[Milsurplus] Ebay

[Mark J. Blair]

On Mar 10, 2010, at 7:08 PM, David Stinson wrote:
> I freely admit that, most of the time, I insist on PayPal.
> Not for fear of Ebay, but for fear of the wolves at the door.
> When I sell stuff, it's usually to help with current bills and
> the costs of raising four daughters.  Waiting 2-3 weeks for a
> money order to arrive isn't going to help me pay
> the cursed medical bills.


I also generally just accept PayPal when selling (which I do infrequently), but mostly for my own convenience. I work a full-time job with an hour commute each way, plus a start-up activity on the side, and I live on a rural property about 8 miles from the edge of civilization, so I just don't want to be bothered going to the bank, waiting for a check or MO to clear, then heading out again to ship on another day. I've made exceptions for high-dollar items, though, where the PayPal fees would outweigh the convenience.

I generally ship by USPS Priority Mail since I can use their free boxes, I can include a shipping calculator in the listing so that potential buyers can determine their exact shipping cost before bidding (and I rarely tack on any handling charge), they can check out without waiting for me to send them an invoice, I can buy postage online and print a shipping label, and then cram the box(es) in the bin at the post office without waiting in line. Sometimes I'll offer other services for items which would be too expensive to ship by Priority Mail. I don't offer UPS or FedEx because neither had a depot near me or the places I frequent, and I don't want to stick my buyers with the huge markups of places like the UPS Store, Postal Annex, etc.

I understand and even agree with a lot of the complaints in this thread of discussion, but there are some valid reasons for a seller to want to accept only PayPal or use only USPS, particularly when they just sell bits and pieces on the side and don't have a lot of free time to do it, and when other options would cost the buyer a lot more.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
Web page: http://www.nf6x.net/
GnuPG public key available from my web page.