Buying and Selling on eBay: Tips, Tricks, Problems & Questions

[idfnl]



ok, so build a site on squarespace and go from there.

that's what i use for my business and as far as i can tell a lot of sites that has e-commerce built in uses it.  I don't have that integrated because e-commerce isn't in my model, but as far as using it to build a website go?  no brainer.  

there is a yearly subscription fee, but for someone who didn't want to bother on how to use wordpress, it was miles easier and more efficient.  the fee is substantially less than the monthly ebay fee you have illustrated. 

Thanks, but doesn't help me. I need advise on seasoned commerce, and I guess I should pay attention to the thread title, this is more for d'bay hounds. I'll look elsewhere for guidance, but sincerely, thanks.

 

[borbor]

Thanks, but doesn't help me. I need advise on seasoned commerce, and I guess I should pay attention to the thread title, this is more for d'bay hounds. I'll look elsewhere for guidance, but sincerely, thanks.

quora is your friend for stuff like this

 

[TheNeedMachine]

Thanks, but doesn't help me. I need advise on seasoned commerce, and I guess I should pay attention to the thread title, this is more for d'bay hounds. I'll look elsewhere for guidance, but sincerely, thanks.

Your original question was "What commerce platforms are you guys using? I can't take the ebay fee machine anymore and need to make a change. Any recommended? Key selling point for me is I don't want transaction fees." ... which would lead nearly everyone here - on the "Buying and Selling on eBay" thread - to believe that you're looking for alternatives to eBay, i.e.: Grailed, Etsy, Amazon, Bonanza, etc. After some attempts by folks here to be helpful, you shot every one of them down, then changed (or perhaps clarified) your original question to be about eCommerce platforms, not eBay alternatives. After some more input from helpful folks here, you shot them down again, also letting us know that you have "all your other storefronts," so you must already be familiar with alternatives and eCommerce and SEO and most likely other fancy words and acronyms.

I hope you can find a place that will allow you to sell your 5 thousand buttplugs or whatever you're selling [it's my best guess, given your demeanor], cover you for chargebacks, provide the widest global exposure, process your payments, get your listings into Google searches, protect you against fraudulent charges and [most] frivolous returns, provide seamless cross-platform selling, and so on...and not charge you as much for their services. We all dislike the fees charged by eBay and PayPal, have had bad return / non-payer experiences etc, but no one else even comes close. If you find your holy grail, do report back.

 

[FlorianQC]

All that for 5000 Kenneth Cole ties. Dang.

 

[TheNeedMachine]



All that for 5000 Kenneth Cole ties. Dang.

I just got a PM. Anal beads. I was THIS close. Damn hippies and their beads.

 

[drlivingston]

All that for 5000 Kenneth Cole ties. Dang.

I once used Kenneth Cole ties for packing material when I ran out of Styrofoam peanuts. They did the trick and are probably a slightly cheaper alternative to Uline.

 

[double00]

thread on fire!

 

[FlorianQC]

I once used Kenneth Cole ties for packing material when I ran out of Styrofoam peanuts. They did the trick and are probably a slightly cheaper alternative to Uline.

AHAHAH

 

[idfnl]



Your original question was "What commerce platforms are you guys using? I can't take the ebay fee machine anymore and need to make a change. Any recommended? Key selling point for me is I don't want transaction fees." ... which would lead nearly everyone here  - on the "Buying and Selling on eBay" thread - to believe that you're looking for alternatives to eBay, i.e.: Grailed, Etsy, Amazon, Bonanza, etc.  After some attempts by folks here to be helpful, you shot every one of them down, then changed (or perhaps clarified) your original question to be about eCommerce platforms, not eBay alternatives.  After some more input from helpful folks here, you shot them down again, also letting us know that you have "all your other storefronts," so you must already be familiar with alternatives and eCommerce and SEO and most likely other fancy words and acronyms.  

I hope you can find a place that will allow you to sell your 5 thousand buttplugs or whatever you're selling [it's my best guess, given your demeanor], cover you for chargebacks, provide the widest global exposure, process your payments, get your listings into Google searches, protect you against fraudulent charges and [most] frivolous returns, provide seamless cross-platform selling, and so on...and not charge you as much for their services.  We all dislike the fees charged by eBay and PayPal, have had bad return / non-payer experiences etc, but no one else even comes close.  If you find your holy grail, do report back.  

Your victim mentality aside, we hopped from Grailed to needing 10 million dollars in inventory and from there I was told to build my own site from the ground up on squared space to sell buttplugs and anal beads bubbled wrapped in 5000 Kenneth Cole ties as, predictably, thumb-uppers and hecklers have arrived on the scene sniffing controversy.

My question was crystal clear from the get go, and I "shot down" advice that didn't do much to advance it. It's clear very few if none of you are doing stand alone e-commerce, using a platform under your own domain name which is fine, but stop pretending I came in here to ask if it was a good idea to do it. I asked what platforms folks are using.

It's fine to offer unsolicited advice, but don't fault me for informing you it's advice I don't really need.

 

[Fueco]



Your victim mentality aside, we hopped from Grailed to needing 10 million dollars in inventory and from there I was told to build my own site from the ground up on squared space to sell buttplugs and anal beads bubbled wrapped in 5000 Kenneth Cole ties as, predictably, thumb-uppers and hecklers have arrived on the scene sniffing controversy.

My question was crystal clear from the get go, and I "shot down" advice that didn't do much to advance it. It's clear very few if none of you are doing stand alone e-commerce, using a platform under your own domain name which is fine, but stop pretending I came in here to ask if it was a good idea to do it. I asked what platforms folks are using.

It's fine to offer unsolicited advice, but don't fault me for informing you it's advice I don't really need.

Given that you asked in the buying and selling on eBay thread, what exactly where you expecting?

I learned how to set up an e-commerce site in school, but do not feel it's worth the effort of building one. The 11% that Ebay and PayPal take out are much cheaper than hiring a marketing person.

 

[Brianpore]

Quote: Most of the people trying to help you are the ones who post here all the time, if you actually read any of the last 20K posts

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[FlorianQC]

So tempted to use my magic answer of "go *************" right now but I'm too polite for this ****. Oh wait.

 

[idfnl]



Given that you asked in the buying and selling on eBay thread, what exactly where you expecting?

The 11% that Ebay and PayPal take out are much cheaper than hiring a marketing person.

My expectation was super obvious: a thread about selling on ebay means there are likely some folks selling on their own. I was querying to find out about commerce platforms. Seems like I've stumbled on yet another hive of protected groupthink on our beloved fora.

11%? I'd love to see that be true. For me, how about 23-27% all told (mileage may vary).

Most of the people trying to help you are the ones who post here all the time, if you actually read any of the last 20K posts

That may be, but it doesn't change anything.

So tempted to use my magic answer of "go *************" right now but I'm too polite for this ****. Oh wait.

Rasheed > Big Baby.

 

[drlivingston]

 

[Steve Smith]



Kinda funny we are all on Styleforum, which has an entire 100% free selling system setup (which use to be really really good) and people mention craigslist and grailed 

 Goes to show you how poor the Styleforum classified system has become. It use to be close to 25% of my sales vs eBay and now is UNDER 1% of sales and prices on Styleforum are always less expensive then on eBay. 

 @idfnl
 In the end eBay fees are a lot but they also have a HUGE customer based and that is why the fees are worth it. Not going to find another place to sell in volume

At the risk of derailing a perfectly good thread, WTF is up with sales on SF? I used to sell more on SF than ebay, now it is maybe 20% SF. And I sell most items for less here.