Double check your auctions

[Rob in KS]

A while back, we had an auction that showed free shipping. That's fine, but we didn't do it. We hardly ever do free shipping. The auction was created in Turbo Lister. Of course when we sent the invoice the customer complained. Lost money on that one.

Today, we uploaded a batch of auctions. I noticed that a $5.00 item that had free shipping (which I did) also had international shipping. I have an exclusion list on Ebay and I checked the box in Turbo Lister that says to use my exclusion list. The wife is checking all the auctions and about half have international shipping. Sorry Ebay, I'm not going to sell a $5 item and ship it around the world for free.

I think Ebay is changing things to suit their profit margin. Every time I try to put things on Ebay, it gets to be a PITA. I packed the rest of my stuff back in the box and back into the closet. This isn't good for my blood pressure.

 

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[Rob in KS]

When we uploaded those auctions on Sunday. They got 4 to 6 views immediately. Very unusual, we usually get one right away, but not 6

 

[cyberdan]

I do not and will not ever directly list on feeBay. I use Auctiva.com It costs $10 a month but worth it. Every photo I have ever used is still on their site, just in case there are questions. I can schedule auctions to start when I want and not have to pay extra. It has it's quirks, but still a lot better than whats its name.

 

[Rob in KS]

I do not and will not ever directly list on feeBay. I use Auctiva.com It costs $10 a month but worth it. Every photo I have ever used is still on their site, just in case there are questions. I can schedule auctions to start when I want and not have to pay extra. It has it's quirks, but still a lot better than whats its name.

I may have to check that out. TurboLister blows. It has to be the most poorly written piece of software I've ever seen. It's bloated and slow and quirky.

 

[cyberdan]

I may have to check that out. TurboLister blows. It has to be the most poorly written piece of software I've ever seen. It's bloated and slow and quirky.

No the worst piece of software ever written is what I used everyday for 10 years to price jobs for the printing company I work for. My common joke is I really have to know how to lie to it to get the right price. Or so i thought it was the worst till the company bought a new software program. It is even worse. I almost quit my job when I saw how convoluted the estimating process is. I can tell it was written by a programmer that knows nothing about printing. and it is slow, it does not do the calculations on my computer or even the server up stairs. It send the numbers off into the clouds somewhere, the number crunching is then done and the answer is sent back. sometimes a simple operation takes 5-8 seconds.

OK end of rant. Oh and I have to lie to this one too!

 

[clovis97]

This has been a real problem on ebay.

We've had the same thing happen again and again. I've taken it on the chin a few times, giving free shipping because of the glitch...and it hurt. I can't say that I am real happy about selling a $20 item that would have sold for $50 back in 2009, and then giving up $12.85 in free shipping because of ebay's glitch.

A good friend of mine listed a 50's manual typewriter, and the same glitch happened with the free shipping. He paid $7 for the TW, and listed it for a fast flip at $55, even though the market would have been about $85. In his case, the glitch gave free international shipping. That TW was HEAVY. Of course, some dude out of Malaysia bought it within hours of the listing going up, and then demanded it be shipped right away.

As you would guess, when we first experienced the glitches, we were simply perplexed. I often use free shipping as a tool to sell, but I'm no dummy. No way am I giving shipping on some of these items. I can't begin to tell you how confused we were when this kept happening.

My advice: BE VIGILANT in checking every ebay listing to make sure it calculates correctly.

 

[kcm]

My thanks to everyone for the very important heads-up!!

 

[Rob in KS]

It happened again today. A $6.99 item now is going to cost $2.45 to ship. When you add in the fees, I should have just thrown it away.

 

[RustyGold]

I have a shop full of tools, tone woods, amps and guitar building implements that I'm going to list and appreciate the heads up on this thread!
eBay is so stressful so I may try the other company mentioned.
Best of luck.

 

[Nitric]

It happened again today. A $6.99 item now is going to cost $2.45 to ship. When you add in the fees, I should have just thrown it away.

I'm learning the the same lesson! After fees and shipping some stuff is just better off in the trash can! I was just going through papers I found a few ebay sales I had in 2004. The fees have gone way up since then!! One Item sold for $1075, my fees then were a total of $41.45..and shipping was $16.05 Insured signature confirmation..A little different today!! And the item would probably sell for $300 today!

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

Thank you all for the heads up. I have long watched Ebay re-check that "global shipping" box, and the "best offer" box, and have tried to stay on top of it. I don't need or care for the additional headaches of overseas shipping. i just rechecked all mine, thanks.

as a side note, Etsy has just started binding all sellers to EU to the EU laws of displaying personal info online. They had a major data breach this week, they are all but trying to deny and coverup. So the Etsy site too, is a pita, ever changing, by bubblegum smacking coders, who thinks it's a "short cut" to auto import personal billing info, to populate newly added fields, in mobile code upgrades. It's all a caveat emptor, everywhere, no matter what!

 

[Jazdo]

I read recently that if you cannot sell an item for at least $25 it may not be worth listing on eBay. With shipping and PayPal fee prices the way they are I can see why. And then eBay also dropped the 100 free listings a month down to 50 which for me was not good but at least you can list for 30 days and get the occasional 1,000 free listings offer even though that does not always work out well either.

I try and watch my listings for mistakes because when there are hundreds of items I have listed it can get confusing with free shipping to the states and charging shipping internationally. I sell Art for the most part and smaller items so that helps with shipping costs but it still gets costly for the amount of time you put into listing.

 

[metaldetkid]

Try app. Letgo its free and works good. But have to sell local