EBay? Good deal?

Hi Jan,

My husband buys a lot on Ebay. He's always looking for a deal, it's that Dominican in him.

As in all things, you have to always be careful. When you are buying from someone check their FEEDBACK. Previous buyers will give a brief description of their transaction. You'll know if the person selling is trustworthy and the type of products they sell.

My husband has been on Ebay for about 2 years, he has bought over 100 items (from games, computers to cars). Recently he tried to purchase HomeDepot giftcards and the seller never sent them. Ebay has a fraud protection that refunded him the money minus $25.00. That is why you have to be careful, he didn't check all of the sellers feedback. If he did he would have realized that the seller had good feedback because they had purchased very small items (less than $1.00).

Some people will try to get good feedback in order to be trusted by buying small items.

Good luck,

We currently sell various items on eBay and have been doing it for a while. My brother gave up being a physician and now makes a good living buying and selling on eBay. It is very easy to set up an account. Their website holds your hand and you can have an account up and running in 20 minutes. If you are going to sell on eBay you will need a digital camera to take photos - we bought a great one for $250.
There are a number of websites not run by eBay that offer advice on how to do business.

I've bought and sold on Ebay for about 3 years now. I've never been stiffed by anyone.

As far as photos, you don't have to have a digital camera. When you have your film developed at the local drugstore, you can choose to have a disk or CD created with the hard copies, which you then upload to Ebay. Or you can have the film developer put a copy of the film on their website. You would then transfer them over to Ebay.

Many ways to do it. Read Ebay's Help guide for the scoop. You can also have a 3rd party source publish your stuff to Ebay. These companies' software are more user friendly than Ebay's and therefore, great for the novice.

Jan, my daughter sold some old books on Ebay. She waits for the check to clear before sending the book. She never had a problem.

Jan if I'm not mistaken, I think you can put a reserved or min. bid on the item so that doesn't happen.

Anna's right. You can put a reserve on it and unless that reserve is met, you don't need to sell your item. Also, I have bought things on ebay by using 'buy it now'. During an auction, someone can buy your item at the price that you're asking for. And then, the auction ends.

Good luck!
I've never sold anything on ebay but many people have told me that it's easy.

Ebay has streamlined its operation to the point where transactions are relatively simple. I've purchased computer parts, etc with much success.

I have only one experience with sales. I wrote and posted the ad and pictures of an old fire truck - a real one - for a relative.

That old 1965 GMC fire truck sold in a week for $500 more than expected. Transaction was flawless.

Swede

Ebay

I bought several items on Ebay last year, and the transactions were smooth. To pay, I registered on PayPal (which is now part of Ebay) with a US Amex, because I couldn`t pay with local credit cards. You can find lots of items at great items, the only problem is the shipping, for which you can use a CPS or EPS account. About selling, I tried once to sell an old record, but nobody was interested, and then again you have the shipping issue. Hope this helps.

Jan,

Ebay is a great deal. Dominican Larimar is very hot these days. Better yet, Ebay now uses Paypal.com as its electronic payment system. Now paypal gives you a Visa debit card that you could use to access your available balance. I know someone in Argentina who sells Evita stuff, people pay him using paypal and he in turn uses his paypal visa to purchase goods and services. Sweet!

Some Dominican items that are hot include:

Trujillo Gold Coins
Arte Taino Sliver Coins
Condecoration Medals, Orden de Gran Caballero
Larimar
Amber
Cafe Sto Dgo

You could use of of those private mail services to ship goods to the USA and the buyer pays those costs. A friend of mine found a pair of MANOLO BLAHNIK shoes in a pile of crap from an eviction here in DC. He sold it on ebay for $200. And it turns out that was cheap. Have fun!

I have bought many things on ebay and half.com never any problems...obviously check the feedback for the buyer/seller depending on your situation.

I bought:
- laptop
- 21 inch monitor
- many books
- computer software
- docking station for laptop

have sold:
-playstation

In my opinion ebay is a great medium to bring buyers/sellers together only like in most situations use common sense.

-MDH

mostly buying since '99,

very happy with the service and outcomes to date. Bought and sold small stuff, some cars. The family gets a new boat puller delivered tommorrow;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&category=39415&item=2417589530

Like DCFred's ending, the wife listed some of my "bachelor" stuff on Ebay. A windbreaker that had Polo Stadium Games 84 I think, went for 150 bucks! The jacket wasn't even in very good condition. One man's junk.....

If you're selling videos, DVD, books, software, or CDs

Don't neglect Amazon.com either. They do a lot of business in used items and there is a convenient link right from the main listing to your used stuff. So if I'm looking to buy Hillary's new book (fat chance) I go on Amazon and see that it's thirty dollars or whatever. Then I see the link for the "used" items and see that I can buy yours for twenty bucks. WhatamIgonnado? Save ten bucks is what.
If you have furniture, clothes, crafts, collectibles, an interactive cookbook on CD, Amazon's not gonna work for you. Stick with Ebay or Half.
For me, bidding was fun for the first two years or so, but it gets old and takes some planning. Now if I want a book or CD, I go to Half. If I have time I'll check Amazon. I've bought probably 200 CDs in four years. Just had two or three 'problems.'

Word of warning. People that buy on Ebay are spoiled. They want their stuff FAST. If you go with Paypal, people are expecting delivery within a week. You can wind up with negative feedback from some Ebay newbie because they had to wait a whole two and a half weeks! Gee whiz. Peoples got no patience anymore.
SLM