ebay? for selling and buying 2nd hand clothes

spinandscribble

Hi, not sure if this would go here but basically I wanted to start a thread about selling clothes on ebay. I've a large amount of clothes in excellent condition that don't fit me as I've lost a significant amount of weight and basically I want to see if any one else on this forum has sold on ebay before and any tips they might have.

Also if other members buy from ebay what info would you like to see from a individual seller? I have only bought from large ebay shops before mainly due to my fear of getting screwed over but recently one of my fiends has started selling old clothes and its made me realise I'm silly to worry as most people are the same as her.

Has anyone had any good or bad experiencing? Sorry mods if this threads all over the place or unsuitable its been ages since I made a thread.

mcw92

spinandscribble wrote: »

Hi, not sure if this would go here but basically I wanted to start a thread about selling clothes on ebay. I've a large amount of clothes in excellent condition that don't fit me as I've lost a significant amount of weight and basically I want to see if any one else on this forum has sold on ebay before and any tips they might have.

Also if other members buy from ebay what info would you like to see from a individual seller? I have only bought from large ebay shops before mainly due to my fear of getting screwed over but recently one of my fiends has started selling old clothes and its made me realise I'm silly to worry as most people are the same as her.

Has anyone had any good or bad experiencing? Sorry mods if this threads all over the place or unsuitable its been ages since I made a thread.

Ive sold things on ebay before. As long as your true to your word on postage times and that, it goes well. You will need a paypal btw otherwise you prob wont sell much.
A little tip, instead of paying extra to Ebay for extra pictures in the ad listing itself, upload the pictures to a image hosting website(tinypic, imageshack) and embed them into the text as html. That way you can have a good few pictures of your items and not have to pay extra.

spinandscribble

mcw92 wrote: »

Ive sold things on ebay before. As long as your true to your word on postage times and that, it goes well. You will need a paypal btw otherwise you prob wont sell much.
A little tip, instead of paying extra to Ebay for extra pictures in the ad listing itself, upload the pictures to a image hosting website(tinypic, imageshack) and imbed them into the text as html. That way you can have a good few pictures of your items and not have to pay extra.

I do have a paypal account but not a seller one if that makes sense. That's a great tip regarding the images, thank you!

I guess because I'm a newbie I should try and sell cheaper items first so that people will take a chance on me.

Siuin

I've had some terrible experiences in the past with some obnoxious sellers - one was adament that the skirt I sold her had a broken zip despite being brand new, then when I told her I'd issue a full refund if she returned the item to me she said that she'd already thrown it in the bin. I refused to refund her money, a long paypal case followed and after over a month of hassle and emails back and forth she dropped it, but left me stinky feedback.

Corkbah

one of the most important things when selling using E-bay is use tracked postage (its very expensive in Ireland) ... but ... it means the other person cant claim they never received it ... which means by E-bays rules they can claim their money back (and would have the product unless you have a record of its arrival)

Also ..... most people make their money on increasing the postage fee's .... the argument is that its not simply just the cost of the stamp, its also the petrol and time spent going to the post office , the packaging materials, the envelope, sellotape, etc etc .....something to consider !!

Ps. Ebay is great to purchase ...not to sell - there is a fee for creating an advert and a % of the final price fee ...so you are getting hit twice by Ebay - keep that in mind.....there are alternative sites (which are not as well known) .... and there's always the Irish sites ...Donedeal, Adverts, Buyandsell etc etc

Siuin

Corkbah wrote: »

one of the most important things when selling using E-bay is use tracked postage (its very expensive in Ireland)

+1!!
In many cases I had to spend so much on tracked postage that I barely made a profit on what I sold

spinandscribble

Hmm, definitely food for thought. I'm in the UK so I'll see how dear registered post is and then decide. I'm very close to my local post office (walking distance) so I don't need to worry about petrol thankfully.

Thats mad Siuin that she brought a case forward but had "thrown out" the skirt. I'm surprised paypal would humor a claim like that.

Siuin

Yeah, it's a real balls but you'll find that paypal and ebay overwhelmingly favour the customer since it's in their interests to keep them coming back... :S

Dublin21

I've done this a few times, so has my OH and his father and i don't think any of us will do it again!

