E-Bay question

I have never sold on E-bay and I have a couple of questions.
1. I have a MILLION-and I am not exaggerating books-I do break the spines though to make for a more comfortable read DH always yells at me. Do you think they are sellabel and what price for soft cover and hard cover
2. I am crafty and have made some mosaic tables and things like that. would this be considered "handcrafted" and what doyou think something like that should be listed at?
TIA

Message edited 1/17/2006 1:12:49 PM.

Re: E-Bay question

The books are sellable, but your description should be very clear about the condition of the books (broken spines, dog eared pages, etc). You may want to consider grouping the books by genre or author and sell in small lots, especially the paperbacks.

The mosaic tables would be considered handcrafted but I don't know what they would sell for - consider cost of supplies & time. CHecking ebay for similar listings is a great starting point for pricing info.

Re: E-Bay question

For the books you may want to consider half.com You don't pay anything to list them.
Only when they sell half.com will take a percentage.

Re: E-Bay question

Thank you!

Re: E-Bay question

How bad are the books? You can try putting lot Auctions up for mysteries, or Horror or per Author. For Paperbacks, I would start the autction off at $.01 and then charge $3.25 for shipping. This way, people will get drawn into your inexpensive auction, and you will still make some money, because it will only cost $1.25 to ship a Paperback. This is for single book auctions. You can do it with hardcovers too - just raise the shipping to $4.00 - Remember with books to ship Media Mail - it is cheaper.

As for the Mosaics - I would say to look on ebay and see if other people are selling the same item, if not - then take all the supplies that you put into the tables and figure out a round amount to start the auction on. Keep in mind not to start the auction to high, because you want to draw people in - you can always put a reserve price if you want to - so you will know you will get the price you want or over that price at least
Scott

Re: E-Bay question

with your mosaics...just begin by 'playing around' with a few- start a low bid auction and see what kind of bids you get. If you sell a few then you can get a better idea of what you can make with them and putting up a buy it now price.
I never have much luck with books- but it all depends on what books they are I guess. You can also try amazon.com to sell them.
As for ebay, I agree with a low starting bid but I don't always feel that jacking up the shipping works well. I often skip on auctions that, although have low bids, have a tremendous shipping overcharge. jmo
good luck!!

Re: E-Bay question

Thank you everyone-this will go in my notebook! I looked on ebay at the mosaic and under handmade there were about 8 postings-ranging from 25-350! I would probably pay no more than $50 for the table I made but I am a bargain shopper. Also I saw one on there that said handmade by artist Joe Schmo do you think I could say that about myself? It drew my attention-thanks for the advice on the books

Re: E-Bay question

Re: E-Bay question

Definitely say that you made it and list it as an artist. You can also list under original artwork if you like, my sister has sold some of her sculptures that way.
I've never had much luck with books either, I would probably put the books on half.com if I were you.