eBay has improved

It’s been almost two years since I sold something on eBay — and more than six years since my first sale on eBay. In that time, I’ve sold a stereo, a TV, a lawn mower, a laptop computer, and countless “little” things from around the house. This time I’m cleaning out our DVD collection — if we haven’t watched it in a year or if it’s in heavy rotation on HBO, then it’s heading to eBay. While I was listing stuff, I got to the yard sale pile (our neighborhood does a huge collective yard sale in June) and put up a few of the items most likely to generate some “real” money.

Conclusion: eBay has dramatically improved its service. Listing my DVDs was as simple as identifying the UPC on the back of the DVD:

Through an integration with Muze, eBay automatically pulls the cover art for your DVD, all of the relevant title and cast info, along with a description of the movie, any special features on the disc, etc. Slick.

One of the DVDs already sold — apparently someone out there is a big fan of The Terminator — and that’s when I saw how good the PayPal integration is. Buyers are automatically sent an invoice — that’s not all that different than it was prior to eBay’s acquisition of PayPal. But the ability for buyers to pay immediately upon completion of the auction (along with shipping calculators that let them calculate precise shipping costs), and the option for me to create a shipping label, purchase postage from USPS directly, print the shipping label (with barcodes that indicate that the postage is pre-paid), and print a packing slip — well, it doesn’t get much more seamless than that.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to eBay and see what’s for sale.