Topic: Ebay selling - feeling out demand and adjusting prices (Read 2244 times)

Update...

It gets better (worse, really).

So I'm done with this guy and re-list the item, but suddenly at the end of the day I get a payment from him. Radio silence and suddenly he comes through, I'm like "okay, let's ship it." So I quickly find a shipping box at work and pay for and print a label. I get home, start writing up a Cube tutorial, figuring out which miner is which, reset, etc... So I get this thing packed up and super pretty, original box inside the shipping box, extra fuse, the works! really? my first real eBay sale? YAY!!??? NOPE.

I'm one foot out the door and look at my email, Pay Pal fraud. The guy freaking used a suspicious transaction! Pay Pal froze the whole thing and told me to sit tight until they sort through it. I told them F this guy, cancel it out, reverse everything, I'm done. It's crazy how busy I am lately I should send this little cocksucker a bill for wasting my time. I blocked him from buying on future eBay listings and I'm on hold with their fraud department now. Still need to get my money back from the shipping label. Unbelievable the bullshit with this one...

Yep, back when my eBay rating was around 20 tryed to sell a Gameboy purple * color on the outside * and the BW screen, went in to tons of details that it's NOT the color screen version and got 3 bids, last one was $9.00 USD ( plus the shipping ) and kept trying to contact the buyer with the eBay message center and they kept replying back from a different email address.... Whole lot of ' I didn't bid on this item ' crud, eBay wouldn't accept me forwarding the emails ( with full headers showing it's going to one email and forwarding TO the buyer's response email address ) and had issues with trying to re-list the item.  That was PRE buying out PayPal so there wasn't any seller protection and a possiblility of waiting 4 weeks to get a money order out of non-paying buyers.  I was hoping to get back in to selling things there, but with that kind of ' buy it now ' story, I really doubt I'm going to do more than look at what I've got in PayPal and bid low on stuff.
  I've also been on the recieving end of non-shipping sellers WITH PayPal and trying to get them to contact the seller.  I'm still out the money for the ( at the time awesome ) GPU.
  PayPal still doesn't have much of a good user rating either due to buying a Launchpad from TI when they first came out and having to cancel the payment and re-send the payment almost a year later due to an issue on Texas Instrument's end.  2 tickets later, it's finaly paid for after having it for over 6 months ( and TI changing the 40 pin Launchpad to a different ARM processor ).

There are horror stories everywhere, and most of my buying/selling was good.  It's the jerks that stick out the most.

Good luck with the sales.

I called eBay and explained the info I dug up on this guy. They told me to go ahead and relist the item immediately and then tomorrow to file the unpaid item report. I blocked the buyer from all future listings. They wouldn't tell me on the phone what his record looked like for unpaid items or conduct, but they did seem to agree with me that he is not likely to pay. All this shit and he still had 100% feedback, unbelievable. I also told them even if he does pay that his email is tied with enough scams that I don't want to sell to him, honestly such a POS his money isn't green in my opinion. Talk about a broken and corrupted system. I said to the service agent that basically this guy is tying up my inventory and blocking actual buyers from having a chance to acquire my goods, the lost sales cost me more than a low offer would!! Ugh, such a stupid system.

I have been a long time ebayer sure ebay and paypal are collecting about 15-20% of the total sales plus they convert USD to any other currency in our case EURO with a nearly robbery rate...
Alas there is not alternative to list my 2500item
by the way I asked them about bitcoin payment look their reply

Me 9 16:18:23 Hi This is John I would like to know if its OK with ebay to include in my payment methods BITCOIN 


ME  Hi Kera

Kera 16:16:19
 Hello, I am afraid, `PayPal is the only mandatory payment method on eBay, as if the buyer is using PayPal for the item to pay then they are covered under PayPal buyer protection, also sellers gets the seller protection if they send the item on the address on the buyer mentioned in PayPal account, When you use BITCOIN then buyer may not prefer to use it as it may render there protection void offered by eBay and PayPal.


 Hi Kera (ONLY MANDATORY) mean NOT allowed to write in my listings Bitcoin accepted OR its up to the buyer to decide what he will choose

Kera  16:18:42
 No you can mention in the listing, nop issues with that

Me9 16:18:45
 please clarify as my english is not the mother language John

Kera 16:20:02
 The buyer doesnot decides what payment method seller could keep.

Kera 16:20:26
 Its your wish to keep Bitcoin, however I wont commit that the buyers will purchase the item or not.

ME 9 16:21:21
 I think the bitcoin is the future so must include it.A US site xxxxck just increased its sales by accepting bitcoin so we have to do the same...

ME 16:22:24
 No No as sellers we wil offer Paypal hope to see someday the Bitcoin

Kera  16:23:09
 If you wish thern I can give the same as a suggestion to our site management team, let see what they have to say on this , it might take some time for the idea to replicate in their minds, however do you want me to escalate the same?

ME 16:24:49
 No I am fine with your reply since I can mention its OK with me

Kera  16:25:42
 FIne, but since you have vouched for it then let me see there reaction, it its a hit in US then why not UK as well.

