Regarding selling puppets on eBay that are not already made,.... I usually list puppets that WERE made, and I use the same photos of that original puppet.  I normally re-list my most popular characters over and over again.  I do however, let the potential customers know in the listing, that they are bidding on a duplicate of the puppet in the photo.  I also let them know that because of this, clothes may vary slightly in terms of style, depending on availability.  I've found that it's all about honest communication from day one.

That's what I have up right now.  It's the photo of the same puppet that I sold before.  They look exactly the same, so I didn't see any reason to post new photos since they were going to be the exact same. 

Right, and really making a great duplicate is important.  Customers on eBay will notice differences in the original and the duplicate, so you've got to really make sure your duplicate is identical.  Slightly different clothing is excusable though, as long as you let the customer know ahead of time.

You know, I'm pretty sure you can.  I've bought a couple of puppets off of Ebay that the seller mentioned would take a few weeks to construct.  I totally forgot about that.

It's been a few years actually since I used ebay; maybe I just never managed to find a listing like that. Interesting...

What I am in the process of trying to do is figure out a way that I could sell the "optional" items on the puppet right in the auction.  Some Ebay auctions have drop downs where the buyer can choose color and size...usually I only see these in clothing auctions, though.  If I could find out how to add that to the auction, it would give the buyer the option of choosing legs or other accessories without skirting any of the Ebay fees. 

Maybe ebay isn't the best venue to sell? (Why do you choose ebay over other sites, or even your own? Convenience? Large captive audience? - There are more people to compete with, but an easy set up...)

I recommend a really great article:
http://www.intothemountain.com/taking-credit-card-payments-online/

It explains all the different ways you can set yourself up to sell online. It's worth a read, because they discuss the pros and cons of using different venues, and helps with working out what suits you best.

Well, I'm using Ebay right now for several reasons.

First, I have a relatively high feedback (for just a general everyday person) and I've been an active buyer/seller there for nearly 10 years.  I think that will help with buyer confidence right off the bat when they see a good feedback rating with a long history of use. 

Second, it's pretty easy to set up an auction and to finish off a sale. 

Third, for a low volume seller it's quite a bit less expensive than paying to set up a website.  Hosting alone would probably cost more money than I'm going to be spending on Ebay fees. 

I'm not really ready to jump into a website of my own right now.  I have one, but it's really just a .com linked to my blog.  Setting up an online store and paying whatever kind of fees are associated with that along with paying for credit card merchant services aren't really something I'm ready to deal with. 

Oh, you missed the step in between - having your own site, but just having paypal buy me buttons.

But yes, I think for you, because you've got such high feedback, it's better to stau on that venue. My suggestion though is that if you're finding things unweildy (ie. you can't list with many options, or you can but it's expensive, etc etc), but are staying because of the feedback, then you may just want to reconsider from time to time whether another place might work.

The point is, you can be flexible. You can also use multiple venues; why not make a point of listing your feedback numbers and ebay link on your .com? I've seen many ebay sellers mention and link to their feedback from other venues - not just their own websites.

I'm not trying to push you into trying something else, just trying to suggest that you're not limited to one thing or another, or limited to the way other people do it. It comes back to the idea of experimenting and seeing what works best for you.

Oh, you missed the step in between - having your own site, but just having paypal buy me buttons.

But yes, I think for you, because you've got such high feedback, it's better to stau on that venue. My suggestion though is that if you're finding things unweildy (ie. you can't list with many options, or you can but it's expensive, etc etc), but are staying because of the feedback, then you may just want to reconsider from time to time whether another place might work.

The point is, you can be flexible. You can also use multiple venues; why not make a point of listing your feedback numbers and ebay link on your .com? I've seen many ebay sellers mention and link to their feedback from other venues - not just their own websites.

I'm not trying to push you into trying something else, just trying to suggest that you're not limited to one thing or another, or limited to the way other people do it. It comes back to the idea of experimenting and seeing what works best for you.

Yah, I know what you mean.

I just opened up a "store" over on Etsy and have a product listed there.  I like the fees there being only 20 cents.  I think what I will do there is just list the available options for a puppet as "separate" items...for example, I'll list the puppet and then if someone wants to add legs to it they can just add the legs to their shopping cart as well. 

I also just found out you can use the PayPal button on pretty much anything, so I'll be listing the products that I have available on my website as well with the PayPal button...so hopefully that will help. 

That will be three separate venues that I have things listed on, so hopefully that will lead to sales.  What I will be doing with repeat business is guiding them all to my website, because that doesn't have any fees other than the PayPal fees that you get charged for receiving money, which aren't too horrible for small volume sales. 

Sounds good, but again watch out for ebay's TOS. As mentioned further up-thread, ebay doesn't like people selling offsite.

I spent some time creating a sort of puppet-mizer (Flash webpage where you can pick and choose puppet parts visually... sort of a pre-FAO Schwarz thing come to think of it), and you can customise paypal buttons to send through all sorts of info if you know what you're doing. It does mean you can allow for more options (ie. buy the puppet, and buy a stand; or buy the puppet, choose a colour, etc). It's worth looking at, even if you don't understand how it all works. There's plenty of info in the paypal forums too.

Yah, I was looking into those PayPal buttons last night, and they seem like they would work well. 

They can be customized with a drop down, so you could have someone click "Buy Now" and have it drop down with:
Puppet-$50
Puppet with Legs-$70

and really just about anything. 

I'm going to be seriously looking at those on my days off this week and probably programming a few of them to go on my website. 

I think after some fiddling, you'll have a really good plan in place, and the rest is just testing it all out and seeing what floats!