Dear eBay Queen:

I homeschooled my four children for eleven years and acquired a ton of curricula and materials over that time.  We are no longer homeschooling and I simply must clear things out, both for financial and organizational reasons. I am a nervous wreck and don’t know where to start in the organizing and selling of this stuff!  If it goes well, I would love to sell other merchandise to supplement our income…and maybe even to quit my job! Help?!

Thanks,

Gina

Dear Gina:

This is definitely the time of year to sell homeschooling or educational books. The early bird homeschoolers buy their books between April and June.  The homeschoolers that put things off to the last minute usually buy their books August –September.

Before you start, think about how you’d want to buy these.  Most homeschoolers want to buy them in a set, Teacher’s Edition, Student edition and workbook.  If you only have the teacher and student edition without the workbook, sometimes (if it doesn’t cost too much) you can buy the workbook off of Amazon or Half.com to make it a complete set.  Make sure you use the item specifics for the books and put the ISBN number in the description.

When shipping the books, you can use Media Mail. Media Mail is the cheapest way to send books, CDs and other media related items.  https://www.usps.com/send/media-mail.htm

Don’t be nervous, just close your eyes and jump!  Make it your goal to put two things on by the end of the week.  You can do it!

Dear eBay Queen:

I saw you a couple of weeks ago when I was in your eBay class in Olathe, KS.  I asked if you knew anything about eBay’s Instant Sale Program. I did some checking and actually used the program too. I thought I would tell you about my experience with it.

I have a Blackberry 9700 that is in fine working and cosmetic condition but I just wanted a new iPhone.  I went to the website http://instantsale.ebay.com/  I answered a couple of questions about my phone:

• Was I sending accessories (yes or no – No for me)
• What is the condition (they gave 4 descriptions, I chose good, which is something like no screen cracks, but some scratches/dings)
• Does it work (y/n – yes for me).

They sent me a prepaid FedEx label that I could actually drop off at USPS, if there was not FedEx around me. The company emailed me that they received the phone late Wednesday or early Thursday. They had told me they’d respond in 2 days with payment or counteroffer if the unit didn’t match my description.

Last night I got an email from them that they felt the item was as described and were giving me the $70. I accepted the offer, and a few seconds later I received an email from PayPal saying that they had deposited the money!  Woo Hoo! Happy Seller!

I’m wondering if I can watch for electronics at garage sales and sell them for a profit. Of course, I’ll need to have the people show me they work before I buy it.  I think I’m going to play around with the instant sale page and see what other offers I get for items (you don’t have to accept them).

Just a thought!

J. Hayes Olathe, Kansas

Dear J:

That is pretty cool.  I have heard of the program, but I’ve never known anyone that used it. Thank you for sharing your experience!

I think it’s a great program for someone that doesn’t like to list items on eBay.   Using this program would make me wonder if I am leaving money on the table. I would definitely take the time to look up a couple of the electronics you want to sell, to see if you are making the most out of the sale.  For more information on eBay’s Instant Sale Program, You can read about it here -

http://instantsale.ebay.com/?utm_source=eBayGarden\;utm_medium=link\;utm_campaign=eBayGardenPromo

Strange eBay item of the week: eBay item: 160725217003  What holds the papers down on your desk? Maybe it’s a vintage paperweight?  Large Antique Baccarat Millefiori on Lace Ten Gridels Paperweight. SOLD $2484.00 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&hash=item256bf82eeb&item=160725217003

Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul, Kansas.

Dear eBay Queen:

A YEAR ago ( I know, I know, ) I opened my first eBay account and straight away ordered about 6/7 products. Unfortunately I was in a new neighborhood and confused the house numbers; therefore I did not receive any of the items that I ordered.  About 6 months ago, I asked eBay support for help, and they told me they couldn’t do anything.

I started messaging the sellers. Some of them said they never received the package back and some said they will re-send it if I pay for the shipping again. I called the post office, and they didn’t have any of the return packages.  I was broke at the time so I left it again till now. So my question is – what am I supposed to do now? Is there even ANYTHING I could do to get these things back?

I would really appreciate your help. I’m so confused and keep getting angry and frustrated for leaving it like this.

Kind Regards,

Stef

Dear Stef:

I am really sorry this happened to you.  I know you are not the first person that moved and confused their address!  As sellers, we’ve had this happen a few times a year with our own buyers.  Your sellers should have contacted you via email or phone about the returned packages or refunded your money for the item since it was returned and they couldn’t contact you.

If your sellers are willing to send you the items if you pay for the shipping, I would take them up on that offer.  If the other sellers are not willing to do it, I would ask for a refund.  I don’t think you’ll get it, but it never hurts to ask.

People mess up their addresses more often than you think. If this should happen again, contact the seller immediately to let them know about the mistake, then contact your post office. Sometimes they can intercept the package and get it to you.

Dear eBay Queen:

I’ve been selling for about 6 months.  I had a bricks and mortar store, lost my lease and started selling everything I had on Amazon and eBay.   I’ve been very successful!  So successful that I’ve decided to open up a smaller bricks and mortar store and still sell my goods on those venues.

