E-bay, anyone?
 

I've got a bunch of pokemon cards that I really have no interest in keeping. I figured that I would sell them on e-bay, but I've never sold anything on e-bay before.

So, I was wondering, are there any e-bay sellers out there? How well does it work? How does shipping costs work?

Does anyone have any particularly good or bad experiences with e-bay? I'd just like to get all my ducks in a row before I commit to anything.


One other question, does anyone use anything besides e-bay to sell things like this? (I know Craigs List exists, but I've heard so many horror stories I'm not sure I even want to bother looking at it.)


Edit::
Okay, my real reason for wanting to sell my pokemon cards is because I simply don’t want to throw them away. AlwaysDreamer suggested I look up messenger bags made with pokemon cards, which I’m totally going to check out.

Does anyone else have any suggestions on what I can do with pokemon cards?

I for one never tried to sell any thing on eBay but I have bought. somethings off of eBay just recently I bought a rare Sailor Moon Sailor Star's bento box. only once in the past I had a problem with a seller I had paid for the items. I never got them he would not respond back to me. did not get any money back so I all ways check the feed back first of any seller on ebay before buying form them.

I have sold things on Craigslist with no problem several times. I have also bought things off there. It's a good place too buy and sell things if you're not dumb about it. Just don't give anyone the product until you have the money in hand. I normally meet the person that I am selling to in a parking lot such as Walmart where it is busy enough that I am secure. It saves on shipping as well. You just have to use common sense. As I said, I never have a problem with it.

As for E-bay....I refuse to have a Paypal account because it is run by GE money. I am filing a lawsuit against them at the moment so needless to say, I would not trust anything run by GE money.

I used to sell items on eBay (mostly books and used clothing), but I do not do that anymore. I found it quite profitable. Although, oddly enough, I don't recommend it. It can be a hassle sometimes. I once had a buyer never send me the money (good thing I didn't send out my items without payment first), but it's still risky to sell items on there. It is even risky to purchase items on there. I still buy items, but I no longer sell. If you don't know what you're doing, it's not worth it! I had to talk my father into stop selling stuff on there. He wasn't doing it right and sometimes would actually end up LOSING money from his sales.

I rather suggest craigslist. It is not as bad as you might imagine. So long as you do like Mystic does when exchanging. Meet the person in a public place. And you meet at their home (or they meet at yours), do not be alone.

Another good thing to look into, is a local online classified (that is not craigslist). Where I live, we have two free online classifieds that people use quite often to sell stuff, buy stuff, list yard sales, community announcments, et cetera. OH! Also try your local newspaper (for larger items). Perhaps your radio station does free advertising as well.

I've had little issue with eBay and I've sold quite a bit of stuff on there.

I recommend you sign up for an account first and log in. Once you're logged in you can view "completed listings". Do a search for your item, then on the left of the search results you'll see the link for completed items. View those. People can list items for anything, but that doesn't mean they sell them for that price. Completed listings will show you what actually sold for what price and you can get a feel for what people will pay.

Your options for bidding/selling are: 1) You can go with an auction-type listing. You'll start at a base price and people will bid. You can set a "Reserve" price, which is the lowest you will accept for the item. This costs more in fees, but it's not a lot more. 2) You can go with a "fixed price" listing, which is my preference. You set what you want to sell your item for and people can "buy it now" without having to do the auction thing. 3) You can do a combo of 1 & 2. 4) You can set up a store, which you should only do if you're going to be selling a lot.

When you create your listing, you can factor in shipping costs into the price of the item and thus offer "free shipping", which will supposedly get you higher search engine results. (How much higher I don't know.) Or you can add it at the bottom of your listing template. I like to just go with Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes (I'm in the US). Then you don't have to worry about how much it's going to cost since aside from knowing what size box you need. If you're just shipping cards, it will likely go in the $4.95 box. I've shipped items slower than that and people complained about the ship time; P.M. is generally 2-3 days (no guarantee but I can't think of a case when it's been slower for me in either sending or receiving). Also, you'll need to provide your own packaging if you go with anything besides Priority Mail Flat-Rate, but if you go with PMFR you can just pick up free boxes/envelopes at the post office. Ideally, you will get your package out to the buyer within 24 hours, no more than three days tops.

Bad experience: I shipped out three books via "media mail" (the cheapest and slowest option). I apparently did not package them well enough because I got my packaging back in the mail, sans books. It's been months and I still don't think the lady ever received them. I ended up giving her money back (and just telling them to send the books to her anyway- they weren't worth much).

Good Experience: I sold this expensive doll, a ball-joint doll, for a really good price. I needed money fast and this lady bought the doll- they're used by people who paint on their faces and make clothes for them and stuff. The lady who purchased it was SO excited about the doll. She thanked me several times for giving her such a great deal, because she'd been wanting a nice doll for a long time and had been practicing for such an opportunity for a long time. We kept up some conversation while the doll was shipping and she ended up sending me photos of what she had done with the doll, which was really cool. It was neat to see the plain doll I had transformed into something really pretty.

Be sure to leave feedback for whoever you sell to! Let me know if you have any questions- I've done a ton of research into selling on eBay (and have actually made some profit).

Craigslist works well too. I might go into that later. Just be sure to meet publicly and ONLY TAKE CASH. People will try to convince you to take a money order or check and it takes weeks to make sure it really went through. What will happen is it will appear to go through in your bank, but several weeks later- likely after you've spent the money- it will turn out you owe the bank for that amount because they took back the money or something scammy like that. So yeah, cash only!

@Jennifer: I've never even heard of online local classifieds! I'll look those up.

@Cherry Cocaine: Wow thanks for all the information!

I think my biggest concern with it is that the cards are so cheap individually that I'll actually lose money from shipping and handling. It sounds like Craigslist might work better for that. I'll check that out too.

If anyone has anymore suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

I honestly have never, EVER heard the phrase, "get all of my ducks in a row"! It made my day!

But if you want a good estimate on how much your cards will sell for, check out eBay's site to see how much other cards are going for. My mom has been selling things on eBay for several years now and she has never had a problem.

You know what would be fun? Try turning some of your cheaper cards into a small messenger bag. That can sell for like $35 at a convention. They do sell, as I've seen it done before.

I've never ever heard of Craigslist horror stories.. 0.o
My parents go on Craigslist all the time to sell stuff with no problemo .
I also do agree with AlwaysDreamer up there, "get all my ducks in a row" is so darn adorable ! >.<
Lols, anyways... my dad does do some ebay .
And what I do know is, you have to make an account with a credit card, then you have to download Ebay onto your computer .
And then, ask for your listing price . And if there's more than one wanting it.. you may have the choice to bid it like an auction (:
Hope that helped Nolori :D

@AlwaysDreamer:My family says it all the time. It's hard to believe you haven't heard it! I'm glad you liked it though! =D
I've actually checked the prices on e-bay and it looks like .25-1.00 for each card, but I think postage will just make me end up losing money. But I've never heard of pokemon card messenger bags. That actually sounds like a much better idea!

@kissthebluesky: The horror stories I've heard really mostly had to do with who showed up to buy. =\ But Craigslist just seems shady in general to me. But I'm going to probably use it over e-bay if I sell anyway.
Also, glad you like the phrase! =D


Really, I just don't want to throw away my cards because it feels like a terrible waste of money. As a secondary question (which I think I will edit in the main post too), does anyone have any other ideas for what to do with pokemon cards?