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-Always do 'Buy It Now' only with immediate payment required. I'm on a few subreddits about eBay, and it seems non-payment on auctions is pretty rampant. I also do 'Best Offer' too, though surprisingly few people use it. If you set up or revise the item on a browser, you can set up auto-accept and auto-decline amounts on offers so you don't have to do anything. For example, list a game at BIN $19.99 with Best Offer, auto decline anything $14.99 and under and auto accept anything $15.00 and over. Makes life a lot easier, it just stinks that you can only set the auto-decline on the phone app.
-Always do free shipping and let eBay calculate actual shipping (you'll need to weigh and measure your parcels when you are making the listing). It gives you a range so you'll know the maximum that will come out of the sale, so you just factor that into your price. Another reason to do free shipping is, if you don't, the buyer can give you a star rating on "shipping cost" which is nonsense because you can make it so they can't see what you paid for the label. If you do free shipping, they can't rate you on this.
-For pics, I use all 12 slots every time. It's more work but I take many pics of the case, manual, disc, and even pics of my TV with the game playing to prove I'm testing it. For the discs, I really try to take about four pics in good light from different angles. I try to make the scratches catch the light and look as
bad as possible because then it will look better in real life.
-I'd recommend grabbing some small flat-rate priority boxes and priority flat rate padded mailers. You can even order them from USPS and have them delivered for free. The small FR are perfect for CD-case-sized games of high value, and the padded envelopes for everything else. Priority mail includes $50 of insurance. Anything over $100 I always insure the full value just to cover my own butt (between $50-$100 I let it ride). I have only had to do one insurance claim, and it was the only problem I've had the entire time, knock on wood. It was a $100 game and I claimed my $50 and sold the case of the game for $30 once it was returned, so not too bad of a loss.
-This is weird but I'm not the only one who has observed it; sometimes the lower the value of the item, the more of a pain in the butt the customer will be. I have sold holy grail-type games for upwards of $400 with no problems. In fact, I never heard from the buyers. Sold
DOOM VFR for $14, and the buyer opened an item not received case TWO DAYS after he bought it (all you have to do there is add the tracking to the case and if the buyer takes no further action you are in the clear). It's weird, but it does seem the highest value buyers are pretty chill.
-No matter what your settings are,
you DO accept returns. These are eBay's rules, and you will pay return shipping. It only happened that one time above to me, but just be aware of it. The flipside of this is that once tracking shows delivered, you are pretty much in the clear as far as delivery if the customer tries to claim item not received.
-Lots vs Individual Items - My rule of thumb is if I have four or more games that are worth around ten bucks or less each, I start putting them in lots. Good way to get a lot of games off the shelf at once, but not a good way to make money because their final value is lower and the shipping cost is higher than one big-ticket item.
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-Easy Pricing is nice if you are okay with eBay automatically lowering the price of the item as it sits there, not selling. It will tell you the minimum the price will go to. I use it on a case-by-case basis.
-eBay Global Shipping Program - I recommend using this, though there are pros and cons. Once your item hits the depot in Kentucky, you are basically in the clear. I have never had a problem with this. Cons are that it takes forever and is sometimes not great for the buyer because eBay has to open and repackage your item. Never gotten bad feedback or anything, but I've seen YouTube vids about how careless they can be.
-Block buyers if they are even slightly annoying or suspicious. If you message me to tell me my prices are too high, I mark the question as answered and block you. If you message me to ship overseas outside of the eBay Global Shipping Program, I mark the question as answered and block you. My rationale is if they are a pain in the neck before they even make the purchase, they probably will be even worse after they buy it.
-Managed Payments - Not sure when the last time you sold was, but you can't just have the money go right into PayPal anymore. You have to provide an account number and routing number. If you don't want to use your checking account, there are alternatives. As long as you can provide an account and routing number, which most money phone apps have, you should be able to use it. Fees come out at time of sale, and you can pay for your shipping labels with the funds, then you'll get deposits a few times per week.
-Set buyer requirements in your settings to your liking. You can prevent buyers under many criteria from purchasing your items. For example, those who have zero or negative feedback or unpaid item cases on their account.