I understand where you are coming from, it's difficult to be short of funds, but that makes it doubly important that you check out things twice or three times or four, whatever it takes, before you commit your hard earned cash. Being oblivious will never help you, so you need to put yourself in the driver's seat.
That applies to selling on ebay or anywhere else.
With ebay, for most things, they have to be posted off and you are right, the safest method is with tracking.
There are selling fees and fees on postage charged to factor in to your asking price. A few years ago, well before covid, a friend and I decided to have a garage sale and we were shocked to find an ad in a local paper would about $56. That was just the ad, whether we sold anything or not.
There are fees for sellers on a lot of sales or advertising sites.
If you want to sell on ebay, best bet is to save a little bit first, enough to cover postage on a few cheaper items you intend to sell. Then list and post promptly. My sister & I used to sell and we set up a separate bank account for this so that everything-fees, profits, costs etc, went into it (or came out of it) and we didn't have to touch our everyday money.
If you build up a selling profile with a small but steady stream of cheaper items, then you'll move past the hold on funds and be able to get paid much sooner.
But there are still pitfalls with ebay in that customers can open claims against you if they think the item isn't quite right or if something isn't delivered in time, they could possibly be refunded, so you'd need to have that separate kitty to cover you if things went wrong.
