Selling Fine Jewelry Over One Thousand Dollars

[coin_master2017]

Hello everyone. I am new to eBay and need advice. I am a coin, gemstone, and watch collector. I also put together unique pieces of fine jewelry that I would like to sell on eBay. Most of the jewelry I put together are valued at over 4 thousand dollars retail, but the price I will be asking will be less. However, it is still a lot of money. I'm concerned that I will not get enough bids on auction to make up what my costs were to make the piece of jewelry . I am also concerned that people will scam me and take the jewelry for free, as I am not protected by any source. I have experience with jewelry and I plan on listing each piece at a resonable price. Is there anything I can do to block any scammers from bidding or purchasing my items? Or is there a safer way to sell my jewelry? Should I just stick with low cost items like coins and jewelry under $100? Any advice is appreciated. Thank You

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@coinsandjewelry1999 wrote:

Or is there a safer way to sell my jewelry?

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In person for cash.

There is no "safe" way to sell anything online, especially high value items. Even without Ebay MBG or Paypal buyer protection (or any other venue buyer protections), buyers will still have credit card chargebacks to fall back on.

[coolections]

Ask yourself can you afford to lose $4000 on a single transaction ? For the amounts you are talking my suggestion is open a B&M store.

[coolections]

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@southern*sweet*tea wrote:

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@coinsandjewelry1999 wrote:

Or is there a safer way to sell my jewelry?

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In person for cash.

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With thousands of $$ worth of jewelry you may want to have a weapon of some sort for protection.

[mistwomandancing]

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southern*sweet*tea wrote:

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coinsandjewelry1999 wrote:

Or is there a safer way to sell my jewelry?

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In person for cash.

There is no "safe" way to sell anything online, especially high value items. Even without Ebay MBG or Paypal buyer protection (or any other venue buyer protections), buyers will still have credit card chargebacks to fall back on.

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I want to reiterate what sweet tea wrote here...   There is no "safe" way to sell anything online, especially high value items.

You are dealing with complete strangers across bazillions of miles, somewhere in a huge nation or an even massively larger world.  Dealing with complete strangers.  Complete strangers.  Many are going to real interested in valuables being offered by novices to e-commerce retail selling.  So you can be very sure you know what you're doing, and you can make best use of what safeguards there are here OR ANYWHERE else online, but... the fact still remains,  There is no "safe" way to sell anything online, especially high value items.

[*eponymous*]

What is wrong with the venues you have been using?  I ask because it's difficult to imagine how - or why - any artisan would or even could begin by selling anywhere near that price point without a dedicated following.

[*eponymous*]

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@coolections wrote:

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@southern*sweet*tea wrote:

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@coinsandjewelry1999 wrote:

Or is there a safer way to sell my jewelry?

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In person for cash.

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With thousands of $$ worth of jewelry you may want to have a weapon of some sort for protection.

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Yeah, such as selling original designs for manufacture by a concern that has both a proven customer base, and the capital necessary to produce 4K items in this lousy global economy.

How many 4K pieces has the OP sold? 😏

[coin_master2017]

Thank You,
Well, I have sold coins and jewelry under $200 in the past locally but never put together my own fine jewelry until now. I'm not sure where to begin selling my fine jewelry since I do not own a jewelry store. I have a few pieces that I already put together but I feel that I would have much more success selling online.

[fashunu4eeuh]

Coinsandjewelry1999 wrote:

Hello everyone. I am new to eBay....

Hi, welcome.

Whenever i teach a friend the “ebay ropes,” it is always my advice to build up their account by first selling lower-priced items, plus wait to sell internationally, while in the ebay learning curve, which sounds like what you are doing currently. There is always the criminal element to deal with, and new sellers of high-dollar items can get targeted. Selling online certainly gives you a vast market world-wide but it is wise of you to already consider the very real risk of being scammed. There are some things you can do to mitigate some of that risk. You may already be doing these few things mentioned below.

For auctions, the generally-accepted wisdom advises sellers to start the bidding at the lowest price they can live with if there is only one bid. For fixed-price listings, use the Immediate Payment Required setting found in the Advanced Listing Tool. 

