trying to use Paypal and ebay

[Mike]

Ok, first off, I know the internet. I used to work for an internet company and have been communicating online for over 10 years. However, I live in a very rural area (we just got Walmart and MacDonalds this year, oh boy) and dialup is the only option unless you pay lot's of money for a tall antenna. With that said, maybe you can understand why I stay away from high bandwidth sites and such.

Now I find myself in the position of trying to use Paypal and ebay. Everyone says I gotta do it. I tried paypal a few times and it seemed ok. That was prior to ebay taking them over. Someone said I needed paypal on my website and that I needed to upgrade my level. I have also had it suggested that I sell on ebay.

Now I find various little items that cost me. How do you guys know how to set a price that will get you what you need and pay for the service? I just mailed someone something and only charged postage. What I got didn't quite cover postage because of fees. The amount was small enough that it didn't hurt but it did warn me that I may not know what I am doing.

Is there a faq or something? Can someone give me an example of what type of Paypal account I should have. Of how I should go about one ebay?

Thanks,

Mike

[bruce johnson]

Mike,

I used to have dial-up. Very slow dial up. My normal connection speed was 14 kbs. On a good day I could hit 24, and one time hit the dizzying speed of 26.4. I was in tall feed when I traveled and got free high speed. My ISP was telling me that I needed an antennae, a dish, or whatever. Curious fact, my landlord was one of the inventors/developers of DSL, and I can't get it where we live. A few months ago, I learned about cellular wireless. Basically anywhere there is cellular service, I get highspeed. A little antennae thing hooks up to my USB port and I am off. It can be taken from one computer to another. For the heck of it a few weeks ago I pulled off the road between Kaycee and Buffalo WY (not much there for 40 miles besides me and roadkill). I got three bars and a fast hookup. If you can get cellular service at home, it might be an option.

Smarter folks than me will have to help with the Paypal, ebay sales, and website deal. I know when I started receiving funds on PayPal that were not through ebay, I had to update to a Premier Account I think they call it. I have only had a few minor kind of things paid on the Paypal account. I added a few bucks onto the cost to cover the fees.

[Mike]

Cellular is weak out here but it works. I do not have the option of cellular right now so I am stuck on dialup. At least I connect 49.2k most of the time.

[gtwister09]

I think that you would be quite surprised with the cellular connections. Right now I am on my laptop with a USB model with 1 or 2 bars. Here is my data from dslreports.com.

382 Kbs/s Download

47 Kb/s Upload

182 ms latency

Even with a poor connection it is still more than 7X your stated dial-up speed.

PayPal and eBay do have some merchant areas where you can get detailed information about costs, plans, etc...

Regards,

Ben

[HorsehairBraider]

I use PayPal on my site, but do not sell on eBay. I view eBay as more of a garage sale, and my website as more of a gallery sale. That's just my personal opinion which may not be the same way everyone else sees it.

You have to pay fees for PayPal but they are not that bad. There is an option where you can leave your funds in the PayPal account until you withdraw and it will earn interest. If it's in there long enough it can offset your fees. It's a great convenience for my customers and many of them opt for that. I also have a merchant account and so can accept credit cards. That was tough to get. Man, you think *you* are out in the sticks - ! I had to find a business owner that would come to my place and verify that I was a real business, and in my neck of the woods, a good 95% of my neighbors are cows. It was worth the hassle though.

If I make it as easy as possible for people to pay me, they are more likely to order. Back before the merchant account and the PayPal access, I did not have near the orders.

I had dial-up for the longest time, and not only that, but probably the slowest dial-up on the planet. Now I have their "high-speed" and it too is abysmally slow but not nearly as slow as the dial-up. I needed the higher speed, because I could NOT upload to my website with such a slow dial-up. Everything would time out and shut down on me. Luckily for me the ONE company that provides internet access here got nervous about a competitor coming in to town and offered a good start-up package, and then lowered their fees somewhat. I still have to pay through the nose, but it used to be $100.00 a month!

Look at your total costs per month - for example, I have to pay a cost per month to access the gateway for processing ccs. I also have to pay a fee for every transaction. Then take into account your postage, which is not too hard. I just have a list on my order form that says, so much merchandise total = this much in postage due. My fees are rounded UP to the nearest dollar amount to make the math easy on the customer.

Remember too, your items will probably have a different profit margin. I have a few small items I love to sell because the profit margin on them is very high. My highest priced stuff typically has the LOWEST profit margin, but then I don't always sell those high dollar items.

I think if you are going to do business on the internet, you ought at least to look into the PayPal thing. That is pretty easy - once you have a verified account it's not too hard to upgrade to a selling account. They have great tutorials on the site that make it easy to learn what your options are. It's a way to take ccs without the merchant account, which is tougher to get. At that point, you can see how it is going and if you want a merchant account and so on. For me, this was all a necessity because I *really do* make my living from my work. It is not a hobby. If I don't work I don't eat, as simple as that, so I am willing to do what it takes to make the customer see me as a professional and to make things as easy as possible for the customer.

