Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper share three things you need to know before you start selling on eBay to help you figure out the platform.
Check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
47 Household items to resell: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/47-household-items-to-resell
Reseller Hangout Podcast - Rob & Melissa On 3 Things You Need To Know Before You Start Selling On Ebay
Rob: What's up, guys? On today's episode, we are talking about three things you need to know before you start selling on eBay.
Melissa: All right. We are gonna dive into three things you need to know before you start selling on eBay.
Rob: That's right. These surprise a lot of people once they get in and start selling. So we want to make sure you do not have any surprises hit you when you jump in and start selling on eBay.
Melissa: Yes.
Rob: So let's dive in.
Melissa: So the first one is eBay is gonna hold your funds whenever you're first starting out. So you're not gonna get them released to you right away.
Rob: So don't be surprised. When you sell an item eBay is gonna take payment on that item, but they're gonna hold the payment until they see that you ship the item and the buyer receives the item.
And it is exactly what you said it was for the buyer. Just build this in, know that it's gonna take you a little bit more time in the beginning to get your money, after you are a established seller, which I'm not sure how long it will take you the, yeah, I'm not sure how long it'll take you to get to that.
I it's so many feedbacks and so many, sales that you do.
Melissa: You do like 10 or 20 feedback.
Rob: Yeah, once you get to that point, you can typically we get our money into our account. eBay receives once we do a sale, eBay receives the money. And they put it into our account and it takes roughly three days for the whole process after we sell something. Three to four days and it's into our account, we physically have the money. So, that's what you can look forward to. You do not, this is not forever. eBay will. Once they see that you are a legit seller, they will start putting the money directly into your account.
Melissa: So you have to they're the middleman.
So they're just trying to protect their buyers, in case you're trying to scam somebody. Yeah. So they're just trying to make sure that you are legit selling a product, gonna deliver on your product and, it's the product that you say you're gonna deliver.
Rob: So that's right. So don't be surprised when they hold the money until they actually can see the shipping, label go through and the buyer receives the item.
And the buyer still might even get a day or two. Typically you can reach out to the buyer and say, Hey, could you leave me positive feedback? Once you receive the item and you're happy with it, as soon as eBay gets the positive feedback, yeah. They're still trying to hold the, the funds. You can call them up and they'll release it to you.
So, that's one of those things that, yeah, it will take you a little bit more time in the beginning, but don't be surprised that they hold the money a little bit longer.
Melissa: So when you're first starting, number two is when you are first starting out you're having more competition on theirs with people who are experienced sellers.
So who are established, who have a lot of feedback. So if you can offer, fast ship, super fast shipping and free returns, those are two things that are going to get your items sold faster and get your, your account built up faster.
Rob: That's right. So we're living in the world of Amazon and we are selling on eBay.
eBay is trying to model Amazon as much as they possibly can. And that's where this comes in. The quicker you can ship out your item like Melissa said, that is what eBay's gonna favor. They're gonna show your item to more people that way, because they want the process to go seamless and they want it to go quick.
So the quicker you can do that, eBay will start showing your items. You'll get more sales and it'll go that route. So yeah, definitely a huge key in starting out, and starting out fast.
Melissa: That's what I did on the kids account. When we started with them was we did next day shipping on all of their stuff.
So that people would see it. Okay. They'll get shipped out the next day. And they like to see that more, cuz people are used to now getting stuff as soon as they can. Yeah. And getting it shipped out and I added the free returns in there. You don't have to do free returns. It's just something eBay favors.
We don't accept returns on most of our items. So, but as you're getting started it could help, build your account up.
Rob: So, yeah, and this isn't the end all be all either guys it's not forever because we, all of our items that we sell are five day handling time. So we have, a whole weekend to go through before our items have to be shipped out because we typically sell larger items.
So you're, this is your starting, you're trying to get established in eBay. These are the best practices to get established, and we don't want you guys to be, taken by surprise with anything that happens through the first process.
