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[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

Ecom man

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I noticed you mentioned something about opening different stores. Do you plan to have each be a niche product store?
I am planning on just having some pretty general stores not super niche. For example if I wanted to sell cars it would be all makes and models all parts for them all accessories for them etc. rather than just the Ford Escape. I think it helps to have some general category for your site(Of course I could be way off. I've only had a site for 2 months).
 
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Josh

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Hi,

I have been corresponding with a Chinese supplier and he has mentioned something about an 'express collect account.'

The exact message it:

"Thanks for your email, can you send us your company express collect account, i will send you sample for free, but express charge need pay by your side"

Could someone please elaborate on what this means?

Cheers.
 

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Hi,

I have been corresponding with a Chinese supplier and he has mentioned something about an 'express collect account.'

The exact message it:

"Thanks for your email, can you send us your company express collect account, i will send you sample for free, but express charge need pay by your side"

Could someone please elaborate on what this means?

Cheers.
They're simply asking for your shipping account number. Just ask them to ship via their account and send them the money via Paypal or whatever they accept.
 

albertut77

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They're simply asking for your shipping account number. Just ask them to ship via their account and send them the money via Paypal or whatever they accept.

I wouldn't say "by whatever they accept". Maybe he hasn't read the whole thread, so it'd be good to point out that he should always use either escrow or PayPal (payment, not gift), and avoid T/T and Western Union. @Josh
 
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Ecom man

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Hi,

I have been corresponding with a Chinese supplier and he has mentioned something about an 'express collect account.'

The exact message it:

"Thanks for your email, can you send us your company express collect account, i will send you sample for free, but express charge need pay by your side"

Could someone please elaborate on what this means?

Cheers.
Ronak is correct. They are simply asking for your shipping account number. Just tell them you don't give that information out and you will pay for them to ship it to you. Also, as mentioned above, don't send money via western union or bank transfer.
 

Josh

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Thankyou for the help.

I asked to pay up front and she has asked for $100USD for a 5 piece sample (items cost ~$2-3) and shipping. This seems ridiculous to me. I am also in Vietnam so the shipping should be relatively cheap.

Should I question why the sample price is high or just forget about it and find another supplier.
 

Ecom man

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Thankyou for the help.

I asked to pay up front and she has asked for $100USD for a 5 piece sample (items cost ~$2-3) and shipping. This seems ridiculous to me. I am also in Vietnam so the shipping should be relatively cheap.

Should I question why the sample price is high or just forget about it and find another supplier.
It never hurts to ask. A simple email back only takes a couple minutes. You might try doing a larger sample (say 20-30 items) and see what price including shipping you can get.
 
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Ronak

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@Ecom man , I'm curious as to whether you use either a purchase contract (beyond the seller provided PI), or an inspection service for your orders.

Thanks
 

hestati

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Ok, so I got back home one month ago from our 7 months trip. Have no job and not planning to have one. I am lucky to have some savings, so I can take my time searching...

Anyway, to the point. Spent whole day today (literally from 7 am to 8pm with a small break) looking at Aliexpress and comparing to Ebay/Amazon. Wow this is not easy! 99.9 % of the products have 1% margins. I think I found 1-2 products with 100% margins (before all the fees etc), but gotta check again.

I don't understand "looking for random things". I look at things around me, then type things like "ceramic knife". If I do what Ecom man said, and type "wedding" it gives me 1000000 wedding dresses. So do I have to be more specific in my search than just very broad category?

Thanks!


Edit: no luck with my 2 products. Both are at Amazon with very low margin... :(
 
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albertut77

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Ok, so I got back home one month ago from our 7 months trip. Have no job and not planning to have one. I am lucky to have some savings, so I can take my time searching...

Anyway, to the point. Spent whole day today (literally from 7 am to 8pm with a small break) looking at Aliexpress and comparing to Ebay/Amazon. Wow this is not easy! 99.9 % of the products have 1% margins. I think I found 1-2 products with 100% margins (before all the fees etc), but gotta check again.

