Question about how to sell knives

DakotaM

DakotaM

Joined
Sep 24, 2020
Messages
30
Hi all! Sorry if this is not the right section, I took a look around and figured this would be the most appropriate.

I made this account mostly to participate in the knife exchange, I know I need a gold membership in order to sell.

I was just curious about some aspects of selling. I have shipped things before, so I am familiar with safe packaging and general shipping, but only for returns and never to an individual. How does this usually work? So let's say a buyer PMs you and you both agree on the deal and they send you the funds via paypal goods, do you just get their address from them and go to the post office and have them make the label there? Is there some kind of special label setup that you do online?

Secondly, I am worried that because I am a new account, that will cause issues for me when it comes to selling. Are people usually skeptical about that sort of thing and if so what's a good way to verify myself and let them know I am serious? I know getting a high post count is important but I prefer to lurk for the most part and really need to sell a couple of my knives sooner rather than later in order to afford a piece I want.

My reddit account has a lot of karma so I am wondering if r/knifeswap would be a better choice? I am just hesitant to use it because you cannot bump your thread in case of price drops etc.

Any advice or insight on selling within the knife community is much appreciated. Thanks a billion.

Dakota
 
You can order your label and print it off from USPS then attach it to the package bam drop it in the USPS bin.

If you don't have a printer, you will have to take it into USPS or other carriers (UPS/FEDEX) to have it shipped, take a blank piece of paper or write their address on the box obviously tape it up and take it in and they will charge you whatever it is to ship and they put the label on it.

Best advice make the shipping into the price you want as it's easier to deal with when it comes to G&S (goods and services) people don't want to have to come back to the forum and see how much you charge for shipping so just put it in the price you want.

First time sellers get treated here well as long as you play by the rules, after you knock out a few I would say the second guessing would die down, people buy and sell on here a lot so I doubt you would see any resistance in selling your knives especially if you have something special or you are throwing out a good deal.
 
Awesome, thank you. When it comes to paypal, do you give them your paypal email and they just send you the amount or do you like create an invoice for the item and send it to their paypal? Sorry if this is easily researchable on paypal's website... This is just intimidating as a first timer and I really appreciate hearing it directly from other knife people.
 
So you as a seller would give them your email, they will send the money directly to you by either F&F which is frowned upon or G&S that will go into your account and be probably on hold until you ship the item and once you buy the label off of USPS you will add the tracking information. Once confirmation of delivery and the buyer is happy, the funds are usually released to you.

No invoice needed as all they need is your paypal email and the agreed upon price of course.

Edit: That is if you are shipping USPS and have a printer.
 
DakotaM said:
Hi all! Sorry if this is not the right section, I took a look around and figured this would be the most appropriate.

I made this account mostly to participate in the knife exchange, I know I need a gold membership in order to sell.

I was just curious about some aspects of selling. I have shipped things before, so I am familiar with safe packaging and general shipping, but only for returns and never to an individual. How does this usually work? So let's say a buyer PMs you and you both agree on the deal and they send you the funds via paypal goods, do you just get their address from them and go to the post office and have them make the label there? Is there some kind of special label setup that you do online?

Secondly, I am worried that because I am a new account, that will cause issues for me when it comes to selling. Are people usually skeptical about that sort of thing and if so what's a good way to verify myself and let them know I am serious? I know getting a high post count is important but I prefer to lurk for the most part and really need to sell a couple of my knives sooner rather than later in order to afford a piece I want.

My reddit account has a lot of karma so I am wondering if r/knifeswap would be a better choice? I am just hesitant to use it because you cannot bump your thread in case of price drops etc.

Any advice or insight on selling within the knife community is much appreciated. Thanks a billion.

Dakota
Click to expand...

DakotaM said:
Awesome, thank you. When it comes to paypal, do you give them your paypal email and they just send you the amount or do you like create an invoice for the item and send it to their paypal? Sorry if this is easily researchable on paypal's website... This is just intimidating as a first timer and I really appreciate hearing it directly from other knife people.
Click to expand...

The way I make a sale is by giving the buyer my PayPal email address for them to use to send money to me, when someone sends money via Goods & Services it will include their PayPal verified address. PayPal has a service built into the Goods & Service system for paying for and printing USPS labels directly from the transaction, so when someone sends me money via PayPal G&S I will just go to that transaction in PayPal and buy/print the label straight from there; it's also slightly cheaper than printing labels via USPS click-n-ship.

