Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about eBay versus Facebook Marketplace and which is better for your reselling business.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast - eBay Vs Facebook Marketplace
Rob: All right, guys, today we are talking about eBay versus Facebook Marketplace, which is pros and cons on each of them, and which platforms should you be using to sell your items?
Melissa: Yeah, we have, we sell on both platforms, mainly eBay, but we wanted to kind of walk through, some of the benefits. Yeah. Pros and cons of each one.
Rob: So yeah, so there are, there are quite a few benefits to each one, whichever one fits best into what you're doing, definitely that's where you should be. But don't discount the other one. Like Melissa said, we do sell on both platforms, but I wanted to give you a fair comparison of each platform.
So you guys could, if you're maybe starting out and you don't know where to start, hopefully this will help you in your walk and where you're, where you're thinking that your time is best spent on listing.
Melissa: Yeah. And you really should be crossposting if you can do that. It's definitely, worth it to crosspost on multiple platforms and maybe it's a different platform.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: Those two tend to work the best for us.
Yeah. So, and I would say starting out Facebook Marketplace, one big benefit is it can be really quick cash. So you can list post something and it can be sold that day. So you can go meet up with that person and it can be sold that day.
Rob: So. Yeah. And that is really cool because you can, you can get it listed that day and you can get traction that day to get it sold. You can't do that for specialty items, but items in your house, items that you're looking to get rid of and make some quick cash, very fast, very quickly, definitely that is a good I mean, a good option for you is Marketplace because you can make cash the same day you're listing stuff.
Melissa: Yeah. And they do, I would say now you're, you don't see quite as much, visibility now. They because with all the different ads and all the smart feeds, the visibility is not what it used to be. And it's different per area too, we notice. Yeah, like sometimes, our stuff gets seen, sometimes it doesn't. So, like, you could have to promote it if you, if it's a large enough profit for you to promote it, and just boost it just for a couple dollars and that could help, but yeah, it can be quick cash. And usually that day, if it doesn't get traction that first day though, then sometimes you need to help it , help it move along.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: But I would say one of the cons of Facebook marketplaces. There's some crazy people out there.
Rob: That's true. Crazy people. And you'll get people messaging you all the time asking you if something is available and then they ghost you. Then they don't wanna know anything else about it. They just wanted to know if it was available, and then you don't hear back from 'em.
Melissa: So, that's probably the most annoying one.
Rob: It is. You'll, you'll, you'll get crazy people like that. And then the other thing is marketplace, you have to meet somebody. So either if it's something that, is a little bit of money, maybe you can say a porch pickup. But I don't even recommend really porch pickups.
No, I don't do that. No. Because of, we'd rather not, we'd rather people not know where you live, where your shop is, that kind of stuff. For that kind of stuff, we meet people, but that is where it takes some of your time out of your day, that you have to go and meet somebody to do fulfill the item that you're selling and sometimes you might set up an appointment that somebody, might not even show up for the appointment, so you're gonna waste your time on that.
eBay, not typically the case.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: Cool thing about eBay is you put your listing in, when it sells, you ship it out, and you're able to not have to deal with anybody other than possibly a message, that you can message back. And then that's, that's it. So that's definitely a plus for eBay.
Melissa: So if you don't wanna meet people in person, then.
Rob: Like me, I don't wanna meet people.
Melissa: You like people.
Rob: I do, but it's one of those things that I, it's the, for me, the process is a lot easier on eBay that I can do that. So, which brings us to the next con.
Melissa: And well, I was gonna say too, back to your point of meeting people in no shows is that, always make sure if you, when you're meeting somebody, that you message them again and make sure that they're on their way because you do that all the time.
Yeah. And because half the time, like sometimes people just, they, they will ghost you and they won't yeah, they just don't show up. It's so weird. We always, and we always meet fairly close to our house so that like, we're not gonna drive 20 minutes to go meet somebody because they have to come to you . Yeah. And that's just kind of like, it should be a known thing.
Yeah. Like they come, you drive across town if you wanna go buy something. Yeah. So that it doesn't take that much time outta your day.
Rob: Yeah. And being a seller, I treat other sellers when I'm buying something from them the way that I wanna be treated. So I'm always making an appointment with somebody the next day or whatever it is.
I'm messaging them before I leave saying, hey, are you still on schedule? I'm planning on being there at 3:30. Is everything still all right on your side? And they message me back and say, yes. That's how I wanna be treated as a seller. Not just say, all right, tomorrow I'm gonna meet you there at 3:30, show up there and nobody's there. That's one of those things that, yeah, I'm very, very cordial, cuz this is, I am a seller too, and I know how I wanna be treated. So when I'm a buyer, I'm the same way. But you can have those people who are gonna tell you, oh yeah, I'll be there. And then they don't show up, don't message don't, and you don't, I mean, you won't hear from 'em again.