I don't understand "looking for random things". I look at things around me, then type things like "ceramic knife". If I do what Ecom man said, and type "wedding" it gives me 1000000 wedding dresses. So do I have to be more specific in my search than just very broad category?

Thanks!


Edit: no luck with my 2 products. Both are at Amazon with very low margin... :(

Hey hestati, the "looking for random things" is just the start. You start with a very broad, random thought and type it in. Then you can go many ways from there. One, you browse through the first few pages and open those items that caught your eye the most in new windows for further research (can you buy them in alibaba/express/DHgate? How much? any profit? you know the drill). Once you start following these threads (opening different products), you'll most likely end up having a ton of completely different products in a short time. Once you start looking for these in alibaba/express/dhgate, you'll probably also end up opening some other products that you found during your search that caught your eye. All in all, you'll end up with a ton of products on eBay/Amazon, and probably on alibaba/express/dhgate too. It's a matter of trying and trying I'd say.

Another way to approach it would be, again, starting with a random, broad idea on eBay. Then refine that search in many different ways. First of all, tick "Buy it Now" and "Condition: New" (I guess that's what you want). Then you can start by looking at the Best Match. Not convinced? Too cheap? Refine it by setting a minimum price (I personally always do this first, as I'm not interested in $2.99 products). Hey, that item is selling good and follows my criteria of a good product (usually not delicate, easy to pack, as little electronic as possible, etc, but up to you), then do a new search with keywords to get this product's listings only. Are there only a very few sellers? Hey, that's fantastic, but maybe you're narrowing too much. Try using a broader search, maybe you're forgetting about important keywords that will lead to having a shitton of competition instead. No, I had it right. Cool, let's see if you can make profit out of it. Usually, my mindset is "if the best sellers are not big companies, there's most likely a chance for me to make money aswell" meaning that they are probably people like you and me, who got their hands on a good supplier.

I can't write much right now, but you get the idea. There are tons of ways to approach it. I wrote a quite extensive one in the last page of this thread, maybe that can help you as well.

Cheers, and keep up hopes! there's money to be made for all of us, here!
 
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Ecom man

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@Ecom man , I'm curious as to whether you use either a purchase contract (beyond the seller provided PI), or an inspection service for your orders.

Thanks
I always order tests (20-50 products depending on price). That allows me to see the quality of the items before dropping big money. That also allows me to test the market and see how well they sell. If quality is good and they sell well I will then order a few hundred. If sales are still good and quality is the same I order a 5-700. I never take for granted that I am going to get the same quality after the sample. I never go from ordering 10 to ordering thousands. With existing suppliers I order hundreds of thousand at a time no big deal, with a new supplier I want to check and make sure I am getting what I'm expecting.
 

Ecom man

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Hey hestati, the "looking for random things" is just the start. You start with a very broad, random thought and type it in. Then you can go many ways from there. One, you browse through the first few pages and open those items that caught your eye the most in new windows for further research (can you buy them in alibaba/express/DHgate? How much? any profit? you know the drill). Once you start following these threads (opening different products), you'll most likely end up having a ton of completely different products in a short time. Once you start looking for these in alibaba/express/dhgate, you'll probably also end up opening some other products that you found during your search that caught your eye. All in all, you'll end up with a ton of products on eBay/Amazon, and probably on alibaba/express/dhgate too. It's a matter of trying and trying I'd say.

