Amethyst Angel present's
A Cosplayer's Guide to Ebay.

Ebay can be a great place to find a costume bargain, provided you keep your wits about you. You'll find ebay's Advice to Buyers and Advice to Sellers pages well worth perusing before you buy or post any item up for sale on ebay. What follows are a few tips I'd like to add for the casual cosplay ebayer, based on my own personal experience...

If you're looking to buy a costume, prop or other cosplay accessory:

1.) When searching for a specific series/video game cosplay item, be sure to check your spelling. (Remember, it's Soul CaliBUR 2, not Soul CaliBER 2...)

2.) When making a general search for cosplay items, you may want to negate certain keywords which will bring you to auctions which you have no interest in. To negate a keyword, simply place a "-" in front of it. Good examples of words to negate include:

-hentai
-live
-VCD (these are usually hentai cosplay DVDs)
-sexy (the word most often used to describe aforementioned hentai cosplay DVDs)
-lolita (unless you happen to be looking for an egl-related item)
-gothic (ditto)
-naruto (unless you happen to be looking for a Naruto-related cosplay item.)
-headband (if you're looking for a Naruto-related cosplay item which ISN'T one of those damned headbands!)

3.) If you're bidding on a costume, make sure you double-check the size. If you're ordering a costume from another country, their standard sizes may differ from what you're familiar with. (An Asian Large might turn out to be a well-fed American Otaku X-tra Small.)

Collollary, based on my own personal experience: If you're ordering a Cheongsam Dress from an Asian seller, be sure to order a dress that's at least 2 sizes larger than what you think you'll need. You can always have it taken in if it's too big, but it's helluva hard to resize it the other way...

4.) If you have any questions about the item - ASK! Ask well before the auction ends. Don't wait until the auction is over to ask your seller if they'll ship your item to Botswana, or if they have another item just like it, but in ORANGE. Sellers won't like you if you do things like that.

5.) Check the Seller's Country of Origin, Shipping Rates, and Preferred Forms of Payment. If your seller is in Hong Kong, shipping may cost a bundle and take weeks, therefore, if you buy an item from that region and expect to have it delivered within the month, you may be disappointed. If your seller lives in the U.S. but charges what seems like a ridiculous amount for shipping, your "this might be a scam" flags should be going up. If your seller lives outside of the US and will only accept Bidpay or registered cash in an unmarked envelope, your "this might be a scam" flags should be up and waving vigorously to the accompaniment of booming foghorns and large, shrill, cartoon-style whistles. NEVER bid on anything without looking at the sellers shipping charges AND his/her ebay feedback rating.

6.) If you think you have been scammed, contact ebay as soon as possible. It may be possible to get a refund for the money you sent, but only if you notify ebay of the scam AND can have it investigated within a set amount of time. You'll only get a certain amount of time to leave negative feedback for a dishonest seller or buyer. In most cases, negative feedback is the only revenge you'll get on a dishonest seller, so you'd better make the most of it. Review ebay's Rules and Policies Page for advice on what to do in the event you get scammed.

If you're looking to sell a costume, prop or other cosplay accessory:

Whether it's an official, mass-produced item or something you want to get rid of that's been taking space in the back of your closet, there are a few rules you should remember in order to list and market your item sucessfully.

1.) BE SPECIFIC. Make sure you spell your item's name correctly in the listing. One letter off can mean the difference between a sale and no sale. Include all the information you think is relevant, including size, condition, color, etc., and include as many detailed pictures of the item as possible. Post your e-mail address in a prominent place so if anyone has questions about the item, they'll know who to talk to.

2.) Look Professional. A rambling item description written in all lower-case letters and with no posted pictures will not draw as many interested bidders as a well-worded, spell-checked description with a stylish background, nice graphics, and a tabled gallery of pictures showing off the item to its best advantage. If you don't know a damn thing about html, get a friend who does to help you (and to maybe let you borrow some of his/her webspace on which to post your pictures. It'll be a lot cheaper than renting the extra picture hosting space from ebay.)

3.) Research Your Shipping Charges. Check out USPS.com or any other shipping services you may want to use and see how much they'll charge to send a package of your size and weight. Most of these sites have domestic and international rate calculators where you can do this. (Don't just GUESS the amount for shipping, because in most cases you'll guess WRONG.)

4.) Check the feedback rating of your bidders. You may have to wait until the auction is over to do this, as some bidders will wait until the last moment to hop onto a transaction. If your potential buyer has a feedback rating of (-2), I suggest you e-mail them right away and ask them to explain themselves. If they refuse to, and the auction hasn't ended yet, I suggest you kick them out of your auction and bar them from bidding on any of your future items. It may not be entirely fair, but you'll be most likely saving yourselves a lot of headaches in the long run.

Be sure to post a "If buyer doesn't respond to my e-mails or send payment within X amount of days, item will be re-posted" clause somewhere in your auction. That way, if the deadline passes, you can terminate the contract right away and re-post the item. (Odds are, the defaulting buyer won't even care, but at least you can say you gave them a fair chance to fufill their end of the bargain.)

If you're looking to make some money making and selling cosplay items on ebay:

1.) Don't just make anything and expect it to sell. Do some research. Check to see which series/video games/cosplay outfits are currently popular.

2.) DON'T make a million copies of an item and sell them all at once. It's called Selective Liquidation, and its a concept which successful marketers have practiced for centuries. If you have 20 identical items that you want to sell, SELL THEM ONE DAMN ITEM AT A TIME! DON'T POST THEM ALL AT ONCE! People may be willing to put down 50-100 bucks for an item if they think it's rare and won't come up for sale again, but if you post all 20 items at once--guess what? They'll sell for 10 bucks apiece! (What's better? Selling 20 items all at once for 10 bucks apiece, or selling 20 items one at a time for 50 bucks apiece? Sure, option 2 might take longer, but you get FIVE TIMES AS MUCH MONEY!)

THINK, PEOPLE!!

(And by "people" I mean those of you selling Naruto headbands. How many of those damn things do you think people will BUY in a single week, anyway?)

3.) Diversify. You make a pair of gloves for a popular character and they sell for a high price. Lovely. You try posting the same item next week only to find that now 20 people are selling similar gloves at a far lower price. Now what do you do? You try finding an item that's harder to duplicate, that's what. (Remember, ANY schmuck with an inkjet printer and a package of iron-on paper can make a pair of Alucard sigil gloves. But if you can make detailed prop replicas of Alucards GUNS, you may have a better shot at actually turning a profit.)

4.) No more "Chi Ears". The world has enough o'them things as it is. Thank you.