The label gets auto-filled with all necessary data, you just have to tell PayPal package size/weight (or flat-rate box size) and shipping method (besides priority shipping, first class is also offered through PayPal for packages under 1lb, Click-n-ship doesn't offer first class label printing).

If money is sent via Friends & Family (I don't ask for it but some buyers just send money that way without being asked) the buyer has to send me their address through a PM or email; at that point PayPal is useless for printing labels and I use USPS Click-n-ship, a bit more detailed of a label printing process but it still works fine.

After labels are printed you can just drop the packages off with USPS through a variety of ways, simplest is just go to the post office and hand it over.



Make sure to read the Exchange rules fully before selling items, the most broken rules us moderators find ourselves enforcing are: not waiting 14 days to relist an item, posting multiple threads in the same subforum on the same day, and listing a sale price but then asking buyer to pay more on top of it (just factor in Paypal fees or shipping into your listed prices). All of these can be avoided by reading and following the Exchange rules carefully, you can find a link to them at the top of any Exchange subforum.
 
^This!

Only thing I would add is that I always go to the PO to drop it off (only 10min away for me), and I always get a receipt, even if they're busy and they say you can just drop it on the counter. Have heard some horror stories of lost packages where the PO claimed they never had the package in the first place...having the receipt solves that.
 
KingMC KingMC describes my process exactly. At my little PO I simply set them on the inner counter all ready to go. Using PP for creating a shipping label saves you a bit of cash, too. Don't know the specifics but 1st class (less than 11oz.) is always a bit less expensive using PP. As I understand it anything above 11oz. is categorized as Priority, so for those - most often - the flat rate box is your best deal.

Otherwise I have an account with the USPS Click-n-Ship for shipping and labels. That gets paid through PayPal.

Really - do your self and your buyers a favor and ALWAYS specify & use Goods & Services. This is stupid cheap insurance and respects all parties including PayPal.

AND - please don't use mailing envelopes - padded or otherwise. ESPECIALLY if your knife is not in another box in the envelope. Too easy to feel that a knife is enclosed and so you risk a theft. Best case is to use well taped boxes with a big enough face to completely support the shipping label. I use fiber reinforced strapping tape to seal the box 1st and then clear packing tape to fix the label.

Think how you would like to receive a nice new knife and do that in return for your buyers.

My 2¢. Good luck. Have fun.
 
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Thank you guys so much, this is really good stuff. It's a lot more stress free than I thought!!
 
One more point - It's best NOT to tape over the bar code on the USPS label. Apparently it can screw up the scanning all along the way....
 
TexasTomcat said:
One more point - It's best NOT to tape over the bar code on the USPS label. Apparently it can screw up the scanning all along the way....
Click to expand...

Well you say, that but I use clear shipping tape over all my labels for years and years without issue.
I am very careful to butt layers of tape (usually take 3 rows) rather than overlay the seams AND I am meticulous about not having any wrinkles over the bar code area. Has worked well for me. YMMV ;)

My thinking is that a taped shipping label is protected whereas un taped is open to whatever calamity, at which point it is unscannable - unreadable even, so I opt for the tape to protect.
 
Yeah I've used clear shipping tape over the barcode with no issues as of yet. It's funny looking back, because I've sold so much of my stuff now. Thanks again everybody so much for telling me how this works.
 
I'm old school(or at least old)
I get the address from the buyer or PP, copy , paste and attach to priority box(with clear tape)-you could also write the address(but my writing isn't so good) . Then I take it to the PO for postage and a receipt.
and yes there may be some growing pains as a new member selling, but we all did it. Just be clear on your disclosure , communicate well and treat the buyer as you would like to be treated.
 
Speaking of getting the address through Pay Pal:

1) That is always the best address to use to avoid potential receiving end snafus. All parties - including PP - are included in the tracking and it puts PP on the side of the seller, at the least, to the agreement that the item was shipped and received as intended.

2) Printing your shipping label through PP gets you a tiny bit of a shipping cost discount. Take whatever you can get to optimize your "profit" (He writes - profit - with a laugh :rolleyes:)

Tough selling knives for profit IMHE. At best you are passing them on after paying your 30% to 80% user's fee. ;)
 
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