So that, that, it could be very annoying. But it is a great point Melissa makes, find a place that's like not even a mile from your house, a strip mall, a police station, a fire department, something that you can meet at a neutral place. It's not that far. Won't take too much time out of your day, but it is still, you have to make that arrangements and you have to meet somebody in person to do the sale through Facebook, and you don't have to do that through eBay.
Melissa: So if you don't wanna meet people, you have to learn how to ship. So that could be a con to eBay, but it's also a pro because you don't wanna meet people, so you just have to learn how to ship your items.
Yeah. So, that brings us to eBay. So.
Rob: Yeah, which going along with that being a con, that you have to learn it.
The cool thing about eBay is eBay's such a big company when you do ship through eBay versus just going to USPS, FedEx, UPS. When you use any of those platforms, typically eBay gives you a big discount. We've had discounts up to 70% off of our shipping label by making it through eBay. Once something sells and you're shipping it with their account sometimes you get huge, huge discounts on that.
So you have to learn how to ship, but then you also, pro to that as you can get stuff shipped very, very cheaply through eBay's account.
Melissa: Yeah, and pirate ship's been comparable too. Now it has on a lot of stuff for it depends what carrier exactly having to go and how larger item is, but exactly for the smaller items, it's been.
Yeah, it's been good.
So another pro to eBay is you can ask more money for your item than you can on Marketplace typically because of the market that you're reaching. So it's just so much larger. So yeah.
Rob: Definitely. So when something's on eBay, eBay has over, I think right now it's like 150, 160 million registered users. Typically not all those users are gonna be looking for your item, but there's a bigger pool of people looking for that specific item, which Marketplace is limited. I mean, Marketplace does allow you to ship. Now they're trying to compete with eBay, but it's still, we don't ship anything through Marketplace.
I never will, because I don't wanna lose money and you can't get anybody on the phone for marketplace if, a deal goes south. So that's one of the things. We're not even counting that as being able to ship to marketplace.
Melissa: We're just talking about local.
Rob: Local and the stuff that we sell as larger items anyways, that they will not allow you to list on there for shipping.
So, it's one of those things that marketplace only reaches maybe 40,000 60,000 people. So you can think out of that pool, not everybody's gonna be looking for your specific item, but it's gonna be a lot smaller amount of people looking for that specific item, than versus eBay that has a lot, lot bigger registered users on it.
Melissa: So yeah, so you can typically ask a little bit more, which would help also cover your fees.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: But yeah, you can ask more than you can typically on Marketplace. One con we had for eBay was that you do have, since you are shipping, you do have to make sure that, like people get worried about not as described.
So you have to make sure that you are showing everything about the item. The person cannot inspect the item. So on Marketplace, they can look at the item and then decide maybe it's not as in good condition as I thought it was. Yeah. And I don't want it anymore. But if they get it, and you said that on eBay, if you said it was in mint condition, it's beautiful.
Like all these amazing things and they get it and it has a crack in it or something like , you know, they could give you not crack.
Rob: Yeah. So this really boils down to one of my favorite sayings is under promise and over deliver. And you really have to get good at that. If you're selling on eBay, you have to really show, imperfections.
You have to really show scrapes, scratches, scuffs. You have to show all that. And even if it's not on the item, it's gonna be shipped. I still put in my listing, this is a used item. Please expect normal wear. It might have scrapes, scratches, scuffs, scuffs, any of that kind of stuff. Just so when that buyer gets that item, they are pleasantly surprised with the condition.
So under promise, over deliver on everything that you do, and that will help you definitely, definitely help you, where people are saying, hey, this is not as, described or that's damaged, or whatever it is. That's one of those things that you want to make sure that you're doing the right way and you don't really have to deal with that type of dispute.
Melissa: We've learned that the hard way. Right?
Rob: Absolutely, back in the day, that's that's not what I did. And we've learned. Yeah, through many, many sales that this is the best, the best recourse for not as described as making sure that you're under promising and over delivering.
Melissa: Yeah. Another kind of maybe con for eBay is it takes a little while to build up your feedback.
So if you're just starting out, you really want to build up that feedback as fast as possible. So that is a big part of eBay people that are buying from you wanna see that you have good feedback. It's probably, I think, more important on eBay than any other platform is, I think is your feedback so, and, and when you don't have a lot of feedback, when you're just starting out, you will get more scam, like scam people.
They can't really do. Like they, yeah, they, they just message you and they wanna pay more for the item or they're saying all this stuff. They're trying to get some information from you. So those go away pretty much as you build up your feedback.
Rob: Your best recourse for that is actually making sure everything goes through platform.
You have scammers contact you and they will wanna go outside of eBay once your phone number and wanna, send you payment outside of eBay and all that kind of stuff. Your best recourse is stay on the platform if it sounds too good to be true, right? It probably is, if they're buying it and paying through the platform.
