I started selling online last year using a well known auction. Things seemed to be going pretty well for a few months. Items were slowly selling and they were quickly shipped.
I soon identified that numerous purchasers are not extremely modern and suppose you're attempting to rip them off on transporting in spite of the fact that you charged precisely what Usps charges. More terrible yet, purchasers punish you in the Detailed Rating System for moderate transporting when the Usps administration is moderate or the purchaser deliberately picked a moderate dispatching technique.
Upon further investigation I discovered the auction site allowed buyers to severely penalize sellers but did not allow sellers to return the favor. The auction site could place holds on the sellers payment and still require the seller to ship the item. Something as simple as a ignorant buyer saying their package shipping was slow when they requested slow shipping could result in a sellers payment being held 21 days.
As I meticulously shipped sold items and communicated with buyers about their purchases, I thought I had nothing to worry about. Wrong! After two months and not a single problem, my funds were suddenly put on the 21 day hold. I received a email saying that it looked like problems loomed on the horizon. Despite having a 100% positive feedback rating, a verified account, and bank account linkage, the hold remained.
I emailed a few recent buyers and asked them to please leave feedback so the payment service would release my funds. They did but the damage was done. I decided to leave the well known auction site.
My purposes behind leaving were ample. They continued climbing barters expenses, they needed a month to month store expense to get any respectable closeout posting markdown, month to month posting charges, and amazingly high last quality expenses. In the wake of paying all the sale posting charges, I made a couple of pennies on the sold thing. 98% of the offering value headed off to the sale site. Far more detestable, I needed to pass on the crazy charges to the purchasers as higher costs.
The final straw came when the well known auction site started charging final value fees on shipping. Charging a fee on a fixed expense that a seller has no control over is ridiculous.
I started looking around for auction site alternatives to the well-known auction site. I soon stumbled upon a variety of sites. Many seemed to offer the same final value fee structure as the place I wanted to leave.
ItemAuctions.com turned up in one internet search. I'd never heard of it. I did some research but still not alot of information out there. Some reviews were less than flattering but after reading them it seemed that they were mainly from unsophisticated buyers - the ones that never read the auction posting, not computer literate, naive about the internet, don't follow directions, unfamiliar with USPS postage rates/regulations/shipping schedules, don't understand internet auction sites, or have extremely poor communication skills.
After perusing the ItemAuctions.com forum, I decided to take a $50 gamble on ItemAuctions.com and take out a lifetime Seller+ account. That was in July of 2011. There's been a steep learning curve and some mistakes along the way but I've more than made back that $50 fee.
The purpose of this blog is to throw out a lifeline to those looking for an alternative to that well known auction site. However, ItemAuctions.com isn't for everyone. Sellers can't be lazy like that other site. You'll have to learn marketing and selling tools to attract the buyers.
Buyers can easily buy on ItemAuctions.com One great feature on the site is both buyers and sellers can leave positive, neutral, and negative feedback. Users can only have one account too. No more hiding behind multiple account names.
Now join the adventure!
