Selling On Ebay Made Easy

Selling on Ebay is one of the easiest ways to get started in online business. You don't need to worry about marketing or managing a website because Ebay has already done everything for you. All you need to do is find a product, take a picture, and list it on Ebay. While this might sound simple, a lot of people that are new to this concept might find it extremely difficult to get started. The internet is still just a baby afterall. If you're one of these people, I hope this article will help clarify any questions you might have.

Setting Up Your Ebay Seller Account

Before you can sell on Ebay, you will first need to signup for an Ebay account. You will need a valid debit/credit card so that Ebay can verify your identity. The process shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes and is extremely easy. During the signup process you will need to create a unique username for your account. I would recommend choosing a username which represents the types of items you plan on selling. If you were selling discount flowers on Ebay you could use the username "discountflowerstore". If you have a business name, I would recommend you use that as your username if it's available. After your account is setup you will need 10 feedback comments before you can accept "Buy It Now" payments when you list your items. The easiest way to acquire these feedbacks is to purchase 10 ebooks that cost $.01 from 10 different ebay users. Use Ebay's "advanced search" with the keyword "ebook", the minimum and maximum price of $.01, and set it to show only Buy It Now items. Make sure you purchase ebooks that have free shipping and handling. After you receive your feedbacks from the 10 sellers you should be ready to list your items.

Listing Your Items

Considering you've already found the items you want to sell, the first thing you should do is take professional photos of the products. I would recommend you use a digital camera that is at least 5 mega pixels. This will ensure that your photos are large enough to view important details that your customers will want to know about. Give your customers the feeling that they are physically looking at the products in person. If your product has tiny scratches many customers will want to see these scratches prior to buying the product. For small products, the best way to take professional quality photos is to use a "light-up studio" which helps you to take professional-quality photos. Because the background is plain you can easily crop out the background from the main image. There are many companies that sell quality light-up studios right on Ebay.

The next thing you need to look at is the quality of your description. Many people think that you need a fancy description with high quality graphics to get the best results. In my experience, a high quality template will not necessarily improve your online sales. The most important part of the description, is the way you word it. Make sure there are no typos or mispellings that can confuse the customer. Also, include as many details about the product you can think of. Offering a vague description is unprofessional and will often lure away perspective buyers. Try to make anything negative about your product into a positive. If the product is old and has many scratches, you can say that the scratches are part of it's history.

Before listing your product you need to make sure that your product is in the correct category and sub-categories and has keyword-rich titles. If you don't know what the correct categories are, find similar products to yours and see where other Ebay sellers listed them. Once you have the right categories in mind, you'll need to think of the best keywords to use for your description. Most Ebay customers use the general search to find the products they want. If you were selling a World War 2 Helmet that belonged to your grandfather, you could use the description "WW2 World War 2 Helmet Memorabilia". This way if somebody were to type in "WW2 Helmet", "World War 2 Helmet", or "World War 2 Memorablia", your listing will show up in the search results. Some people make the mistake by listing anything that comes to their mind. If you were to describe your grandfather's helmet as "Old War Helmet That Belong To My Grandfather", you probably wouldn't get a lot of bidders because nobody would be able to find your listing. You should also make sure that your title is worded properly because typos is a common reason why some auctions don't get a lot of bids.

Deciding whether to auction your products off or to sell them at a fixed "Buy It Now " price could mean a big difference in how much you make from your auction. If the product is brand new and you have a steady supply, I would recommend selling it as Buy It Now since most people will not pay higher than the retail price for the item. Items that are used or priceless such as an autographed baseball, will often do better using the traditional auction method. I usually start my auctions off at $1 since this will attract more buyers and watchers. The listing and Final Value fees will also be considerably lower. List your items to end on Friday afternoon because many people have just been paid. I used to list many of my auctions on Sunday afternoon for five days so they would end Friday afternoon. Five days seems to be perfect because it isn't too long of a wait and gives you enough time to build up enough bidders and watches. Don't be alarmed if your auction isn't getting a lot of bidders because many people prefer to snipe your auction at the last minute.

Accepting Payments and Shipping

Once your auction is over the buyer will need a way to send you the money. Ebay owns a company called Paypal that is probably the most popular way to send and receive payments on the internet. Paypal is free and only requires your bank account information to setup an account. In order to accept payments you will need a Paypal Premeir Account or Business Account. If you're just getting started a Premeir Account is all you will need. After you receive payment from a buyer, you will be able to view their shipping address from within your Paypal account. Make sure their address is not a P.O. Box because this could mean trouble. Many fraudulent credit card users use this method to obtain their goods. If this were to happen, contact the buyer and ask them to give you their main address. If they refuse, immediately refund their money. It's better to be safe than sorry!

Many Ebay customers will want to know how you are going to ship the product and the approximate cost of the shipping. Prior to selling on Ebay, I had never shipped a product before in my life. This can be intimidating because there are so many options for you to choose from. First, you need to decide whether you can ship the product worldwide or just within your own country. Next, decide which company you can rely on to get your products safely to your customer. I have always used UPS since they have UPS Stores all over the place. The UPS Store also has a service where they can box your items up for you. I would recommend you do it yourself though unless the item is small and sold for a very high price. UPS has different shipping methods such as Ground, Expedited, Priority Air, etc. Ground shipping is the most popular since it is the cheapest. Unless your customer requests otherwise, I would recommend you use this type of shipping as much as possible. When calculating your shipping costs in your listing, you want to decide whether to profit from your shipping, charge the buyer the exact amount, or offer the buyer FREE shipping. Free shipping should only be used if the item is sold as a Buy It Now and the price is high enough to make up for the free shipping cost. Never offer free shipping if the auction is standard because you never know how much your auction will end for. I always like to estimate a higher shipping cost because this will often help you out with your seller fees. If the exact shipping cost is $10 and you charge the buyer $50, the auction will probably end about $40 lower than it would have if you were to charge the seller the exact shipping cost. Therefore, $40 of the selling price was added to the shipping cost. Ebay does not factor in the cost of shipping when calculating their Final Value Fee. Therefore, your fee will be lower than it would be if you were to charge the exact shipping cost. Choosing to charge the exact shipping cost requires yourself or the buyer to manually calculate the cost once the auction is over. The problem here is that many buyers will make their payment and fail to include the cost of shipping in their total. Make sure to instruct the buyer to include the shipping cost with their payment in your description.