Another way to approach it would be, again, starting with a random, broad idea on eBay. Then refine that search in many different ways. First of all, tick "Buy it Now" and "Condition: New" (I guess that's what you want). Then you can start by looking at the Best Match. Not convinced? Too cheap? Refine it by setting a minimum price (I personally always do this first, as I'm not interested in $2.99 products). Hey, that item is selling good and follows my criteria of a good product (usually not delicate, easy to pack, as little electronic as possible, etc, but up to you), then do a new search with keywords to get this product's listings only. Are there only a very few sellers? Hey, that's fantastic, but maybe you're narrowing too much. Try using a broader search, maybe you're forgetting about important keywords that will lead to having a shitton of competition instead. No, I had it right. Cool, let's see if you can make profit out of it. Usually, my mindset is "if the best sellers are not big companies, there's most likely a chance for me to make money aswell" meaning that they are probably people like you and me, who got their hands on a good supplier.

I can't write much right now, but you get the idea. There are tons of ways to approach it. I wrote a quite extensive one in the last page of this thread, maybe that can help you as well.

Cheers, and keep up hopes! there's money to be made for all of us, here!
Absolutely awesome explanation!!
 

hestati

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Thank you for your help guys. I was so depressed yesterday that I went to Alibaba and filtered out all Asia. That gave me Turkey, Morocco, Europe, Israel, South America. And for their products... margins are there! I gotta do more research, but so far it looks good.
 
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albertut77

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Thank you for your help guys. I was so depressed yesterday that I went to Alibaba and filtered out all Asia. That gave me Turkey, Morocco, Europe, Israel, South America. And for their products... margins are there! I gotta do more research, but so far it looks good.

Hey that's good to know! I had never done this sort of filtering before. Thanks for the tip!
 

albertut77

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So, I just stumbled upon my first potential a**hole.

The guy opened a Dispute on PayPal straight away without even sending me a message. Anyway, he claims the item he bought is used and broken. The thing I don't get is, it's been 10 days since he got the product.

I don't know what to do. On one side, I don't trust this crap. Why the F*ck would he complain 10 days later?

On the other hand, although the product was within its original sealing and I'm sure of that, it might have been that it was faulty/broken already from manufacture (as I didn't see its inside). But again, why wait 10 days?

Agh. I don't know what to do. I don't want to be scammed, but I also don't want to have a dispute open and/or someone having problems with my products. Any advice here? I've already sent him a message through eBay asking politely what's the problem and all, but I want to end this as soon as possible. Should I ask for him to send back the item and issue a refund?

Thanks!

EDIT: Oh god, this customer is retarded. He/she is claiming that the item is faulty/broken because it's doing what it's supposed to do. After politely explaining this to him/her, the answer is, literally: Yeah but I just have change my mind like it's second hand I'm not satisfied I want to have a refund.

What the heck am I supposed to do with such things? It's clearly stated in my description and Terms and Conditions that we do offer refunds due to change of mind within 14 days of purchase when the item is in its original sealing and unused. I'm sending him/her a polite message reminding him/her about this. Also, the item was not second hand and was sent in original sealing and brand new, but there is no way for me to prove that as I don't keep pictures of each item I send or any crazy thing like that.

There have been no other complaints from anyone else and I've sold 10 of these. All these messages are being sent through eBay, so recorded there. Is there any chance that I might lose the case if I dispute it with this proof?

I'm going a bit crazy.
 
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amp0193

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Give the guy a refund. Dumb customers, scammers, and returns are a part of this business. Fighting it gets you no where, especially when ebay/amazon have 100% control over your business.

For the future, try and find a way to make it more clear how your product is supposed to work, either in your listing description, or by including a instruction card/manual.

I've got a product right now that people are breaking because they aren't using it correctly. My next shipment will have some instructions to help fix this.
 
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TTG SS

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Ecomm man, now that you know what you are doing. How long would you say it takes you to find a profitable product? With your experience can you just find something with an hour or less, or are you still taking days, weeks, etc. To find a new product.

As a beginner this is still kind of daunting. I think I also might be being a little conservative and looking at this with a scarcity mindset. I'm not afraid to invest a few hundred bucks to start, but I also don't want to be stupid with my money.

I also need to get a better process down for product searching, I suck at it! But like you said, barrier to entry. If I could find a product in 10 minutes of searching it would be too easy.

