Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ebay and amazon

Software to find resale values of music CDs

espertus — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 07:43:07 -0800

I want to help a relative sell a collection of CDs. Is there any software that takes UPCs or other identifying information and automatically checks Amazon, Spun.com, eBay, etc., for current resale prices?

buying used books on Amazon vs eBay

pleasebekind — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:22:43 -0800

First time buying used books via Amazon. Is the process the same as that of eBay's? I always find and buy used books via eBay because they offer PayPal. Recently though I've discovered that some of the sellers on eBay are also on Amazon, and I've spent the better half of this week going through my list of books and comparing the prices. Some questions:

1. A book is offered at $0.99 at Amazon vs $1.99 at eBay by the same seller. Should I go buy from Amazon then if that is the case? (Most books in my list have this scenario)

2. Most likely they would not combine shipping, no? So really each book would actually cost around $4+. Is it futile to ask the sellers if they would give a discount for shipping? (I am planning to buy around 3-5 books per seller).

3. I have never tried buying via the used books section of Amazon. Would it be just like buying new books — you go to checkout and pay (by credit card)? What if am buying several used books from one seller? Do you suggest I contact the seller first and express my intent?

4. What if I am buying from several sellers? Should I just buy them by chunks — for example, Seller 1 first where I'm buying 3 books, then checkout, then just repeat the process for each seller?

5. I plan to buy books with specific book covers and editions. Should I trust that the photo + info displayed is accurate in Amazon? I am asking because with eBay I really do get to see the info corresponding to the actual book I'm buying...and I am overwhelmed at the thought of having to contact each seller in Amazon to confirm the details (though would do it if really needed).

6. If I want the seller to deliver the books to a different address, should I edit my own account to reflect that or just talk to the seller about it?

7. Any other advice you can give me on how to make this process easier/smarter?

Thanks!

What's the best way to sell a lot of stuff online?

patheral — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:12:05 -0800

My guy and I are digging in to all of his old stuff and we're going to sell a bunch of it off. What's the best way to do this? I've sold stuff on eBay and Amazon, so I'm slightly familiar with that process. However, my guy was a bit of a collector in his single years and it got a bit out of hand. He's totally down with purging his collection because a lot of this stuff has just been sitting in boxes for nearly eight years (sometimes longer) and he's been lugging it around for lack of anything better to do with it.

We don't want to have a yard sale or sell on Craigslist because, honestly, that's just dealing with too many people. He's too much of an introvert, and I'm in too much pain to deal with people right now. It's easier for us to do it online. If it were just a few things, I'd list them on eBay or Amazon and be done with it, but we have boxes and boxes of things. There are toys (models mostly, and stuff he bought while in Tokyo way back when), board games, anime action figures, Star Wars action figures, Star Trek action figures, other action figures from TV shows and movies (I didn't even know they made Jay & Silent Bob action figures). We've so far uncovered a couple of cameras, some commemorative coins, a walkman, a discman, and just all kinds of *stuff*, and we've only gone through eight boxes (the first closet)... There's still five closets full of boxes, and a room full of Video games, CDs & DVDs. I can't even tell you what awaits us in some of the boxes, because he doesn't remember. I figure if it's been sitting in a box that long, he probably won't want to keep it though...

So, my question is, what is the best way to sell this stuff?

I'm thinking of perhaps opening an eBay store, but a friend of mine advised against it. Something about taxes... She said it was better to keep it to simple eBay. I don't know if she knew what she's talking about. I think a store is a good idea, but I have no idea what I'm talking about, so there's that. I know it would be relatively simple to sell the books & CD's on Amazon because the prices are pretty much set through the system - I've done that before. My guy likes the idea of auctions though... I don't know if mainstream books & CDs sell well on eBay. I don't think it would be too much of a hassle to have both an Amazon and an eBay set up.

Just so's y'all know... I'm aware that a bunch of this stuff probably isn't worth much of anything, but we're hoping to accomplish several things with this process: 1. get the stuff out of the house so we can make this place over the way we want, 2. raise a few funds for our wedding next March & 3. give me something to do since my physical difficulties are making it impossible for me to find work right now. I can work at my own pace with this project and help bring money into the household at the same time. We also figure this process of purging and reshaping will bring us closer and give us time together since we're still learning about each other.

