@thecharizardauthorty At what point does eBay send you a W2? Ive started to list my extra cards on eBay and I got to wondering if at some point I will need to file taxes for what I’ve sold on eBay? Thanks man!
P.s. I checked out your eBay store and wow… that’s awesome I’m impressed. I look forward to doing business with you in the future.
@zacheggers eBay will never send you a W-2.
Paypal will 100% send you a 1099 when you cross 200 transactions AND $20,000 of transactions in a year. However, at their own discretion and in certain states they can also send you ( and the IRS) a 1099 at lower levels than this.
Regardless of getting the 1099 you are legally obligated to pay taxes on any gains made if you are selling cards at a profit.
@thecharizardauthorty, with your low value listings do you utilize Paypal micropayments or any other method to minimize the $0.30 fee? That seems to be a real killer especially for low value listings. For micro I think it is like 5c + 5% or something depending on sales.
I continue to do the $.30 on everything. Even with the majority of my items being $.99, average transaction sales are over $10 so it is more beneficial to go with the $.30. I think the break even mark is around $12. If paypal even implemented a max transaction charge like ebay, I would probably attempt the switch
I am having trouble using a DYMO 450 printer with Paypal. My labels do not reformat at all. Can anyone help out with this?
Hey @thecharizardauthorty did you take down your post?
I copied it over to my email and went to edit one - I must have deleted. I am trying to copy it back now but the links don’t seem to copy over. Is there a CTRL Z for this? If you let me know your email I can send you a copy with active links
I have been meaning to make this for a while to put good tips/links I have learned about over the years. Feel free to post your own! I have a lot of information to put here, but so I do not keep putting it off I am going to go ahead and list some of it now before I forget again.
Useful ebay links:
Block Buyer List
*** Probably one of my most used. Prevents a specific username from bidding on any of your items.
Feedback Forum
*** Where you can follow up to any feedback left on your account.
Feedback Follow-up Forum
***Where you can follow up t any feedback you originally left as a buyer
Subscriber Discounts
*** Where you can get specific discounts for service including your FREE shipping coupon every quarter if you have an ebay store
Request Feedback Revision
*** Where you go to request a buyer change their neutral or negative feedback. They have 10 days to respond.
Bid Cancellation
*** Where you can cancel a bid from a specific buyer on a specific item
Open unpaid item case
*** Where you can force an unpaid item case to be opened. Normally you can do this from a drop down menu, but you do not always have this option. Here you can force an unpaid item even against buyers who requested you to cancel the order and it was denied. Normally this option goes away from the drop down menu once this has happened.
Leave Feedback
*** Where you find an item to leave feedback for that has no longer has that option in the drop-down menu or has disappeared completely from your orders/sales.
Buyer Exemption list
*** Where you can exempt specific buyers from any requirements on buying, including location
Buyer requirements
*** Where you can set specific requirements for your buyers
Bid retraction
*** Where you can direct buyers to retract their bid. I recommend doing this instead of cancelling bids for them. If they cannot figure it out you can always go to the link above and do it for them. It can be tricky on the app from a phone for buyers to navigate
Seller Dashboard
*** This is usally easy to find, but I love it! Scroll to the bottom and you can see your global total sales on ebay. I hope this is never done away with.
END any item, even when not showing up in active product if you have the item id
“https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VerifyStop&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:ENDI&item=ITEMID”
So you type the “ITEM ID” at the end. That will give a URL that will end the item tied to the item id.
EXAMPLE: “https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VerifyStop&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:ENDI&item=12345679”
You will still have to click “End your listing” so you can test the link to see for yourself before ending something. This also lets you double check what you are ending.
I also bookmark links for ebay sold, active, 0 Qty, promotions, seller account, and more. Those I think most everyone already knows how to find. These are just some useful ones that may not get used as often but are great to have on hand.
I have a huge list of tips but I will start with these.
This allows your product quantity to go to zero without the listing ending. This is great for sellers with a lot of back stock. The main thing to keep up with is your 0 quantity. If you are truly out of product, you can simply end the item OR if their are lots of sales I have a tendency to let the product sit for a month or so and then revise it as a new item. I wait a month or so because if you do so right away it will confuse any recent buyers into thinking they were suppose to have received the new product. The benefit is that you get to keep the past sales and watchers.
This is where I buy Top-Loaders normally. You can get them for around $32 per thousand if you buy 12+ at a time and wait for a special. Also do not dismiss Pokemon distributors, as they have matched CBG’s offer before with Ultra Pro. I actually prefer CBG now due to low defect rates comparatively.
Anyone here buy stamps at full price? This is something you should not do. It has been several years since I have paid more then $.30 apiece for stamps. You can regularly find them on ebay for around $350 per 1000 stamps, but if you make contacts you can get them even lower. I currently pay $.26 per stamped envelope. My normal order is about 10k at a time though, so you may have to cough up a few thousand to save a few thousand.
If you are wanting to ship something that has not been paid for through regular ebay checkout you can always ship with paypal and get mostly the same ebay discounts. Here are helpful paypal links
Paypal Shipping
Paypal Invoice
Paypal Search
Paypal Tax Documents
Paypal Reports
When buying on ebay keep up with ebay bucks, coupons, and eBates. I never received those extra ebay bucks coupons until I signed up & opted in to Promtions & Surveys. I scrolled to the bottom and put a check in the first three boxes. After that I started receiving emails for the extra bucks and coupons. You can also keep up with that HERE. I just recently found out about eBates. They offer cashback not only on ebay but other sites as you spend. It is super easy to create an account and you just spend like normal. I personally downloaded the extension they have for Chrome after I signed up. If you go to a site, you click the “E” button at the top and it will automatically activate any cash back deals that are available for that site. This works in conjunction with any existing deals like ebay bucks.
