Posts Made By: Dan Davidson

February 10, 2021 08:40 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Need to know how to sell properly on this site.

Posted By Dan Davidson

I have sold a few things in the past so I'm not a total neophyte but I also don't know nearly as much as do others.

I've accumulated a fair bit of stuff and now need to sell almost all of it (Wife wants to keep one of the Dobsonians, a daughter got my little WO refractor, etc.).  I could never get myself really into AP although I tried it with different setups so I have been almost all visual.  But now I've got eye problems which mean the eyepiece just doesn't bring pleasure.  Understand that for most daytime purposes I see just fine so I can still have a very happy life, but I'm effectively done with astronomy although I may continue to haunt this site a bit since there's just some really good info on even non-astronomy stuff (I can still do some bird-watching and such).

I've got quite a bit of stuff and some of it I've never used but figured they'd be a great item to work on or with when I retired so I got them when the getting was good.  I got a premium refractor shortly before my eyesight issues set in and have barely used it.  It's that kind of thing. . .

I'm not asking for people to tell me how to get the highest dollar value possible.  I want to sell as a fair price and that means a willing buyer determines that - often with a little competition mixed in.  I know to look up what similar items have been selling for to determine the likely fair price (and understand that past performance does not guarantee future performance).

I'll mostly sell items separately but there may be a few items which I'll sell together just because I think that whoever buys it really should have the item as part of a kit to make things work well.

I also will be planning to post pics of the items and point out the flaws (or lack thereof) as I understand them.

I'll also generally plan to use PayPal for payment.

The biggest issue is understanding how to do the shipping piece.
1.  There are a few items which are just too big and I simply won't ship and folk will either have to come get them.  Seriously, we're talking a SkyShed POD XL5, C11, 20" mirror (I'm not sure if it is a treasure or a nightmare), etc. - packaging them well and shipping them could be nightmarish from my point of view.
2.  Other items can be reasonably shipped although there are some which are going to have to be packaged really well.  The problem is I don't know how to estimate the shipping and if the cost is to be borne by the buyer I don't know how to properly handle that.

So if there are tips on how to handle all this I'd be much obliged.  And again, mostly I need to know about how best to handle shipping costs.

February 10, 2021 09:47 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Need to know how to sell properly on this site.

Posted By Dan Davidson

Yeah, the way I see it is that I can generally hope to get what similar items have gone for.  If I'm trying to sell the same thing someone else is selling or has recently sold and I figure that somehow I'm more special than the other guy - I'm in for a rude awakening.

I need the room and I want the stuff to go to good people who will use the gear with joy.  Trying to squeeze for everything doesn't make sense.  Trying to do the PayPal Friends & Family thing also is something I don't think we should be using.

Some stuff might be better to put up for auction since I really can't properly estimate their worth.