[Mike]

I have been trying to learn more. Here's how I think it goes when selling something on ebay.

pay to post the notice

pay a selling fee

pay for accepting paypal

pay to ship the item

If I sell something for $125, I pay $2.4 to post, pay $4.56 for selling, $4.20 for paypal. I won't deduct shipping since I can charge for that. hmmm.... that's about $11.16, let's round it up since paypal gets a cut on the shipping too... about $11.50 is my cost to sell something for $125.

Did I do the math right? Does this sound like the typical cost for selling? Since I'm new to this, I need to know what my costs are so I can recoup them in a sale.

[HorsehairBraider]

Couple of things. If you ship through the USPS you will actually save a little money - if you buy your labels on line, they do not charge you for delivery confirmation. That's .49 as I recall. And you may as well - why buy labels through PayPal? They are not a shipping service. You'll have to go to the USPS site and download some software so that your printer will print out the labels - but you would have had to do that on PayPal anyway.

I don't know about the auction fees, I am sure you looked them up and they are correct. But think about this. I pay around that same amount (your total selling fees above) for a whole month of internet for my website. And instead of only ONE listing I can list as much or as little as I want. In my case I taught myself HTML out of a book but they *do* make programs for web publishing that make it pretty darn easy. I got one at Office Depot for $50.00.

Basically I think you've got your fees figured out right, although I believe there are ways to trim a little off here and there.

[ClayB]

Just for comparison, I put a couple of my pictures in a shop in a tourist town near here that sells books, music and art work. They marked my pictures up 30% for thier commision. What you figured is about 10% so that doesn't sound all that bad. I wonder how much you would sell on Ebay, but then, my pictures haven't sold either. I figure they have a better chance of being seen there than sitting on my basement floor though, and the guy is a friend.

[Go2Tex]

I don't offer Paypal on my Ebay auctions because the fees are SO HIGH. But, I'm selling rather high priced items so the overall cost seems like a lot. Maybe I should offer Paypal, and for the regular account it's not too bad but they really sock it to you when you upgrade to take cards.

As I've mentioned previously, Ebay is great advertisment if not a good place to sell, depending on what you're selling. For a guy who is way out in the sticks and a complete unknown, it's fantastic. You have an instant target audience of the entire World for a few bucks.

As for shipping, try DHL. Tell them you want to open an account and you'll get a break on the shipping depending on how much you ship. For heavy stuff it usually beats USPS and UPS with a pickup charge but for small stuff I just drop it off when I go to town at the Post Oriface, eh Office.

[Johanna]

Most leatherworkers who do work that is distinctly uniquely theirs benefit from a gallery/portfolio website. It helps to build credibility and enhance a reputation, and it can be marketed for extra sales. Most of the leatherwork I see on ebay is competing with imports by an emphasis on quality. The ones doing it have standard designs and do such quick production work that a braider or carver might not be able to sustain the pace. Some leatherworkers like custom work because they can charge more for it, and some are able to standardize designs and drop the price.

If anyone needs affordable dependable web hosting, PM me.

Johanna

[Jordan]

Ebay and Paypal are one and the same, To me they are both scams to profit off others labors, unfortunatly there are very few other choices when selling on the internet. Just my feelings after trying to sell my beemer last year. I ended up selling it through craigs list.

[papabear]

I've been doing quite a bit of eBay auctions and Amazon fixed price sales lately. I've used PayPal for about 2 years now no problems so far very secure. Be careful about what time of the month eBay takes your fees out and keep up with that.

On eBay make sure that you always go to the next higher weight to accomidate the packaging and postage differences, they don't always agree. If in doubt go to USPS.com and use there calculator it's much more accurate.

When setting your prices always look at what else is available and see what everyone else is getting. Don't go too low you can always relist it if it doesn't sell and change your terms and pricing to sell it then if it sells eBay will usually give you a refund on some of the listing fees.

If your selling on your own site definately use PayPal it's worth the bother they handle almost all the agrivating parts of collecting your money. Amazone seems to be a good place to sell at fixed prices and they set your listings in a store for you. They also offer some other good services, check them out. They don't use PayPal but work directly with your bank accounts and make edeposits and withdrawals and notify you by email.

[papabear]

By the way I don't sell my leather craft items on eBay or Amazon. Too much like a garage sale. I only do leather craft for my old customers and friends anymore mostly because they won't leave me alone and now I enjoy it again. Now it's when I can as I can and at my prices. When I had to do it for a living most of the fun left. If you can compete with the imports as far as price go for it. It's hard to promote the quality of good leather crafting on the net and get a reasonable price for your work. Craft shows, rodeos, swap meets. bike rallies, fairs, inactments, etc. That's what will get your quality products advertised.

Your customers will sell for you. Do the best you can on each project and take pride in your work and demand a reasonable price for it. You will succeed if you have the right attitude. I took my time and made 3 beautiful black lined belt yesterday 1 for a Christmas present with 8 silver conchos on it and 2 for an old customer who has waited about 6 months for me to do them. I charged $30 apiece to my old customer for his. I really enjoyed the day of crafting yesterday!