Kera 16:25:44
 Is there anything else I can help you out with?

ME 16:26:12
 No thanks have a nice day

Some people just don't care.  What happens on the internet is not real to them.
The seller that did that to me recently thought it was a joke to click buy it now on people's listings of all types.  I was selling a camera. 
There are trolls everywhere.  Too bad they hit good people instead of each other.

That happened to me too .
Some guy bought an antminer of mine but didn't pay or respond to my emails.
I think he just bought it for fun to troll me.
had to wait 4 days to relist it.

Funny thing is what looks to be real name and home address are released to seller, which just surprises me that a buyer would have the balls to dick around like that with a complete stranger. That's not some threat or me acting like a tough guy, my point is you never know who's out there and it seems surprising to me someone would take a chance pissing someone they don't know off...

I have had that happen a couple times with other things in the past.  It is a huge pain.
We really need auction site for BTC.
I just do not have the resources to do so or I would.

So I had some guy last night do "buy it now" on a cube and he still hasn't paid! I've been buying for a long time on eBay and have never taken more than an hour to send payment... Suddenly I've got the feeling this guy isn't gonna pay and I need to wait 4 days (EBay allows 4 f'ing days) to file an unpaid item form or something. Hopefully he pays for what he "bought" but I can't imagine what the delay is all about, no response to emails either and I can't realist until he gets cancelled out. I'll eat my words if this guy pays tomorrow but right now this is bullshit because my schedule sucks this week and I really wanted to ship this on my lunch break tomorrow. Ugh.

The rest of it I kept getting lowball offers, and frankly I'm not that desperate right now. I think some of the people lost sight that I was offering free shipping, seems with mining gear people don't give a rats ass about free shipping. Sold local on Craigslist to a cool guy, will probably give him a break on pricing if he wants to buy more gear in a few weeks. We chatted a bit and had I known how my listing would go I probably would have given him a better deal, even though my prices were very fair. I dunno, if he contacts me again I'll probably discount heavy as I'm not aiming for profit as much as swapping out to generate less heat in the summer.

Overall the eBay thing was a hassle and the buyer tactics seemed very immature. When I'm ready I will just setup auctions and tag an extra $7 per blade, seems like that what works out there... Me, I'd rather pay right away a little bit more to skip the time costs associated with an auction, and buy it now to mitigate risk of losing, to each his own though, costs me less to keep mining with it right now or just sell it slow.

This question is great.  Some of the feedback was useful.  I have a Coin Terra miner up there.  I took the approach or watching what the bids were for ones like it and then setting my starting price under that. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=321360034649

There is also this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=137.0
If you are interested in large quantities.

Here is where most of it is.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0

I have an Avalon for sale if you are interested.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/141231808334?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
I will take $475 in Bitcoin and split the shipping with you if you are in the US.  If outside the US you have to pay shipping.

I hope it helps and Happy Mining.

is there a marketplace on the forum to buy mining equipment?

I  see the marketplace for alt-coins but nothing else

Your not kidding about demand drying up over night.
Just 2 weeks ago Avalon Gen 1 units were selling for $900.
My wife an I have to sell ours because I am having a 3rd spinal surgery in a few weeks and we need the money badly.  
What happens?  Not a single bid at a starting price of $475 no reserve.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/141225283111?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

It's frustrating.  Plus the 10% plus Paypal fees ebay is a nightmare now.

Watch once I give up trying to sell it good news about bitcoin will hit again and they will sell like crazy again.

Good luck to you man

Yea, definitely auction is the way to go on Ebay, hardy anyone goes for Buy it Now on used equipment.  I was lucky enough to sell my Blade for $197 or so, but still got raped for the reserve listing fee and 10% rate.  Next time, I'm just going to sell over here in the forum:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0

Might sell for a higher fiat price on Ebay, but at least you get it in BTC, gain trust in the community, and deal without the horrible fees.

Yeah, I definitely don't want to flood the market with 11 blade auctions all at once. What I might do is sell the cubes in individual auctions, hoping the revenues from those will cover an Antminer. Then start trickling off sales of my blades while working towards the next Antminer. The plan is to replace 4 cubes and 11 blades with 2 Atminers. My apartment will get too hot with all this gear running in the summer...

I didn't mention is was using ebay.nl, not ebay.com (last sale was last week, so not outdated data)
Different ebay sites have different regulations, I haven't payed any fee accept for the paypal fee(which could have been avoided also).

Btw, you should definitely use auction mode.
I think it is some mental thing that people see this count down and are more likely to rush in for the buy.

Just by placing stuff online you will also get publicity, almost half of the sales I made happened because people contacted me on ebay wanting to make a deal outside of ebay.
That might have just been luck though.

