New and used 53-05 Corvette Parts
| 53-55 | ||
| 56-62 | ||
| 63-67 | ||
| 68-82 | ||
| 78-82 | ||
| 84-96 | ||
| 97-04 | ||
| 05-? | ||
| Non-Ebay Specials | ||
| Contact | ||
|
|
||
 |
||
|
||
| We will dye one-piece interior items to match for free with your order. Specify color and add total on checkout! See examples here! | ||
Search our store
Doing business on eBay - buying, selling, shipping & feedback.
Hi everyone. I wanted to write a bit about how I personally do business and my perspective on buying and selling on eBay in general.
|
Shipping & Handling: In the past, I did not generally add a
"handling" charge to my sales. As it turned out - this was a poor
business decision. The time for my own labor, supplies, and overhead is something
that is above and beyond the cost of goods sold - new or used. The
effort I make to bring old parts to you is significant and transaction
fees are close to 15% in many cases. In fact,
I know many people who refuse to sell on eBay due to the "hassle" of
shipping and dealing with the general public. Although I ship items in good second-hand
boxes, I still have to pay to store them in my warehouse :) . At
present, I generally charge $15 for all small items. Since I ship most
everything UPS - the rates are slightly higher than USPS to begin with
and I don't have this service set up and would have to otherwise go to
the post office. The majority of one-five # pound items shipped to a
private residence are $9-12 UPS Ground. I don't do enough volume to
earn much of a discount, so there you have it. For all new (eBay)
listings, I state the actual shipping amount I will be charging in the
eBay template. In summary, consider all of this and take the total cost
of the transaction into consideration before you hassle me and tell me
that my shipping is insane ;p Items are typically shipped out within 48 hours of receiving payment. I try to end most live auctions Sunday night and print labels by noon the following Monday for everything that's cleared. So basically, you get your junk in a timely manner and will be provided with a tracking number in most cases.
|
|
International Orders: For non-US buyers, I am happy to ship USPS
Priority mail for items under 108" square (79" some
countries) and under 70 #lbs. I generally only ship a dozen or so Intl'
orders a month, which requires a special trip to the post office on my
part in each case. For this I charge a $10 handling fee plus 3% added to
the total sale because Paypal and our merchant account have additional
fees for processing money from a foreign bank account. Sometimes, I will
round this up to the nearest $5 if the item is fragile or hard to pack
and for insurance. At your request, I will declare a lower value of the
sale, but I can not insure it in these cases. USPS offers a free (up-to)
$69 insurance on most items. So basically, for a 5 #lb item that cost
$100 in a 12x12x12 box, I would charge about $40 to ship. If you would
like a rough estimate, you can go to
http://www.usps.com/ and pick to ship from Maryland 20879 USA.
Please do not send me any international checks or money orders, as my
bank charges $75 to cash it.
Paypal: I will no longer be taking paypal on higher value items. Yes, I know it is a pain to mail a check or money order. In addition to paying the eBay fee the paypal fee is really hurting my margins. Let's look at this example. I sell a "new" item for $500. It cost me $25 to sell this item to eBay (store format) and another (roughly) $15 to take the money via paypal. So that's $40 in fees to gross $500. Well - this $500 item costs me $400, yet has a "suggested retail price" of $600, but in order to sell it on eBay and be competitive - I have to come in at 500. So basically, I make $60. Soooo - for taking a picture, creating the listing, shipping the item, and recording the sale which I get to pay taxes on.... I make $60.... hmm. For those who think that's still not bad - think about how many x $60 I have to sell to make any kind of living. Secondly, the fact that Paypal will always side with the buyer in cases of a dispute annoys me. |
|
|
|
Feedback: As a buyer, you may now leave negative feedback for a
seller without fear of NFB in return. This is not such a big deal as
most sellers are honest and most buyers are reasonable. However, there
will always be some customers who are never happy. In the past year, I
have made an increased effort to avoid negatives by providing additional
photographs in a new template format and taking returns on items even
when they were fairly represented. For the most part, I sell used
salvaged parts and I think people understand "as-is". I am not "Wal
Mart" and you can't buy something and then ask to return it two months
later. In any case, every now and again - someone will feel the need to
soil my reputation and there is nothing I can do about it since there is
no longer a mutual feedback withdrawal either.
Here is an example. I sold a mirror and without contacting me or anything, the buyer left NFB stating "seller didn't say that the mirror was scratched in two spots". Clear as day in my listing, I said "The paint is scratched. The glass itself is has some scratches, but visibility is good." See that - I used the word "scratched" TWICE describing both the paint AND glass. Needless to say, the buyer had his phone number listed, so I called him to talk about this. He claimed his "son" had made the transaction and didn't actually read my description or something. In any case - he withdrew the remark. So in summary, from this point forward, sellers like myself will get bad comments no matter what we do and buyers should recognize this and know that feedback ratings will be dropping across the board. On a related note, I am not helpless and will generally not be bullied into doing something unfair to myself. Since I only sell Corvette parts and am one of the top 10 or so sellers of such on eBay, I do have clout. If a buyer chooses to be a royal pain and leaves me NFB - he or she will be added to my universal blacklist which is shared and updated amongst myself and about two dozen other dealers who sell a significant volume of Vette parts. So basically, assuming my colleagues follow suit, your ability to buy parts on eBay will be severely limited. In summary, look before you leap.
|
|
Pricing & Cost of Goods: Some people say my prices are cheap,
others say they are too high. The nice thing about selling only Corvette
parts is that most things are generally reproduced by someone and I have
a marker point to know what a brand new part would cost. So basically,
for good used items, I generally start bidding or sell things in my
"store" for 25-50% of what a new reproduction item would be. In cases
where an item is dated/ numbered, NOS, or only available as salvage, I
will try to get a premium. Believe it or not - I generally use the
Ecklers.com website to help me figure out pricing as they are one of the
more organized companies and keep everything up to date. Ironically, the
people looking at $20 items are the ones who want to haggle the most and
the people 3000 miles away in CA are the ones who want free shipping ;p
|
| Bidding Habits: You know, some people have a lot of free time and wait till the very last minute of an auction to place their bid. The obvious strategy in doing this is to not raise the price early on and get a "good deal". Well there is nothing wrong with that, but don't you hate getting outbid by $1 ? I know I do. Think about how much an item is worth, how easy it is to get, and how important it is to have it sooner, or later. Generally, you can't "steal" anything of value. There is almost always someone else watching the same item you are. This takes me back to when I was saying I base my prices for many things around what the new or suggested retail price would be. So let's say that something retails for $500 and I'm offering it in perfectly good used condition for $200. Sure, it would be great to get it for the least amount you can, but ask yourself "would I pay $201?" How about $250? So in summary, unless you plan to stress yourself out at the last 20 seconds of the auction, place your bid for the most you are willing to pay considering all of these factors. Thanks in advance for bidding! |
|
Used corvette parts.
1953 , 54, 55, 56, 57, 58
59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65
66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72
73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79
80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86
87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93
94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 00