Also basically every single product so far, has has an extremely little margin on aliexpress to eBay. I am looking for something that can make some profit to test, and then I would order direct from Alibaba in hopes of getting better pricing/quantity.

I'm thinking of selling a bunch of my old N64 games to get my feet wet on ebay. From what I have seen it looks like I have several hundred worth of games just rotting in a drawer.
 

TaylorB

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Thanks for the Thread! Great read!

I've been flipping stuff on ebay for a few years just for fun but maybe I'll take a stab at importing some products.

Over the last week I've found maybe 4-5 Products and have samples on the way! Exciting stuff.

Unfortunately in Canada shipping is expensive. It's an easy fix once you're up and running as you can fly or drive across the border and ship USPS or get a fulfilment company, but its cost prohibitive at the start...



Question: Found a product thats available locally thats sold out everywhere else it seems got 15 of them and just sold 2 online for a 12$ profit in first day. Hope the sales continue! The best part is I can return said product within 30 days if I don't sell them...

Both items went to the USA which shipping ran about 14 US for it. I planned on 10 for shipping so it cut into profit a bit. I decided to offer free shipping in Canada and 3.99 in USA. Now I have had no sales today however had about 30 views, where the first day 20 views converted to 2 sales. I know super small sample.

Do you think $3.99 shipping fee is enough to turn buyers away even if its express shipping or does it have to be FREE?

Maybe I should raise my price 3.99 but offer FREE shipping. I'm the only competition that has product in stock all other 2 listings say 3-4 weeks BEFORE shipping.


Thanks for all your great insight!
Girl and I will be packing like crazy in the coming months!
 
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albertut77

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Give the guy a refund. Dumb customers, scammers, and returns are a part of this business. Fighting it gets you no where, especially when ebay/amazon have 100% control over your business.

For the future, try and find a way to make it more clear how your product is supposed to work, either in your listing description, or by including a instruction card/manual.

I've got a product right now that people are breaking because they aren't using it correctly. My next shipment will have some instructions to help fix this.

I hear you, and that's most likely what I'll end up doing, but I wanna talk to someone from eBay first. I mean, the girl just went batshit crazy yesterday. First she says it's broken and used, when I tell her that what made her think that it was broken is actually the product doing what it's supposed to do, she goes "yea but like I changed my mind and it's used", when I tell her about the 14 day return policy if the product is sealed, and ask her politely what makes her think it was used (as it was in original sealing) she goes crazy and starts swearing.

What really bothers me is that the user was made the same day that she bought the product, which tells me she made it just to pull this one off. I'm more upset about being scammed in such a lousy way than losing the money of one product (which I still don't want, as it's a $40~ loss for me). I want to see if the people from eBay see this as clearly as I do or if they advise me to give the refund as well.

If it's so easy to scam a seller on eBay, boy, it's f*cked up out there. Ecom man is right, webpage is the way to go.
 

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call ebay, and get a customer service rep to talk you through it. I used to have some decent luck doing that, lately, I've been getting outsourced to india or wherever and have wanted to throw my head into oncoming traffic on a busy street.
 

albertut77

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call ebay, and get a customer service rep to talk you through it. I used to have some decent luck doing that, lately, I've been getting outsourced to india or wherever and have wanted to throw my head into oncoming traffic on a busy street.

I literally spilled my drink reading that, thanks haha. I got odd stares at work.

I contacted eBay through the chat as I wasn't able to find the "call me" option (the layout changes every damn time, what's the deal with this webpage?). After chatting for a while and explaining everything, the CS rep seemed to understand my case and be on my side, and suggested I report the buyer for this, which I did. However, the buyer opened a dispute on PayPal and not eBay, so she told me eBay wouldn't intervene, and that I should contact PayPal, which I did. I sent them an e-mail already and am waiting for an answer.