Melissa: All right. So, number three is a big one that does kind of surprise some people, is you get a lot of scam requests in the beginning when you're first starting out.
So people can see that you don't have any feedback. And so that you're the first that they go to.
Rob: So that's it. And this is huge because you want to expect this to happen. Now if typically, if it's too good to be true, it's probably true. If somebody's reaching out to you telling you your price is great.
I'll take it. I'll pay you an extra $300 for shipping, all this crazy stuff.
Melissa: Usually it's just a little bit more, but yes.
Rob: Typically it is crazy. I mean, if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true. It's not really true. So be on the lookout for people that are reaching out and doing crazy stuff, always go through eBay, always take payment through eBay, make sure all that happens, make sure the payment's cleared and eBay's telling you to ship the item.
EBay is pretty good on catching those scammers. And if somebody's telling you to go outside of eBay, or they're gonna pay you through PayPal, or they're gonna do this or that, they're in another country, they're out in the middle of the ocean and they can't, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff.
You'll get some crazy, crazy stuff. Just know those are scammers.
Melissa: My uncle's cousins' sister's gonna come pick up the item and I'm gonna pay you through PayPal a hundred dollars more. Yeah. Any of those things are definitely not.
Rob: Just don't worry, expect that you're gonna get some of those in the beginning.
The more you feel, build your feedback up and people can see you're an established seller and a buyer on eBay, the less you're gonna see those scammers, but just know it will happen in the beginning. There's scammers that prey on people with low feedback and they really try to scam those people.
Melissa: So yeah, I'd say if you can make it a goal of just getting your first 10 feedback and they go. Way down. Yeah. So that helps a lot, but that is, can be frustrating at first. Like you think, okay, I'm so excited to make a sale and then it's a scam request. So you're like, okay, well I need to get the real people.
Yeah. So building that feedback and a way that you can build feedback up is both buying and selling. So you can buy stuff that you normally would buy anyway. Just buy it on eBay instead and build your feedback that way. Yeah.
Rob: We actually have a private group that we, we tell everybody when they're starting off ask questions in the group, you guys might not have that right here.
But call eBay. If you have any questions at all, call eBay up, get on customer support. You can even, if you don't wanna get on the phone, I'm sure you can text, get into their chat and go to customer support and just tell 'em your concerns before you complete a deal. Make sure that you're getting they're cuz ultimately they're the ones who are facilitating the sale.
And they're, processing the payment. So if they're saying something is not legit, it's not legit do not mess with it. But definitely if something doesn't feel right, get, get a second opinion and figure out what's going on.
Melissa: But you can, yeah, you can get ahold of them and cuz you might not get your funds right away.
So if you can say, do you have my, are the funds there so I can complete this transaction, then they can check on that for you. Yeah. And then give you peace of mind. A big, one of the, probably the biggest things that people try to do on as when they're trying to scam is they want to they say they're they paid you like they made, you, gave you an offer, you say, sure, I'll accept that offer, but it doesn't go through eBay.
It goes through PayPal. And they'd say, I sent you here is the screenshot of the confirmation of the confirmation of the payment. But if you go into your account, it is not there. So that, then that happens on all the apps that happened to you on offer up. I remember somebody did that cause they're trying to send you, like, make it look official, cuz they can use letterhead of PayPal and all this other stuff and they make it look official.
But it is not official if that money is not in your account.
Rob: Yep.
Melissa: So, but that's probably the most common one. And another one is they want you to think the money is in the account and then pay you back in cards. Like some they like, okay, well, I'll give you an extra, a hundred dollars. If you go buy this gift cards, gift card and to send back to them.
So don't ever go buy any gift cards for anybody don't yeah. So make sure the sale goes for eBay. Yeah.
Rob: Yeah. The biggest thing is if you have any questions, call eBay, get them on the chat, whatever you have to do to find out if it sounds, if it sounds fishy, make sure you're getting their opinion because ultimately, like I said, it's going through their, they're facilitating the sale and they're taking the payment of it.
So, do not trust anything that's going outside of that, make sure that you're going through that.