Set up your Buyer Requirement blocks in your account in your My Ebay tab to the settings that most closely mirror your risk tolerance. For instance, blocking those members who do not have a PayPal account will weed out some of the scammers but can also ultimately limit the number of eyes that will see your listings. Next, decide which countries are safest to sell to if you plan on selling internationally and block the rest. Some sellers prefer the protections offered by the Global Shipping Program. (Keep in mind that it is not enough to say you ship only to the USA in your listings, you need the blocks in your Site Preferences.) Savvy ebayers will also choose the strictest setting for blocking buyers with 2 or more non-payment strikes against them. Here is the link with more info on Buyer Requirements:

https://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/buyer-requirements.html

There are also two settings in PayPal to assist with your blocks i usually recommend to new sellers who want to sell in the US only. They are “Block payments in currency i do not hold” and “Block payments from non-US PayPal accounts.” Below is the link. After you click it then scroll to “Block certain kinds of payments” and click on that.

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/admin/setup-account/

[siayan]

There are many people who sell high end items on eBay. Myself, I don't have the stomach for it. I know of one jeweler who does well here. There has to be a high tolerence for stress selling this way. I think experienced jewers have built that up over the years. If you don't have that level of tolerance I wouldn't do it.

Secondly you should have extensive experience selling on eBay. Know the danger signs and have a good gut feeling for a bad buyer. Have every possible setting to eliminate bad buyers and even then expect a possibility of a scammer. It can be done but just asking the question says that maybe it is not the time to start.

[retrose1]

OP, I often advise a newbie to not list anything on ebay worth over $35 until they have as much recent selling feedback as the dollar value of the item they want to sell.

We see it every day, a newbie comes here and listed their expensive items on ebay and got scammed and hey want to know what to do and the answer is - nothing. 

You should learn what is required to be protected on ebay - the ONLY answer is that you have to get tracking that says delivered to the address on the paypal payment (that you have checked and verified is in paypal itself and the pal says ok to ship) and gotten SigCon if the item is over $749.

That is it, that is the ONLY seller protection you have - if the buyer claims they did not recieve the package.  Everything else, the buyer will win.  PERIOD!  You should learn what to do if the buyer claims the box was empty, if the buyer claims the item was damaged, that you did not send what you listed, what happens if you shipped because the buyer asked you to ship to an address not on the paypal payment, or you got an email that says you've been paid,  because all those things scammers do to get freebies and they all work because ebay will ALWAYS believe the buyer and the newbie is under the false impression that ebay will protect them.

I will not list anything worth over $100 on ebay unless I can afford to throw it away.  And I have well over 3000 feedback and know ebay policies and how to make them work for me.  I recommend that you list a lot of small dollar items to get an idea of the risks of selling on ebay, and I doubt that you would be considering a $4000 item  after a few months.

Or if you want to save some time, just search for scam on these boards and see how many times it appears, or even better how many people say they are never using ebay again and then read why.

[thevintagesilvershop]

OP, check the link below.  I would advise you to search completed sales and talk to people that really sell high end jewelry on eBay for advice. High end items sell safely on eBay every day. 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/derbyluxury/m.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@coinsandjewelry1999 wrote:

Hello everyone. I am new to eBay and need advice. I am a coin, gemstone, and watch collector. I also put together unique pieces of fine jewelry that I would like to sell on eBay. Most of the jewelry I put together are valued at over 4 thousand dollars retail, but the price I will be asking will be less. However, it is still a lot of money. I'm concerned that I will not get enough bids on auction to make up what my costs were to make the piece of jewelry . I am also concerned that people will scam me and take the jewelry for free, as I am not protected by any source. I have experience with jewelry and I plan on listing each piece at a resonable price. Is there anything I can do to block any scammers from bidding or purchasing my items? Or is there a safer way to sell my jewelry? Should I just stick with low cost items like coins and jewelry under $100? Any advice is appreciated. Thank You

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I try to keep my price range around $500 and only have Buy It Now's with immediate payment required. I was hit by one scam but other than that I have not had any issues. I keep enough money in PayPal to allow for potentially a couple of returns a month so my PayPal account won't go into the negative. I also pay my eBay costs as soon as a person purchases. 

So far it's worked for me.

[mg152]

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@thevintagesilvershop wrote:

OP, check the link below.  I would advise you to search completed sales and talk to people that really sell high end jewelry on eBay for advice. High end items sell safely on eBay every day. 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/derbyluxury/m.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

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That’s true but no newbie should try it. I’m a member almost 19 yrs & I wouldn’t sell anything over about $300 & have sold very few items over $100. It’s too risky.

[grapplingmonkey]

I recommend you start selling low price items first, learn the ropes. Get the experience while building up your feedback and selling limits.
One option on high value items is local pickup only. Cash on pickup or bank to bank transfer only. Some of the major auction houses use this method on auctions they put on Ebay.
All business should have multiple selling outlets I wouldn't recommend building a business solely relaying on one outlet. Policy changes, search results, new policy could potentially kill your business. If you relay solely on one outlet.