Hey guys I was just wondering what your experience has been selling an buying on ebay. I have always been tempted to buy or sell on ebay but have been leary about it. So tell me about your ebay experiences have been good an bad. Thanks

 

I've been buying on ebay since 1998, Selling for almost as long, in the 400+ transactions, Its been mostly all good. (few bad transactions that I can recall, never got burned too bad). I can tell ya, it was a whole different ball game 8 years ago

 

Mostly good - a few bad. I mostly buy now but did some selling a long time ago. My bad experiences have been with packaging mostly; poor/sloppy packaging and items rolling around like bowling ***** and having corners or delicate extremities broken off.

From conversations with sellers, it seems that all the listing/selling/Paypal fees are astronomical. To the point that the profit margin needs to be really high. Also, you have to watch what the sellers are charging for "handling" & shipping. These can be huge amounts. I have almost bought old Quad maps and then backed off when I realized the shipping fee ($20+? - yeah, right).

As with all other aspects of life: buyer beware. But for the most part, there is nothing scary about it. Jump in.

 

I have had pretty good luck buying and selling. Actually, I'm waiting on some tools to arrive now. I did find one thing there I wanted, but shipping was as much as the item, due to weight. Then I discovered the seller was local to me, so I went there and bought the item from their store, for $30 less than the eBay price! But I do pay attention to shipping fees. They'll get you there if you don't look closely, at times.

 

I've been buying and selling for almost 4 years and have a 100% feedback rating, Guess i've been lucky so far.

 

Love ebay. Been burned once or twice, but not on high ticket items. I don't do too much selling, it's quite a hassle to me, but I currently have a home theater subwoofer on there that is doing wonderfully. It cost me $4.00 to list it, because of the price bracket it was in, and ebay will take some percentage of the final sale, but I should still make out alright. But if you know what you are looking for, ebay can be the source of some awesome deals.

 

The best rule of thumb is not to deal with people with poor or no feedback unless you can afford to write off the cost. Small cheap stuff, sure take a chance. Big expensive stuff, take note of the feedback.

I've never had a problem buying. I have yet to sell anything in 5 years.

Dan

 

I never had any problems with eBay. I've been member for about 2 years now and I bought stuff only, never sold anything.

I buy mostly car models in 1:18 scale and mostly from the same guy. My advice is not to buy from people who have big stores and many sales each month. I noticed they make most mistakes.

 

Ive had good luck with Ebay. Ive bought snowmobile parts for cheap and I sold a snowmobile and recently I sold my dirtbike on there.
Ebay is actually pretty safe. When someone clicks on the button to buy something, they enter in a legally binding contract to pay the amount.
Thus far I havent been burnt by anyone on Ebay. (knock on wood)

 

I couldn't agree more, totally different game 8 yrs ago!

These days with people abusing paypal protection and ebay charging way to much I really don't care for selling on it anymore. I'll buy stuff now but I only use it for selling if I need to unload a special interest item like a trike. To be honest I doubt I'll be doing too much of that either with the last string of deadbeat bidders I've had.

 

I have been buying and selling for 7-8+ years. I can't remember exactly how long. I have bought stuff from overseas sellers with no problems. Only problems were with one seller who had a 0 feedback and never shipped item, and one item damaged in shippment. It is a good place to by unique items that aren't available everywhere. But the fees are getting pretty high, upwards of 7-12% of final value for all ebay and paypal fees. Sellers like to sell items cheap and charge more shipping, because ebay only takes a percentage of the sales price (not shipping fee) for its final value fee.

 

I decided to look and see how long I've been there. Feb 2000 is when I first signed up. 100% positive feedback.

 

I haven't had any problems yet. I've been buying and selling since 2000. I always pay attention to feedback though.

 

Read a seller's feedback before bidding. Read the negatives, even if they are few. If you see a common thread among them, take that into consideration. I recently bought
a CD from a seller that had several thousand sales this year, with few negatives. I had
to return the cd, and I got a notice that they had recieved my return... Nothing more.
I went back to the feedback forum, and found each negative had involved their not
responding to buyers' e-mails. That was November, by the end of december they had
racked up 615 negative feedbacks, and went out of business. I lost 20 bucks. That
makes two bad deals out of 330. Just read well and pay attention.

 

Mostly good, but the stories I can tell on the bad. Wanted to buy an FM-converter. Guy who listed it said it had all the parts--just to be ranty e-mailed and asked him why he cut the power line off before the fuse holder when he was ripping it out. He e-mailed back and got all over my case--went to bid on it when the auction was ending (was gonna bid $25) and he had blacklisted me from bidding on it--lol, it sold for $20. Found another in better shape. Bought some antique salad bowls for the wife for Christmas, and they arrived with no packing--just 7 bowls rattling around in a box trying to kill each other--gave him his first 'negative' and he posted back saying I was a troublemaker--I posted back to him and said don't think so, check my feedback. Bought a wood-frame glass-front Bud clock for my son-in-law. E-mailed seller before auction ended and asked if clock worked--of course, she said. Clock arrived and no workee. This one was my fault cause when I went back and looked at the posting, there were 3 pictures, and the time in all 3 was the same (including the 2nd hand). Gave the seller a positive feedback (cause I got it for $5), but mentioned clock no work. She e-mails back and says, "Don't get so huffy-fix it and I'll reimburse for your trouble and expense." Huffy??--geez, I gave you a positive. Bought a clock mechanism at Michael's, fixed it, e-mailed her back and said with $$, gas, time, trouble, etc., you owe me $40, but since it's Christmas I don't want any money. She e-mails me back, and "Lord, she was so lovey-dovey".