If you don't mind guys, I'll keep updates of how the case goes in case someone finds himself in a similar situation at any point and wonders how the process goes, and also to get some feedback.

Cheers!
 
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ZeroExile

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I hear you, and that's most likely what I'll end up doing, but I wanna talk to someone from eBay first. I mean, the girl just went batshit crazy yesterday. First she says it's broken and used, when I tell her that what made her think that it was broken is actually the product doing what it's supposed to do, she goes "yea but like I changed my mind and it's used", when I tell her about the 14 day return policy if the product is sealed, and ask her politely what makes her think it was used (as it was in original sealing) she goes crazy and starts swearing.

What really bothers me is that the user was made the same day that she bought the product, which tells me she made it just to pull this one off. I'm more upset about being scammed in such a lousy way than losing the money of one product (which I still don't want, as it's a $40~ loss for me). I want to see if the people from eBay see this as clearly as I do or if they advise me to give the refund as well.

If it's so easy to scam a seller on eBay, boy, it's f*cked up out there. Ecom man is right, webpage is the way to go.

It's a much bigger scene then you think. These scammers make serious cash by "mail fraud" claiming it was damaged, not as described, the list goes on. If you go on Amazon right now, look at a purchase even around $500 or so, it takes less than 5 minutes to get a refund by saying you never got your item, etc. You may think I'm bsing you but I'm not. I may make a thread to bring awareness to this actually.

Here's an example of a site that promotes this behavior, https://leakforums.org/thread-508001

As you can see in this forum users are talking about getting refund around $1k like it's nothing, because honestly that's how easy it is, a forum full of teenagers. More searching and you'll find much more than that.
 

Ecom man

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So, I just stumbled upon my first potential a**hole.

The guy opened a Dispute on PayPal straight away without even sending me a message. Anyway, he claims the item he bought is used and broken. The thing I don't get is, it's been 10 days since he got the product.

I don't know what to do. On one side, I don't trust this crap. Why the F*ck would he complain 10 days later?

On the other hand, although the product was within its original sealing and I'm sure of that, it might have been that it was faulty/broken already from manufacture (as I didn't see its inside). But again, why wait 10 days?

Agh. I don't know what to do. I don't want to be scammed, but I also don't want to have a dispute open and/or someone having problems with my products. Any advice here? I've already sent him a message through eBay asking politely what's the problem and all, but I want to end this as soon as possible. Should I ask for him to send back the item and issue a refund?

Thanks!

EDIT: Oh god, this customer is retarded. He/she is claiming that the item is faulty/broken because it's doing what it's supposed to do. After politely explaining this to him/her, the answer is, literally: Yeah but I just have change my mind like it's second hand I'm not satisfied I want to have a refund.

What the heck am I supposed to do with such things? It's clearly stated in my description and Terms and Conditions that we do offer refunds due to change of mind within 14 days of purchase when the item is in its original sealing and unused. I'm sending him/her a polite message reminding him/her about this. Also, the item was not second hand and was sent in original sealing and brand new, but there is no way for me to prove that as I don't keep pictures of each item I send or any crazy thing like that.

There have been no other complaints from anyone else and I've sold 10 of these. All these messages are being sent through eBay, so recorded there. Is there any chance that I might lose the case if I dispute it with this proof?

I'm going a bit crazy.
If paypaL gives you the option make them return it for a refund. Not responding to the dispute will automatically make you lose. When someone goes nuts on me, demanding a refund, completely unreasonable etc. I always choose the option to have them return the item for a full refund. 50% of the time that will be the last you hear of them. The other 50% they will continue to message you and ask for a full refund etc etc etc. Tell them company policy is no refunds until the item is returned and stick to it.
 

Ecom man

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Ecomm man, now that you know what you are doing. How long would you say it takes you to find a profitable product? With your experience can you just find something with an hour or less, or are you still taking days, weeks, etc. To find a new product.

