eBay Despatch Day - the Seller against the Clock

When someone asked me for eBay tips recently - having heard that I paid last month's mortgage with eBay revenue - it made me realise there are habits I've got into that would have enabled a quicker and smoother start to my own early auctions if I'd been in the know.

And there's an overwhelming tip that I feel has to be the one to come first: Make sure you leave enough time to wrap your items so that you can get them despatched on time! I think that packing up eBay items is one of the easiest things in our internet age to underestimate. If you're a stress junkie, then go with it, but there are more fun ways of getting your adrenaline kicks. Like bungie jumping (not my kind of thing) or hang-gliding (yes, would love to).

Even before we get on to organising our packaging materials (which I'm looking forward to getting pedantic about in my next eBay hub), what I really wish I'd realised from the outset is how long it can take to wrap up items of assorted shapes and sizes. Like many eBayers, I time most of my auctions to end in the evenings. I then have all day (between other work and commitments) to package my items up for the post, which in our town leaves at 5.15pm.

Disaster! When I started out as a seller I thought I'd have plenty of time to wrap about half a dozen objects if I started at 4pm. No!!!! It's not enough. The first time I eBayed a bunch of stuff, I had to message one or two buyers, tail between legs, explaining my over-optimism about packing times, saying, and it hurts to repeat it now ... your item did not leave by the time I said it would. Fortunately, as the items were due to be posted second class, I was able to make the gesture of paying a little more to send them first class the next day instead, so that they would catch up on themselves a little over the journey. If the worst comes to the worst I recommend this action, but it is no real substitute for being totally dependable in what you write and what you say - which is after all central to entire eBay etiquette and functioning.

Maybe I'm particularly slow, but back then I really needed to allow 30 minutes per item to be absolutely certain of getting everything done. It's not just the wrapping. It's finding the right materials for each object - an old padded envelope isn't right for everything - and it can be fiddly to find the right size box, or enough suitable padding to pack it out to the right snugness, especially if the best box you have is still bigger than your object needs. Even now, with my materials all perfected, I'd leave at least 20 minutes per item to be sure. Plus an extra 20 minutes to half hour because you never know when the phone is going to ring, or something bizarre happen. My office is minutes' walk from our post office, so I don't have to allow for traffic or other travel wild cards, but if you do, factor it in. And then of course there's post office queue time. How busy is it at the time you're most likely to visit? (Mine's a small town post office, but I always allow longer if I'm expecting to use a city branch). Then I work backwards from the time of the last collection. It's the only way I can trust myself to, literally, deliver the goods.

This is my calculation, for half a dozen mixed size and shape items:

• the post goes at 5.15 pm
• less 10 minutes queue, weigh and pay time is 5.05 pm
• less 5 minutes journey time is 5.00 pm
• six items to wrap allowing 20 minutes each is two hours - rewind to 3.00pm
• and allow 15 to 30 minutes security margin ... meaning I have to be ready to start wrapping at 2.30 or 2.45 pm.

Now I'm not saying that I wouldn't sometimes be finished by maybe as early as 4pm and be ready to go - but I am saying I need to allow that time to be sure that I'm not going to be running to the post office. Gosh this makes me sound old and like I can't cope with adrenaline! Even postal adrenaline.

But if this all seems a little pedantic and over-obvious now, it might not when you find yourself in the middle of a pile of tape, cardboard, and paper, with the tape sticking to your fingers, and the last post of the day due to leave at any minute. On the other hand, I think maybe all eBayers have experienced this panic as a rite of passage.

If you've something particularly large, awkward, or delicate, I don't think there's any substitute to starting the day before. I sent a string instrument once. In the end I had to fold two separate boxes together and strengthen them with struts. In this case, it would have been worth thinking about packaging before I put the auction on. The boxes were specially bought post office ones, and took me over what I had charged for posting. Fortunately the value of the instrument and its purchase price were enough for me to absorb the extra cost without too much worry.

I'm confident enough in my ability to organise now, that I'll commit to posting in one working day rather than two - which in turn gets me better feedback scores. I know this sounds a bit smug, about a very tiny thing, but I'm not naturally organised at all - so I still surprise myself that I've actually become quite reliable!

Let's hope I'm not speaking too soon and my next eBay despatch day doesn't go awry.