Stock Trading and Other Things

Is Ebay really safe to do online trading? Is it worth it?

I am new to online trading. It seems to me that ebay is the most famous site to do it. But with all the charges, is it really worth it? Is it that safe? Can somebody share their experiences?

Thank you.

Public Comments

1. Nothing is safe online. That's why they offer extra charges for insurance. You can avail of the insurance scheme to insure your trading.

I have been selling and buying goods from the internet for almost 2 years now. I have used ebay twice and my only bad experience is paying a high price in the end. hehheheheheh

But I also tried zikbay.com. It's free classified ad listing. It is not like ebay so it's free. People can respond to your ad directly, so you deal with the buyer and seller directly. And so far, i preffer it than ebay because it's FREE!... You might want to try it out.... www.zikbay.com

Just remember, nothing is 100% safe online. Do some extra checking yourself.

2. I don't know if you're talking about selling, but I've had great success on selling on e-bay. The highest returns i've had came from my used college textbooks. I usually get 60-90% back from the original cost. Other things that I've sold that sell best are collectibles and hobby items. I've bought/sold items from my saltwater aquarium hobby that are very high priced items. Usually if there is a market, they will do well on e-bay. Flea market items (used clothes, worn books, tapes, etc.) have not done that well and are usually not even worth the dollar something listing fee. I'd really stick to things that are really collectible and unique, they'd likely sell.

3. eBay is pretty safe, and while the fees might run 10% to 15% of a sale, that is very cheap adverstising considering the exposure you can get!

you get extra safety, both when buying and when selling, by using PayPal for payments.

I have had a couple of sellers not get my item to me, and when that has happened, twice I received a refund from PayPal.

When I sell, I only ship with a tracking number, and I only ship to the buyer's 'Confirmed Shipping Address' from PayPal... I've never had a problem, but if there was a problem, you have some assurance from PayPal that you'll keep your payment and won't have to refund it.

Face it, if you started a web site and just began selling items to the public, you'd face big advertising costs, placing banners around Google & Yahoo, and you would be facing possible fraud from buyers whenever they paid you.

The facts of internet buying & selling are real, and sometimes you can be burned. The nice thing about eBay is the huge exposure you can get very quickly, and the upfront fees are very small... the biggest part of the fees are never charged unless your items sell..

If you are going to sell, learn about eBay's 'Buyer Requirements' that you can use to restrict possible bad behavior from buyers (I added the link)

if you buy something, pay through PayPal, and use a credit card when you do. That way, if things go wrong, you can contest it first through PayPal, and if that doesn't help, then you can contest it through your credit card.

When you sell something, you could be extra safe and only accept money orders through the mail... but you'll lose out on sales because that seems suspicious to most buyers, and they won't go after your items very hard.

You could always get set up with a credit card 'Merchant' account so that you could accept card payments directly, but then doing so has significant fees too.

PayPal is so easy, they have some seller protections, and most eBay buyers are confortable with using it, so if you sell, you're best off accepting PayPal as either your only payment type, or at least your prefered type.

Finally, when you get real busy and sell a lot, then you start moving to your own web site, and advertising yourself with a $1000 to $5000 budget or more on Google, Yahoo, and other web advertising sources.. but who can afford that much right at the start??

4. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/02/62226
http://collectibles.about.com/b/2003/08/15/ebay-and-email-scams.htm
http://www.ocalasmostwanted.com/ebay_scam.htm

Ebay has one of the highest Identity theft problems on the net. I know from experience. You have to be careful with your information cause you never know where you are really sending it to.

Rip off reports have over 1700 listings http://ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q5=ebay&q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search%21&Search=Search