't pay the duty, and I've had to refuse to ship an item because they want me to lie on a customs form. If you declare an item under $20 and a gift there are no duties on it, but technically it is a crime.

4. Make sure to put a CYA paragraph at the end of every auction. Mine goes something along the lines of, "Thank you for looking at my auction, if you have any questions please ask them before bidding. Payment is expected within 3 days of the auction ending. If payment is not received the item will be relisted and an unpaying bidders complaint will be filed. The item will be shipping within 24 business hours of payment being received. Insurance is optional but highly recommended."

5. Don't be too verbose on your description paragraph. If it takes longer then 10-15 seconds to scan if it too long. I will usually give a quick sentence or two about what I am selling then put everything else in bullet format.

6. If there is anything wrong with the camera, make a note of it. Even a minor scratch or rub.

7. Factor in ebay and paypal fees. By then end it will usually consume about 10% of the final price of the camera. There is a fee to list an auction, a fee to end an auction and two fees to use paypal.

8. Always have your auction end during prime time. I prefer between 8-9pm EST because that isn't too early elsewhere in the US. I've gotten some good deals on ebay auctions ending at 4am Tuesday morning. It only cost 10 cents to make an auction whenever and have it start at a specific time. The timer runs off of pacific time though FYI.

9. Consider craigslist as well. With that you get cash in hand (only deal locally and in a public place, I meet inside the food court at the local mall), no fees and if you only leave a phone number to call instead of an e-mail address you eliminate almost every common scam.

Hope it helps.

--



Yawn...

NWcityguy2 said:

I buy and sell on ebay fairly regularly, including camera equipment, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Click to expand...

I'd say that was 2 dollars, or 200 dollars of info. Thanks for a great summary with some top-flight information.

The lengthy advice you received above is really good. I sold more than 100 items on ebay over a few years as I got rid of analog and old digital gear. I only had two problems. One was a claim that the camera was damaged when I shipped it, while it had clearly been dropped by the recipient and thus incurred the damage. I could not prove it was not damaged when I shipped it. I refunded the money to keep my feedback clean (100% positive). I also had a bad sale made on a stolen credit card through paypal. Paypal deducted $500 from my account. When I asked paypal for documentation of the incident to prove that a CC company had actually nullified the sale paypal would not supply it. They refused to give me any proof. I tried for more than a year to get documentation without success. I closed my payal seller account and have not sold on ebay since. Now I sell an occasional item on http://www.rangefinderforum.com . A 30 day listing is $5.00 and not other fees. I put three items up in the past few months and all were sold within 48 hours at ny asking price. I think an EP! would go fast there.

--
Richard Weisgrau
http://www.weisgrau.com
Author of
The Real Business of Photography
The Photographer's Guide to Negotiating
Selling Your Photography
Licensing Photography

NWcityguy2 said:

3. I'm not saying not to ship to other countries, but I don't. I looked in your profile and noticed you live in NY, same as me. Lots of people from Canada like to bid on these auctions and 99% are clueless about customs and duties for shipping an item from the US to Canada. I have had sales fall through because people won't pay the duty, and I've had to refuse to ship an item because they want me to lie on a customs form. If you declare an item under $20 and a gift there are no duties on it, but technically it is a crime.

Click to expand...

Beside being illegal (when caught) you are also only exposing yourself when you make a lower than actual value declaration. When item get lost/damage and time for a claim you only get what you declared not what the item is really worth

--
Retired commercial photog - enjoying shooting for myself again.
Hoping to see/shoot as much as I can before the eyes and legs gives way

WOW you were able to do that without photoshop!!!!

D W said:

D W said:

3. I'm not saying not to ship to other countries, but I don't. I looked in your profile and noticed you live in NY, same as me. Lots of people from Canada like to bid on these auctions and 99% are clueless about customs and duties for shipping an item from the US to Canada. I have had sales fall through because people won't pay the duty, and I've had to refuse to ship an item because they want me to lie on a customs form. If you declare an item under $20 and a gift there are no duties on it, but technically it is a crime.

Click to expand...

Beside being illegal (when caught) you are also only exposing yourself when you make a lower than actual value declaration. When item get lost/damage and time for a claim you only get what you declared not what the item is really worth

--
Retired commercial photog - enjoying shooting for myself again.
Hoping to see/shoot as much as I can before the eyes and legs gives way

WOW you were able to do that without photoshop!!!!

Click to expand...

