Recommendations to sell online?

You can sell on craigslist, meet at police station to do transaction.

I've sold some low price electronics on ebay without much issue.

* cpu
* motherboard
* tablet

Everything gets real photos, no stock pics. I show the item turned on/working. In the case of the cpu, I showed a pic from the bios screen and cpuz.

All items sent out with tracking numbers. Higher value items ($250+) go out with signature required.

All my listings are marked "returns not accepted". Even so, an ebay buyer can claim the item is defective. Or make it defective. It's a bit of a risk. For the craigslist transactions, cash only, and all sales are most definitely final.

What exactly are you selling?

I've been selling on eBay for many years and never had the incident you describe. I've had a few "no pay" buyers and a few returns but eBay is great about protecting both buyer and seller.

I'm not saying scamming doesn't happen and I haven't sold much lately but my experience over the years has been positive. Hundreds of items sold with no loss to me at all.

I've bought more than I've sold, but have sold over a dozen items including good audio equipment and late model graphics cards on eBay.

I've had a couple of bidders cancel bids (that is allowed in some situation) and one odd-ball guy tried to break the rule against telling me his address by sending me an image containing it, but nothing serious.

So I have not needed so far to rely on eBay's protective services.

If it were so wild a scene as some folks make out, we participants would have left long ago.

My results are the same. I just checked my account. I've been on eBay since 1999 and see my feedback from Sellers totaling 721 and feedback from buyers at 200. I imagine this indicates that my total purchases and sales are around 1500 items since feedback is not always offered.

I can say that maybe a half-dozen times, I was unhappy with a Seller for something I bought, and as far as memory goes, never had a problem from a Buyer with things I've offered and sold.

Be honest when describing the items you're selling, pack items well, ship quickly with tracking and it's unlikely you will have an issue selling a few PC parts. If you've just created an eBay account, know that potential bidders and buyers will see your zero feedback and recent account and may be less likely to commit to bidding or "Buy-It-Now-ing," especially if your offered items are listed as "Seller does not accept Returns." If new to eBay, be sure to have a PayPal account since most buyers are going to want to pay with PayPal.

An individual planning to offer a few items on eBay is not going to get rich, especially when considering fees and shipping, but for many of us, the benefit is decluttering our lives while making a bit of money. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, ceevee.

Be clear what you are selling. Clear pictures of the item(s), Clear description of the item(s) and clear details regarding the items including defects (including nicks, scraps or appearance issues.) If there are no returns clearly state that.
I don't sell anymore but never had an issue with Ebay or Paypal in the years I did. As far as shipping I would either up the shipping to include insurance or give the buyer the option depending on the item(s) and value. Usually USPS Priority is a good deal and boxes are free.

Craig offers some good advice above.

A couple of points you should also consider are: Be specific about your selling policy. Statements like where you will or will not ship , payment method and your return policy are very important in your ad. eBay takes this into consideration when resolving a dispute.

Include as many photos as practical! Show serial and model numbers whenever possible. Using the original packaging is also a benefit if it is available.

Tricks I've used in the past are: Offer free shipping and post a low opening bid. This of course will depend on the value of the item. Many buyers use "bots" that scan for bargains and pick up on these points.

For example, a few years back, I sold an antique silverware set appraised at $900. Being cautious, I posted an opening bid of $500. The ad had only around 150 views and no bids.

Taking a chance, I listed the same item again a few weeks later with free shipping and a 99 cent opening bid! The ad had over 2000 views and the bidding went crazy. The set sold for $1450 with most of the bidding occurring in the final minutes of the auction!

I've used this strategy many times since with similar results. Yes, there is always the chance I'll loose money but it hasn't happened yet.

There are many bargain hunters out there who buy and resell. This generates competition for the item. The trick is to attract their attention.

She’s had great success with that but I don’t like Facebook, I have never used Facebook, and will never use Facebook. So, I guess you can tell that I’m not a Facebook fanatic.

I am not on Facebook and had an industrial sewing machine to sell.
My daughter, who is on Facebook, told me that she has such great luck on selling on Facebook Marketplace.
She listed my machine and just after posting she had offers. The 1st lady that called lived over 100 miles away said if I would keep it for until that evening she would pay me an extra $100 for it. I said ok and she came and never even asked and handed me the money with the extra $100 included. My daughter said her phone was going off all day and evening and she was so glad to be able to put SOLD on my machine so people would stop wanting it.
My daughter said she has had people offer to pay extra if she would hold it till they could get there.
My daughter said everything she has put on Facebook Marketplace has gone fast.

I believe that specific piece of advice is out of date. While eBay and PayPal "go way back" there has been a process of distancing extending back to when eBay sold PayPal over five years ago.

The (new this year) current standard eBay process for a seller to get paid is that eBay itself handles the financial processing, accepting the major credit card types, PayPal, and more, takes out their fees and charges, and transfers the remainder to the seller's bank account directly. Yes this means you give your bank account details to eBay (just as I do for the gas company, the electric company...). If you don't want to do that, then skip eBay. If you do that, then you can skip PayPal unless you want an account for another reason.

I became aware of this when eBay sent me an email between my first and second GPU sale this year, advising me that I needed to update my account details in order to get paid the next time. Apparently they are shifting over participants on a multi-month rolling schedule, and that was when my number came up.

Thanks. Good to know. I apparently haven't sold anything on eBay for a while.

ceevee, it's not common, but it is true: eBay sellers can be scammed by buyers determined to cheat. They can end up with the item you sold and get their money back, and there isn't a thing you can do to stop it if they're determined to cheat you, unless you want to travel to their home state and sue them in a small claims court. eBay in my experience will *always* side with a buyer in a "he said/she said" dispute. The great majority of eBay buyers are honest and fair. A few are out to cheat.

Since getting scammed this way is an uncommon problem for sellers, my suggestion is that you can sell stuff on eBay, but should not sell anything so valuable you couldn't afford to lose it. If it's just something that you'd otherwise donate or toss, then sure, go ahead and list it on eBay.

The bigger issue you probably will have is that it can take a lot of your time to list, sell, pack and ship an item, and the listing and selling fees and shipping expenses can put a real dent in your net. To me it's not worth bothering listing a $10 item, maybe even a $25 item, for this reason, though as suggested above, when you're a new seller, only sell inexpensive items until you get some positive feedback so buyers trust you on the more expensive items.

Always search to see what your item is actually *selling* for. Also look at current listings to judge your competition, but actual sales prices, not listing prices, are the key to value. To see what items are selling for, search for it, then scroll down and check the "Sold Items" box on the left, near the bottom, under the "Show Only" heading. The listings will reload and, except for auctions where a seller accepted a Best Offer (those only show the listing prices), tell you what an actual sales price was in green. There's little sense in listing items for much more than that, unless your listing would be the only of those available. With a price shown in black, it means the listing ended without a sale, so that's not the real value either.

I avoid all those problems by doing only local pickup and cash only. Make them come to me, show they are serious. Scammers are filtered out right away, and there are plenty.

Put it right in the posting that only local pick up and cash are considered.

I've used Craigslist.

Post good, honest photos.