Online auction shows you the money all the way to the bank
Patricia Lewis
Staff Reporter
Are you a starving student? Maybe not starving, but you’d like to have a little spare money in your pocket without working your butt off at Taco Bell?
Enter eBay, an online auction house (www.ebay.com), where anybody can advertise anything for sale at the price the market will bear. You can earn money in your spare time by selling things that you have around the house.
It’s cheap and easy to sell items on eBay. Say you find a John Denver album in with your mom’s old records. It will cost you 25 cents to list it on eBay, plus a commission of five percent of the selling price. Buyers make their bids through their computers and the listing tells everyone exactly when the auction will end.
You give your item a one-line title, “John Denver Rhymes and Reasons” and then you can write a longer description of it in the text area: John Denver album, his first solo LP, jacket in very good condition, no scratches on the vinyl. This album contains the original solo version of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
Items sell best when the buyer sees what you have to offer, and it’s easy to add a picture to your listing. For the record album, you can lay it down on the scanner and get a pretty good jpeg file.
“You have to put up a photo, and the best description you can come up with,” said Dave Cox, a Glendale resident and eBay user for two years.
“Listing an amount you will require for shipping would be helpful, but the best advice is to be honest and up front with buyers, treat them with respect, and they will buy from you again and again.
“eBay has a section for posting comments, good, bad or indifferent, so if you don’t treat people well, they will post a negative comment.” said Cox.
You decide what your minimum price is. Generally, it’s best to start low and let the market carry the price up. Starting low, maybe at $1.00, gets the bidder’s interest. Once they bid a dollar, they feel an investment in your record.
Auctions last seven days, but you can shorten them to three or five days if you wish. It’s best to go with the seven days, which allows more time for people to see your item.
Items are found by looking in one of the 1000 categories offered by eBay, or by doing a search on any key words the buyer chooses.
A search on John Denver will bring up your album for anyone who is shopping for music by that artist.
You can even search completed auctions to see what this album has sold for in the past. For example, The “Rhymes and Reasons” album sold recently at $25.01.
Buyers customarily pay postage. After the auction ends, you and the buyer contact each other via email to arrange the exchange of money and record.
Buyers send payment first, usually check or money order. Once you receive payment, you mail the record out.
There’s a certain amount of trust required here, especially for the buyer who sends you money before he gets his item.
To help sort out any problems, eBay has a feedback system that everyone is encouraged to participate in.
When a transaction takes place, both buyer and seller can leave either positive or negative feedback, which can be viewed by any eBay registered member at any time. Anyone with much negative feedback gets sorted out fairly quickly, as no one will buy or sell to you if they see there have been problems.
The variety of things that are sold on eBay is endless.
“I saw a Hot Wheels toy VW van sell for over $12,000,” Cox said.
“There has to be a ton of profit in that sale somewhere, since it probably cost less that 29 cents new, and a real VW van that you could drive cost less than $2,000 new. $12,000 for a 1.5 inch toy sounds like someone has way too much money and/or really takes their collecting seriously.”
Andy Hansom, who has been an eBay customer for about 18 months, has a tried and true suggestion for those who hope to make money by selling on eBay - buy low, sell high.
“My wife bought four printers . . . that sold as one lot. They didn’t have power supplies and sold for $15 total,” stated Hansom.
“She found out that Radio Shack sold a compatible power supply. [She and our daughter] are using two of the printers, and she sold the other two for three times what her costs were.”
Stock in eBay went on sale in September, opening at $25 a share. In mid-December it was selling at $191 a share.
This is a company that is skyrocketing, and you can ride along. Look and see what you have around the house that you don’t really want any more.
Somebody will want it, and they will be willing to pay a few bucks for it. Make a small investment of your time and eBay will show you the money. |