Melissa: And usually those people won't have a lot of feedback, but that doesn't always mean they're a scam either because we have a lot of people now that are hopping on eBay, they don't have an account and they just hopped on eBay to buy the certain thing that we have.
Yeah. That cuz they can't find it anywhere else with all the backups and whatnot. So they have zero feedback and they're still a legit buyer. Yeah. So that, that doesn't mean all people with no feedback are bad buyers, but those people, if they sound fishy, they don't have much feedback, definitely, you know, you can chat with eBay or, you know, you don't have to accept it.
Rob: So yeah, more to the point of what Melissa saying is a lot of people will jump on and specifically open an eBay account, just because they found the item on Google. So, eBay ranks in the top of Google. If somebody searches, searches for a specific item, serial number, model, whatever it is, and eBay has that in their title, they're gonna show that to the buyer on Google. And then the buyer's gonna see that you can get it from eBay for the cheapest price. They're gonna go on and open an account and they're gonna buy it from you. So don't be scared off at buyers who don't have any feedback because they're not all scammers and some of 'em will find it on Google and then come on and open an account.
We have that happen every single month. We'll have people who have zero feedback. We'll buy something from us. But the real, the real thing is you have to make sure that the payment goes through eBay. EBay clears the payment and eBay tells you to ship it, before you actually ship it out. So you wanna make sure all those things happen.
Melissa: Cause that will be in your back office. Say this item has been paid for shipped now.
Rob: Yeah. So absolutely. So you make sure that you're doing that. And like I said, even if you still have some type of question, something, doesn't feel right. Call eBay up or get them on the chat and make sure you're finding out that it's totally legit and you're ready to, ship your item before you do it.
So yeah, if you anything, especially don't do it, until you get confirmation from eBay, everything's okay.
Melissa: And one more bonus one that I thought I was, that sometimes surprises people is you are gonna get fees on both the sale of the item and on shipping costs. So back in the day, when people tried to, sell something for a penny, yeah sell something for a penny, and then do all the shipping, like get all their money in the shipping because the shipping wasn't, a percentage. So they ruined it for everybody else. And now we have to pay a percentage on shipping, but that's been for a long time. So just expect that, you know, people ask us all the time about fees, but to us it's still worth it.
Absolutely like to sell on eBay, the amount of people that it reaches, the amount of profit that we can make on these items, it is definitely still worth it for us to sell on eBay.
Rob: Yep. Absolutely.
Melissa: I don't know if you have to add anything else to the fees.
Rob: No, it's, it's true. And some of our shipping fees, I mean, some of the stuff that we charge for shipping is two, three, $400.
EBay's still taking their percentage off of that because we charge it. Some of 'em will do free shipping on it and put bills it into the price. But even on the items that we're charging a flat rate fee for shipping, eBay's taking their, their money off. They're taking a percentage off of that.
So just know that's a great point to know that they are gonna take off the total sale. And believe it or not right now eBay is doing sales tax for each state individual state. And they're taking their fees off of the total sales tax as well.
Melissa: So which still is not my favorite thing. I think that that's a little bit extreme, but.
Rob: It's not, but anyway, that's how it's working. So we're trying to make sure that, you know, this ahead of time.
Melissa: So, that's just, yeah, it's just our business expense.
Rob: Just be prepared. Exactly be prepared for it.
Melissa: So, but that's also we have to get your items, with enough profit in them, which we, your money's made in the buy.
We always harp on. So we definitely will talk about in another episode soon. But we did have a, if you guys wanted to grab, if you're just starting out on eBay and you wanna know, you know, some of our favorite things to sell, like household items to sell. We have a free download 47 household items to resell.
So you can go grab that the link will be in the show notes.
Rob: So, and like always guys, if you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe and share. If you can guys, we greatly appreciate it. I mean, the world to us, if you could do that, we love giving the tips that we can, to help people make more money in their reselling business.
So you guys rock have a great day.
We'll see on the next episode.
Melissa: See you later.