5 Basic Steps To Posting Your Very First EBay Auction
It’s remarkably quick to begin posting your first auction on eBay. Let me suggest what you need to be doing.
First: Open an eBay account.
In the event you have purchased any items on eBay before, then you already have an account – simply just sign in with it and click ‘Sell’ in the member area at the top of the site, then click ‘Create a seller’s account’. If you have never used eBay before, then you may need to open an account first using the ‘register’ website link beneath the toolbar, and then click ‘Sell’ and ‘Create a seller’s account’. The eBay site will then get you through the process. For security, this might involve giving credit card details and also your bank information.
Second: Figure out things to offer.
To your very first little try out on eBay, it doesn’t really an issue what you want to sell. Take a peek across the room you are in – I’m sure there’s at least one thing in there that you could be not all that hanging on and may put it up for sale. Small to medium sized things for instance books and CDs tend to be your perfect first items.
Third: Post your item to eBay Marketplace.
Just click ‘Sell’, and then you’re on your way to posting your first item on eBay.
The first thing you want to do is choose a category – it’s actually best to simply type in what are the item is and then let eBay choose for you on which category. Then, write a title and some description. Contain key term you think people would search for within the title box search, as well as all the details you’ve got about the item in the description box.
At this point set a starting price. 1 cent is the ideal starting value, since it attracts buyers in to place bid, in which otherwise would not, and things can almost never finish off at such a low price. The following thing to determine will be the length of time of the auction: 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This one is perfectly up to you: longer times in most cases attract more bids, but will also seem to continue for a long time. In case you have taken a picture, include it right now – goods with pictures often sell for a higher price. As a final point, tick the payment options you can accept (just PayPal is the best for now), and also mention the places you can ship to (restrict yourself to your own country to start with). Post and you are done!
Forth: Wait for it to sell.
This can be just a matter of sitting back and letting eBay do the selling – customers may find your listing and leave bid on it. Some customers may email you having questions regarding the item, and you should do your best to answer these queries as quickly as possible.
Understand that in case your item does not sell next it is possible to list it once again for free.
Fifth: Collect your payment and dispatch it.
eBay can sent your customer emails guiding them through the entire process of sending you payment for the item. Make sure you have their money before you ship out anything.
Once you have received the money, all you must do is pack the item for posting (you should definitely use some bubble wrap), go ahead and take buyer’s address from the confirmation e-mail eBay emailed you, and write it on the package. Put some stamps on, post it, and you are done!
I think you’ll have fun with selling your very first item. Now that you are beginning to get into it, your next thing you need to carry out is to locate more things to sell.
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EBay Drop-Off Centers: Selling For Someone Else
EBay has moved offline. Several companies, like Snappy Auctions and I Sold It On EBay, offer sellers franchises for brick-and-mortar eBay stores. These drop-off spots take customer items, evaluate, photograph, and list them online, collect the payments, and ship the items to their buyers. In other words, they do all the work – for a percentage of the selling price, of course.
Beginner Strategies If you’ve contemplated jumping on the bandwagon and opening a physical drop-off location, fellow store-owner and eBay University instructor, Christopher Spencer has some advice for you:
* Location is key. Get a good broker to help you identify convenient retail sites. It’s important to be in a high traffic area, such as a strip mall or a facility near good anchor stores, anyplace frequented by upscale individuals. To get high-quality merchandise, you need a higher level of clientele.
* Take store layout into account. As your business develops, you’ll need exponentially more storage space. Advises Spenser, “Consider whether a building will fit your needs for future expansion, so you can avoid growing pains.”
* Be careful what you accept. Don’t waste your time with items that won’t be worth the research and energy you’ll invest in them. Patrons sometimes bring in boxes of junk, or items with very little value. Be realistic with your clients, and counsel them what will and won’t bring in money. That way they know what to expect, and they aren’t disappointed by their final prices.
* Charge a reasonable amount for your services. Keep yourself in line with what others are charging, rather than trying to undercut everyone in order to compete. Instead, add value to your services by focusing on areas at which you excel. If you have a staff member who specializes in a certain area, encourage your customers to bring in items in that field because you’ll be able to get them the maximum prices on eBay.
* Concentrate on customer service. Exceed your customers’ expectations. Says Spencer, “Building a reputation and getting good clients is a matter of word of mouth and referrals, and that’s something people build over time.”
Help Me Help You! People want help with things they don’t know how to do, or don’t have time to do – that’s why there’s such a need for this sort of service. It provides the convenience and ease of being able to just drop off an item and pick up a check. Though users have to pay a commission, they’ll typically get more for their item by using an experienced, knowledgeable seller, than they would by selling it themselves.
