I am in Collectibles, mainly as a seller. During the last few months, thanks to my ebay account managerโs prodding, I have been uploading some items on ebay.com also. The result has been encouraging and in my view, listing on .com is bringing better response than international listings on ebay.in.
There is a minor issue about collection of payments, for which the options are Paisapay or Paypal.
In Paisapay, โitem receiptโ from buyer becomes an issue. Mostly cross border deliveries take place in about a fortnight, the time by which Paisapay automatically treats the item as delivered. Even if the item gets delivered earlier, the buyer, registered elsewhere than ebay.in might be unaware of the Paisapay requirement or be unable to find the โitem receipt buttonโ on Paisapay.
Paypal is more attractive alternative as fund is credited as soon as the buyer pays.
The issue in Paypal is (A) itโs charge on small payments and (B) fluctuation in dollar value.
(A) There is a minimum charge of 45 cents plus a percentage on total amount. On a $ 5 payment it works out to 60 cents i.e.12%.
(B) The RBI rules about bringing in funds after a short interval forces oneโs hands whereby the seller may lose on low dollar value and also Rs 50.00 for withdrawing amounts less than INR 7000. Can we request RBI to consider accumulation for a longer period and up to a certain limit?
Collectibles are presumed to be money spinners, as Diptiโs mails try to project. But the fact remains that bulk of the sales are in trickles. The following figures, of my sales in the last 3 months, will illustrate that above 50% sales are below $ 5. It would be interesting to find out what other Collectibles sellers are experiencing.
Number of Sales*
Order* Amount, Jan โ11, Feb โ11, Mar โ11
Amt < $5, 8, 13, 10,
Amt < $10, 4, 2, 1,
Amt < $25, 1, 4, 5,
Amt < $50, 1, 4, 1,
Amt > $50,<100 0, 1, 2,
Amt > $100 0, 1, 0,
Total Orders, 14, 25, 19,
* Sales/Order : Multiple items Combined as a single sale treated as 1 Order
Moral : The more low value items get a better turnover than a few high value ones!