Blimey, it is expensive flogging stuff on eBay

Imagine my delight when someone bought the R1150 decat pipe and silencer
for the BIN price last night (£325).

Imagine my lack of delight when I discovered that in total, eBay and
Paypal helped themselves to over £50 of that.

If I'd accepted the lower offer of a chap that wanted to pay cash and
pick up during the week, I'd be about £20 better off. Ah well, at least
there's a bit of room in the garage

 

So when someone mails you and asks the Reserve then offers to come round
with the readies, go for it?

 

That would certainly have saved me a few quid on this occasion

 

BINs are a mistake - they charge extra for that. Always best to start
at 99p (no listing fee). FVF fees - see the scale on the eBay pages.
My calculation is that without a BIN, your FVF would have been £18.10.
PayPal fees on top, of course, but you could still have got away with
a shedload less than £50.

It's also not a bad idea, if you're around the moment it sells, to
send out an invoice and in the accompanying message offer a small
discount if the buyer doesn't pay by PayPal. You aren't allowed to
offer discounts for non-PayPal payments on the auction page (I think).

Have a look at uk.people.consumers.ebay for the full lowdown: there
are some helpful people there.

 

I guess the question is whether the better market that results from
paying the tithe to ebay/paypal is worth it?

If all we had were freead papers and bike jumbles, you probably would
have struggled to sell it for that much...