Typically they shouldn't be a scammer. So, you're having all that. If you do have any questions about any type of transaction in the beginning, when you're starting off on eBay, make sure you're calling their 1-800 number. Yeah. 1-800 number and making sure that they're guiding you through the process so you don't get scammed, but like I said, this just happens in the beginning when you're building your platform. I mean, you're, when you're building your business on the platform, until you start to getting really some good feedback, for selling and buying and all that kind of stuff, and your feedback starts getting build up, scammers usually they, they hit the road.
They don't stick around that long after that.
Melissa: They go after beginners.
Rob: Exactly. Once you're, once you're established with your sales, you don't really have to deal with that anymore.
Melissa: Yeah. And there are still scammers on Facebook marketplace too. They, they will come out and they'll do the same thing.
It's all the same. Like they want you to go outside, pay outside of whatever. Yeah. And I guess in Facebook you don't really pay, I guess you do for your shipping, but so we only take cash or we will, we have in the past taken PayPal or have we taken Zelle?
Rob: Yeah, absolutely.
Melissa: In person.
Rob: In person.
Melissa: In person. We verify that it's in our account before the person takes the item.
Cuz that's one of the things that people try to do sometimes is they'll say, oh look, here's a screenshot that I paid you. You had somebody do that once. Yeah. And it's like, it's not in my account. And had they just had like the PayPal banner on the top or something, like paid you this much money? No.
Rob: So they'll tell you to go buy gift cards. It'll tell you to do something, to release the money into your account, all that kind. Anything like that, guys, if you stay on platform with it that's the biggest thing. Yeah.
Melissa: And, but it's harder to get scammed on Facebook, like in person, like for the most part, people are gonna bring you cash and then you just, or you verified that the money's in your account right there.
Like, it's not that big a deal.
Rob: When people are asking you to ship stuff on Marketplace, that's when you have to really think about it. And if it's a small item, you can go through the whole process through, through Facebook. But, larger items or even smaller items where people reach out and say, hey, I wanna pay you through Zelle.
And if it's a bigger item, somebody might say, hey, I wanna pay you cashier's check, gimme your address, and all that kind of stuff. And then I'm gonna have a mover come and pick up the item. Typically run that's, that's a scam that anything like that. If people don't actually, yeah, in some cases I'll get on the phone with people and talk to them, and just to know that I feel comfortable with them.
But anything that doesn't seem right when they're sending you screenshots saying, hey, I paid you the money should be in your account. Oh, you gotta go do this and that to, to let the funds release? No, that has nothing to do with it. Most things now, even if they pay Zelle, or PayPal or all that kind of stuff, you can see on your end the transaction's done.
You can see it. And so if they're telling you it's done, that yeah, typically you don't, yeah. You don't wanna mess with those type of people.
Melissa: Yeah. So at the end of the day, eBay's still our favorite platform to use just cuz it, it just works for us.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: Marketplace, we haven't really sold a lot on Marketplace lately.
Rob: No.
Melissa: We haven't really listed much on marketplace.
Rob: No.
Melissa: But we do at once in a while. So it just kind of depends on where you're at in your business. Exactly, but if you want some quick cash, Marketplace is definitely a great place to get going. And if you wanna do this as a side hustle or business, eBay is definitely worth getting on.
Rob: So. Absolutely. And, a little bit more about our business, if you guys don't know, like we sell higher profit items, so it's one of those things. The higher profit items, we want to get in front of more people so we can ask more money for that item. That's why eBay is our place. It takes longer to get that.
And it takes a lot more people on Marketplace to see these higher profit items, and be needing that just in our local area. So that's why it doesn't make sense for us to do our higher profit stuff on Marketplace. It makes more sense to put it on eBay. Lower profit. Yeah, lower profit items. I mean, I just off of offhand, an exercise machine that's not super, super high retail, not commercial.
You can throw that on Marketplace and typically sell it in a day. You know, a washer and dryer that you, or an oven or something like that, that's not high end, not commercial. You can throw that on Marketplace and usually sell it in a day or two. It's one of those things that you can move stuff quick and make quick cash.
But when you're looking to make higher profit, eBay definitely is the place to go to.
Melissa: Yep.
And if you're listening to this, we are still in the middle of our Reseller Summit right now. We kicked things off yesterday, so there's still two. It depends on what time you're listening to this, but still two and a half, three days left.
If you haven't got your ticket yet, go grab it at theresellersummit.com and we are so excited for this year's event.
Rob: Absolutely guys, go grab it. TheResellerSummit.com. You can grab your ticket, free ticket, jump into it, and catch the ongoing, the ongoing, replay. Replays. Thank you. Tongue tied for a second.
So you guys rock. We cannot wait to see you at The Reseller Summit.