Ebay

Hm.

This is the first I've heard of GothAuctions..However I would agree with Janelle. I've actually made quite a bit on eBay selling - On the free listing weekends anyway. The fees aren't too bad then.

The userbase for eBay is so much larger that the end price of your item will most likely be much higher than if you auctioned on a lesser known site, so the fees cancel out there in my opinion.

I generally manage to sell my unused clothes and other items on eBay for anything between 80%-120% of original price, and used clothes I generally get a minimum of 50-70% of the original RRP back. You just have to know what to put in the description (you get used to the idea of what to write to appeal to the right people after using eBay for quite a while).

janelle hell wrote:

I used to use that site alot about 10 years ago, but after I had problems as both a buyer and a seller (not getting items I'd paid for/having people win auctions & never go through with the actual purchase), I've dealt exclusively with Ebay.

If you pay via Paypal, I think you would still be automatically covered by their buyer protection which protects purchases up to $2000, I believe. Unfortunately, as a seller, there isn't much you can do if your buyer doesn't want to go through with the transaction. No unpaid strikes like on eBay. Thanks for the info anyway, I'll definitely keep that in mind.


Envy wrote:

This is the first I've heard of GothAuctions..However I would agree with Janelle. I've actually made quite a bit on eBay selling - On the free listing weekends anyway. The fees aren't too bad then.

Yeah, listing is not really expensive but final value fees seem to be killer. Especially, since you have to pay fees on the shipping price as well, which I don't think is fair. For clothes/shoes it's, 9% on the total price plus 9% on shipping. In addition, you have the 2.9% + $0.30 Paypal fee for receiving payment. So assuming I sell something for $100 plus $15 shipping (let's say it's a pair of boots). Ebay fees are $10.35 and Paypal fees are $3.64 for a total of $13.99. In reality, I only get to keep $86.01, while the buyer has to pay $115. I would like to keep my prices low since I just want to get rid of my stuff as quickly as possible but at the same time, I'd like to make close to the original RRP. Most of my things are brand new. I suppose for less expensive things, eBay is okay, if I were to sell an article of clothing for $5 plus $5 shipping, eBay fees would only be $0.90 but anything else seems to be counter productive for me. I'm starting to see why some sellers over charge on shipping to avoid losing money. :S

Envy: That's the biggest reason I sell exclusively on Ebay...the HUGE amount of web traffic that it gets!

firensia: :woohoo: (showing my age here) See, it was so long ago that I sold on Gothauctions that most people would pay via check or money order...Paypal was an option, but it wasn't an option most buyers/sellers were set up for. It was a nightmare dealing with checks/money orders, I'm sure you can imagine lol. But yeah, Ebay does charge ALOT of fees :S I guess if you're just looking to recoup your costs for a few items (rather than make a large part of your reguar income from sales), Gothauctions might be better.

I've known about GothAuctions, but never bothered buying something there becasue I felt the site is a bit dodgy. No idea why... didn't even bother to see if people offer worldwide shipping or not. :silly:

Well, the plus for Ebay is that it has a lot of traffic, the negative are the fees.
If you don't have any time-pressure to sell your stuff, maybe GothAuctions would suit you just fine. If someone doesn't pay you on GothAuctions, then you just relist the item - at least the listings are free and as you already said, Paypal protection works even off ebay.

firensia wrote:

I would like to keep my prices low since I just want to get rid of my stuff as quickly as possible but at the same time, I'd like to make close to the original RRP.

That confuses me quite a bit. It's one way or the other - Get rid of everything fast by using low prices or listing with higher prices to get closer to the original RRP?

To be honest, if you're *auctioning*...The best way to make back something close to original RRP is to just list on eBay, give it a good title and description to maximise views (I try and think what I would search if I wanted to find my item and use those search words in my title) and put the start price at something you're happy with..I put the start price for my new items at about 50% of the original RRP and they usually end at 80+% of the original RRP. My old items I'll list for a crappy start price like..99p..And they usually reach at least 50% of the original RRP. Sometimes I even make profit if I get lucky with watchers.

It's just luck how many watchers and bidders you get. If you're a risk taker - Starting a listing at 99p brings in the crowd like CRAZY..But you run the risk of meeting experienced bidders who won't bid until the last second, which keeps the overall end price very low and close to the start price.

I agree with Envy. You can't have both. Think like the buyer - they won't buy something second-hand for close the RRP when they can get it brand new instead for a bit more money.
The moment you remove the tags from an item you deduct it's worth. You can only make the RRP or above for rare, collectors items.

Be happy if you get 50%-60% of the RRP, or anything at all.

Think about it as damage-control. The items now sitting at your place are worth nothing. You obviously don't use them any more so you are willing to give them away as they are of no use to you any more.
Therefore, any money you get for them is more then they are worth just sitting somewhere at your home being useless.
With the money you get for them (as small amount it can be) you will be able to at least buy something useful. ^^