Internet Auctions
So you want to sell an unwanted item on an
auction site such as Ebay. If you don’t want to do the selling yourself
you can of course use an intermediary to do it for you. However, you may feel
that you would do a better job doing it yourself. Perhaps you can write a
better listing because you know the subject area of your item, also when
selling the items yourself, if they do not sell you can decide how often you want
to try relisting the item in the hope that it might sell.
How To Do It
1. Do your Homework
Search past auctions to find out if items
similar to the one you wish to sell have sold in the past, and if so how much for.
You may find that the item though often listed does not generally sell, or does
not sell for much money, in which case you may want to consider another outlet
for disposing of the item. If the item is one that sells, a search of similar
past auctions will give you an idea as to how much money it is likely to sell
for. Use this to give you an idea as to what your minimum price should be.
Alternatively if similar items sell for a lot of money you may prefer to
consider selling the item via a conventional auction house.
2. Work Out Postage And Packing
Internet auction customers do not like
excessive p&p charges. Before you list your item for auction find a
suitable means of packaging (box, jiffy bag or whatever), pack it, but do not
seal it, to weigh it. Go onto the Royal Mail’s website to look up the
postage costs (if you are selling several items, you may want to print out the
relevant pages from the Royal Mail website). You only need to do a selection of
National postal charges (perhaps First Class, Second Class, and First Class
Recorded or some such). Internet auction buyers from other countries can always
ask at a later date for costs to their country.
3. An Image Of Your Item
Although one can auction items without
photographs, in many cases buyers do prefer to see a photograph. For some items
(such as common CDs, books or DVDs). Ebay has a set of stock photographs. If
auctioning on Ebay you may consider using these, however in most instances,
especially for more unusual items it is generally better to use your own
photographs (as these will also act as proof to your potential buyers that you
have the item), also with some CDs and videos different editions may have
slightly different packaging to the stock photographs). Also if you are selling
several items together as a little collection that certainly won’t appear
in stock photographs.. The quickest way of photographing your item is using a
digital camera and then uploading the image onto your computer. The quality
does not necessarily have to be fantastic, just enough to give people an idea
of your item(s), therefore a photograph taken using a mobile telephone camera
may suffice, provided you have the correct software and connecting cables with
your camera phone to transfer images from your phone to your computer. If you
do not have a digital camera, then you can use that for your photographs. When
you get the film developed you may want to get it developed onto a CD Rom, or
if you have a scanner you can get it developed as good old-fashioned prints and
scan it into your computer yourself. But of course it can take time to get
films developed.
4. Decide on Payment And Country Options
If you joined a worldwide internet auction
site, such as Ebay some years ago, it is worth checking whether your user membership
of that site is held in your own country (for example in the early days many
users found it easier to join Ebay.com rather than Ebay.co.uk which did not
carry the range of items it does today). Before selling on auction it is
helpful to check that your membership is in your home country. If it is not
then contact the auction site and ask them to transfer it. (This makes it much
easier to list the item in your own country’s currency, and also means
you do not have to list the item to be sold worldwide if you prefer to make it
available only to bidders in your own country).
Before listing your item, you need to decide
how you want to be paid for your item. These days, doing internet auctions,
Paypal seems to be becoming the standard method for carrying out a transaction.
If making a payment via paypal the purchaser does not need to have apaypal account themselves, they can
make a purchase as a one-off transaction, however the seller will need a Paypal
account to accept payments via this method. Indeed if using Ebay as a Seller is
it now necessary to have a paypal account, this may not necessarily apply for
all internet auction sites. However, even with paypal, you can still offer your
potential customers the option of paying via another means. for example by cheques and postal orders. For heavy
items you may want to offer to possibility of Cash On Delivery (but state that
option is only to people in your local area). An increasing number of potential
buyers apparently seem to prefer paypal as method of purchase.
