eBay Selling Tips
A lot of us find it very easy to do our shipping and browsing on eBay, yet some of us hesitate to do any selling on eBay, when it couldn't be any more difficult than buying on eBay. In this tutorial I'll give you hints and tips about selling your items on eBay. Here's what you'll need: Item(s) to sell First off, you have to have something to sell. That's actually pretty easy. If a seller could advertise one old boot up for auction and have it sell (true story), pretty much anything is possible. My favorite activity (when I had my car) was going to the local thrift stores, buying a few things that looked promising, then selling them on eBay for profit. Of course I had random old things in my apartment and sold a good number of those too, but then again there's not always a demand for every single tangible item out there. If you have items to sell, how do you determine what they're worth? It's easy to just type in the name of the item and see what's currently available, but you can take an extra few steps to get a better idea of what your items may be worth. You'll need time because it takes a bit more time to make the advertisement on eBay, plus it doesn't hurt to double-check your spelling for the ad and title. You'll also need to be close to a Fed Ex or UPS services to ship out your items too. Sometimes you may need to spend part of your lunch hour at work to ship out the items. If you don't have an eBay account, now is the time to get it, especially for this instruction. eBay registration is free and it doesn't require a checking or savings account, even a credit card. Now that that is out of the way, what you have to do is go to the eBay site map located at the top with the other links. As of this writing, from there you'll want to look on the left column and scroll down until you see a link that reads "Completed Listings". This is located under the heading of "More Ways to Find Items".If you can't find it simply enable the page search in your browser (where it searches for words on the web page you're on) and look for "completed listings". Once you're there it will take you to a page similar to the browse page. At the top search field just type in the name of the item you're going to sell, then click on the check box next to it that says "Search completed items". Once you hit Return or click on the Search button it will ask for your eBay login and password, even if you've already logged in. This is simply a security measure just in case you're at a public computer and someone else has accessed that page while you stepped out. Now the next page shows the payoff. Here you can see what items did and did not sell that are similar to yours. The ones that did not sell or had a bid but did not meet the reserve price are listed in red, whereas the ones that did sell are bold and in green. You can rearrange the list of items by price as well. One important thing to look at is the number of bids. The item could have had a starting price that was very low, or maybe the auction itself had a lot of information and good pictures, all which contribute to a good auction that (hopefully) gets a lot of publicity and generates a lot of buzz. There are still some factors to consider though: 1. Supply and Demand - Tickle Me Elmos aren't going for as much as they used to years ago, but this is one example. The majority of electronic components also go down in price. You may have a rare item that is hardly seen secondhand anymore, but if none has an interest in it then the item may not sell. Sometimes it just takes the right buyer at the right time to check out the auction. 2. Product Information - I've seen a handful of items online that looked good and had a good price, but there was hardly any information about them. I could have easily asked the seller a question, but if the seller didn't put the information in the first time I get the impression that they wouldn't take the time to give me details about it if I asked them. If the page info details a lot of info about the product, then I get more security knowing that there's less chance of me getting ripped off, especially if the seller has a lot of recent positive feedback. 3. Quality of photos - If there photo's aren't detailed, I'm less secure about placing a bid on the item. Case in point: I was recently looking for a replacement motherboard for an older Apple G4 computer. These computers have similar motherboards but have different power plug jacks. The computer needing the replacement has a 22-pin plug whereas others have a 20-pin plug. I found an auction for a replacement motherboard, but neither the description or the photo detailed what jack was on the motherboard itself. I could have looked up the information online, but perhaps the seller wasn't computer savvy enough to know the details of the item that he or she was selling. This is quite common with auctions coming from a liquidation site. It's important to show detailed photos on older items where any scratches or marks have an impact on the price as well. Ok, back to selling.. Now you can get a general idea of what price you may get for your item. But what if you did a search for your item and there were no results? This goes back to supply and demand. If you have a seasonal item though, it's probably a good idea to put it up for auction a month before then. It wouldn't hurt to check periodically to see if the item you want to sell has seen any action elsewhere, but if you constantly get no results you can do two things. You can either put it up for auction and throw it away if it doesn't sell, or save your time and just throw it away. Now that you took the time to do your homework and check the sold items, it's time to make some money! I'll be instructing you through the steps but you won't actually be putting an item up for auction. This will just go through the steps needed to sell an item while showing you options and choices along the way. Before we start I would like to add that most eBay transactions end on the weekend. So chances are that more people are likely to bid on your auction then compared to during the week. This varies of course because those truly dedicated to winning the items they're watching or bidding on will make sure that they're on the the auction as it's about to end. It also makes a difference if you're ending your auction on a holiday or when there's a nationally advertised sporting event on. If you have a signed football up for auction, you'll be lucky to get any bidders on your items if your auction ends during the Super Bowl. 1. First off let's determine where your item should go on eBay. Click on the "Sell" link at the top of the eBay page. Here you have three options. You can sell as a regular auction, at a fixed price (as if it were in a retail store), or an ad format (best suited for larger items such as real estate). I've only used the fixed price auction sparingly, as I wanted to get rid of a few items cheaply. In this format you can set your item at a price that's both fair to you and for the buyer. The benefit is that you may be able to sell it quickly, but not only can you do this on a regular auction by setting a Buy It Now price, but you may not get more for it if you were to sell it as a regular auction, especially if the item you're selling is in high demand. 2. After selecting the Online Auction choice, you can select which category to place your item in. Thankfully eBay has made it easier for you to determine where to put it. You can type in the item above the categories to find where items like yours have been listed, or if you know exactly where you want it you can select from the categories below. You also have the ability to list it under more than one subject. Let's say I have a vintage Apple handheld scanner I want to sell. I can list it under Apple vintage items, but also list it under Apple Accessories under input devices. For this tutorial let's pretend that I'm going to auction off my Powermac G4 computer (HA! IN YOURDREAMS! Oh wait, it's only pretend.) We know it's a computer made by Apple, so first we click on the radio button next to "Computers and Networking". We can avoid putting it in another category for now, so just scroll to the bottom and click on the Continue button. Here's an iffy part. now we need to narrow down specifically where this item will be auctioned off. A handful of people including myself will search by category, but 90% of the time I'll just type in the name of the item that I'm looking for. Still it helps to specifically allocate your item in the right category. For my computer it will first go under "Apple, Macintosh computers". 3. When you click on that it becomes highlighted, and the window next to it has more options to choose from. It's a desktop computer, not a laptop, so click "Apple Desktops". FYI, there is no longer a distinction between computers being a desktop or tower model, so now the choices are usually just a desktop or laptop/notebook. 4. Below and to the left under the first table there's a new list of items. This is a Powermac model, so click on "Apple Power Mac". 5. Now you have yet another window asking which type of Powermac model this is. It's a G4, so click on that. 6. (Don't you love it when the steps are so short that it makes you feel like you're breezing through them like a pro?) Finally this opens another window asking us what speed it is. This was originally a 733 Mhz model but has since been upgraded to a 1.2 Ghz model, so from there we can click on "1.0Ghz and higher". If I choose to sell the original 733 Mhz processor then I would put it under the category of "500-933 Mhz". On the other hand I could choose to install the original processor and include the upgrade with the package but in a separate box. in that case I would advertise it at the same "500-933 Mhz" speed but include in the auction details and the title that the upgrade is included. Use your best judgment, but also put yourself in the bidder's mind so that they won't be mislead on your auction. Once you're done narrowing down the field where your item will be auctioned, scroll to the bottom and click on Continue. |