As a beginner this is still kind of daunting. I think I also might be being a little conservative and looking at this with a scarcity mindset. I'm not afraid to invest a few hundred bucks to start, but I also don't want to be stupid with my money.

I also need to get a better process down for product searching, I suck at it! But like you said, barrier to entry. If I could find a product in 10 minutes of searching it would be too easy.

Also basically every single product so far, has has an extremely little margin on aliexpress to eBay. I am looking for something that can make some profit to test, and then I would order direct from Alibaba in hopes of getting better pricing/quantity.

I'm thinking of selling a bunch of my old N64 games to get my feet wet on ebay. From what I have seen it looks like I have several hundred worth of games just rotting in a drawer.
It is easier now than when I started simply because I've done it many times. Sometimes I will find 5 possible products in a couple hour span and sometimes I'll find none. You just have to keep shooting til you hit your target.
 
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Ecom man

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Thanks for the Thread! Great read!

I've been flipping stuff on ebay for a few years just for fun but maybe I'll take a stab at importing some products.

Over the last week I've found maybe 4-5 Products and have samples on the way! Exciting stuff.

Unfortunately in Canada shipping is expensive. It's an easy fix once you're up and running as you can fly or drive across the border and ship USPS or get a fulfilment company, but its cost prohibitive at the start...



Question: Found a product thats available locally thats sold out everywhere else it seems got 15 of them and just sold 2 online for a 12$ profit in first day. Hope the sales continue! The best part is I can return said product within 30 days if I don't sell them...

Both items went to the USA which shipping ran about 14 US for it. I planned on 10 for shipping so it cut into profit a bit. I decided to offer free shipping in Canada and 3.99 in USA. Now I have had no sales today however had about 30 views, where the first day 20 views converted to 2 sales. I know super small sample.

Do you think $3.99 shipping fee is enough to turn buyers away even if its express shipping or does it have to be FREE?

Maybe I should raise my price 3.99 but offer FREE shipping. I'm the only competition that has product in stock all other 2 listings say 3-4 weeks BEFORE shipping.


Thanks for all your great insight!
Girl and I will be packing like crazy in the coming months!
Try it both ways. I normally just bump my price up by that amount so I'm still offering "free" shipping. For some reason people are too lazy to figure out shipping costs and seem to gravitate to free shipping listings
 
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Ecom man

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I hear you, and that's most likely what I'll end up doing, but I wanna talk to someone from eBay first. I mean, the girl just went batshit crazy yesterday. First she says it's broken and used, when I tell her that what made her think that it was broken is actually the product doing what it's supposed to do, she goes "yea but like I changed my mind and it's used", when I tell her about the 14 day return policy if the product is sealed, and ask her politely what makes her think it was used (as it was in original sealing) she goes crazy and starts swearing.

What really bothers me is that the user was made the same day that she bought the product, which tells me she made it just to pull this one off. I'm more upset about being scammed in such a lousy way than losing the money of one product (which I still don't want, as it's a $40~ loss for me). I want to see if the people from eBay see this as clearly as I do or if they advise me to give the refund as well.

If it's so easy to scam a seller on eBay, boy, it's f*cked up out there. Ecom man is right, webpage is the way to go.
You can still be scammed on your website but farrrrrr less likely. Scammers know they have you over a barrel because ebay and PayPal will always side with them. The only way for them to scam you on your own site is file a charge back with their credit card. If they are filing those all the time their credit company will get suspicious though so you don't have to worry about it too much.
So far I've had 1300 sales on my site and not a single chargeback or scammer. The other thing is there is no feedback for them to manipulate like eBay and Amazon so it's much harder to scam all around.
 

albertut77

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If paypaL gives you the option make them return it for a refund. Not responding to the dispute will automatically make you lose. When someone goes nuts on me, demanding a refund, completely unreasonable etc. I always choose the option to have them return the item for a full refund. 50% of the time that will be the last you hear of them. The other 50% they will continue to message you and ask for a full refund etc etc etc. Tell them company policy is no refunds until the item is returned and stick to it.

