COD or PayPal
 

If you're selling and sending, which is the preferable way? Which advantages do either have?

thanky
elmer

Hi Elmer,

Selling on eBay is great, it gives you a fantastic exposure to the world.

99.99% of eBayers a good honest folk but there are scammers out there.

I prefer paypal myself. Its quick and easy and you have the money in your account immediately. I even have a Master Card from paypal that lets me use it like a debit card on my paypal balance. So it's almost as good as cash.

Paypal does take a percentage around 3% in service fees but this is comparable to a bank charging a business a transaction fee for the service (Visa and M/C charge the merchants 2-5% per transaction).

I think its a small price to pay to get the money instantly.

C.O.D is not such a good idea. If you even get paid it will take a while I'm sure.
I don't trust people that much, especially if your dealing with high end pro/prosumer gear.

Bid pay is another good idea as they send You a money order. Its actually Western Union. I've paid for a few auction wins that way. The buyer pays the service fee you pay no fees. You just wait a few days to get the money order in the mail.

For high end equipment I reccommend you offer "escrow" that way it lets the seller know you are serious about selling and not a scammer.

Basically Escrow is a service provided by a third party.
The buyer sends the money to the escrow agent.
The escrow agent then tells you they have the money in trust and you may ship the item to the buyer.
You ship the item, once the buyer gets it they will examine the item.
If they want to keep it they tell the escrow agent to pay you.
If they don't want it they must return it to you then you tell the escrow agent to refund the money back to the buyer.
You make the buyer pay for this service as it is a form of insurance for them.
The escrow charge is usually a small percentage of the value of the item.
Escrow is great for camera's or a deck I wouldn't use it for a filter or other small items.

I hope this answers some questions.

Good luck on eBay!

Chris

Hum... I don't see anything that let me think that Elmer is asking for advices about selling on eBay...

Y'know what Jean-Philippe, You are absolutely right!!!

I've got eBay on the brain... my mistake.

But,

The information and suggestions still do apply eBay or not.

Paypal and Bidpay and Escrow are good options for selling these days. We didn't have this many choices before all this online stuff happened.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes ;-)

Cheers,

Chris

Right, Paypal is not just for eBay. I have used paypal to pay for personal services... I was able to pay a Final Cut Pro consultant before he even left my office.
Of course, I wouldn't even think about using eBay without paypal. Lots of sellers refuse to deal with C.O.D. and I don't blame them.