? E-Bay Sellers

I have never sold anything on e-bay although I am a PayPal member and have purchased numerous items.
I have been researching the selling end of ebay and am wondering still how it works?
Do sellers usually set up a special bank account for just their sales?
How does the PayPal credit card payment angle work?
Do you have trouble withdrawing funds after a Credit Card sale?
I haven't been able to find what ebay charges for sales that are completed nor the charge for items not sold?
Any held is appreciated.

I'll be interested to hear the answers to these ?'s too.
Thanks for asking, Haighr.

I haven't sold anything in awhile, but I just use my Paypal account for everything, then dump the money into a checking account every now and then. Some people like accepting credit card payments through Paypal and others do not. Paypal charges more for that than they do for folks who pay using checking account funds or paypal funds.

Ebay just raised their rates and I haven't sold anything since they did that, but be sure if you sell something that you take into account the fees for ebay and Paypal, packaging and driving to the P.O. when setting the starting bid amount. Otherwise you may end up losing money.

Ebay does charge for each listing whether the item sells or not. Check out the prices of similar items ahead of time to be sure it's worthwhile to sell what you have via Ebay. Some things just aren't worth it.

Having said that, I have done very well most of the time. I'm picky about what I put up for sale, though. I do just as well with consignment shops sometimes and it's less of a hassle.

Good luck and I'm sure others will be along to offer more advice.

Thanks, helpful hints.
Did you set up a separate checking account for ebay sales smilin just to keep track of things, that is what I am thinking about? Finally found the commission site on ebay and have checked out the paypal methods. Any more helpful hints before I get into actually creating an account?

Candee, I don't sell enough on ebay to have to declare it income-wise (I'm retired and on SS), so mine just gets dumped from Paypal to checking. You might try it for a couple of months, keeping good records and if it's sizeable, then set up a separate account for banking.

I have an account that only has my name on it. I dump my money into that account. I don't think it matters, though, unless you were looking to sell things as a business. Then, you're looking at a whole other set of issues. If you're just selling a few things here and there, I doubt it matters much.

I sell things on ebay on occasion. I haven't since the rate changes though.

The payments I get via paypal I just leave in the paypal account and use it to buy something on ebay that I want. The money in there earns interest too.

I don't sell enough to have to worry about declaring it for income tax purposes either.

I don't plan on selling much either, if anything LOL, was just thinking of a separate account as I am not inclined to use my regular bank account number and have it floating around out there if you know what I mean. Thought I'd just set up a separate account just for the ebay and then not have to be concerned about the debit issue on my regular account.
I am probably one of few people who still likes to write checks, have no automatic deductions and have never had a Debit or ATM card! Yes, I did come straight from the stone age!

haighr...that's what I did, open a second account and just keep a minimal amount in it. Tend to use it as a "transfer" acct. It keeps your main acct closed to outside transactions. By the way, my bank offers that second acct for free, no fees, no minimum.

That's what we do, too, Shoe. We have a second account and that's the one we registered with PayPal. We keep it at a near-zero balance and only transfer money into it when we make a purchase. That way, if someone gets the account number or the debit card number, they won't have access to our money. We have a debit card for just that account, too, and when we make online purchases, we use it (we don't do credit cards any more).

How do you get your money out of PayPay? Say you sell something for $50 and the buyer pays through Paypal into your online account. I see where the credit would be given in the 'My Account", but how do you withdraw it?
I have an account with PayPal, they have a credit card # for purchases I make through ebay. Can I change that to using a bank account number as described above? Then would the $ go to my bank account or does it need to be withdrawn from paypal?
Sorry, just trying to get the jist of this, thanks,
Candee

You have to request that Paypal deposit it in your bank account. I keep less than a hundred dollars in my Paypal acct.

What do the sellers do with regard to calculating the cost of shipping?

I'd invest in an inexpensive scale. Then there's little guesswork. eBay has a nice system in place where you can put in the weight of your item and see the actual postage costs. Then, you can add to that whatever handling fee you want to build in. When the buyer uses the shipping calculator, they see the postage cost as you had it with your fee added in.

There are some nice scales available for under $30 from this seller: http://stores.ebay.com/www-OLDWILLKNOTT-com_W0QQssPageNameZl2QQtZkm They weigh up to 30lbs and will give measurements in both ounces/pounds and grams/kilograms. I really want one of these scales, not only for shipping, but for measuring ingredients and portions in cooking!

This message was edited Mar 7, 2005 3:41 PM

umm... GW?? your hyperlink might need some attention, as it directs back to this thread... :P

That's really weird...I thought I might have posted the wrong URL, but when I clicked "edit" it WAS the auction's URL in there. Why it didn't work, I don't know. I ended up linking to the eBay seller's eBay store instead and now it works. Go figure!

Thanks for the link Kim, will have to get something as we don't even have a bathroom scale in our place. Thought I could pick one up, weigh myself, then weigh again holding the package!

I got the sellers list page. When I searched his/her inventory, I came upon the auction for this one; http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=50954&item=5506675138&tc=photo Thats the same exact scale I purchased from another seller (only in grey color) for $30 plus shipping which came out to almost $45.00 total. I've had it for over a year & it works great. I love the fact that it can also use a 9volt battery & did come with the adapter. The one the seller is quite a bargain I wish I had found when I bought mine...Oh! well.

BTW, my scale has been very accurate in weighing. I had previously been using a cheap nondigital one I bougth but I many times I'd quote the buyer one price for shipping & after receiving the money & taking the package to the PO, I'd find out the package weighed more so I'd have to pay a bit more. After a few times of paying extra out of my own pocket for my miscalculations, I bought the LS-30 scale and I'm glad I did. I even using it in the kitchen to measure my ingredients.

Gemila

I have one just like that, too, only mine's Stamps.com-branded, battleship grey, and only weighs up to 5lbs in 1/10-ounce incriments. Mine I got from Stamps.com a couple years ago (never did keep their service, but am thankful for the "free" scale). It, too, has an adapter...Good thing, because sometimes I forget to turn it off! I use it daily both in the kitchen and for packages, but I really want one which will measure in grams and go up to 30lbs. They're great little scales!

This message was edited Mar 8, 2005 3:12 PM

My LS-30 has a little switch (on the right side) that allows me to change it to weigh in grams. Could yours also have it & perhaps you overlooked it? Mine also has the tare feature which I love when baking. I turn it on, place the bowl, press on again & it adjusts back to reading zero so I can then accurately weigh out the ingredient without having to guess or subtract what the bowl weighs.

Yes, the tare is great! I use that all the time when weighing portions of various meats for cooking. I wish this did grams, but it only has one switch and that's for the power. I even looked a little bit ago, just to be sure I hadn't somehow missed it. The ones made for Stamps.com must have been a special run. Poo!

We use a separate bank account to sell on eBay, too. If you don't have a bank account with Paypal, they will (if you ask) mail you a check. They will only mail one check per month, so if you sell multiple things they lump them all together (minus their fees, of course.) :-)

Here is a link with eBay's seller fees: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
Paypal, of course, gets a cut if the purchaser pays you that way: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees

We have never had any trouble getting our money back from Paypal via check or transfer to the account, and we have done it both ways. :-)

Hope that helps!
~ Marylyn :-)