Looking for this set of bento boxes

cashman — Sat, 19 May 2012 19:13:09 -0800

Do you see this 3-layer bento lunch box for sale online? One box in the stack is white with the yellow design, one is white with the orange design, and the 3rd box is white with the green design.

An app to order random crap?

empath — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:04:07 -0800

A couple of years ago, I read about a guy who wrote a script that would randomly order items that cost $1, so he'd get a bunch of cheap, unexpected stuff from all over. I think it was for ebay auctions, but maybe it was amazon. Does anyone remember this or know where his page was? And if you don't, does anyone know of something similar to that (automatically ordering random cheap stuff)?

What's the best way to turn DVDs into cash?

dougrayrankin — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:50:43 -0800

What's the best way to get rid of my DVD collection in the UK? I'm looking to get rid of approximately 150 DVDs, including a number of boxsets, and I'd like to make a bit of cash from them (between £0.75 and £1.25 per item is the figure I expect, any more is a bonus), without too much in the way of hassle. The obvious option is eBay, but I'm looking to find out if anyone has had any other experiences with others such as Amazon and Playtrade? Also, sneaking in another question... as hassle is something I'm keen to avoid, any advice on whether I should do this as a job lot and if so how many etc would be gratefully received.

Also... I know that there have been a few questions like this before, but none so far as I can tell about the UK, and none specifically mentioning options other than eBay.

Cheers in advance for your help.

Selling on Amazon?

mintchip — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:06:37 -0800

How to be successful as a professional Amazon merchant and how to limit one's risk? How to successful as a professional Amazon merchant and how to limit risk when one’s business operates in a single sales channel?

I’m interested in importing products for resale on Amazon.com.

I’m not sure if it’s true, but I have heard some seller complaints about having their accounts suspended inexplicably when their volume gets beyond a certain point. There's also the risk having one's reputation damaged due to bad feedback from a competitor or one angry customer.

1. What can you tell me about how to be successful as a professional Amazon merchant?

2. How I can protect myself against the inherent risks of having one’s livelihood resting on a single sales platform? What would you suggest as ways to limit this risk or branch out beyond Amazon? (I used to sell on ebay too but I haven’t been very impressed by the percentage of auctions that have been resulting in sales.)

3. What products do you like to buy online? Are there any hard to find items that you’ve been looking for or would like to see listed that you don’t see currently?

You have 48 hours to say something nice about me.

marchismo — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:46:41 -0800

An eBay seller is threatening to file a complaint against me for not leaving feedback. What should I do? I recently purchased an Amazon gift redemption code on eBay. The transaction itself went smoothly-- I sent them the payment, they sent the code, and I redeemed it without any problems. I had intended to leave this person positive feedback, but either due to laziness or procrastination I tend to put off leaving feedback until I can do a few of them at once.

Four days later, I get a message from them saying I have until Sunday (tomorrow) to give feedback and if I don't, they will file a buyers complaint with eBay and Paypal as well as send a holding notice to Amazon to prevent me from purchasing anything with the credit. Now, I know for sure the buyer can't use eBay or Paypal against me since there is a record of the payment, but is that holding notice at all plausible?

The seller also said that the "last person who delayed feedback ended up trying to scam me so this is a safety precaution." Even if this is true, I don't believe it's within their rights to try to muscle me into giving them positive feedback.

So, what's the best response here? Should I report them to eBay? Should I leave them neutral or negative feedback (not to be spiteful, but to warn other buyers of the intimidation tactics)? Or should I just cut the seller some slack, leave them positive feedback, and let it go? Again, I had no problem with the transaction itself and had intended to give them a positive before this happened.

What's the best way to sell a bulk CD collection?

SteveEisner — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:51:15 -0800

OK, hypothetical situation: you've spent a long time building a huge collection of electronic music CDs (several thousand.) Some of them are "rare" and most of them are "meaningful" but now that you've moved to beatport, torrents & all digital files, real CDs just don't have the same value to you that they used to. And for that matter, there's probably very few albums you couldn't find again if you spent a little time. At what point do you finally say, "I no longer need dozens of boxes filled with CDs I used to love?" I just reached that point myself. It's time to purge ... but I don't know how to do it! Does anyone have experience selling a bulk collection? This isn't typical off-the-shelf CD store stuff, it's 95% electronic from late-80's acid house through to 2007-ish electro/breaks and everything in between. DJ Scratch mixes from places like turntablelabs, early 90's german "tekno" compilations, DJ service discs, painstakingly compiled UK imports of the entire Ninja Tune and MoWax catalogs, "limited" (?) pressings from live shows, hits and misses as I attempted to find my perfect genre, blah blah... Each one means something to me, but does it -really- have any value to anyone else in the age of the MP3?