5. Plan Your Item Listing Content
When constructing your listing, try and
consider the listing from your potential buyer’s point of view. If you
were going to bid on this item, what information would you want to know about
it first. For some items, such as CDs, and Records, it can be helpful, and
encourage buyers, if you list all the tracks (particularly true of compilation
albums). Ebay has a set of stock track listings for many common albums, and you
may consider using these. However, the stock listings can look formulaic, and
only include the minimum of detail (and there are some albums where different
versions had slight variations in the number of tracks), so while using a stock
listing may save time, you may make your item more attractive to buyers by
constructing your own version. Similarly if selling ephemera such as theatre
programmes, or a video of a film, you may be more likely to find a buyer by
including a complete cast list (to attract fans of rather minor actors), after
all an actor who occupied a minor role in one stage show or film could have
gone on to bigger things, and become sufficiently well known to attract a
following (although not necessarily hugely famous). Sometimes if you do not
want to hassle of typing out an entire cast list, or CD track list, you may be
able to find the information you need somewhere on the internet (such as in
wikipedia, or on a fansite). In which case a little highlighting and copying of
information may be useful. However, if you do this, past it in unformatted form
(so it does not carry irrelevant formatting from the site you got it from), and
only copy information you would have
typed from the item itself. Reviews of the item, and irrelevant trivia about a
show or film should not be copied directly in this manner, as it looks very
obvious that the content has been lifted (which the original authors probably
won’t be too happy about), and reviews in particular could be subject to
copyright. If you have a lot of detail that needs including with your item (for
example a long track listing, or several in the case of a small collection of
items), then you may consider typing your listing information as a word
processing document on your computer first, and then copying and pasting it
into your auction listing. This can be helpful both in reminding you what
you’ve put up for auction (in the case of a collection), and particularly
if the item does not sell on the first go and you need to relist it. Although
if you relist within so many days you will not need to re-enter the
information, if you let it go too long before relisting you may need to start
from scratch.
6. Listing your item.
With your photograph on your computer, and the
actual item itself (now unpacked) beside you, and the postal costs to hand. You
can now log into your chosen auction site and list your item. The site should
give you step by step instructions on how to do this. Although you may find
many of the highlighting options unnecessary, a photograph does help, and on
Ebay it is often worth paying the
little bit extra for ‘Gallery Listing’ (just the basic one), as
many potential buyers can’t be bothered to investigate further if a
listing isn’t included in Gallery. Listing the item in more than one
category can sometimes be useful. If you item is a collectable for example
about a favourite television programme, you may want to mention it in a post on
an appropriate internet message board for that programme.
7. After The Auction
If you are successful in selling your item you
will need to contact your buyer with details of how to pay and the final price
(including p&p). In general auction sites such as Ebay say that this should
be within three days of the end of the auction. Give the buyer a reasonable
time to pay. If they do not, try first politely emailing them to remind them
that you have not received payment. It is a good idea to be polite at this
stage, there could be many quite reasonable explanations: The buyer may have
simply forgotten (due to family or work pressures, or some other problem such
as a computer or internet connection going down at a crucial time), in which
case a polite reminder should suffice, or they may have put a cheque in the
post but it has not yet arrived, in which case when did they post it? (should
you give it time, or should the buyer chase it up with their bank? Use some
common sense). Only once the polite approach has failed to elicit the payment
do you need to enter an unpaid item strike on Ebay. Some sellers are far to
quick to go in guns blazing, and antagonise their purchasers. Besides which if
you log something as a payment dispute, you then have the bother of closing the
dispute once you have received payment. Therefore only do it when you need to,
and try to treat your buyer and you yourself would wish to be treated. Only
dispatch the item once you have received payment (it is the norm). If your
buyer is paying by cheque you may want to wait for the cheque to clear,
however, if they have a good feedback rating then you might decide to trust
them and send the item before the cheque has cleared, particularly for a low
value item, use your common sense over this matter. Once you are satisfied the
whole procedure has been completed, do try and leave some feedback (it is the
custom, and helps other sellers to see whether the buyer is someone they would
trust).
Directory
Auctioning4U: collections@auctioning4u.co.uk
: 
Ebid: http://uk.ebid.net/
Flogit4u: 020 7424 0761
Paypal: http://www.paypal.co.uk/uk
The Royal Mail: www.royalmail.com/royalmailprices
Stuff U Sell: Tel 0800 075 0015
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