Ebay, a good place to sell?

[Alex A]

In light of all the bad publicity that Ebay seems to have acquired as a buyers mine field, bargain hunters galore, I wonder how many of you would actually try and sell higher priced swords there. The higher priced swords ive seen on there, £5000 and up, seem to be on there for an eternity, Ebay as its limits, does it not?.

 

Alex.

[Brian]

Cheap rubbish sells for high prices. Mediocre stuff battles to sell...and high priced stuff doesnt sell (obviously. Since if you are after better stuff, you don't buy it on eBay)

 

Brian

[Alex A]

So, in reality, for anyone wishing to sell a reasonably high priced sword, Ebay is totally out of the running...

 

Alex.

[Stephen]

If its a great sword at a good price good chance a Japanese buyer will jump on it. Or maybe them are the old days.

[kusunokimasahige]

I would say that it depends on what you are selling really.

 

I sell at times on ebay. Movie props, Star Wars collectibles and the occasional antique.

 

If you know what listings to place your item in and at times are willing to put a reserve or buy it now

on an item you can sell without a problem. However, I never have sold anything for more than 250-300 US$ on ebay.

 

Its the postage costs which mess up my international auctions these days since I have to already take into account that shipping an item to the USA from the Netherlands will cost about 36 US$.

 

That is why, even though there is a hassle due to NSA debate now, I hope that the European-US and European-Japan free trade treaty will succeed.

 

KM

[reeder]

I've never had anything really high dollar to sell on eBay, but if I sell on eBay now I will just put up for buy it now and let it sit. Got tired of giving away my bayonets and kabars. If I really don't care and low value item I'll start auction at $.99 and sometimes get double what I want, other times get half.

 

-Brandon

[Alex A]

A shame Ebay is the way it is, a relentless open gateway for cheap copies, forgeries and bull. There needs to be another place where folk can buy and sell nihonto in piece, and for a fair price. Look at antique/deactivated guns for instance, not allowed on ebay in the uk (not sure about anywhere else), but have there own selling places such as Gunstar, gunmart and millweb. Easy to buy and sell and without all the bull and crap to sift through. Brian, hows about extending your selling capabilities, make a few $ and add a market place to your site, and let us all shop in piece :D, if not, is anyone feeling antreprenorial, a niche market, but still, a market...

 

Alex.

[cabowen]

Ebay is without a doubt a cesspool. In general, in my opinion, it is an awful place to try and sell anything above mediocre. It has become the haystack that people sift for that needle, not the place people turn to for big dollar purchases. It's a bottom feeder's paradise...

 

Make no mistake, there are deals to be had there, but you have to have A LOT of time to look, the experience to REALLY know what you are doing, and the constitution to deal with the occasional losses that are part of all gambling enterprises.

 

I haven't had the time these last 10 years to religiously check the listings, but have started to look again and have found three or four great deals in as many months. In the old days I bought many older blades and was very lucky for the most part. These days I don't even look anymore for older blades, but instead focus on WWII era gendaito. It is not for everyone and I hesitate to even mention that I have had some success for fear it may encourages others without the experience necessary to avoid losses. Some people just can't help themselves and will always be gamblers regardless; best of luck to them.

[Surfson]

I'm a big fan of ebay as both a buyer and seller. I have bought good swords from saijo and jojo makers and have sold many swords. Most of the ones that I have sold are under $3000. If I were to sell higher dollar sword, I would do it like Candelaria. Put a fairly big buy it now (BIN) price and include "or best offer". You can then sell for 60-70% of your BIN price and both you and the buyer will be pleased. There are some problems that can crop up; non paying bidders, buyers that try to shake you down with threat of negative feedback after the sale, buyers from countries that restrict import etc. You just need to phrase your ad to minimize these.

[Alex A]

Yep, £2000/$3000 seems to be a roundabout limit of what folk want to spend on Ebay. As the price goes up, obviously, so does the concerns of the buyer.

 

Alex.

[Marius]

I'm a big fan of ebay as both a buyer and seller. I have bought good swords from saijo and jojo makers and have sold many swords. Most of the ones that I have sold are under $3000.

 

Robert, are you sure these were not gimei?

 

Sorry, just joking

[Kai-Gunto]

I collect Japanese navy swords,dirks,equipment and headgear and ebay is the place for me with bargains and I sold a lot of items over time with great profit.

[rkg]

Hi,

 

That's a tough one. On one hand, unless you've gone over your monthly limit, you can list some number of auctions/month free on ebay, so there's no real cost associated with it unless you sell. On the other hand, there's an art to selling high end swords, and if you eventually end up consigning it, you're tying the dealer's hands WRT price (as the piece will have been recently "shopped around" with a price attached) - so unless they have a clientele who lives under a roc-er, uh, isn't internet active they can't easily "Duveen" anybody in order to get a good price for you/themselves.