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10 Ways To Save Time And Money With Shipping & Handling On Ebay
One problem with eBay is that unless you are careful you can end up spending far too much time on routine tasks such as packing and shipping. Not only is there the time spent wrapping the items, but also when you take them to your local post office to have them weighed, stamped and posted. As someone who never seems to have enough time I have adopted some time saving measures which frees up my time to do other things.
1.Buy Stamps in advance. Many of the items that I sell are similar, CDs , audio tapes and books. Therefore I know exactly what the postage is for these items and I buy in advance a quantity of stamps for the various denominations that I use. I can then pack, stamp them and just drop them into the post box without the need to wait at the post office counter.
2.Get a set of scales Of course one really helpful piece of equipment is a set of postal scales. Not only does this save you time by allowing you to pre stamp packages but it is also very useful when you are listing an item. You can quickly and accurately calculate the exact cost of postage for each item. This can save you making those errors of under estimating the true cost of posting an item or having to make a special journey to the post office just to find out what it will cost to post.
3. Buy packaging materials online A thriving industry has grown on eBay offering packaging materials. It really is a case of selling spades to miners, but as a result the competition in this field is very fierce. This means that you can make considerable savings if you go to the Business, Office and Industrial Category and look in Packing and Postal supplies. Also many of the major stationers such as Staples and Viking offer a good 24 hour service and often have some attractive special offers or gifts to make an even better deal. Most offer free postage for orders over a certain quite low amount.
4. Whenever possible use padded bags. If it is suitable for your products one of the great time savers is the use of padded envelopes. They come in a big range of sizes and thickness and are suitable for a wide range of products. It is much easier and quicker just to pop something into an envelope and seal it than putting something in a box, put in padding and using tape to seal it. Also these days padded envelopes can work out cheaper than other forms of packaging.
5. Hold a stock of Post Office Forms These days forms control our lives and it is no different with the postal authorities. Normally if you are a regular postal user your local post office will be happy to supply you with a stock of the forms that you might need. The ones I keep handy are customs declarations, recorded International and national forms and supplies of airmail and fragile stickers. Completing these and applying them to your packages before you go up to the post office can save considerable time.
6. Use Rubber stamps I also have a selection of rubber stamps with First Class Mail, Do Not Bend, Small Packet Rate, This saves the time rather than writing these phrases over and over again.
7. Pre print return labels I would never send out a packet without a return address on it. Over the years that I have used eBay I have had about 5 parcels come back to me because they were undeliverable for one reason or another. If I had not had a return address label on them they and the contents would have been gone forever. You can of course order a pack of name and address labels from the local printer but I have found the most cost effective is to use the sheets of plain labels such as Avery, the 65 labels to a sheet are ideal and print them off as required a sheet at a time. I then just stick one of these on to every packet I send out. And of course it also makes you look a little more professional with your packaging.
8. Pick the time that you go to the post office There are always some times in the day or days in the week when your local post office is liable to be more busy than others. If you ask the counter staff I am sure they would be happy to tell you when these times are likely to be. Also they would also be able to tell you the times they would expect to be less busy. If you use this information you can cut down the time you spend waiting in line at the post office.
9. Copy addresses from Paypal notification. Whenever you get payment notification from Paypal it will contain the name and address of the buyer. I always highlight and copy this and using my labelling software I paste this into the label template this saves having to write or type the information in. I always print my labels on the AveryL7160, 21 labels to a sheet paper.
10. Compare prices There is plenty of competition to ship larger items and it is worth comparing prices for the various shippers and couriers to get the best deals. In my experience with smaller items it is difficult to beat the Post Office but for items that need to be shipped fast or weigh over 2 Kgs (4 1/2lb) it is worth looking for the best deal.
If you do not want to handle the tedious shipping & handling, simply use drop-shipping service provided by wholesalers. I personally use Drop-shipping Wholesaler to find the legitimate wholesale suppliers to drop-ship the items I have sold eBay directly to my customers!
5 Easy Ways To Make Money On eBay
Frequently the question they ask is, “Please tell me an easy way to make money on eBay.” I suppose the answer to this question really revolves around how you define the term easy.
It is my belief that there is no easier way to make money on the Internet than by selling items through eBay. What could be simpler, a straight forward 5 step process.
1. Get something to sell. 2. Photograph it, and write a description. 3. Upload your listing to eBay. 4. Collect your money. 5. Dispatch the item.
What could be simpler than that?
But I suspect what people are really asking is how can I easily get products to sell. From my experience this is what both newcomers and some experienced eBayers find difficult. So in this article I just want to highlight 5 very simple ways that you can get products to sell without even leaving your computer. This I hope that will be easy enough for everyone.
