Expert: Marvinator - 11/25/2005

Question
Hi Marvinator,

I'm new to eBay, and am in the process of selling my first item. Can you possibly help me with a couple of questions.

1. How do I work out the shipping costs. I live in Sydney, Australia. And I am only going to ship within Australia. I have a sheet with all of Australia Posts shipping charges. The thing is it's more expensive to ship to certain states within Australia. So what price should I put. Should I put the most expensive. Just in case somebody from the furthest city buys my item?

2. Is there a certain size that your picture needs to be to be accepted in eBay. I tried putting a 60cm picture but it didn't like it. What are the rules for these.

3. I have accepted Money Order and Bank Cheques. And also Direct Deposit. If a seller wants to use these options. Do I give them my address so they can send to me. I'm not sure how it works.

Hope these questions are not too corny...

Thanks
Regards
Rob

Answer
Your question is in three parts, which I shall try to answer in three parts.  

1) If I were you, I'd do some searching on the internet for someone who has created a shipping calculator for Australian Post.   This would allow the bidder to input their postal code and get a shipping quote easily.  Should you be unable to find such a calculator, I would not input a shipping price.  I would instead put in a line in the description such as "Email me your postal code for a prompt shipping quote." For this you will need to check your email at least once a day in order to answer any and all questions. (But you planned to do this anyway, right?)

2) Standard picture size is 30-40K, sized at not more than 400 x 300 pixels.

3) I must admit that I'm not familiar with the way money is handled in Australia.  If Direct Deposit is a way that money is handled easily in your country, then I'd continue with it - but to be honest, I won't use Direct Deposit due to the number of possible scams that are perpetrated on a daily basis.   As for giving out your address, I highly recommend getting a postal box (either at the Post Office or at a private postal box office) and giving that out to anyone and everyone.  In today's market, there is no reason that you have to give out your home address to anyone.