How to go about sales?

[Matthew Frye]

Just wondering how most sales are made on the site? I've never sold anything before but am considering offering a few items up but have no idea where to even start. Basically I'd like to have some idea of how to jump before I dive in, and though I'm sure the community here is for the most part trustworthy it just doesn't seem like good practice to have the buyer run me through the process.

I'm really only trying to figure out the common methods used here and how to go about utilizing them as I doubt I'm going to sell items anywhere else, the idea in itself just seems so tedious.

[Ken Thompson]

Gear Swap 101

New and used gear to buy, sell, or trade.

Membership Required to Create New Threads: Offers to buy and sell used gear is a privilege of Backpackinglight.com Membership. Please support our forums and SUBSCRIBE today.

POLICIES
For Sale postings may not include references (especially URLs) to any external listings. We'll cheerfully remove such cross-posting information.
Begin your post with FS (For Sale) or WTB (Want To Buy) for clarity.
Once your item has sold, please edit your first post to reflect that fact.
Posting a price reduction on an unsold item is perfectly OK, as is posting that some items have been sold. However, 'bumping' postings so they are back at the head of the queue is severely frowned upon and may result in the removal of the whole thread. The same applies to WTB posting.

I've bought and sold many items here over the past 10+ years. So ask questions if you have them. It is a really simple process usually. Hardly tedious.

Most use Paypal for payment.

[Matthew Frye]

I had actually read the rules of gear swap, I was mostly curious about methods of payment such as paypal which you mentioned. I didn't know I could receive funds on it, I figured I needed some sort of business account to do so. I'm a complete neophyte to all of this.

Thank you for the help, now I only have to figure the service out. When it comes to computers even pointing and clicking is sometimes a tedious task for myself! My light bulb doesn't always shine at full wattage…

Thanks again,
Frye

[R B]

For someone new it would be extremely helpful if the steps and process of buying and selling here are explained simply somewhere. What the common abbreviations mean would really help. I thought "PM sent" might mean payment sent. How do you send a private message? Is that the way to buy something? How is payment done? This all seems to be insider information.

[Bob Gross]

For starters, you can read the policies for Gear Swap. That is all that BPL cares about. The rest is negotiated between buyer and seller, typically through Personal Messages.

–B.G.–

[Ken Thompson]

You should have come across PM when setting up
your account. You should go back and look at that info and then set your PM function on. Most people use PayPal for payment. Google that if that whole thing needs explaining. The other most used acronyms are listed in the rules I copied and pasted above. Poke around in Gearswap and you'll see how it all works in short order.

[Bob Gross]

"Most people use PayPal for payment."

Ken, isn't it about the only game in town?

–B.G.–

[Jack M]

""Most people use PayPal for payment."

Ken, isn't it about the only game in town?"

I actually accepted a check in the mail for a purchase a few months back. Though I see that as a rare occurrence, too much risk for both sides.

[Jerry Adams]

Some people use PIF to pay

Pay it forward

If you do something nice to someone, and they do something nice to someone else, well, pretty soon we'll have world peace…

[Mike In Socal]

How I buy and sell on Backpackinglight.com

1. Look on the site to see what others are buying and selling the item for. Also check online retailers to see what the current market price is in case it happens to be on sale. Figure out how much shipping will cost. You may want to box it up, weigh it and go to usps.com and calculate how much it would cost to ship from your zip code to the furthest zip code from you. I use my zip as the origin and a Florida zip code (33030) as the destination to figure the most it would cost. Set your price.
2. Take a photo of your item (optional).
3. Create a new thread in Gear Swap: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/create_thread?forum=19
Write and format your product description and price and if that includes shipping (ie "$25 Shipped"). Indicate what kind of payment you will accept: PayPal, personal check, money order. Optionally, insert photos. Make sure you click "Watch this thread" when you view your post so you will be notified if anyone posts a message there.
4. Potential buyers will contact you by posting a message or sending you a PM.
5. Once you and the buyer agree on a price, the buyer will send payment via Paypal (or other agreed upon method). Only ship after you have verified that the payment is in your account.

PM Sent
People have the option of communicating with you in an open forum via posts or via PM. A "PM" is a personal message. When you set up your BPL account you can set up your email address in your profile so anyone can send you a message without you having to post it in a public forum. When someone wants to send you a PM, they click on your name in the post which pulls up your public profile page with a link, "Send a Personal Message (PM) to…" so they can compose a message. You will receive am email from BPL that includes their message and a link to reply through BPL. You can continue your message exchange through BPL or share your direct email address with the buyer. If someone is going to buy from you, you will eventually provide them with your email address anyway so they can send a payment through PayPal.

PayPal
There are also two types of payment methods available to buyers when making a payment: Personal and Standard.

There is no charge to the buyer for either method. For the seller, Personal Payments are free as long as the buyer funds the payment via a bank account or funds in their PayPal balance. For Standard payments, the fee to the seller is typically 2.9% of the amount plus $0.30. Buyers do not get buyer protection from Paypal when sending Personal Payments.

[Etaine]

Thanks for this overview, very helpful.

[Author]

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