I'm imagining that I could individually sell about half the CDs for a few bucks each on amazon or ebay [cry cry - I paid $20-30+ for many of them!]. For thousands of CDs that's not a small amount of $, but a big investment of time. Or maybe I could take the entire collection to a used shop, and get what, $50? Anyone have any clever ideas in-between?

Thanks all!

PS did I mention that the discs and their cases are stored separately & not in any particular order? :) I was thinking maybe I could find someone on craigslist to come over and re-assemble them and price them out on ebay/amazon to find the ones that are worth selling. But is it going to be worth the extra hassle & cost? That's the kind of creative thinking I'm hoping to find here :)

Amazon and eBay best practices?

cosmic osmo — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:05:06 -0800

I need advice for selling my used stuff online via eBay and Amazon--more specifically, the shipping and order management part of it. I've been selling on eBay for a while and feel pretty comfortable with most of the process (taking pictures of the item, creating an auction template, when to list, etc.) In a flash of brilliance early this a.m., I signed up for an Amazon seller's account and listed a bunch of CDs I had been planning to sell and much to my surprise, I have already sold some! So far, so good.

All of this is very low-volume: I have at most 5 eBay auctions a week, and right now I only have about 30 things listed on Amazon. I'm using GarageSale to create and manage my eBay auctions, and Delicious Library to organize my Amazon sales. For eBay, I ordered a bunch of USPS Priority Mail boxes, quote a flat rate for shipping within the U.S., pack the items as the auction ends its nearing date and then once I get paid via PayPal (and the money is immediately whisked away into my checking account) I hand-address the packages and bring them down to the local P.O. to ship (always with delivery confirmation, and sometimes the buyer will pay for insurance). So far I've been pretty good at 'guestimating' shipping costs and haven't had any complaints from buyers.

This has been going well so far--all of my auctions end Sunday nights and by the time I go to the P.O. on Tuesday mornings, usually all of the buyers have paid. Sometimes I have to make a second trip to the P.O. later in the week, but I live less than 5 minutes walking distance and rarely wait in line for more than 10 minutes if I go on a weekday morning, so I don't really mind.

My question(s): What's the best way to ship books and CDs, given that Amazon gives you around $3 to do so? Should I start using some kind of online postage payment system (Endicia? Stamps.com? Whatever PayPal offers?) for either eBay or Amazon, or both? Is it worth it to buy things like scales or special printers? I have an HP Ink Jet printer, use Macs (Leopard) exclusively, and use PayPal (at least for eBay). As mentioned above I also use GarageSale and Delicious Library, and would love anything that integrates well with what I already have. How do I make my life easier, especially given that I have also just started selling on Amazon?

I've looked up previous questions about selling on eBay and Amazon, but if you have additional tips for using either (especially Amazon!), mostly with regards to shipping and order management, I'd love to hear them. I've also waded through the seller forums at both sites, but they seem geared toward people who do this for a living, and I'm just trying to clear out some storage space while also potentially making a few bucks.

What's the best way to sell back (used) college textbooks?

chefscotticus — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 12:23:46 -0800

What's the best way to sell back (used) college textbooks? My university bookstore has an end-of-the-semester book buy-back program, but they will offer decent money for books being used only in the coming semester. After recently trying to sell a whole slew of books, and with most of them getting < $2/book, there must be a better way. b>What's my best option for getting the most $$ back for my used books? eBay? Amazon? Are there any new "web 2.0" text-book services out there?

On a related note, if someone was to build a new textbook buyback service (probably: web-based, university specific), what features should it have? How should it be structured? Something very loose, like a wiki, that allows people to just post the books they have to offer, or something more structured?

What's the best way to sell used books?

pinto — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 12:13:46 -0800

Selling used books online. Is amazon (terms of sale) the way to go? Ebay? Am I better off taking books to local used booksellers? No collectibles or rare books, just your standard hodgepodge lit, theory, and what not.