I'm considering jumping into the Ebay sellers pool. As a seller, must I use the much dreaded PayPal, or can I list a product requesting Cashiers Check/Postal Money Order?

If I can list it for payment of CC/PMO, how do you do that?

Any other Ebay pitfalls I could fall into?

Any Ebay tips/tricks you may have?

H&K-Guy

Don't do it!
Ebay is evil.
Sold and bought for many years and paid the sellers premium.
As seller you will have very little protection from scammers.
Ebay backs the buyer and supports the seller very little.
If you can accept that some sales will be given away for free then go for it. Most buyers are honest but the small percentage of scammers make it not worth the hassle imo.

I don't believe you have to use PayPal.

If you don't, how do you expect to get paid? Few buyers I think will be interested in giving you CC info; going through the hassle of money orders, certified checks, etc., or wait the time for personal checks to clear.

I know I would not.

Member Mustang-PaPa is correct: eBay (and PayPal, both) are strongly oriented toward making the buyer happy. It is for this reason I've been disinclined to sell on eBay, myself. Conversely: It makes buyers more inclined to buy.

I've done eBay full time, until I ended up working for eBay. You are going to do a lot of work and eBay will make most of the money with all of the fees they will charge you.

Paypal is manatory. I hope it works for you, it worked for us until they changed the fee structure.

Last time I sold on Ebay it had to be through PayPal, that was a few years ago and my last time I used Ebay to sell anything. And I sold quite a few things on Ebay in years past. But that was it for me.

eBay web site:

"After you’ve sold an item and the buyer has paid, you’ll automatically receive your proceeds, but the exact process and timing will depend on the payment method the buyer used. If the buyer pays with either PayPal or a credit or debit card, we’ll send you an email to let you know when the payment is in your account.

PayPal: When a buyer pays with PayPal, they’ll send money directly to your PayPal account. This is usually immediate.

Credit or debit card: If a buyer uses a credit or debit card and you don’t have a merchant gateway, then their payment is processed through the PayPal payment gateway before being added to your PayPal account.

Payment on pickup: If your buyer is paying when they collect the item from you, you can accept bank or personal checks, money orders, cash, PayPal, or cards. How quickly the money is available to you will depend on the payment method. We don’t recommend accepting personal checks or money orders for payment on pickup because if there’s a problem, it could be harder to resolve than with other methods."

I just bought some things on EBay and used Apple Pay.

Stay away from eBay unless you are a buyer, it's way too easy to get screwed selling on there now and yes PayPal is all you can use.

My last sale was a $20 pitch black item I posted 12 pictures of on eBay and marked no returns. The buyer got it and decided to tell eBay that the description was wrong and the item isn't gray like he thought it was.

EBay immediately pulls back my payment, tells me to allow the buyer to return it shipped at my expense which, between their fees and the shipping I ate to sell it, would have put me negative on the sale! I disputed his claim, never heard from eBay, never got the product back and then 3 months later magically I had my money back in my PayPal account.

I took it as a very cheap lesson, since I had sold much more pricey items on there over the years but things have changed. It started with not allowing sellers to leave negative feedback on deadbeat bidders. Never again.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LBAR15,

Their fees are unacceptable, IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
Don't do it!
Ebay is evil.
Sold and bought for many years and paid the sellers premium.
As seller you will have very little protection from scammers.
Ebay backs the buyer and supports the seller very little.
If you can accept that some sales will be given away for free then go for it. Most buyers are honest but the small percentage of scammers make it not worth the hassle imo.

Exactly right. Ebay has changed so much since its inception, its no longer a viable option for a seller looking to make a buck.

So what would be some alternative sites for the OP to sell on? I think its a shame people have ruined the Ebay site as I used to enjoy buying there. What kind of products are you wanting to sell on line H&K-Guy?

quote:

Originally posted by David Lee:
So what would be some alternative sites for the OP to sell on? I think its a shame people have ruined the Ebay site as I used to enjoy buying there. What kind of products are you wanting to sell on line H&K-Guy?

Thank you very much for your responses. You are exactly right, David, I need an alternative.

I'm selling a refurbished computer server in the $1,800 to $2,200 dollar range. Where else could I go?

H&K-Guy

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
I don't believe you have to use PayPal.

If you don't, how do you expect to get paid? Few buyers I think will be interested in giving you CC info; going through the hassle of money orders, certified checks, etc., or wait the time for personal checks to clear.

I know I would not.

Member Mustang-PaPa is correct: eBay (and PayPal, both) are strongly oriented toward making the buyer happy. It is for this reason I've been disinclined to sell on eBay, myself. Conversely: It makes buyers more inclined to buy.

There are other online payment methods that are better than paypal. Zelle is one of them. Apple pay. Venmo is another.

Problem is in regards to selling on EBAY that most buyers feel more comfortable buying from you if you accept Paypal because EBAY can better protect the buyer with paypal.

I heard EBAY was supposed to come out with their own payment processing service but don't know what became of that.

A friend of mine has a business where he makes his entire living selling on EBAY, generally electronics (phones/tablets/etc.) and it still is a viable way to sell, just need to know the ins and outs.....no international buyers, etc.

Sell it on SF. I've seen folks sell all kinds of things on here, from cars to diamond rings. Even a blender.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
Sell it on SF. I've seen folks sell all kinds of things on here, from cars to diamond rings. Even a blender.

Yup. If I had something to sell I wasn't selling locally-only, SF would be my first stop

For locally-only, we have used Facebook Marketplace.

Facebook Marketplace gets some great exposure of things for sale. Easy to use the site also.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
There are other online payment methods that are better than paypal. Zelle is one of them. Apple pay. Venmo is another.

FYI:

"Venmo is a service of PayPal, Inc., a licensed provider of money transfer services (NMLS ID: 910457). All money transmission is provided by PayPal, Inc. pursuant to PayPal, Inc.’s licenses. © 2020 PayPal, Inc."