Comment by jeffclark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeffclark | Hacker News Reader

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Don't be.

If you follow the rules to a T (ship only to confirmed U.S. addresses, ship with tracking, require a signature) you're covered in the eyes of PayPal.

I've probably sold 5 laptops and (easily) 10 phones for myself and friends on eBay.

Cover your bases, require PayPal and a confirmed address. Don't budge on these points and you'll be fine.

PROTIPS:

* Absolutely start with a $1 lowest bid, no reserve. The market will bring your laptop up to acceptable prices.

* Include as many words and pictures as you can in your description. I routinely just copy the specs from one of the tear-down sites for my exact model and paste them in. Buyers find comfort in knowing exactly what they're buying.

* Take as many hi-res pictures as you can. Don't worry about the scratch. Buyers find comfort in knowing exactly what they're buying.

* This is hugely overlooked: Make your auction end on a Friday or Saturday night around 11pm EST. This is when the nerds with money are sitting on their couch putzing around eBay looking for a new lappy.

Do NOT make your auction ends on Friday and Saturday night. I always list my auctions for 10 days (longest possible for private seller), starting on Thursday or Friday night, so they will end on Sunday or Monday, when people don't go out. With that I'm maximizing the number of people who look at my auction (potential bidders) and the number of people who is available at the time my auctions end (actual bidder).

For someone who has only sold two or three things, it is always awesome to hear this type of advice from experienced sellers.

Can you explain why you recommend passing on the reserve? Even if the product will sell for a price that the market considers acceptable 100% of the time, what is the harm in setting a reserve regardless?

Only because it turns some experienced buyers off. And your dream buyer is an experienced buyer.

A reserve means the seller can bail at any point up until that reserve is met.

Imagine that you're selling a laptop that's going for around $800 in other auctions. But you're not entirely sure you even want to sell your laptop. You put a $2,000 reserve on it just to leave the option to bail available at the end. An experienced buyer realizes this and will likely just pass on your item out of principle.

If it would make you feel better to place a reserve on your item, at least state right up front what your reserve price is and why you've placed it in the first place.

In my experience, however, I've never once been low-balled on an auction. There's a median price for your item in it's condition across the entire marketplace. If you're OK with that median price, don't post a reserve.

Spell your brand and product name correctly and you're virtually guaranteed to get close to that price in the end.

I've benefited before from eBay flukes so I always set a reasonable reserve price. I wouldn't suggest setting it too high but I think people understand there is a minimum price you're willing to sell at. I also usually set a buy it now price, requiring immediate payment, at about a 5-10% discount of other recently completed auctions for the same item. If someone is willing to save me the hassle of answering tons of questions, or re-listing the item when inevitably the first few buyers don't pay, I'm happy to give them a discount. In my experience with eBay in the last few years don't be surprised at all if you have to list the item several times before you find a paying buyer.

Great advice! This is the same strategy that I have developed with my own auctions and have been able fetch top dollar every time. I would also add: *Never sell anything as a bundle, always separate it out into different auctions.

Are they really protips? When I started out on eBay I just looked at what the most succesful auctions did and the above points were all included. Granted someone with not a lot of time might find these useful. A nice line I like to drop at the end of the text is:"all fun-bidders will hear from my lawyer" (this is translated from German so it might not work as well in English)

This shows that you're serious and has raised the price people are willing to go for to about 90% of what I originally paid, which is pretty impressive when you consider that it's used.

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