Expert: Marvinator - 7/11/2005

Question
How does notifying the buyer they've won and invoicing work?- Do I e-mail them and ask for their address, or does E-bay provide that information?------------------------
Followup To
Question -
I would like to start selling on E-bay, but my biggest concern is that I will somehow make a mistake on the shipping end of things and someone won't get their item.  Whenever I have won an auction, I have received a very professional looking notice from E-bay  congratulating me and an invoice when I've paid.  How did the seller get my address without asking for it?  I would like to use this service if it is inexpensive.

Do you know of a good drop shipper?  I though that this would be the easiet way for me to go because I don't drive, everything is shipped for me, etc. I have a 14 day trial with one now, but the selection is so poor and the prices for items are so high, that my starting bid would have to be through the roof in order to make a profit.  Any suggestions?  Thank you for your help.
Answer -
You ask actually two questons, so forgive me if I separate this into two sections.

Shipping.  
It is not difficult to do shipping at home, once you understand how it's done.  The first step is to get a good POSTAL rated Scale (No, not a bathroom scale, as they can be wildly inaccurate for shipping.) Postal Rated Scales are available at Office Supply stores, on the internet and many companies even offer them through EBay very inexpensively.  Weigh the item WITH The box you intend to ship it in to get the total shipping weight.  Knowing the weight, and the zip code destination, you can go to USPS.gov or UPS.com (or any of the other shipper's internet sites) and get the exact shipping without having to actually ship the item.  

Drop Shippers.  
I can't recommend any Drop Shippers - for two reasong.  First, is that I really don't want to get into the business of making business recommendations.  

SEcond is that I personally don't like Drop Shippers.  Oh, don't get me wrong, they can make it easy for a small home based business to make a little extra money, but there are a couple of pitfalls in using them.  

The most common pitfall is the "out of stock" scenario.  It works like this.  The company carries Item A.  It is a hot seller and you list and sell one.  Now, before you place the order with the shipper, you collect payment from the buyer - this is standard practise.  You then contact the Drop Shipper and tell them you want the item shipped out.  Ah, but this is a very popular item and the Drop Shipper is out of stock.  By the time you're notifed by the Drop Shipper of this problem, your buyer is getting impatient for delivery.  

Now, the problem here is that the Drop Shipper is well within their rights, because they are dealing with you as their customer, not the end recipient.  According to both Ebay AND the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) you must ship the item within 30 days of payment but your agreement with the Drop Shipper may supercede this requirement in dealing wiht backorders.  The backorder on the item could be 2 weeks, 3 weeks or 6 weeks.  YOU don't KNOW!  What usually happens in such cases is either the seller is a Good guy and refunds the payment in full until such time as they can deliver (Buyer=somewhat happy) or the Seller is not a good guy, wants the money and will hide behind the "My drop shipper is out and the item is on backorder, please wait for delivery as there is nothing I can do!" Hence Buyer=not so happy.  

Now, the second inherrant problem with Drop Shippers is that the Drop Shipper only wants to make money.  Think about this for a min.  Do you think you are the ONLY person on Ebay with this item listed?  Of course not.  AND if it's a hot selling item, there may be 30-50 of a single item YOU want to list which is already listed on Ebay.  You all buy the item at the exact same price from the exact same drop shipper.  BUT (and here's the kicker) there will always be someone who is willing to make less profit than you and will list the item lower.  Lower price means more sales.  The prime example of this is a company on ebay which sells Music CD's for one cent.  Oh many of them sell for much more, but he's willing to sell for a penny if you are the only bidder.  AND many of them do.  How can you sell against this guy when he's willing to take a loss to start low?  The average home-based seller just doesn't have the resources to take on such a seller.  

To me (personal opinion follows) using a Drop shipper is a crap shoot.  You really just don't know.  

Now, one last thought on Drop Shippers.  I know some people who have found a product and talked the company into drop shipping.  I know others who use some of the drop shipping companies which advertise on the internet and in bulk emails.  They both do ok.  This means that with the right product, with the right marketing and with the right patience, and understanding of how ebay works, you just might do ok.  You won't get rich on Ebay.  Those days are gone, beleive me.  

I'm also not trying to scare you off of selling on EBay.  I'm trying to offer you all the pitfalls to educate you, because I figure you came to me to get information not to have someone build you up with false hopes.  I'd prefer you went out there with your eyes open than with false hopes.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope this has helped you.  Please feel free to ask more questions as you need.  

Answer
When you registered with Ebay, and with Paypal, you put your address into the system.  (Let's hope most people put the right address in!)

You as a seller have the option to do one of the following:  
1) You can create your own invoice via email and send it to the buyer asking for payment.   When payment is made, usually the address comes along.  I did this for several years - and did quite well with it - before eBay put in the second option.  

2) Ebay invoicing.  Time to get into and learn about MYEBAY.  At the top of every Ebay page is MYEBAY.  Click on this link, log in and you have everything you never knew you wanted at your fingertips.  

Click on SOLD.  When an item is sold, the link beside it will read "Send Invoice".  You can click this and fill in your shipping information and message and an official invoice goes out fromyou, through Ebay to the buyer.  When they pay (hopefully quickly, like through Paypal) this link changes to read "Print Shipping Label"  which will allow you to to go Paypal and print out a shipping Label AND pay for shipping all in one step.  

MyEbay is the best part of Ebay.  It has more information in it about what's being sold, what DIDN'T sell and what you can do all in one conventient spot (and even I haven't used everything it can do yet!).  


I hope this helps. Please feel free to return and ask more as your eBay experience grows.