Monthly Archives: August 2017

eBay, Scam

Scams on eBay Part 1 – Introduction

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If you’ve ever sold on eBay for any period of time you have probably come across some interesting cases.  There are many signs that give away scams. These can appear in many forms such as messages, miss typed addresses, delayed payments and cancelled auctions to name a few.  I wanted to add a series to my blog to bring some insight on how scammers are trying to exploit sellers.  I want to give you some tips on what to look for and how to react.

Most recently one example I encountered was someone with zero feedback purchased something and immediately sent me a message after purchase.  All of my Buy It Now auctions require immediate payment.  And don’t get me wrong ,all new eBay buyers with zero feedback have to start out somewhere so I’m not knocking the zero feedback.  Some indicators from his purchase raised flags immediately and zero feedback was one of them.

Zero Feedback with account opened in last few days: Everyone has to start from zero, but sometimes certain indicators will show to be a scam.  I personally lookout for weird usernames with zero feedback that were just opened.  If the username also has the issues below the BE ALERT!

Weird Addresses: The way this person’s address was written usually has the word freight forwarder written all over it.  This means the buyer pays a US based company a small fee for the item to be “forwarded” to their out of the country address.  I ship the item to a US address and if there were to be a return I can only provide a return label from that US address.  Usually in this case the buyer would have to eat the return costs.  In this case, if the buyer complains about the item and admits they are not based at the address that you shipped to then you are covered by eBay.  Call eBay immediately and they will cover you.  Stay on the lookout for US addresses with letters after the street name such as (i.e. EC-12113).
Usually this means your item is leaving the country.

Weird Messages: If the buyer sends messages after purchase saying they need the item immediately due to (insert excuse here) a multitude of reasons it could raise flags especially combined with the above issues.  Sometimes these requests are legit but always be on your toes if something doesn’t seem right.

Payment Methods: Most sellers will use PayPal and pay immediately.  Once they pay it immediately deposits into your PayPal account.  Sometimes though the payment is in a held status.  From my experience when someone pays with their debit card or using their bank checking account as their payment method it takes awhile for the payment to clear.  Now not everyone who pays with their bank account is trying to scam you, but the messages that they send you could lead to one.  In this instance in the picture below, the payment was still pending and the buyer sent me a message saying to ship the product right away for his son’s birthday.  I responded and told the buyer I was waiting for payment to clear prior to shipping.  Now if I shipped the item immediately the buyer could suspend payment and I would be out of money and out of the unit should I have shipped early
(photo: payment pending)

These a some of the signs I look for when answering questions or evaluating buyers after their purchase.  Please follow along so you can see some of the potential scams I may encounter and how I vet them out.

Chris
-LiquidationOH@gmail.com

eBay, Liquidation

End of Summer Slowdown? Focus on the Small Items!

As I review August 2017 sales numbers, I can’t help but think where did all the sales go?!  Earlier in the summer I was selling anywhere between 5 to 10 items a night.  Now I’m selling between 1 and 3 items a night on average.  Now my dilemma is how do I handle this turn in sales?

Now here is a little history on my journey into liquidation in liquidation.  I learned about liquidation through a newspaper at about someone who bought liquidated cell phone cases.  The kicker was that he eventually went full time in it.  Now how could he do this?!  This intrigued me as I have been into part time reselling on eBay since 2003, but I only sold items around the house and the occasional flip from goodwill.  The idea of getting store return merchandise to sell in bulk was very interesting! And now here I am only 1.5 years into it, so I’m still learning.  I will save the full story for another post!

My dwindling sales have led me to a couple of issues both good and bad!  Let’s begin with the good.

Good Issues:
Listing Inventory and Creating Sales:

The downturn in sales have given me more time to list instead of ship.  I have been going through all my merchandise and making sure it’s listed to sell.  I also am able to run more sales so to entice more buyers.  Creating these sales has enabled me to blowout some old inventory to create room for new inventory but I haven’t been buying as much as I used to at the moment.

I’m able to put more of my focus on the smaller value items and get them listed.  Usually I concentrate only on the high value items in the lot, sell them, profit, and move on to the next lot leaving the small items sitting on the shelf.  This is a lesson learned as these items have been the ones selling consistently.  If I can learn to thoroughly go through the lot and list everything before going to the next I will step up my sales to the next level.

They say the more you list then the more you’ll sell.  I agree with this as I keep listing more and more, the likelihood of a sale increases.  Who knows if I didn’t have as many listing as I do now, then I probably wouldn’t have ANY sales.

Bad Issues:
Less Inventory Coming In:

Sales have slowed going out which also has slowed inventory coming in.  Since I’m not selling as much I have been hesitant to bring more stuff in.  Not only would i be tying up capital, but i would my shelves would be overflowing.  I would rather grow inventory slowly, even though I love the thrill of buying new boxes of product!  If I had the help to bring more product and list more then I would continue to buy even though I would be selling less.

This downturn in sales has allowed me to learn how to not only grow my business but enhance my overall profitability per lot.  If I slow down buying inventory and consistently list each and all items in the lot then I will be able to move more inventory.  Developing processes and creating consistency is key to efficiently moving product!

-Chris
LiquidationOH@gmail.com

Want to learn step by step how to excel in the liquidation business or do you simply have questions?  This book will answer everything for you!

http://bit.ly/LiquidatorsGuide2017