22 Top Tips For eBay

eBay is a massive help to millions of people every year , they sell anything from their precious items down to would-be useless junk. Selling on eBay can be a lot of fun but when it comes to selling an expensive item you need to know that your going to get people viewing your auction, bidding and that your going to end up with a nice sum. Here are some tips for eBay including buying, selling and set up.

Set Up

1. Signing up for eBay - When you sign up for eBay register a name that is reasonably simple and diverse in meaning, try not to use a name such as “hippypornstar57″ or “sexyminx43″, i personally have no problem with using your real name but some people do.

2. Use PayPal - When you first sign up for eBay you should definitely sign up with a PayPal account as the security and easy of use is well worth the little bit of set up. PayPal and eBay integrate perfectly with each other to make paying and getting paid extremely simple. Furthermore, the security measures are great including an insurance buffer on any purchases made. If someone doesn’t send an item that you paid for your money is safe with PayPal.

3. Grow Your eBay Rating - The higher your eBay rating the more people will trust you on the internet. This is a good thing for both buying and selling. Negative feedback is not good, make sure you are quick to pay and post Also remember to always communicate with people, most people are understanding if something goes wrong with your financing. Just tell them.

Buying

4. Specific Terms - When buying an item try to use specific terms if possible, rather than searching for “Macbook Ram”, search for “DDR2 200PIN PC5300 ram”, just make sure you are searching for the right thing because it is easy to get burnt buying the wrong thing this way. If it is the right item chances are it will be cheaper as you are bypassing the mark up synonymous with the items branding.

5. Items Finishing at Strange Times - Try and find items that are finishing at weird times such as 2am, as there will be less bidders online at this time to push the price up last minute.

6. Bid not Buy Now - “Buy It Now” is a great feature when an item has a standardized price, but often an item will also have an auction price, bidding on an item will usually get you a lower price but will also take longer.

7. Watch the shipping - Pay attention to items shipping charges as many people jack this price up to keep the buying price down. Many beginning buyers don’t notice this. A good idea is to sort your list view by “Price+Postage(Lowest First)”

8. Research - Look up the item you are about to purchase on Google, Amazon, Craigslist and your local classifieds before purchasing. Even some retail stores sell items on special cheaper than eBay (not often but it has happened). This is especially so on books, amazon can often have second hand books cheaper then the first bid on eBay books.

9. Bid Late - Don’t jack up the price of the item early in its auction time, follow it until the last minute and then bid. Just make sure your logged on to eBay. This is called bid sniping.

10. Read The Description - This one should go without saying, but make sure you read the items description before you buy, otherwise you might be paying $100 for a sticker of that microphone rather then the microphone itself.

11. Pay - If you buy something pay for it quickly, no one likes waiting around for a week trying to get you to pay. Also remember if you bid and win, you must buy the item. Your in a legally binding contract. Don’t bid if you don’t want it. If your not sure if you have the money it sounds like you need to look at this page

Selling

12. Title, Title, Title - In my opinion one of the most important aspects of selling on eBay is the title you give your product. The title defines what the user has to look up to find your item (as well as categorization, etc.), if your item has a poor title no one will see it. This idea is similar to specific terms for buying, for an item such as Macbook Ram, i would definitely title the item Macbook ram as well as a few specifics such as speed, pins etc as titling it this way will get a higher amount. The only way this works is if you believe people are going to search for Macbook Ram on eBay.

13. Sell Time - Create your listing at a time where it will finish when there is peak traffic on eBay, a time like 8pm. This will maximize bidders. One small hiccup with this is, your auction is ending at peak time along with many other peoples auctions…lots of competition. If the market for your item isn’t too flooded this shouldn’t be a problem, otherwise reconsider the best time.

14. Buy It Now - There are two different ways to go about selling, if you believe your item is an impulse buy item, usually lower priced items, you can set up a buy it now price. This is much easier for the buyer.For many people when they buy an item they want it “now”. The other way is;

15. Bids Ahoy - Start your auction off at 99c as this will attract more bidders and the more bidders you have, the more bidders you will have. For higher priced items an auction is a much better option as you will most likely get either what the item is worth or more. Also this way your item is guaranteed to sell. It can be a bit daunting to start your expensive item at 99c but just remember to put the ad up so it finishes at peak time and set it for something like 5 days. Longer is better. One more fact about bidding is that inserting your ad for 99c will be cheaper then a buy it now price, or starting it at a higher price.

16. More Bidders - A good thing to know is that items with more bidders are generally more desirable

17. Shipping costs - research has shown that items with low item cost and high shipping cost sell for close to 25% more then items with proper shipping charges. I tend to do this only on items with buy it now, as i prefer charging people close to the real shipping cost + a small buffer of a few dollars for personal safety.

18. The Description - One must is creating an awesome description of your item. Make a description that is concise yet full of the necessary information, definitely not too wordy. Do your research, which leads me too;

19. Do Your Research - Research the hell out of your item before you sell it, if its made of wood you have to know what wood, if its old you have to know how old, if there are inferior version you have to know what they are. Also research how much your item is on other eBay auctions, use specific terms to find the cheapest auction, this is to get an idea of what your item is worth second hand.

20. No Reserve - You may think having a reserve is like a safety net but its not. Do not set up a reserve price as many people don’t bid on items with a secret reserve price. I am one of these people, i don’t know what it is but i seem to avoid secret reserve items like the plague.

21. Options - Depending on the item setting up options for your auction is quite positive. Outline, bold, feature, listing designer etc. are good ways to make your listing stand out, just make sure the benefit outweighs the cost.

22. Photos - eBay will host 1 photo for you free of charge, for some items this is fine but for the more expensive items (especially furniture) you need photos with details, the photos should show the item in its best light and display any cracks, marks or imperfections. Now you can either pay extra to have these photos hosted by eBay, which is the easier option or you can host them yourself with a free online image hoster such as ImageShack and embed them in the item description yourself.

Well that concludes this article, if you have anything to contribute don’t forget to comment.

Until Next Time,

Goodbye

Photo Courtesy Of: liewcf – Check out their flickr

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