That's what I ended up doing. It was too much of a headache for one prick. I couldn't sleep well that night because of how enraged I was, so I decided it wasn't worth it. However, I first offered her two options: either (1) she sends back the product and "we" give her a full refund once we get the item back, or (2) we give her a 50% refund and she keeps the item (I'd be losing around $3, but much better than the $35~ I'd lose if she kept the item or I couldn't sell it back as used). She chose the refund, so now I'm just waiting.

PayPal rep wasn't very useful. At first she was, she told me that if the customer had said in a message that she had changed her mind (as she did by saying "Yea but like I change my mind and its used") PayPal wouldn't back her up, but after going through our communications she said that the customer said everytime that the item "was used", so it was not brand new as advertised, and that that was her main reason for the dispute. The rep didn't say that she'd win the dispute explicitly, but her tone after the "used" thing didn't give me much hopes, so I decided to give it up.

It's a much bigger scene then you think. These scammers make serious cash by "mail fraud" claiming it was damaged, not as described, the list goes on. If you go on Amazon right now, look at a purchase even around $500 or so, it takes less than 5 minutes to get a refund by saying you never got your item, etc. You may think I'm bsing you but I'm not. I may make a thread to bring awareness to this actually.

Here's an example of a site that promotes this behavior, https://leakforums.org/thread-508001

As you can see in this forum users are talking about getting refund around $1k like it's nothing, because honestly that's how easy it is, a forum full of teenagers. More searching and you'll find much more than that.

It's so crazy how you can buy an advertised "brand new item", claim that it was unsealed and used 10 F*cking days after getting the item, and get away with it. It's not even funny.

Edit: @ZeroExile A thread like that would be really useful. I'd definitely follow and contribute to it. Let know if you start it!

You can still be scammed on your website but farrrrrr less likely. Scammers know they have you over a barrel because ebay and PayPal will always side with them. The only way for them to scam you on your own site is file a charge back with their credit card. If they are filing those all the time their credit company will get suspicious though so you don't have to worry about it too much.
So far I've had 1300 sales on my site and not a single chargeback or scammer. The other thing is there is no feedback for them to manipulate like eBay and Amazon so it's much harder to scam all around.

Glad to hear your sales are only going uphill! Good that you set a webpage. Right now I'm super busy with work and moving, but as soon as I'm settled and things are more stable, I'm learning all about making a webpage of my own.


Thanks for the help guys (also the ones not quoted here)!
 
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TaylorB

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Try it both ways. I normally just bump my price up by that amount so I'm still offering "free" shipping. For some reason people are too lazy to figure out shipping costs and seem to gravitate to free shipping listings

Thanks, that's what I did upped the price 3.99 and added free shipping in Canada & USA. Well see how that works.

I was trying to navigate ebay's large rule book and wondered if what I'm doing is ok:

I started a auction for the same listing that I have fixed price with quantity that is identical. Is this allowed? Just doing some testing to see if an auction for this product will drum up a higher sales price. I seem to get a lot of best offers for the product im selling most of which i counter and accept.
 

Ecom man

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Thanks, that's what I did upped the price 3.99 and added free shipping in Canada & USA. Well see how that works.

I was trying to navigate ebay's large rule book and wondered if what I'm doing is ok:

I started a auction for the same listing that I have fixed price with quantity that is identical. Is this allowed? Just doing some testing to see if an auction for this product will drum up a higher sales price. I seem to get a lot of best offers for the product im selling most of which i counter and accept.
It's totally fine to do auctions and buy it now at the same time. You can't have multiple buy it now listings for the same product but you can do as many auction as you want. I always had good results putting best offer option on my buy it now listings as well. It is more work because you have to respond to each request but in my opinion it is worth it. Plus you can always put some parameters on the best offer so it automatically declines the low ball offers.
 

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