Deos anyone else buy and sell things on eBay just so you can have a tinker with them?

[dang65]

What kind of items were they.

I've tried mini-clearouts, about a dozen items, but only one or two items ever sell.

End up having to re-list the items a few weeks later.

Planning on having a big clearout in the coming weeks.

I'm selling a few quite big items at the moment, preparing for a house move - large wooden climbing frame, two-person trailer bike, a huge wardrobe. I've been inundated with questions about how much they would cost to post! I struggle to get them out of the garage, let alone down to the bloody Post Office. That's why I put 'collect only' in the first place.

Also, one of the items has 33 people watching, and one bid. There's either going to be a massive frenzy in the last few minutes, or a lot of people are just mildly curious and thought they'd see how much it goes for.

I don't tend to buy much on eBay, and only use it for selling at times like this, but it's pretty useful. I did have one case a few years ago where I sold some large print photographs of various movie icons and so on which I'd got as freebies on magazine covers and never got round to throwing away. I thought there was a chance that someone might want them.

Anyway, the winner got them dirt cheap. Almost wasn't worth the effort of posting them and I was not at all impressed. A couple of weeks later, while filling in the feedback thing for the buyer, I noticed that she had some stuff for sale and had a look. She'd only gone and carefully cut out my photos and put them in nice presentation bags like you get in comic collectors' shops, and was flogging each individual picture for more than I'd sold the whole lot to her! And people were buying! Got to tip my hat to the clever sales idea. She was targeting collectors and so on. I would call the collectors suckers, but I was in no position to point fingers really.

[Incognito]

What sort of random tat do you buy?

Used underwear. I then wear it on my head for a week pretending I have a girlfriend. Sometimes I even touch myself.

HTH

SasG.

[doodab]

Also, one of the items has 33 people watching, and one bid. There's either going to be a massive frenzy in the last few minutes, or a lot of people are just mildly curious and thought they'd see how much it goes for.

That's a good sign that they are put off by the high starting price IMO.

Either that or they all have one in the garage and want to see what it goes for.

[Lockhouse]

I just moved and got rid of loads of junk on eBay leaving me with a healthy Paypal balance that I'm using to buy new junk for the new house.

[Clippy]

I've used the local paper free-ads section to sell stuff in the past - old PC's, laptops and mobile phones.

For tech stuff like this it is better than eBay as the buyer can inspect the goods before buying, there are no transaction charges and its cash in hand.

The downside is you have to deal with some form of bargaining, which isn't a problem in itself, but you always get the odd numpty who wants the item for a throw away price.

Overall, I found it more productive than eBay but this was several years ago and I've not had much joy with it recently.

[northernladuk]

I love eBay - I had a massive clearout recently and managed to make a fair few quid

One mans rubbish and all that.

You ebayed all his stuff and kept the money?? You are one tough woman CM!!

[northernladuk]

Me neither, but I reckon I could make tens of thousands selling my 3000+ (physical) books, which I rarely look at, and other assorted knick knacks I've bought in junk shops over the years.

Problem is when you realise you are going to have to do all this work for between 99p and £1.99 plus whatever you can get for over charging P&P per book. My heart sinks in to my boots when this dawns on me and it goes back in the loft.

[cailin maith]

You ebayed all his stuff and kept the money?? You are one tough woman CM!!

[MarillionFan]

Problem is when you realise you are going to have to do all this work for between 99p and £1.99 plus whatever you can get for over charging P&P per book. My heart sinks in to my boots when this dawns on me and it goes back in the loft.

The problem with Ebay is the time it takes to do an advert. It can take upto 10 minutes per one online and 5 minutes in Turbolister. I was doing about £1000 per month in sales but it was taking tulip loads of time.

I did join the Ebay developers program and was planning to develop an integration tool which would do web, amazon, Ebay and the shop
but never got around to it.

The plan I'm working on in the pub is going to be brilliant!!!

[shaunbhoy]

Garden machinery mainly. Idea is to buy something off eBay, publish a review on my site complete with a video of yours truly demoing the product and then sell it back on eBay.

Hell Yeah!! Fire up that Paypal Account and prepare for the offers to flood in!!