Ebay starting tips

Question

im just starting my ebay business and i was wondering if anyone has any tips or anything?

Answer 1

These articles may help to get you started:

Online Auction Etiquette for the Seller and Buyer

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

Online Auctions: How to Deal With Customers

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

Good luck!

Answer 2

Make sure your ebay costs are fully factored into your cost of sales.....

Answer 3

Be honest and accurate in your descriptions – One sentence descriptions are for lazy sellers. One paragraph should be sufficient for most items. My general guideline is the more expensive an item, the more you should ‘talk it up.’ It won’t be time wasted. Use lots of adjectives in your descriptions. Adjectives make prose and your items come alive. Without them, prose is dull.

Be professional - use good English with no spelling errors

ALWAYS include at least one picture, more pictures for higher priced items

GOOD Communication is a must - Always notify buyers when you mail their items. It is not only a courtesy you would want and expect as a buyer but it is good customer service. After all, you are the 'President & CEO' of your 'company' running your business but using ebay as your selling medium. In short, conduct your business so that it reflects well on you.

You may want to use an email along these lines after you mail the buyer’s item:

Hi Buyer’s FIRST NAME HERE,

Just to keep you updated……………………….

Thanks for your payment! I mailed your widget this morning via USPS Priority Mail from Schickshinny, PA. You should receive it Saturday or Monday. I have also posted positive feedback for you. Please do the same for me if everything is satisfactory when your widget arrives. If, however, you are displeased with your purchase and you feel the item is not as I described it, please email me. I will rectify the situation to your satisfaction.

Again, thanks for bidding and congratulations on winning!

It has been a pleasure!

Regards,

Your name here

******

Other little tips:

Do not limit your payment options – Offer all of them. Sellers who offer only PayPal or only money orders or money orders and checks are further limiting their potential market and reducing their potential to maximize profits. Some people will not bid on items that do not have PayPal as an option. Then you have a smaller percentage who refuse to use PayPal and prefer to pay by check only or money order only.

Do not limit your auctions to one country. SELL WORLDWIDE. The reason is simple. You now have access to the largest market ebay has to offer. Limiting your auctions to only one country also limits your potential market and profits. To maximize profits, sell worldwide.

However, if you wish to limit sales to only one country, such as the USA, never say NO when you receive an email asking if you would ship to Taiwan, Australia or wherever. The reason is that you have a ‘FISH ON THE HOOK!’ This person will bid! When he or she does, this may force a previous bidder to enter another, higher bid or force later, first time bidders to come in with a higher bid. So always say YES to these emails if you want to maximize your profits.  But do say that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept for these overseas bidders.  

When you list an item, you choose whether it is to be a flat rate charge or a charge based on the weights of the boxed items. If you want to do your listings OFFLINE, download TURBOLISTER free from ebay. Once you have finished with your listings, you can upload them anytime or schedule a date and time when you want your auctions to start.

If you plan to sell on a regular basis, you can purchase an inexpensive postal scale on ebay for $15 to $20. I bought one several years ago and it still works just fine and is always in sync with the scales at the post office.

The links to the postal rates effective May, 2008:

http://www.usps.com/prices/welcome.htm

Regarding shipping methods

I suggest:

Any smaller, lightweight items that can fit in an envelope and be well protected can go first class mail.

Larger and / or heavier items are usually sent via USPS Priority mail. The greatest majority of items listed on ebay are mailed Priority Mail.  The REASON?  The BOXES ARE FREE from the USPS and they are delivered FREE to your doorstep!!!  You can either pick them up at your local PO but for a greater selection of boxes and to save gas, you can make your selections at the USPS website. Once your FREE order has been placed, the USPS will deliver your boxes FREE to your doorstep. Howya gonna beat that?

http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/s...

Beware of Media Mail- Thousands of ebay members are in violation of this postal regulation. Books, magazines, etc can be sent media mail PROVIDED they contain NO advertising. If the books/mags, etc. contain advertising, regardless of the items’ age, they CANNOT be sent media mail. The post office does randomly open media mail packages to catch violators. In addition, Media mail is ever so slow as it can take 7 to 10 days for delivery and in some instances up to 21 days. You will find buyers hounding you for their items when they don’t receive them in 5 days. Sometime it’s just best to use Priority Mail.  

Most mail in the US is moved by commercial air carriers. The USPS is the largest customer of the commercial carriers. When weight or space limitations have been reached on a plane, the low priority mail sits in holding areas until there is room for it on another flight, which, sometimes, can be a week or more.

I suggest you ‘go with the flow’ and use Priority Mail. It also is quick, 2 to 3 day delivery in most case.

People are increasingly complaining about the high cost of ebay and PayPal fees.  I say, try establishing your own business and reach the tens of millions people that ebay reaches and find out how much your expenses are. To these complainers, I say ‘Kwitchurbellyakin.’  There is always a cost of doing business. Many sellers have left ebay for other auction sites to save on fees. I don’t think this is prudent. They may be saving a few bucks on fees but an item that sells on another auction site with far, fewer members for $10 would likely sell for substantially more at ebay with its much greater membership. This is a classic example of “stepping over a dollar to pick up a penny.”  There isn’t another auction site on the web that can hold a candle to ebay and the millions and millions of members it has. Many have tried and many have failed and yet, many are still trying. Ebay has a virtual lock on this business. This is where you want to sell as ebay has the largest potential market.

The only other thing, avoid selling ‘nickel and dime’ cheap items. People who list and sell a steady diet of items that close at less than $5 are wasting their time. Less expensive, similar items are best sold as a group to save time. More expensive, similar items are best sold separately to maximize profits.

There is no best day of the week or time to list an item. Most smart ebay buyers use ebay’s search feature to find items they are looking for and these searches are delivered to them daily in their email boxes. So, in my opinion, it hardly matters when you start or end your auctions. Also, many people reserve weekends for their families and leave the ‘web world’ behind.

Lastly, keep in mind that experience is the best teacher.  Start off slowly listing only one or two items and see how that goes for you. Once you get your feet wet and gain confidence, start listing more items on a weekly basis. Good luck & happy selling!

Answer 4

here some tips about ebay

http://ecommerce-times.blogspot.com

Answer 5

I got caught up in the ebay store idea.  Where I screwed up was at the end of the month you will receive an invoice from ebay to pay your monthy fees.  The monthy fees are based on a percentage of what an item sold for called final value fees.  Also you have your listing fees.  Those will also be different based on what your listing price starts out to be for the bidding to begin.

I was doing pretty well with sales and showing a profit until I was sent an invoice from ebay for their portion of the money pie.

Once in a while I would get lucky and the bidding ended up being allot higher than I thought.  When you have two different people bidding on the same item and both want it really bad, that's a good thing for you.  At the same time you could end up having to sell an item that originally cost you $15.00 but the highest bid that you received could be below the $15.00 you have invested.  I made up most of my loses by adding a little extra for the shipping charges.  Something that you might normally ship for $8.00, before the auction starts raise your shipping and handeling to $12.00.

I seemed to have better luck listing an item with a very low start price.  That gets there attention.  If you were to list an item with "Buy It Now", sales weren't so good and it takes the fun away for the buyers.  Once you list an item for Buy It Now, all you can do is just sit back and hope for the best.

I hope you do well, but it was tough at times trying to juggle the listing price and the shipping charges to still be able to make a sale and maintain a profit.

I hope I didn't totally confuse you.  The only thing I don't like about ebay is the Final Value Fees they charge.  I can understand being charged a listing fee, but they got you on both ends of your listings.