eBay

What: eBay is a site where you can sell anything from clothing to crafts, paying a percentage of the sales price to the site

Expected pay: NA

Husl$core: $$$$$

Commissions & Fees: 10% of sales price, up to $750. Up to 50 listings per month are free. (Those who list more than 50 items for sale each month either pay an additional listing fee or can buy a monthly or annual subscription.)

Where: Nationwide (worldwide)

Requirements: Be 18 or older

Review:

eBay is one of the oldest and largest sites to sell anything from camping equipment to cosmetics. All that experience has allowed eBay to work out many of the kinks in the sales process, including “buyer extortion.”

To clarify, one of the biggest challenges of selling online are dishonest buyers. They get your goods and then claim that they either didn’t show up, were defective or poor quality in a bid to get a refund or a discount.

If the buyer is sincere, he or she would be willing to return the product and would be covered by eBay’s satisfaction guarantee. But dishonest buyers don’t want to return the perfectly good product; they want to use bad reviews as a way of extorting concessions, ranging from discounts to free goods, from sellers.

Blocking bad buyers

Most sites do little about this. eBay is the exception. The company actually has a written “buyer extortion” policy that bans buyers from using feedback or seller ratings in an attempt to force a seller into providing goods or services that weren’t included in the original item’s description. If a buyer threatens you, you report the problem to customer support.

Sellers maintain that eBay investigates and supports its sellers. You, as a seller, also have the ability to block bad buyers or those not willing to pay on your terms. Add this nice feature to eBay’s 160 million shoppers and the fact that the site also gets you discounts on shipping, and you can see why we give eBay our top Husl$core.

Another great site to consider when you want to sell any number of wide array of products, from used books and videos to jewelry and clothing is Amazon. It gets heavy traffic, like eBay, and has a variable commission schedule that is sometimes advantageous.

Free sites, such as Craig’s List and LetGo are also a good option, but primarily cater to local buyers. So these are not the best sites to use when you’re willing to ship to appeal to a wider audience.

What their users say: (From SiteJabber)

“Except for Amazon, Ebay is still better than the others that have popped up. I read the reviews for Posh, I tried Swap, and some other sites to sell on. Just getting up and running is too complicated. They want your contacts information; they want this and that. I do well – not fantastic – on Ebay and though it’s going through some dramatic changes, I appreciate that it’s around for 3P like me.”

“I’ve been selling on eBay for some years and had my first experience of someone who bought an item but didn’t pay for it, so I wasn’t able to relist it. I called eBay and they sorted it out for me in a few minutes, I was very impressed, thank you.”

If you decide to sell on eBay make sure you add as much description as possible, answer questions and document what you sent in mail. That way when a dishonest buyer claims you sent a defective item you have proof you didn’t.