Faced with no prospects for a job after graduating, Auburn alumnus Stephen Dixon turned to selling himself. On eBay that is. "In the end no one actually bought me, but it was a good publicity stunt for myself," Dixon said.
With eBay.com, Amazon.com and many new selling resources available online, it's challenging to know what to use as a beginning seller.
Ben Nichols, of Sydney's Vintage Clothing in downtown Auburn, said Sydney's started out as dabbling in online selling on eBay as a store. eBay stores allow sellers to keep items up for an extended time, unlike the auction style that is the norm for eBay.
In Nichols' experience, eBay has proved to be finicky and full of frivolous fees.
"The joke name for them is feeBay," Nichols said.
Apart from his com- plaints, Nichols still uses the site for personal selling, although the store is no longer on eBay.
Nichols said his advice is to guard feedback ratings. eBay now requires feedback after every transaction, in the form of a rating system and comments.
"When you're first starting out, one negative ( feedback) is going to stand out," Nichols said.
That's something online seller Joseph Wolnski, junior in computer sciences, agreed is necessary.
"People won't buy from you if you don't have good ratings," Wolnski said.
Wolnski uses eBay to sell electronics.
"There's a good market for broken Macs (on eBay)," Wolnski said.
Wolnski said eBay is good for connecting people who want to buy or sell things that aren't easy to buy or sell, like his broken computers.
Wolnski also sells on craigslist.com and even Facebook's Marketplace, two resources that evolved to compete with sites like eBay and Amazon since they were founded in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Craigslist.com has more than 20 billion page views a month.
Wolnski said he sold a broken computer on Craigslist easier than eBay.
"I was meaning to put it back on eBay," Wolnski said,"butthatwassuchan ordeal. So, I put it on Craigslist and the next morning someone bought it."
Aside from keeping high feedback ratings, Wolnski said to compare prices of similar items.
Wolnski also uses a low starting bid to build interest with a larger number of bids, or a reserve bid if a certain profit is needed.
Items cannot be sold unless they reach the reserve bid amount.
"Reserve bids are stupid," said Hunt Prothro, junior in accounting.
Prothro, who sells music equipment, electronics and movies among other things, uses a reasonable starting price, from about 35 to 50 percent of the value of the item.
When selling on eBay, Prothro said the baseline value of items should be higher. Otherwise, it's a lot of work for not much money, Prothro said.
Prothro suggests paying the extra fees on eBay to make the listing look good.
"You don't feel as safe," Prothro said about item listings with bad photos and grammatical mistakes. Prothro and Wolnski both Facebook's Marketplace for selling, because it is a free service.
Wolnski uses it primarily for textbooks and football tickets.
Facebook users have exceeded 400 million, a credibly sized market to reach for new sellers.
According to Wolnski, it's a viable option for those wishing to sell locally for the ease of it. There's also a smaller shipping fee.
Whether new sellers want to sell a broken Mac on eBay or a purse on Craigslist, Nichols, Prothro and Wolnski all agree on the importance of research.
Check prices of similar items before setting a price.
Decide how rare an item is and if it needs to be sold online or if it can be sold locally.
Know to keep customers happy.
Prothro leaves one piece of expertise that covers a multitude of complexities in the online selling world: "I just use my common sense."
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