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ebay and paypal in thailand good news


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not sure if any of u know but from 14th sept u can add a thai bank account to paypal and with draw money stright into it!!! before this date u had to have a uk or us account !!!!

handy if u just want to set up a payapl account for your mrs and send money from uk or us stright into her account or get flooding the markets with all the cheap shite around thailand ether way its a great new advance for the thai people (when they realise )

what do u think?

can a person from uk work on ebay in thailand ?? strange queston i know but not sure how it works with the thai laws ??

 

keep it real guys back in nov for my 6 months stint (uk is to cold in winter )

Edited by jelluk
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Set up a Thai paypal account a couple of days ago. It was fine till I added the feature that allows people to pay me by credit card. Had to put in my Bank details and either a Credit or Debit card. I asked the bank for a credit card but they said only if I had a work permit but they would give me a debit card. Great I thought, till I entered the details into the paypal website. A message came back saying this has been refused by the bank. Please contact the bank.

 

So now I have a paypal account with money pending in it and no way to get it out. Paypal say at the end of the month the money will be returned to the sender unless I sort out the card problem.

 

Chris

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goto bangkok bank u get a visa debit card there with just yea passport i did in january cost 300 bart :)

 

 

i tried to set up an ebay site last year in thailand with a visa debit card (siam bank visa debit card) and ebay refused the card i could set up the account but could not open a sellers account with it has anything changed

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Even if you set up account with paypal and eBay, what can you sell from Thailand?

International sellers have very low success rate on eBay, large amount will go on listing fees.

Buyers somehaow prefer local sellers, with local postage.

If you accept paypal the lots you send out have to be insurred, there is lot of chargback (with $30 fees) going on wityh paypal.

The goods (clothing,footware,personal items) are much cheaper in lot of Asian countries.

Antiques(fakes), copied DVD's, fake watches etc will bring you neg ratings and your account will be suspended in notime. eBay is just not as use to be, perhaps still OK for local sellers in USA,UK but the rest just dasnt worth to bother.

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Living in Italy, most of the items I buy on eBay come from America or UK, problem is not many will post to Italy so I have to have things sent to an address in UK first, then over here.

 

I doubt if anyone will send to Thailand.

 

If you are thinking of 'selling' items; as joes3175 says, buyers will be few and far between methinks.

 

Anyway, PayPal charges at least 3% on sales that's before currency charges. If you are going to do anything it may be best to sort out a decent website with a merchant account.

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Despite all the negativity here it IS possible to sell on ebay from Thailand.

 

My wife spends around $4000 a week on Thai "products" and sells at around $800 a week profit margin. Around 25% of the goods are sold on ebay (UK and USA) and that 25% makes up around 40% of the profitability. the rest she sells via a direct website and the (majority) to Thais who cannot afford the bulk buying costs.

 

I think what people are being negative about is trying to do "small volume" - this would be difficult as others have pointed out although shipping and insurance costs to transfer goods abroad can be built into the shipping costs quoted on ebay.

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WoW thats unbelivable! Can we have the username on eBay?

 

Joe, sadly that would rather give the game away. I can tell you the units cost around $4 each wholesale and sell on ebay at $19 +p&p approx, some more some less obviously. That is NOT $15 per unit profit as there are other costs involved such as paying people to package etc.

 

Note: she is only selling 20% - 25% of the stuff on ebay, $4,000 worth would be unbelieveable.

 

The majority she sells to market stall holders who can't afford the bulk buy prices and the mark up on those is quite small hence the need for bulk expenditure.

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I understand the costs as I use to sell on eBay, and been a gold power seller selling US$20.000+ per month in the busy month and much less in May-Sept period. eBay changed their policy, selling format and the hugh competition from Asian countries made me to stop selling. My sales rates dropped to 10% sale from listed, and even down to about 5%.

The listing fees were far too high. OK I wrote them down from business, as beside eBay I sold to shops as well.

I started to sell in 1999 on eBay and most of the lots were sold to buyers in US. By accepting paypal (costs 3-4%) I had to ask buyers for insured shipping what cost US$12-14 from Australia+ padded bag etc. Many bidders/buyers dont bother to pay this "high" postage. I know many dealers and all complain that eBay become "buyers market"

I sold my business and retire (at age 49) few months ago, buyer only bought very small stock I had ,so I left with hugh stock of collectables,giftware,sport,household items...... what I will sell at loss at about 20-25% retail prices to a shop, NOT ON EBAY! Lucky for me I can list in local paper FREE, and pay after sale.So I'm just curious what your wife or anyone from outside US can sell on eBay with profit?Just a curiosity, not that I want to competite.

