So, tell me about Ebay...

[ggunn]

If you bid early, some idiot will come along and put in 30 bids, raising the bid price $1 at a time, until he finally exceeds your bid. If you wait (along with everyone else) and bid at the last second, the idiot doesn't have time to do that, and you are likely to bid higher because they don't have time to creep up the bid.

He would have to be an idiot to do that, since eBay will do it automatically for you. If you enter a bid much higher than the current winning bid, eBay will post a bid for you that is only a couple of dollars higher and ratchet up your bid only if someone else ups the bid.

Sniping manually is a good way to give yourself a heart attack. I used to do that, but now I just enter a bid that is the highest I would reasonably pay for an item a few minutes before the auction closes and go back later and check to see who won or just wait for the email notification.

 

[Pilgrim]

He would have to be an idiot to do that, since eBay will do it automatically for you. If you enter a bid much higher than the current winning bid, eBay will post a bid for you that is only a couple of dollars higher and ratchet up your bid only if someone else ups the bid.

Sniping manually is a good way to give yourself a heart attack. I used to do that, but now I just enter a bid that is the highest I would reasonably pay for an item a few minutes before the auction closes and go back later and check to see who won or just wait for the email notification.

You missed the point. The idiot in question is ONLY bidding $1 at a time. He doesn't WANT to make an actual high bid that would exceed the minimum needed to outbid me. If he bid more, his bid might jump higher. Trust me, I've seen this many times. I've seen someone bid 15 times, $1 at a time, and then stop when my bid is beaten. Maybe it's the seller shilling the bid up - I just know it happens.

Any time I enter a true high bid, I give others something to nibble away at. If you don't want to snipe live, then use Auctionsniper. But sniping will get the item for less then giving people a high bid to nibble away at $1 at a time. If nothing else, it doesn't give a seller's shill a chance to artificially increase the price.

True! I usually schedule my auctions to end in the early evening, after people get off work (taking time zones into account) but before they go to bed.

I schedule all my auctions to end on weekends, preferably in the afternoon or evening. There's no time more people are available to bid.

 

[Munjibunga]

If you're not getting bites here, then you have them priced to high. There's thousands of visitors here every day and when somethings priced right for that given week, month, day things move.... often within minutes or hours.

In my experience, (unless you have something rare, unique, or extremely personal) after ebay fee's paypal fee's, shipping, etc it's almost always 'as' profitable or more profitable to sell something here.

However... you're not going to sucker someone into running up a bid here. (unless you have something rare, unique, or extremely personal) and it's something that someone decides they just MUST have.

Also, you have no feedback here from buying or selling on Talkbass, so there may be a lack of trust issue working against you.
And, you show no location.
And, you've filled out none of your profile but sex: Male

All that 'can' work together to test the trust of potential habitual buyers here.

Honestly... I was considering your Dynabass 5-string earlier, then saw that one sold on ebay earlier today for $232 (which is low), then I couldn't find where you were located, then I saw you had no profile info filled out, then I saw you had no feedback. Combine all those things and it spooked me. However... I'm the paranoid type that worries about all kinds of crap like that.

I've seen instruments sell here from sellers with no photo's at all, and no feedback, and no profile info and things have gone fine. I've just haven't got the trust factor for that.


:: shrug ::

IMHO.

No, those are all valid points.

Anyway, the OP should send PMs to the people he bought basses from here and request feedback (as long as it's going to be positive).

 

[pica]

ebay WAS good. back in the day.

when you didnt NEED to have PAYPAL / bank account etc.. to use ebay.

ebay bought paypal. paypal gets 3 % ebay gets a piece. its a monopoly.

i remmeber when I could sell something and only accept payment as check, money order.... those were the days.

I totally agree. I don't have a paypal account and never will. I use to buy everything with a money order. When ebay switched to only paypal, I left and never looked back.

 

[BassScum]

I totally agree. I don't have a paypal account and never will. I use to buy everything with a money order. When ebay switched to only paypal, I left and never looked back.

I disagree. The days of the money order are over for me and I'm glad. Although I don't like the Pay Pal fees it's worth it for the security IMO and I used to hate going to the store purchasing a money order sending it and waiting for eternity for your item to arrive. I also must say that I have never had trouble with Pay Pal or E Bay from my nurmerous transactions. I would never take a money order for payment.

 

[Pilgrim]

I totally agree. I don't have a paypal account and never will. I use to buy everything with a money order. When ebay switched to only paypal, I left and never looked back.

That's fine, but dealing with money orders is an incredible waste of time. The time spent going to a post office or other spot, waiting in line then going back to what you were doing costs $$$ and screws up your day. If I never have to set foot in a bank or post office again, I'll celebrate. It's all wasted time as far as I'm concerned.

And most sellers won't accept money orders anyway - they can be counterfeited like other paper instruments.

Online transactions are the way the world works today. Ya gotta deal with it.

 

[Gibenbackerbass]

That's fine, but dealing with money orders is an incredible waste of time. The time spent going to a post office or other spot, waiting in line then going back to what you were doing costs $$$ and screws up your day. If I never have to set foot in a bank or post office again, I'll celebrate. It's all wasted time as far as I'm concerned.

And most sellers won't accept money orders anyway - they can be counterfeited like other paper instruments.