1. What, no photograph? It is my belief that there is hardly an item listed on eBay or any of the other online auctions that does not benefit from having a photograph or image included in the listing. In fact most items that are listed without a photograph that actually sell tend to fetch 20% less than those with. In some categories the figures are even higher. For instance clothing items offered without a photograph average a 78% lower selling price than those with. So it would seem to be pretty easy to browse eBay looking for these “photo less” items, buying them and then relisting with a photograph. Money for old rope really.
2. Finding the poorly listed item. There are many reasons why someone’s listing fails to attract any worthwhile bids. Bad title, short or poor description, wrong category, poor spelling and so on. You can find these by browsing around the auction site, but I would suggest an easier method.
Select the categories that you are interested in and look down the search feature for items finishing within the next hour. Here is where you will find the bargains that have failed to attract any bids for the reasons we have mentioned.
3. Unsocial hours In any book about eBay you will find tips on when is the best time for auctions to finish. The most suggested times for most items are Sunday afternoon and evenings and Wednesday evenings. Some experts suggest that for business related items Monday or Tuesday during office hours are best. If you accept that there are times when you will get increased bids for your items there must also be times when if your auction ends you will not do so well. I would think if you have an auction that finishes between say 5 am and 8 am on a Monday morning you will not have too many people lurking to place last minute bids to push the price up. Again buy and relist with your auction set to finish at a more sociable time and you could easily make a 20% or more profit for very little effort.
4. Buy Collections One of the easiest ways to make money on eBay is to cash in on other peoples laziness. If someone has say a collection of 10 china dogs, it is a fact that if they put all ten in one listing as a collection they will get less than if they had listed each item separately. But it is amazing how many sellers cannot be bothered to do this. I have in the past bought such a collection and actually made more from one of the items than I had paid for the whole collection.
5. Other online auctions. Over 95% of all online auction sales are on eBay. They have the largest number of registered buyers and items listed for sale. For this reason items offered for sale on eBay get the best prices. So why not search around some of the smaller online auctions, because in many cases items listed with them will not attract such a good prices as could be achieved on eBay. Then all you have to do is buy from them and relist on eBay.
So there are 5 easy ideas for you to consider. Why not give some or all of them a try.
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10 Great Ways To Source Low Cost Products For Ebay
So you’re having trouble finding stock cheaply enough to sell it for a good profit? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
Garage sales. The chances are you’ve gone most of your life seeing ads for these and ignoring them. Start going to as many as you can. You won’t find good things at every one, but when you find one person with good stuff, make them an offer for the lot – they’ll be so happy about it that you can get a real bargain.
Markets. If your area has a market, then go there and look around for anything good. You could buy it there if it’s cheap enough, or try to make friends with the market traders and find out who their suppliers are.
Pawn shops. Pawn shops don’t usually know what to do with the junk they accumulate (unless it’s jewellery, of course). Generally, they put their stock out on the shelves haphazardly, hoping that someday someone with a little money will just happen to come in, search around and buy wildly obscure things. Get them to offer you a discount for bulk.
Real auctions. Go to a real auction, as the chances are that you can resell things for more than they will sell them. After all, they only have a few hundred people in that room – you have a few million to sell to!
Local newspapers. Place an ad in the local paper that reads “I pay cash for [your item type]“, with your phone number. If you can afford it, make it a big display ad, so it’ll be noticed.
Ad boards. Get one of those little ads in the grocery store.
Friends. Ask your friends if they have anything they’d like to sell you, and ask them to spread the word to their friends.
Become known. Give out business cards, mention to people what you do. The chances are that you’ll come across someone who’ll say “Oh, really? I’ve got a load of [item] I don’t want”.
Shops. This might be a little surprising, but some real shops even sell things more cheaply than they sell on eBay. Take a look around your local deep discounter, and pay special attention to any shop that takes trade-ins from customers. The chances are they take a loss on trade-ins as a promotion, and are dying to get rid of that stock.
And finally: eBay! When you’re looking at the completed items view, you’ll notice the massive range of prices that items can sell for on eBay. Try taking the highest-priced item and searching for it on its own, then sort by lowest price first: I can almost guarantee that you’ll see an auction for the same item where it sold for almost nothing. The trick is to find these flawed auctions before they close, win them using a bid sniping service, and then turn around and resell the item.
After all that trouble, though, when do sell the item you might find that a buyer leaves you a feedback rating you just don’t think is fair. The next email will show you what to do about it.
Lastly, if you want to make some serious money on eBay, check out this ebook “eBay Inside Out“. It has changed my life by simply following the system exactly. I’m now a Platinum eBay Powerseller selling fulltime on eBay, making average $50k of sales every month, you too can make it!