I sold a new High Sierra Backpack in a hard to find color to a guy over 28 days ago.  He sent me an email, and wanted to return the backpack about 10 days after he received it.  I offered a refund after he returned the item.  I did some checking on this guy, and he sells the same product I sell. He even has a HUGE e-commerce store.  He sent me the tracking for the return on March 5^th ,  but the post office has not received or scanned it in.

I sent the buyer an email last week, to let him know I have not received the item back.  He sent a return email and called me every name under the sun, and threatened me with feedback.  I called eBay immediately and the customer service rep told me to not accept his return.  The eBay guy told me that he was on my side on this and I should refuse the item when and if it is returned.  I emailed the buyer back, and told him of my conversation with eBay and that I was not willing to accept the return after what he had called my mother.

His response to that email was: “I sent it Thursday it was 28.42 to ship it back, I want that money or else.”, and just a few hours later his tracking number was scanned in at his local post office.  I only charged him 8.95 for shipping, were does he get off charging me so much? What advice do you have for me on this one?

Liza

Dear Liza:

Congratulations on creating a successful business on eBay, and in the bricks and mortar world!

If eBay says they will back you up on this guy, I would write “refused!” on the package, but not before I took a photo of the label for proof of date sent, and the cost.   This guy should know better if he’s a seller.

Strange eBay item of the week: eBay item: 140688944359  What’s your favorite pop? Check out this Mountain Dew Red in a Rare Glass Bottle You can see it here:  SOLD $235.00

Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul, Kansas.

Dear eBay Queen:

I’m not a huge seller, but I do sell 30 to 40 things a month.  I’ll be going out of town for spring break, and tried to figure out how to put my items on a “vacation setting. Is there a vacation setting for an eBay account so sales cannot occur on your account while unavailable?  I asked eBay this, and they told me that since I didn’t have a store, I couldn’t do it.  This really made me angry, so angry I sent the following email to eBay:

“I  just got off the phone with eBay Customer Service.  I needed to know how to put my listings on vacation over spring break.   I was told that I needed a store, but since I do not have a store (because it would not make financial sense to do so) but I have a problem not being able to set a vacation setting. I have 50 or more listings, and customer support told me if I didn’t have a store the only way for me to handle it was to delete all of my listing and then put them in one by one when I get back.

On Amazon I only have to click on one link for vacation and another link to come off vacation. None of the links are seen when on vacation. On e-bay it would cost me $15.95 per month to get the same service I get on Amazon for FREE. Makes me consider putting my listings on Amazon instead.”

Do you have any ideas on what I can do to put my stuff on vacation?  Or am I destined to take them all down and put them all back up?

Abby

Dear Abby:

I didn’t realize there wasn’t a vacation setting for people that didn’t have stores. http://pages.ebay.com/help/stores/contextual/vacation-settings.html  Way back in the day, I would put a little blurb in my listings that stated:  “I will be on vacation from March 18^th through the 23^rd.  I will be available by email, but if you pay for your items during that time they won’t be shipped until the 24^th.”

I’m really sorry this is happening to you.  I wish there was a quick fix for this. I do have one more solution that might help you, have you thought about using an all in one listing/selling program?  There are quite a few out there (some even free) that could help you out.  This way, you could take your listings down and put them up without the time of listing each individual one.  Here  you can view the different one’s here: http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SolutionsDirectory&maingroup=0&page=results My favorite free listing program is Turbolister.

Dear eBay Queen:

After reading your column last week I thought I would call eBay and talked to one of their customer service agents about all of these restrictions.  That phone call was enlightening.

He told me the reason many/most sellers earn selling restrictions is because they don’t get enough feedback. Apparently, it’s the percentage feedback against the number of orders that triggers the eBay system to block sellers from listing further items or even attempting to change a listing.

This is the first time I’ve heard of this.  In the past it’s always been ‘wait and the system will tell you when you can list more items’, so, if I understand this correctly, eBay makes sellers responsible for the buyer leaving feedback. The assumption being, according to the agent, that if the buyer leaves no feedback, they must be unhappy. Laziness, apparently, doesn’t come into it. They obviously haven’t thought about restricting the buyer’s ability to purchase new items until they leave feedback for the ones they’ve already had.

I hope your reader,  “DS” reads this, and it helps him out.

J.E. Peters

Dear J.E.:

I will forward this information to him.  It makes perfect eBay sense that eBay would monitor how much feedback a seller is receiving in comparison to what they are selling. I don’t agree with this logic, but I get why they are doing it.

Thank you for sharing your conversation and insight on this program.

Strange eBay item of the week: eBay item: 280809308671 It’s that time of year when a young man (or woman’s) mind turns to track. Would you spend this kind of money on a tracksuit?  Check out this Adidas X Jeremy Scott and Keith Haring track jacket and pants.  Check it out HERE   SOLD $599.99

Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul, Kansas.