Online transactions are the way the world works today. Ya gotta deal with it.

United States Postal Money Orders are the only thing I'm comfortable accepting when I'm not selling locally. There's no risk when you cash the money order in at the Post Office. If it's not legit, they won't cash it. And if that's the case, I will not ship the instrument.

A little inconvenient. I suppose. But it's better than the alternative of not getting your money at all, or having it hung up after you've shipped your instrument.

It's a matter of preference.

There have been several occasions where the buyer here on TB wanted to use Pay Pal. Because I don't use it I didn't make the sale. That's something I have to live with, as well as the buyer.

In a perfect world where people are honest Pay Pal, personal checks, and anything else for that matter, would be fine. In most cases you don't know the person you are dealing with. It can be a gamble on both sides.

 

[stflbn]

IWhere most get hung up is believing their beloved piece (like a five string Dyna) is in higher demand than it actually is.

Heh... like this Millennium Plus 5 listed for $900 +$35 shipping OBO. No birdseye, just good condition.

Or this Millennium Plus 5 for $880 + $44 shipping.


People are getting over-zealous on these lately.


.

 

[lamarjones]

By all means, denial is the biggest problem in selling.

 

[EagleMoon]

Heh... like this Millennium Plus 5 listed for $900 +$35 shipping OBO. No birdseye, just good condition.

Or this Millennium Plus 5 for $880 + $44 shipping.


People are getting over-zealous on these lately.


.

I thought maybe someone was doing that to hike up the prices or something. They can't seriously think the bass will sell for that. Not that they're not WORTH that...they are...but the going prices on these are about half that.

 

[jfh2424]

Hey guys, just to followup on my original post...

I sold the Fretless P to a fellow TBer. And I got the positive feedback which is cool.

I also have a downpayment on the 5 string Dyna Bass. The deal should go through this week.

The only unclaimed item is my 4 string P MIJ. There is some local interest, but nobody has put down the cash yet. It's funny, I thought that it would be the easiest to sell, but not so.

What I learned is that TB is a cool place to sell. I just needed to wait a bit to get my price and find people that were interested. I guess not everything gets sold on the first day or two. I didn't have to deal with Ebay, finally. From what I understand, Ebay will be a last resort for me. For what it's worth, I did get lowballed quite a bit here. But I guess that can happen everywhere.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with advice!

John

 

[pica]

That's fine, but dealing with money orders is an incredible waste of time. The time spent going to a post office or other spot, waiting in line then going back to what you were doing costs $$$ and screws up your day. If I never have to set foot in a bank or post office again, I'll celebrate. It's all wasted time as far as I'm concerned.

And most sellers won't accept money orders anyway - they can be counterfeited like other paper instruments.

Online transactions are the way the world works today. Ya gotta deal with it.

I have a store 1 block away from me that sells money orders for .45 so for me getting a money order was fast and cheap. And in all the years I bought from Ebay, I NEVER had one person refuse to sell to me because I was paying with a money order.

 

[ggunn]

I use PayPal to buy stuff off ebay, and mostly I've had no problems. I have a special, thoroughly isolated bank account I use for eBay and PayPal purchases. One thing that PayPal did to me I will pass along, however: if you have a bank account for PayPal and a credit card registered as well, PayPal will tell you that if there is not enough money in the account the purchase will roll over to the credit card. Don't believe it. There's a good chance that it will just overdraw the account. When it happened to me, my credit union was very understanding and forgave the charges once I cleared up the overdraft; when I told them what happened they told me that it's a pretty common occurrence with PayPal.

 

[lucypinder]

I have purchased and sold dozens of music items on ebay. My FB is more than 200. I have never had a bad experience as a seller or buyer.

As a buyer, I actually prefer ebay. While I have never had a bad experience using TB class, there is a certain security associated with ebay that you don't get here. I don't mind paying a modest premium for that.

ebay tickets selling

 

[jkramer5]

^^^^ I see what you did there. Subtle, very subtle.

 

[onionpuzzle]

Don't discount (no pun intended) the importance of Craigslist as a seller.
As a buyer, I would beware, but since you get to look at the item first (local sale) even being a buyer is OK.

If you live near a big city, run a Craigslist Ad there and offer to deliver. Probably as profitable as E-bay (IMO).

TB, EBay and CL are all good in their own way, and I have used all 3 successfully.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Hey guys, just to followup on my original post...

I sold the Fretless P to a fellow TBer. And I got the positive feedback which is cool.

I also have a downpayment on the 5 string Dyna Bass. The deal should go through this week.

The only unclaimed item is my 4 string P MIJ. There is some local interest, but nobody has put down the cash yet. It's funny, I thought that it would be the easiest to sell, but not so.

What I learned is that TB is a cool place to sell. I just needed to wait a bit to get my price and find people that were interested. I guess not everything gets sold on the first day or two. I didn't have to deal with Ebay, finally. From what I understand, Ebay will be a last resort for me. For what it's worth, I did get lowballed quite a bit here. But I guess that can happen everywhere.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with advice!

John

I think the thing is that some basses have better re-sale value than others.

So - you have loads of discussions here about why buy one bass when another one is so much better etc. ?

But often what people forget when buying basses is that what seems a good deal when you buy, may mean a low resale value and that some basses are good buys because they hold their value..?