 

On the other hand again, as somebody else suggested, you can run the ad with a stupid high price with the "best offer" option (is this free now?) so this contingency is less of a problem - though if you dropped the price when it went on consignment, the potential buyers who saw it on fleabay might smell blood in the water and not act because they're waiting for the price to drop more...

 

Of course, this is all complicated by how difficult swords are to get accurate images of. On top of that, even if you have good images, ebay "fuzzifies" them when you upload them. Unless the seller has a rep/offers super easy returns, few people are going to pony up the big bucks unless they are gambling you have seriously mispriced the piece.

 

Good Luck,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Alex A]

Yep, "best offer", is another fee , but not on my new site "NIHONTOMART" . A place where you will find no Chinese fakes, false papers, crazy funny looking tsuba, fuchi necklaces, nihonto hunting knifes, tsuka wrapping services by someone who learned yesterday, no bull descriptions, no repeat descriptions for different swords, no cast metal allowed, gimei must be in big letters on title GIMEI, etc etc LOL, anyone good with websites? Joking :D

 

Alex.

[Soshin]

Hi Everyone,

 

Overall I think it is. I really can't do this hobby without selling once in a while. With said my website updates are almost complete. :lol: I find it a overall good experience. All the really nice things seem to have buyers before I even get to listing it on eBay.

[raven2]

That is true Dave, because you are nice enough to list them here first. :D

[Alex A]

NMB seems to be the Ebay launch platform in a lot of sales. A lot of folk hope to sell here but then add "before i send it off to Ebay" as though its off to the land of doom . Any folk that do ok selling on Ebay are probably selling within a widely accepted price range.

 

Alex

[bubba-san]

Ebay is a tough one. When I first started selling knives and swords , ebay was pretty good not too many problems . That is until about 2 years ago. I sold a sword for 5800. usd Some how hackers broke into ebay

and paypal , My account said it was paid for and pay pal said it was good . They actually hacked my account

and put a TRACTOR on my page . They were getting bids . There was a note that said " PAY to this account

which was not mine and then pick up tractor at my home!!!!!! Never got my sword or the money ?

The 20,000 $ that paypal gaurantees. Is not worth the paper it was printed on .

 

I am still in litigation with ebay and Paypal. I learned a good lesson , nothing is really safe online........ James

[cabowen]

I had someone pay for a sword once with paypal. I received notice from paypal of payment receipt and sent the sword. When I tried to take the money out of the paypal account and put it into my regular bank account, paypal put a hold on it and told me it was a "suspicious transaction". I went through hell trying to get the money released but the only way they would do it was if the sender retracted it. Lucky for me he was a decent person and he did so, then resent it via bank wire. If he had been someone I didn't know, he could have easily taken back his money and just kept the sword. I won't use paypal anymore to receive anything more than a few hundred dollars.

[Marius]

PayPal = thieves. I wonder how much they earn on money they have blocked for no apparent reason. And yes, they can sue me.

[cabowen]

PayPal = thieves.

 

Exactly my conclusion...

[kusunokimasahige]

PayPal hold your money 21 days from the day you mark an item as shipped. That keeps me from selling at the moment.

 

Ebay are Hypocrites of the worst kind. They do not follow their own rules and regulations.

 

Example: Search Worldwide under keyword Dachau. You will see what I mean.

 

KM

[Surfson]

Sadly, thieves are everywhere, especially in some countries, and ebay and paypal are always trying to thwart them. If everybody was honorable, we wouldn't need paypal, which is essentially an escrow system, for these high value transactions.

[Marius]

Robert,

 

PayPal are thieves.

While i don't believe everything that is written, a friend of mine has confirmed much of what is written here:

 

http://www.paypalsucks.com

 

Horror stories abound.

[Alex A]

Have you ever noticed how when you buy from overseas and checked out the exchange rates, paypal has there own version?.

 

Alex.

[kusunokimasahige]

There are times i am sooo happy not having a credit card !

 

KM

[Alex A]

A credit card offers more protection than a bank transfer. Whilst a bank transfer is a safe way to send money, if the buy turns sour, there is no way to retrieve your cash. One other thing i found out about Paypal last year is that they have a pay limit of £5000, so, if you buy anything over that limit you need to send another amount. If you have agreed with the seller to cover the transfer fees, then you will be hit by more than one fee. Another way paypal stings folk.

Alex.

[kusunokimasahige]

While that is of course true (and with a sister working for Amex I know how safe these cards are) In my case there are several important reasons for not having one. So for now, PayPal works for me, but I dislike the fact that they hold onto the money for too long before I can transfer it back into my account.

 

KM

[Marius]

You can have a credit card and NOT use it with PayPal while having a fully functional PayPal account. Still, their practice of withholding the money for no reason can hit you anytime, regardless...

 

Having been acquired by eBay, they are a natural monopolist, abusing their position in a particular arrogant way.

[Alex A]

Ebay profits 2012.... $718,000,000 in the 3 months heading upto September, paypal helped Ebays profits more than double.

If you use Paypal, use a credit card linked to paypal, not your own account, safer.

 

Alex.