eBay: List a Qualifying Smartphone (Apple, Samsung, & More) —> Get $100 Coupon if it Does Not Sell
Been hanging on to an old smartphone? Through October 24th, head over to eBay.com to take advantage of the Flip Your Phone for the Win Promotion. Simply click on the Sell Now button (as shown above), select your phone, choose the carrier, model, color, memory capacity and condition and eBay will then provide you with a suggested “Buy It Now” price for your phone. Plus, eBay will suggest an auction-style start price in order to attract bidders.
And here’s the best part – if your listing doesn’t sell, you will receive a $100 coupon towards your next eBay purchase! Sweet! 🙂 Note that the $100 coupon will be received approximately 7-10 business days after the end of the unsold qualifying listing and must be redeemed within 14 days of receipt. To view the full list of terms and conditions of this promotion, go here.
One thing to mention from someone that has sold more than a few smartphones on ebay … there is a major issue with fake bidders (little or no feedback, long inactive accounts, etc) putting huge bids on phones, winning the auction and then not paying. By the time you work through the non-paying bidder process with eBay (which takes at least 10 days) there is little chance of getting a second chance bidder and you end up having to relist the item and start over. I list mine as buy-it-now with immediate payment required for that reason (which would disqualify them from this promotion but guarantees the buyer is real).
Make sure that when selling something of this dollar amount that you ship it USPS signature confirmation or UPS/Fedex with signature required … otherwise seller protection will not apply and the buyer could claim that the phone was never received and ebay will side with the buyer and revoke your payment. So price your shipping accordingly.
Don’t forget that by the time ebay and paypal take their cut you will lose approximately 12% of your final value (which includes the shipping). Still a decent chunk of change to be had, but the sticker shock of what they take can be surprising.
Finally, this promo will flood the market for these model phones … so sale prices will most likely be lower than ebay will advertise for that model.
All that said, I still use ebay for selling items, there are just alot of things to be aware of/careful about. The market is heavily skewed towards buyers, but if you are careful about following the seller rules as a seller you can protect yourself.
Those are great points, MJL! I’ve had a lot of issues with non paying bidders and buyers claiming they didn’t receive the item. Considering the number of buyers claiming they didn’t receive their items, I would say its statistically impossible! (I taken my fair share of stats classes!) Ebay does nothing to protect sellers because they know without buyers their website would be worthless.
I sell 100 items a week on eBay, and I end up opening cases on at least 1/4 of all my sales. Most things I sell are under $100, too. Incredibly frustrating.
I do open cases, and find them frustrating, but what are you selling? 25% seems high to me. I sell about 10 items a month and I would say I have to open a case less than once a month, maybe 5% of the time or less.
Speaking for myself, I sell all kinds of stuff from around the house and also fix phones on the site to sell … the around the house stuff I never have issues with Non-Paying Bidders … with the cell phones it was definitely 25-33% Non-paying Bidders before I switched to Buy-it-now with immediate payment required.
I have the requirements that the bidder can have no more than 2 non-payment complaints and must have a bidder activity of 2 or above. It has stopped some of the nonsense when selling but not all.
I sell all kinds of stuff, too. I flip things from thrift and yard sales, but I have issues across the board with non-paying bidders. Never have an issue with buy it now, as my items require immediate payment, but I have issues with tons of auction listings. With clothing items/lots, I have issues at least 10% of the time. Electronics, I have more frequent issues.
These are all great suggestions, thanks! I am trying to get myself motivated to attempt to list and sell some items from around the house on eBay, now that the kids are off in college! Any suggestions on how to ship stuff … USPS or FedEx? I have not listed anything yet, but am trying to get myself mentally prepared on what to do! 🙂 Thanks for any suggestions!
If you want to use the built in postage calculator you’d have to use USPS or UPS (Fedex is flat rate only I think) … that allows the shipping to vary based on where the buyer’s zip code. There is also a small discount for printing the postage directly through eBay’s shipping system. USPS is pretty quick and painless … so its what I use and then either drop it at the post office or give it to my carrier if the timing works out.
Buy a cheap kitchen scale if you’re listing light items. For heavier items that’ll fit in flat rate shipping boxes/envelopes, use USPS Priority flat rate mailers. I use them for about half of everything I sell.
Thank you, MJL and Caitlin!! I’m going to give it a try this week!
wow, i shop on ebay all the time. some people are unreal. i didn’t know this was happening on there. i guess because i’m not a seller. that’s just ridiculous.
I tried to sell a phone on eBay last year and my first buyer didn’t pay and claimed that they didn’t have the money to pay. I had to get him to agree to cancel the transaction so that I could relist and so I was not charged ebay seller fees. So I thought what are the odds that it happens again? I had bought two phones off eBay so I figured it was most likely a fluke and relisted. Well what do you know, my second buyer didn’t pay either. Said he had bidded on two phones that day not expecting to win both auctions so he no longer wanted my phone. The most frustrating thing about it all is that these bidders had great feedback and there was no way for me to leave them negative feedback. I will never list another phone on eBay again. I have since listed and sold some vintage costume jewelry and had no troubles at all but you couldn’t pay me to list a phone on there, the headache isn’t worth it.
I completely agree with everyone’s gripes about EBAY I have complained several times..its “all about the buyers” with them..I have had to report a few buyers who abused there return anything policy…makes me ill!
Ladies, if you are going to take advantage of this offer, please be sure to ship to your buyer using tracking. If you don’t ship it with tracking then the buyer can claim they never received it. Then ebay will refund their money and they’ll have your phone too. Also, please be sure to make sure that when they pay, the money actually is in your paypal account. Don’t just trust an email that is supposedly comes from paypal without checking your paypal account as well. Scammers have been known to send a fake paypal “payment recieved” email to make you think you got paid and so you’ll ship when they really didn’t. Lastly, if someone pays using an echeck through payapal, wait until the echeck clears (3-4 days) before you ship. If the echeck doesn’t go through and you’ve already sent the phone before it clears you could lose your phone and potential profit. Good luck!
I would not recommend taking advantage of this offer as a seller. I personally sold an iPhone 4S and eBay (their contract customer support staff out of India, of course) has refused to honor the trending price difference coupon, each time providing a reason that was not included in the promo details (https://pages.ebay.com/ebayforthewin/offertermsemail.html). I have come across discussion posting after discussion posting of eBay not honoring the coupon providing numerous and false excuses as to why the deal is not valid. Anyone actually receive the coupon? Otherwise, I’m calling this a full-blown scam run by eBay.
I agree with Chad 100%. My buyer never paid and I am sitting here waiting for someone in sales with Ebay to give me the same B.S. excuses. Thirty minutes on hold so far and no option with this department to offer a callback number. This has been a 3 week process attempting to sell an iPhone under their strict guidelines to no avail. Do NOT waste your time and I wouldn’t sell another damn thing on Ebust!!