Hi all-

The Canadian statements are true (about having to pay duty), but I would also say some sellers are clueless about shipping. Here's the issue:

As you mentioned, an item under $20 (gift or not) is duty free, and gifts under $60 are free, so that is why some nefarious types would try to get you to do that. ASs pointed out - don't!

However, it isn't just duty to be concerned with. What some don't understand is if you ship in any fashion other than US Postal service (thus coming into Canada and going into canada Post, there will be duty (which on cameras can be up to 25% depending on where their made) AND if you use, say, UPS they will charge a brokerage fee of another $40 to Hundreds of dollars (again depending on item and value). I ordered an item from a US mail order and returned it because they did not follow my instructions to send the item by US Post and instead used a courier - the $125 item had tax of 15% (our sales tax), the duty (about $28) and then an $80 brokerage fee. The item had almost doubled in price, so I refused it.

Just so you understand it isn't "clueless" Canadians that always cause the issue...
and yes, I sell on e-bay both inside Canada and to people in the USA.
Bill

--
http://www.billcurry.ca

Thank you for the info and sorry if my comments were a bit harsh towards our friends north of the boarder. I was merely speaking from my experience which took me 3 spoiled auctions to finally call it quits.

--



Yawn...

NWcityguy2 said:

I buy and sell on ebay fairly regularly, including camera equipment, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Only use paypal.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. eBay now permits three other payment-companies on eBay that are alternatives to its PayPal service: Moneybookers, ProPay and Paymate:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/checkout-preferences.html

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Paypal/Paypal-Suckshow-About/510132379

Sorry for your paypal experience. Doesn't paypal back up sellers if sending to a verified account AND address? Was this the case with yours? I know paypal is tough and scams are common. I've done plenty of selling on there and buying and as they say "it ain't worth it."

Richard Weisgrau said:

The lengthy advice you received above is really good. I sold more than 100 items on ebay over a few years as I got rid of analog and old digital gear. I only had two problems. One was a claim that the camera was damaged when I shipped it, while it had clearly been dropped by the recipient and thus incurred the damage. I could not prove it was not damaged when I shipped it. I refunded the money to keep my feedback clean (100% positive). I also had a bad sale made on a stolen credit card through paypal. Paypal deducted $500 from my account. When I asked paypal for documentation of the incident to prove that a CC company had actually nullified the sale paypal would not supply it. They refused to give me any proof. I tried for more than a year to get documentation without success. I closed my payal seller account and have not sold on ebay since. Now I sell an occasional item on http://www.rangefinderforum.com . A 30 day listing is $5.00 and not other fees. I put three items up in the past few months and all were sold within 48 hours at ny asking price. I think an EP! would go fast there.

--
Richard Weisgrau
http://www.weisgrau.com
Author of
The Real Business of Photography
The Photographer's Guide to Negotiating
Selling Your Photography
Licensing Photography

Click to expand...

d70user said:

Sorry for your paypal experience. Doesn't paypal back up sellers if sending to a verified account AND address? Was this the case with yours? I know paypal is tough and scams are common. I've done plenty of selling on there and buying and as they say "it ain't worth it."

Click to expand...

I've heard enough horror stories about paypal from both buyers and sellers that I wouldn't use them. It sounds like the 'protection' they offer is illusory.

The best advice out there is to use Craigslist instead of eBay. I've bought and sold there without an issue. It's been a couple of years but I've also bought things on Fredmiranda.com and had good experiences. Best of luck to the OP!

BillCarr said:

NWcityguy2 said:

I buy and sell on ebay fairly regularly, including camera equipment, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Only use paypal.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. eBay now permits three other payment-companies on eBay that are alternatives to its PayPal service: Moneybookers, ProPay and Paymate:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/checkout-preferences.html

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Paypal/Paypal-Suckshow-About/510132379

Click to expand...

While I won't argue that paypal spends plenty of time in the ethical grey area, for ebay it is the only way to go. Using another service is akin the throwing away money because not as many people will be willing to bid on the auction. Every buyer who moves on to the next auction because they can't use their already established paypal account is a chance to lower the final selling value of an item.

--



Yawn...

NWcityguy2 said:

Thank you for the info and sorry if my comments were a bit harsh towards our friends north of the boarder. I was merely speaking from my experience which took me 3 spoiled auctions to finally call it quits.

--



Yawn...

Click to expand...

Not at all. Just BC and I have done enough cross border shipping that we know how to play the game. But there are many who look at the lower price and does not know the pitfalls and cost associated with shipping from US to Canada and think the seller is ripping them off. Truth be told it is the courier company's charges which are the rip off.