(I know elecronical goods from HK,China are still profitable, but it is allways a danger that you end up with outmooded goods) I been travelling around Asia, and whatever

product is available in Thailand I know at least ONE other Asian country where is available for lower price.I been a purchasing manager for nearly 20 years.

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Hi Joe

 

I am not saying you will compete, but others MIGHT - no point in risking it. She MAY go the same way as you, but it works for the moment. If it wasn't profitable she will just sell to the traders here I assume.

 

As I said it costs $4 and sells around $19 + p&p. Its small and the p&p it around $12 (UK and USA).

 

They are for sale in the shops in the UK (I don't know the USA) for around £65 each - thats about $100.

 

My wife applies no minimum bid so everything goes - over 95% anyway. $19 is the "average" sale price but it is very rare that one sells at a loss.

 

There is one guy (maybe more but I am not aware) who sells the same thing based in the UK. He has a "buy now price" on e-bay of £24.99 thats about $40 and he charges a similar, slightly lower, p&p. So for now she is easily undercutting him. For how long? I don't know. He still shifts most of his stuff but in lower volume - from what I can see from his feedback he is selling around 25 a week. I dont know his mark up because I dont know his import/bonding costs.

 

I have a friend here who sends over a container about every two months, mainly to Libertys in London - he makes a LOT of money but he is involved in higher end stuff - furniture and ceramics mainly - though most he sources from outside Thailand. At one time he was shipping leather "footstools" (shaped like animals). They came, I think, from Indo', but he was paying around $8 each for them - Libertys were selling them for £350!!!

 

As you know from being a buyer its all about getting the right product at the right price and it never lasts forever.

 

Two years ago we were selling jeans to a buyer in the UK at around 2,000 units per (weekly) transaction, from a factory near Bangkok but as you rightly point out, that market has now gone - China I assume.

 

Life just has to constantly evolve :clueless

Edited by whitespider
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Distribution is the main problem if you live here. My ex's family were in the jean business but that went downhill - to China as you suspect.

 

Ebay is high costs and massive competition. If they would use a higher percentage but no or lower up front ocosts then it could perhaps work out.

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Ebay is high costs and massive competition. If they would use a higher percentage but no or lower up front ocosts then it could perhaps work out
.

 

 

Yes I agree. ebay is now in 26 countries. You cant list anything that will show up on all 26 sites.There are different sub-catetegories. They raking in high listing fees and dont adverise as they use to.

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I was thinking about ebay to fund a long trip to LOS. However a story I heard was that there was a Farang power seller in Thailand who made about 50k in a year. However one day he went to draw some money out of the ATM and his bank account had been frozen. I dont really know the full details however.

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I was thinking about ebay to fund a long trip to LOS. However a story I heard was that there was a Farang power seller in Thailand who made about 50k in a year. However one day he went to draw some money out of the ATM and his bank account had been frozen. I dont really know the full details however.

 

 

he probably had his bank account frozen due to paypal informing the tax man, my brother set up an ebay account in my name while he was living in patts (dumbest thing i had done for a while) and i had paypal ringing me up in the uk asking me if what i was selling was legit and that they suspected me of money laundering as large amounts of cash were going in and out of my paypal account i told them of course its legit needless to say i was closed down soon after. paypal have a lot of power and they were a kingsize pain in the arse (probably still are) they have way too much power and it all goes in favour of the buyer you will only achieve large sales using paypal on ebay but if they suspect you are up to no good then wave bye bye to your ebay site and expect to have all of your funds frozen in your paypal account then you have to try and get the money back by sending endless faxes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For tax reasons paypal do NOT froze the account.

But if you have a dispute with a buyer who want to get his money back via paypal, and your account dont have enough founds on it +$30 administrative costs per case, your bank account will be frozen till you work it out with your buyer or paypal. Paypal is to protect buyers, but some of the buyers have fraudulent claims,they try to keep the goods and get money back too. Some of these cases are a bit more difficult, but can be sorted out. Beside paypal there are other ways to transfer money online paymate, CCN.now, moneybrokers, just to name a few.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have been selling on and off with ebay for about 7 years now and found paypal to be a pain in the arse....I have always accepted personal checks and that is how 90% of people paid...never had a bouncer out of over $100,000 worth of transactions.

 

Things have gotten a bit more difficult in the last few years with a lot more competition.

 

Pesonally I would think twice before you jump into Ebay in Thailand unless you have a niche market with no competition and then only accept personel checks and you will send goods out when they clear.

 

My own goods were antiques that were unique.

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  • 2 weeks later...

still no joy on the adding a thai bank account to paypal i have tried 3 banks with the visa electron cards and no joy i'm all set ready to go just need to be able to add the electron card to both ebay and paypal it does advertise on ebay that you can now add a thai bank account but still no joy arrrgh :bigsmile:

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