eBay Question

I have an 80something Yamaha BW80 I bought last fall for what was supposed to be a quick project that I could play around in the snow with and flip for a couple bucks come spring time. Turned out to be more work than I thought, lost interest, need money for auto x/street bike, ect. and now I am planning to part it out on eBay. I have no experience selling on eBay.

I listed only one item at first to get a feel for it and mentioned in the description that I had a bunch more parts I would be listing soon. Guy emails me today throuh eBay saying he is interested in seat, tank, fenders and carb boot, which are likely to be some of my biggest money makers. Seems to be totally legit, no indication that he is anything but an honest buyer.

My question is this: what sort of protection as a seller am I giving up if I don't go through eBay on the deal? I would love to just settle on a price over email and have him Paypal me (basically like buying parts from a classifieds section of a forum) to dodge eBay's cut of the proceeds, but suppose he were to dispute the payment through Paypal after receiving the parts. Is there any advantage to working through eBay in that situation? Learn me!

Furious_E wrote: I have an 80something Yamaha BW80 I bought last fall for what was supposed to be a quick project that I could play around in the snow with and flip for a couple bucks come spring time. Turned out to be more work than I thought, lost interest, need money for auto x/street bike, ect. and now I am planning to part it out on eBay. I have no experience selling on eBay. I listed only one item at first to get a feel for it and mentioned in the description that I had a bunch more parts I would be listing soon. Guy emails me today throuh eBay saying he is interested in seat, tank, fenders and carb boot, which are likely to be some of my biggest money makers. Seems to be totally legit, no indication that he is anything but an honest buyer. My question is this: what sort of protection as a seller am I giving up if I don't go through eBay on the deal? I would love to just settle on a price over email and have him Paypal me (basically like buying parts from a classifieds section of a forum) to dodge eBay's cut of the proceeds, but suppose he were to dispute the payment through Paypal after receiving the parts. Is there any advantage to working through eBay in that situation? Learn me!

The eBay seller protection isn't that good, they seem to offer great protection to buyers at sellers' expense. Sellers can't even leave negative feedback anymore.

Selling outside eBay but still using Paypal you run the same risk of the buyer filing a dispute and keeping the item and the money (which is why I take pics of everything packed well and have tracking on every package), stolen/fake paypal accounts and cc fraud (only ship to verified accounts with verified addresses.)

The best you can do is your due diligence, get their email, ph# (and voice or text verify) and address (google maps to verify.) You can always ask the buyer to send Money Order (USPS or Western Union only) or send Paypal as a gift, which you incur no fees and cannot be disputed/rescinded. Some banks also offer payment to your account similar to Paypal, Chase comes to mind. Of course, that might leave the buyer feeling vulnerable and they might not be willing.

The short answer is none. A sale outside of ebay is just that.

I would tell the potential byer that you re putting them up n ebay shortly and he can gladly bid on them. OR I have had offers on things that I had not put on ebay yet and I post it with a by it now amount. If the purchaser is serious they will "by it now" if not then who knows it may sell for more. I have had that happen as well.

I have also put things up with a reserve price of what the offer was for and let it play out. Let the market determine what the part is worth. Obviously your potential byer knows what you have and what it is worth and is hoping to get in before the market/bidding drives up the price.

An example I had was for a racing header for my RX7. Guy wants to purchase it for $100. this was a extremely heavy duty one made for professional racing like the Daytona 500. I put it up with a reserve of the $100 and it ended up selling for just north of $500 and the original guy that wanted it at $100 ended up being the one that won the bid.

For starters fill out your profile. Even if you just list the part of the state your in. Someone here might be interested.... like me.

IME the buyers that contact you while the auction is running and want to buy something from you before the end of the auction tend to rely on people getting antsy when no bids roll in and sell stuff under value.

If your gut feeling says the parts will be of interest for a lot of people, politely decline the offer and tell the buyer that you will be listing them on ebay soon.