Free Advice For eBay Sellers
From the archives:
Here’s advice I gave recently to someone looking to sell jazz records on eBay:
1. Buy a professional record cleaner and clean every record before you grade it and sell it.
2. Grade your records accurately/conservatively. You want to develop a good reputation and leave your customers satisfied so they’ll feel confident buying more from you.
3. Have a no-questions-asked return policy. If someone is not happy, pay to have the record shipped back and refund his money. If a buyer is consistently unhappy, politely stop doing business with him.
4. When you ship records, package them professionally and carefully and don’t scrimp on using high-end boxes and packing material.
5. Be accurate in your descriptions and include as much information as possible. Learn about the details that are important to buyers, such as the address on labels, colors of labels, distinguishing characteristics such as the deep groove and anything else that will make your listings clear and informative. Include the label and number. Try not to be too wordy: English may not be the first language of many buyers, so keep your listings concise and uncomplicated.
6. Get a good camera and take clear pictures, showing as much detail as possible.
What do you think? Do you have any other advice for sellers of jazz records on eBay?
7) Figure out your shipping costs first, especially for international. Be clear on your listing. This can cost as much or more than the actual record.
8) If you don’t know something (e.g., 1st v. 2nd pressing) don’t say. Better not to make a claim, than make a wrong one.
9) Send frequent reminders and invoices when people aren’t paying promptly. Don’t assume that people know how to check-out.
Ship items promptly. I both buy and sell on ebay, and it’s very frustrating to buyer to have a seller take 1+ weeks to ship an item that is slow anyway (media mail.) Also make sure you are shipping the right record. I have received several records I did not order, and it’s a first class hastle to return these items.