When people think about selling their stuff on the internet they automatically think about eBay. eBay is the leading auction companies on the internet and people have made fortunes selling the junk they had in their attic. For most of us, we experience the exact opposite, hopefully with this article will give you some tips at maximizing your earning potential in the eBay market.
eBay is not what some people make it out to be. It is not a cash cow like a lot of marketing people online will lead you to believe, it is not easy, and most of all, most of us will not get rich from selling merchandise with eBay. eBay is, however, a great resource when you want to make a profit on something you do not use or if you want to start a online business.
What Can eBay Do For Me?
First thing you need to do is forget most of what you have heard about eBay, because most of the things you have heard are blown out of proportion or exaggerated. eBay can get you started with doing what you always wanted to do, own your own business, but it can’t make you millions overnight.
Even if you lack the web designer spark you can still use eBay’s store to sell your stuff without ever doing any coding. They make it easy to get your product to the masses, but where do you go to get started?
Sign Up
In order to do any business with eBay you need to have an account. Go to eBay’s website and click the “register” link to sign up. You will need a credit card or Paypal account to buy and sell items, so make sure you have that information ready to use.
Begin A Strong Account
Once you are registered you can start building your account by buying things from other people. You can either start stocking up on things you will want to resell or you can just buy things that you needed or wanted anyway. This will allow people to rate you and it helps to build up your feedback rating, something very important to eBayers.
You should start out small and buy things that only cost a few dollars. This way you are not spending a fortune building your feedback rating, there is no need to go in debt before you even get started.
While you are building your feedback you should spend some time looking at other sellers who sell the same items you sell. You need to look how they present the product, how they describe the product, and how much the “normal” price is going for. Keep a eye on the feedback scores of the competition and try to become like the ones that have he highest ratings, mostly likely they know what they are doing.
Setting Up Your Product
Once you have generated a good rating in the feedback you need to start adding new products to your store or to your profile. Adding a product is fairly straight forward. You first need to gather general information about the product like weight, length, width, height, etc. After you have generated the required information you need to take pictures.
These pictures need to be good pictures, not far away shots that leave no detail or to close so that you cannot see anything except the keyboard keys (if selling a laptop). You need to take pictures showing the product’s use, showing if the product works or not, and any scratches it may have. Take a lot of pictures, from every angle you think that the buyer would need to see. If the product only requires one image then just use one. Use real photos not images from the internet or else you may come off as a scam.
Now comes the description. You can go to “Sell” from the account you are logged into to see the seller page. Once you reach the seller page you can begin entering the information about your product. Start with a catchy title, if you are saying that you are selling a “Used Laptop”, you should have “1 Year Old Laptop with Case / Power Supply and OS Cds”. The title should contain an overall of your product but don’t come off as spammy, trust me, people can tell if you are trying to hard.
Next if the keywords and category. Make sure your keywords use all the normal keywords such as “Laptop, Case, Core 2 Duo”, but you should also include alternate keywords that still match your product such as “Notebook PC, Carrying Case, Acer”. This is another place that you can look spammy so try to avoid generic keywords like “Cool, Best Deal”….some people skip over this because you are trying to hard once again.
After you have selected the best keywords you need to choose a category that is relevant to your product. That part is easy.
Now you have to write a description. The description is what really sells the product. Use keywords that are relevant while avoiding the generic keywords. Just write a description naturally without having to much jargon about the product. Make the description easily readable by anyone who stumbled onto your eBay product. The description does not have to be very long, but try not to leave the buyer with any questions about the product. Also, do not try to talk the product up because if someone calls you out on it, it could ruin the good reputation you have been building for so long.
Now the time consuming part is over. You just need to add a product price and shipping options as well as some additional options These options are up to you so need to go into detail about the steps involved.
During and After the Auction
During the auction you need to make sure that you are accessible to answer any questions your buyers may have. If you fail to answer simple questions about your eBay product you may find yourself losing a potential buyer. Usually the questions are not hard, but sometimes you get a tough one….but you still need to answer it truthfully and factually.
After the auction is over you need to ship the product and see if any feedback about the transaction has been left for you. If it has, whether it is bad or good, you need to respond. If it is bad, try to work it to your favor by explaining whatever issue they had. Buyers will see that you defended yourself and you gave them your side of the story….this doesn’t look as bad as a bad buyer leaving bad
Once the auction is over you will have made a little money, another buyer, and potentially some good feedback with you being the seller. That is a start, be confident and do not try to rip people off and you could see a steady income that could give you some extra spending money or could help you become your own boss.