--
Retired commercial photog - enjoying shooting for myself again.
Hoping to see/shoot as much as I can before the eyes and legs gives way

WOW you were able to do that without photoshop!!!!

i've been buying and selling on eBay for the past 10 years (camera equipment and musical instruments). Here are my rules of thumb.

1. Always use Paypal, nothing else. Once you get paid and the money is in you PayPal account, wait a day or two to ship. I've had people pay me and then PayPal has put a hold on the payment because the account used was hijacked.

2. You can safely ship to other countries, but make sure you spell out clearly that you will not declare the item a gift, any customs duties are the buyers problem. In some countries, if the buyer doesn't pay the customs duties, the Customs Dept. there will try to get the money from you.

3. Describe your item as specifically as possible. Be anal about it. Detail every last smudge. This way the buyer cannot say the item received was not as described and try not to pay for it.

4. Take photos. Lots of close-up, detailed photos. And try to have them in focus. Don't use a cell phone. Use you're "real" camera. Since this is a photography forum I assume we all know how to take good photos.

5. Don't cheap out on the shipping, buy insurance. And save all your Post Office or UPS recepts and tracking numbers until the buyer says he's received the item. You may need to track the package at some point. Actually if you want to track a package, forget the Post Office -- their tracking is useless. UPS and FedEx will give you tracking information down to the minute details. The PO only tells you when the package was given to the post office and when it arrives at the buyer, nothing in between.

6. If you're buying on eBay, be wary of auctions that start with "I'm selling this for my friend..." That's usually (but not always) a dead giveaway that the seller is a fraud or a newbie and has no idea whey he is selling, so he won't be able to tell you anything about the item.

7. The biggest thing to do to be safe on eBay is use common sense. Feel free to email the buyer or seller with questions. If you don't like the answers or don't get answers, don't bid or cancel the sale.
--
DeanT
http://www.tomasulastudio.com

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Do you think that I should have a "buy it now" price?
Should I start at a minimum (starting) price at all?

I paid $799 for the camera and am willing to take some loss of course, since I used it a little, but I will not give it away below maybe $650.

--
Andrzej
http://lowflyingbananas.zenfolio.com/

andrzej bialuski said:

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Do you think that I should have a "buy it now" price?
Should I start at a minimum (starting) price at all?

I paid $799 for the camera and am willing to take some loss of course, since I used it a little, but I will not give it away below maybe $650.

--
Andrzej
http://lowflyingbananas.zenfolio.com/

Click to expand...

I've had problems with buy it now options, where if one person bids on the auction normally it cancels the buy it now option.

The best price to start things at is 99 cents. The lower the price when people see it, the more likely people will put it on their watch list. Ideally at the end of the auction several people will show back up at the last few seconds to bid the item up higher.

The best way to know what to expect for an item is to look up the completed auctions for the same thing. If you are truely worried about taking a bath on the item you can put in a reserve price, although I don't recommend it. If you look at completed listing with reserve prices you will see that a lot of them don't sell and some don't even get up to the common ebay going rate.

--



Yawn...

Buy It Now used to be a good idea, but now it seems everyone put a price that is exorbitantly high.

Do not do a reserve price. It turns off a lot of bidders (myself for one). Plus, you have to pay extra for it.

If you want to get say $600 for an item, start the listing at $600, providing the item is worth that much. If you start the auction at $400, hoping it ill be bid up to $600 or more, chances are it won't be.

Do not start a listing at 99 cents in the hope that it will be bid up to its rightful value. It probably won't be -- unless it's very rare and in demand. You'll end up with two bids and have to sell your camera for $1.85!
--
DeanT
http://www.tomasulastudio.com

Thanks for the help so far.

I have not sold anything on Ebay for a while, and now that I am almost finished with creating my auction: I CANNOT POST IT ON EBAY!!!

What a messed up interface this is! I somehow selected "buy it now" and now do not want to use it, but Ebay wants me to insert the "buy it now" price. I cannot find a place to disable this option anywhere.

Can anyone help please? How can I get rid of "buy it now" after I enabled it while composing my auction?
--
Andrzej
http://lowflyingbananas.zenfolio.com/

A little more then half way down the page on the first page of creating an auction is a window titled "Choose how you'd like to sell your item". There will be two boxes revealing different options, Online Auction and Fixed price. You should be able to remove all buy it now options be going through both those windows and deleting all information from any buy it now box. Don't replace it with zeros, just blank space.

If that doesn't fix your problem another option is to simply create a new auction.

Hope it helps and good luck with your listing.

--



Yawn...