Read the charges carefully.. My OH father got hammered with charges through paypal.

panda100

I really wouldn't recommend selling on ebay. It's a lot of time and effort for very little financial gain.

Between insertion fee's,selling fee's,posting and packaging,it costs an enormous amount. I also find that sellers are not willing to pay that much for expensive,high quality items. I recently put up a much sought after French connection dress from this season. It cose €150 and was only worn once,dry cleaned and everything. The highest offer I could get was €15.
You are competing against commercial sellers, whom can afford to sell things in bulk,and therefore much cheaper.

If you have a lot of good quality clothes to sell, then I would recommend selling them at local markets. I recently was given a stall at the Dublin Flea market, and made over €300 on the clothes I sold. What is great about selling face to face as well, is you can negotiate price, and don't have to sell if you don't want to.

JustAThought

panda100 wrote: »

I really wouldn't recommend selling on ebay. It's a lot of time and effort for very little financial gain.

Between insertion fee's,selling fee's,posting and packaging,it costs an enormous amount. I also find that sellers are not willing to pay that much for expensive,high quality items. I recently put up a much sought after French connection dress from this season. It cose €150 and was only worn once,dry cleaned and everything. The highest offer I could get was €15.
You are competing against commercial sellers, whom can afford to sell things in bulk,and therefore much cheaper.

If you have a lot of good quality clothes to sell, then I would recommend selling them at local markets. I recently was given a stall at the Dublin Flea market, and made over €300 on the clothes I sold. What is great about selling face to face as well, is you can negotiate price, and don't have to sell if you don't want to.

Hmm ; from what I hear thus seems to be the way to go. I had 3 beautiful suites & put a photo in the local supermarket & sold all . EBay is set so low & there are so many billions of others to compete with including warehouses full of new stuff cheep from Manu. That as a single one-off it's hard to get real value for your stuff/clothes.

Can you get a one day stall from a flea Market? I have a lode of house stuff : framed prints, gadgets, books & fancy stuff & books I'd love to have a day in a Market to sell ... Does it work that way?

BTW: eBay & Psypal. The paypal account is a must for security, but if there is a dispute they will freeze your paypal account while it is being resolved and as many Paypal accounts are linked into visa or current accounts this can be catastrophic!!!! Be careful ; link to an account you rarely use or one that you don't have your salary going into & your direct debits coming out of!!!!

Markets in Dublin advice???!!!

ComfyKnickers

I sold quite a number of items on Ebay, clothes, make-up, jewellery etc. and had absolutely no problems with anyone. I had been a buyer for quite a while before that and was doing a clear out one day and decided I'd give it a go. The clothes were in perfect condition, just stuff I hadn't worn etc. and I got quite good money for everything and really enjoyed it! A lot of sellers reflect the price of the packaging of their products in their postage price, I never did, I just charged people what it cost me to post it. I bought a set of those grey plastic self seal envelopes which were perfect for clothes etc., a set of stickers for the front (ones to slide the addressee's details into), bubble wrap etc., all on Ebay before I started and they were relatively cheap so I didn't want to screw people by adding loads then onto the postage - as a buyer I am often put off by stupid prices for postage so I didn't want my buyers feeling the same.

As for you having a Paypal account but not a sellers one as you said, there isn't any such thing as a seller's one, you just have a paypal account and the money is lodged into that by paypal when you get paid for an item. You then log into paypal and ask them to transfer the funds into your bank account.

Best of luck with it.

head_honcho

Liking this thread as I too have had loads of clothes over the years which I've donated but now, as money is really tight, I would like to try to make some money out of them! I've heard ebay is not worth the effort in the past but also that car boot sales don't make much of a return either :rolleyes:

ams

Here is a really good guide to selling on ebay:

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/fash-mob/2012/08/13/selling-your-unwanted-duds-on-ebay-ie-the-definitive-guide/

I find with branded clothes its very good, even just high street brands as people will search under brand names. I've a pile of stuff to list - I find it so much hassle to photograph them!