I also noticed, I sell stuff pretty irregular.
I sell 1 item, then one week nothing, then 8 items at once, then nothing then 1, 1, 3, 0,0,8,5, etc....
So if you sell nothing for 1 week there may still be demand left

Not sure how long ago you sold but this link definitely seems to indicate a 10% fee on the closing of auctions and listings, first 50 included:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html#how

I'm not sure what to do now, seems like demand might be dried up more than I thought, or people are morons. My only auction is a BfL Jally and it has 4 bids with 4 days until close, set the reserve at $150 because surprisingly they seem to always sell for more than that. Everything else I have listed as "buy it now"; cubes for $275, blades for $99, and 9 USB erupters for $120. The freaking USB erupters have 'watchers' subscribed and nobody is jumping at the cubes! I might have some watchers on the blades too.

Lesson I'm learning is if I want to SELL stuff it will need to go auction style. Based on where listings have been selling I do think my prices are fair and reasonable. Also, most importantly, I am offering free shipping on everything. Sucks because I was aiming for a stock out. Now that nothing has sold and it's Tuesday I need to consider pulling down my listings. I have 1 week to sell and then my schedule gets nuts again, definitely don't want to deal with a half-sold inventory... Kinda thinking I might as well just mine out another month with this stuff, payouts have been good so it's no skin off my ass...

If you do that, you will find your account banned, it's against their terms of service.

I sold some stuff on Ebay, the first 75 items a month have no fee which is pretty nice.
The problem is paypal, they ask a 3,4% fee + 35cents. Anyway, still made some profit.
Later I wanted to spend this paypal money, but the money was frozen.
according to paypal they just hold onto it for a month to be sure everything went right.

But there are other ways, you could tell your customers to only pay through bank wire(no fee in Europe) or BTC and mark the item payed manually.
That way you will be avoiding fees.

When are we getting another bitmit.net?

My .000001 BTC opinion here...
Someone else already said post in the forums and they kind of forgot to READ them too, there was a few posts of people looking in to buying equipment.  From what little digging I did on the names ( can't remember them at the moment, sorry ) they didn't have negative feedback for sales/buys so it's worth a shot especially if you look in to escrow and ' have buyer pay escrow directly '

With eBay, ya take your chances that they rake you over the coals in fees or worse, side with a non-paying seller that reverses their pay-pal payment as soon as you mark it shipped.


For those with no sense of humour, the following is meant as a joke...

I admit i'm currenlty broke and could use more equipment * nudge, nudge * and am willing to take any mining hardware for free 

I had no idea about Amazon doing warehouse storage, but offloading miners would mean unplugging while listing, at least with eBay I stay plugged in until they go out the door. I'm in a not quite big enough city, most of the Craigslist ads here don't seem to be moving, same ones posted each week for mining gear... I figure at some price there will always be a buyer, I'll just need to adjust down until we eventually meet. The fees will really hurt my margins though, was previously unaware how high they are but regardless this stuff's gotta go!

Yeah, they fees from selling on Ebay are ridiculous.  Its truly highway robbery.  Amazon is equally as bad, but at least they can host in their warehouse for you until it sells.  I seriously hate these companies, they GOUGE you.  If you live in a big city or are close to one, craigslist to the rescue!

What people don't realize is that Ebay & PayPal are the same company so they in effect charge you twice. LOL

I was a bit shocked needless to say 

Id recommend posting your gear on forums like these in the market sections first. Im sure someone would take them off your hands.

$35 in FEES???! Seriously? Yikes...

The whole thing is the old equipment is only going to be marketable to newbies, so opening a cryptocoin cart doesn't make sense for selling off old equipment with a decent margin. In this case the buyers probably don't have coins yet, so it needs to be offered in a tender they are comfortable exchanging for goods. Hoping to sell fast, and although the fees suck if they are part of the game I'll deal with it for rapid inventory turn.

Well, I sold a Dualminer on there for $119 a while back when they first came out.

Paypal decided to hold my funds for me because I didnt have enough selling history (though I have had that PayPal account for YEARS).

Then Ebay decided to help itself to $35 of it in fees.

So, paying wholesale for the miner was $85, sold for $119, and made a sweet profit of -$1.00....


Moral of the story is stay the hell away from Ebay and Paypal, they are thieves and represent everything that is wrong with our corrupt and inept monetary system. I will never again use them for anything again.


Set up a shop that accepts cryptocoins, which can be done for free using OpenCart or several others.

I've been a long-time buyer on Ebay but never have done much selling.  A few years back I sold a financial calculator and basically lost money on shipping, or nearly ended up giving it away when all was said and done. Anyways, I just got a break in my schedule and listed a bunch of mining gear, huge pain in the ass!! Anyways, now I guess I just wait and see... I did my best to price competitively as I'd like to sell everything off within 7 days. I'm tempted to post my whole blade rig on Craigslist, but I might run into trouble if I sell some on Ebay then I won't have a complete rig anymore. The ultimate shitty situation will be if I only sell 3-4 blades instead of the whole bunch, guess I'll need to feel out demand and adjust pricing along the way.

Roughly how many days do you wait before making price adjustments? I'm thinking if nothing sells in 3 days then I'm priced too high, but I'm new to eBay selling so I don't have any history/experience to reference.