Not all returns are the same. Some returns are carefully packaged and returned without any issue’s, others are not. The one pictured below came back to us after the customer claimed our poor packaging caused damage to the item. It is important to note that all of our packaging is new, our boxes have a minimum 30# corner crush and all items are packed with proper fill to protect the item in transit. This item in particular was a vintage item with a motor inside of the item. The item had to have taken a pretty good shot in transit as the motor came free inside of the shell of the piece. The customer was not happy and agreed to returned the item in the condition he received it, which is absolutely acceptable. This is where this whole thing takes an interesting turn. The box used for the return was not the one we shipped the item in. It was a box from a game set that was flimsy and provided no protection to the contents of the box. Our item was damaged significantly more because of the quality of the box used in the return and we now have a paper weight from what was once a collectible model. Unfortunately we have little recourse in this. One of the toughest things to learn as a seller is that there will be unrecoverable losses when selling items that you have to trust with carriers. There is a cost/return decision that you will need to make on how to handle these situations. Insuring every shipment you send out will be cost prohibitive, so decide what your “insurable” value is. This will be key to limiting loss with an acceptable amount of risk. I do not add additional insurance to any item under 200.00. That is a risk I am willing to take knowing that I may lose a few items. This determination is based upon cost of additional insurance against number of losses per quarter. For example, if I have one loss per 500 items at 200.00, and the insurance for. a 200.00 item is 5.00, I would be spending 2500.00 in additional insurance to prevent 1 200.00 loss. Quite simply, that math doesn’t math.

I’m frequently asked why, with the fees on eBay, do I continue to use them as my selling platform. I always answer the same way “show me another place with nearly 100 million active buyers daily and I’ll go there”. eBay is the dominant platform for sellers. Their selling fees are less than all other platforms with a better user to seller ratio. If you find your niche and want to be consistent, this is the place to sell. eBay has seller protection, payment processing and they handle your sales tax! If you are using other platforms you may have to pay sales tax to every state you ship too. So yes, there are fees. There is also a ton of upside to those selling fees that make your life as a seller multiple times easier.

I will be adding some additional content this week. Would anyone be interested in a live q&a? If I get enough interest I’ll add a poll for the day and time.

I have been an ebay seller for over a decade. Top 25 in the nation in our primary category. What do you need to get going? What keeps you from excelling?

In this video I create a listing. I take a lot of time with it, but trust me, once you get the hang of it you can complete a listing in under 2 minutes. Let me know if you have any questions.