Halloween Sales on Ebay - tips for selling Costumes

October 31, 2007
Today, is Halloween. For me it is an ebay breather! I've been selling Costumes and I have plenty to write about this ridiculous experience too. I don't even know where to start. I guess I could start by reflecting on what I learned in the process.
Costmes are a category where the "immediate payment required" feature MUST be used.
Time tables for shiping needs to be at the top of the listings
a cut off time should be used for shipping
cross promotion is a must
very very clear policies are needed
1. "Imediate payment required" is a feature that I have never used before and now, after a season of selling costumes, I will never sell a costume again without it. Costumes, are something that brings people to ebay who may not have ever shoped at ebay before. This is a wonderful thing, however, it can be troublesome sometimes.
Here is the scenerio. Customer is frantic. They really want to be XXXXXX for Halloween but can't find the costume anywhere locally. All their friends and co-workers say "have you tried ebay?" because they know, you can find "it" on ebay! Great advice, however, searching for something that you need to have arrive in less than 3 days when you have never bought on ebay before is a dificult thing to do.
Here are some of the problems I encountered that would have been avoided if I had used the "immediate payment requrired" feature.
a zero feedback customer purchasing 2 of the exact same costume because she couldn't figure out how to "make the system accept a check"
countless non-paying buyers who just take the item out of the system and don't respond in any way to invoices or emails
"oh, nevermind, I found a cheaper one, I'm going to buy it instead of this one"
2. Shipping time tables. Even though ebay so conviently lists the time tables for USPS and UPS, even if they are the only two that you use, customers need to be told. I don't intend to be catty, but sometimes what seems obvious to me, is not to others. I have the time that it takes to ship Priority, Express and UPS ground listed in my TOS, and ebay has it listed with the options, and I have it spelled out on the FAQs that pop up when someone clicks to "Ask Seller a Question" and I STILL must have answered the question "Will this get here by Halloween?" a dozen times a day. I am pretty sure that my neighbors wonder about me because I scream at my computer on a regular basis.
3. Time cutoff for shipping. I ship daily and I advertised that in the listings for costumes because I knew it would be important because everyone needed their costume by a certain time. I very quickly ammended this because I'm on the east coast and I would get emails over and over asking me why their item shipped the next day instead of the day that they paid when they had paid me after 5PM EST. A three hour time difference doesn't seem like it would make that much difference, but it can! I then stated clearly on EVERYTHING that payment had to be received by 2PM EST in order to get same-day shipping. And of course....I still got the question..."if I pay for this today, when will you ship it?"
ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!