To eBay or not to eBay?

[Moonraker]

For the past three months an overseas vendor has been offering on eBay a pull-down card - one of those where there are (or were) eight or so small photos in a strip that one can pull down. (A lot of the time some or all of the photos are missing.) He started with a BuyItNow price of some £250

I contacted him to ask in all seriousness whether a decimal point had been misplaced and saying such cards went for £5 or so in the UK, though I conceded that his was an uncommon one and that in a conventional auction bidders(including myself) might get carried away and go as high as £30 including p & p. I had a courteous reply saying that in the past he had sold items through eBay to dealers, who had then offered them at higher prices.

Unsurprisingly the item has remained unsold though he has reduced the price several times - it's now a tad under £60. I suppose it's a novel way of selling (or not selling) an item, if somewhat irritating. I'm left wondering how far down he'll go before I buy it - unless I'm beaten to it.

Moonraker

[Laura Vona]

My opinion on selling postcards on ebay might not be as useful to sellers in the UK as it is to me (in the US), but I absolutely LOVE it!
Being in the US I don't really have a local market for most of my postcards, (the majority of which previoulsy belonged to my Grandmother who loved visiting the lake's district), so ebay is really the only way I know to reach international customers.
I sell a few things on ebay to US buyers but if I had to guess, about 60+% of my ebay business is items (mostly postcards) that I send over seas (UK and Japan being the majority) It does take some time to post each card individually but I have found that if I scan and post a couple each day or so during commercials while watching TV in the evening, it really doesn't seem such a daunting task and the active listings build up pretty quickly.

That said, this is my first time on your board and I have to comment as well about how great it is! I love the wanted board, as a seller so far away from whom I am selling to, it's a great tool to know what people are interested in and what I should be looking for when I buy stock for my ebay store.
Thanks for the great site and the great boards, I look forward to returning often!

[sdelcampe]

Hello Laura,

What about http://www.delcampe.net ?

Sébastien

[Laura Vona]

Thank you for the tip,
I checked the site out and registered. It looks like a promising market for the cards I have now as well as items I may wish to sell in the future.
I have pretty much stretched by business as far as it can go on ebay, amazon and etsy.com, I am so excited to try a new site!

Thanks again!

[sdelcampe]

Hello,

We have some great postcard dealers on our site... and we are the biggest site on earth for postcards!

Check here, great tips for selling postcards (and other items actually):
http://www.delcampe.net/page/forum_inde ... 0000339216


Welcome on Delcampe ! Please post here the link to your Delcampe store when you will be established

Seb Delcampe

[howpayea]

How to get ebay reputations at the beginning? Since, I haven't sell anything I have no feedback. I want to enter a market. I probably will have only one or two competitor so since it's a monopoly I want to break it. However customers pay attention to sellers feedback and I don't have. So should I try to enter market or start with basic. But I want to focus on this particular market. Btw, do you have any tips and advices for ebay trading?
_________________________________

[kevinramsdale]

How to get ebay reputations at the beginning? Since, I haven't sell anything I have no feedback. I want to enter a market. I probably will have only one or two competitor so since it's a monopoly I want to break it. However customers pay attention to sellers feedback and I don't have. So should I try to enter market or start with basic. But I want to focus on this particular market. Btw, do you have any tips and advices for ebay trading?

The eBay discussion boards would be a better place to ask this question:

http://community.ebay.co.uk/index.jspa

[ValentinaMendez]

I don't personally trust ebay. Once I ordered 4 deliveries, I got only 2. The first one is said to be lost somewhere while transporting and the 4th was paid but it was never sent.

[LastOrders]

Hm. I entered my usual main eBay search term in Delcampe and got six very ordinary items, compared with 40 on eBay.

I also find that this is where Ebay is superior. It definitely isn't ideal and I have lost interest with selling items on it as I doesn't cater well for selling low cost individual items.

In terms of buying, however, I still think that it is probably the best resource still out there. In terms of sheer numbers it beats most of the other sites and it's "usability" makes it more convenient than a lot of fairs...that said you don't get the buzz of a good fair!

[gBillings]

It is a fact that eBay is getting worse, but, first of all, I still do not see a better alternative currently, and the offer to buy postcards there sounds appealing to me personally, as it is hard to find them, especially some unusual ones, so it's a good opportunity both for eBay and collectors, I think it is worth trying, on the whole.

[deanosaur1972]

Hello all

I used to sell on Ebay - and had a good time selling there. I took a month off listing back in June/July to build up my Ebid shop a bit - its been so busy I haven't been back to Ebay since.

So it wasn't a case of leaving Ebay because of the fees or anything, just a natural progression. The only thing I used to hate about Ebay was how impersonal everything was - at least on Ebid I have the ability to make it a more personal service and likewise buyers e-mail with me lists etc........

[bickerstonehall]

I sell and trade at my-little-auction.com

http://www.my-little-auctions.com/

No listing fees, No FVF. !00% Free to use, plus the site promotes your listings in many forums and groups of Postcard Collects.

With 400 sales on the site to date, I have no intention of using any sites that want me to pay to sell, when I can use a free site.

Here is a link to one of my latest listing, a collection of Soviet Cosmonaut Postcards.

http://www.my-little-auctions.com/item.php?id=37203

[Mayday]

I use http://www.delcampe.net/ to sell my postcards, and have also been invited to sell on http://www.bidstart.com/.

Wouldn't trust eBay as far as I could throw them now - for both buying and selling. The site is so very different from when I first joined in 2002.

And agree regarding eBid - great place to list, and the site is growing fast.

[deanosaur1972]

I use http://www.delcampe.net/ to sell my postcards, and have also been invited to sell on http://www.bidstart.com/.

Wouldn't trust eBay as far as I could throw them now - for both buying and selling. The site is so very different from when I first joined in 2002.

And agree regarding eBid - great place to list, and the site is growing fast.

Yes eBid is growing fast. Just wondering about the campe - I just got an interesting message from a buyer about the new higher fees just announced for sellers on that site. He is telling me a couple people who he usually purchases from on their have closed all their listings in protest?

When I set up a postcard shop I am now glad I chose eBid rather than the alternatives.

[bickerstonehall]

I still using

http://www.my-little-auctions.com/

Now more than 600 sales and I have never had to pay one penny in fees!

A typical example of one of my listings there

RUSSIAN VINTAGE HEROES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR POSTCARDS
http://www.my-little-auctions.com/item.php?id=40436