To print address and USPS labels I use the Dymo Labelwriter 450 Twin Turbo. It is a heat printer. It never requires ink, almost no maintenance, and prints on labels that you do not have to cut. You can print USPS 1st class postage for the United States directly on it and it also prints address labels. This sped up my process tremendously. Both Paypal and ebay shipping work with it. I can help you change preferences on your account or if you have trouble using this beast. Overall it is much more simple than a regular printer. You can technically print USPS international postage on it, but it is too small for the post man to read haha.
Looking for a free watermarking download? I use JACo. I am not sure if it the best, but it is free and works for me. You can customize your watermark and save where you want. You can easily watermark hundreds of photos at once and quickly.
For USPS postage it requires 99019 labels. Best deal is usually to purchase 40 rolls or more. You get 150 labels on each roll. Typically cost is less than $3 per roll.
I use 30252 labels to print address labels from ebay. I think over 60 rolls brings price closer to $1.50 and you get 350 labels on each roll. So for about half of a penny you can print a label rather than hand-write it.
On international orders that require tracking I still use a regular printer. Mine is the Brother HL-L6200DW It is ONLY Black and White, but a very cheap laser printer and all you need to print for the purpose of selling online. It prints 20+ pages a minute and hardly ever runs out of ink. Even when it does you can buy the toner for about $15 and it yields 8000+ pages( some say 12k+, but I am being conservative)! This is comparable to many commercial printers.
Do you sell PTCGO codes and want them delivered instantly? I use E-Junkie(it does cost). For me, I just link up my personal site with the E-Junkie cart. Once you put the codes into E-Junkie, if a buyer pays, they are emailed the code(s) instantly. You do not have to do anything further. The only thing I ever touch the site for is added codes or deleting sold out product. Also I really hope you are scanning in your codes with the PTCGO Code Scanner and not typing the things up!
For the longest time I did not sell newer product as I had no idea where to start. If you want to, personally I would start with a distributor with great customer service. It has been my experience that Mad Al has the best. I have dealt with at least 8 distributors I can think of. Mad Al gets the majority of my business. Their prices are not always the lowest, but trust me the few extra you pay is worth it in customer service. They still may not be the best solution for someone not located close to KY or AK since they only have those 2 offices that I am aware of. If you need a distributor who will be closer to you to have competitive pricing, I would go with GTS. I have a rep who has always been honest with me. I do not believe he was apart of the bigger issues that company has created. Just message me for his number.
Pay your taxes.
Do you have to file sales tax with your state? Always. Even if it is zero. Sales tax is on the entire sale price(not profit). The same Sales and Use tax id you use for sales tax exemption from your distributor, is same one you use to file with your state. Also remember you can use your sales and use tax id to be exempt when making purchases from places like Wal-Mart. This is only applicable to items you plan to resell. Also keep in mind that we may soon have to charge and report sales tax on every purchase. Right now ebay only allows for a single state, but that could change. Hopefully it will not come to that. If it does maybe ebay will cut us a break and do something similar like with Australia where they automatically charge and report that amount.
Do you have file federally? Yes - keep up with all of your deductions. You can download everything from paypal(up in #4), but you will want to keep up with this periodically throughout the year, not all at once and at the last minute. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what you spent.
Something I would advise is to keep up with mileage NOT maintenance… unless you have a lot of wear and tear + low gas mileage. This is especially true for cars that are very gas efficient. Example: A car using 30 mpg with a 15 gallon tank, will travel 450 miles on a full tank. That 15 gallon tank of gas only costs about $35. If instead you use the mileage deduction, then you have a receipt that will deduct 450 miles * $.545 per mile = $245.25. With mileage you are only allowed to deduct just that - the miles, but you can see where on a weekly basis it adds up very quickly.
This is for anchor store sellers and can be very helpful if you are on a time crunch. Most of the time the rep will not check to see if you are able to get merchant support. I have had a rep tell me in the past that I was not suppose to get it when I had a lower store level. She still went ahead and helped me anyways. It has been my experience that these reps have a sensible head on their shoulders. Normally you get better help on this line and there are fewer reps. Today for example I called in and had two feedback removed. One was fairly obvious and the other was a courtesy(for being polite to my buyer). You won’t get courtesy feedback removals on the regular line. I called in a few hours later and got the exact same rep. She closed out an item not received case in my favor in the first 15 seconds of the call. I have some other more specific tips when talking to reps through ebay if you are curious.
Feel free to drop questions about things that are mentioned or that you would like me to talk about. I am not the best on the business so I would love to hear input from other sellers as well.
@thecharizardauthorty, do you have to own an actual store in order to order from a distributor?
No. I didnt when I started nor do I now. I did in between - and there are some perks that come with that, but not required. I think outside of the USA you are required to either have a store or a website.
Cool info thanks TCA. I see your listings all the time, didn’t know you were around here!
Everybody who’s anybody in the hobby is “around here” because E4 is the ProModel of Pokemon sites;)