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Our Second Article is here:
Beginner's Guide: How to Sell on
Ebay
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Get
a new haircut.
Your identity on Ebay is just as important to protect
as your real identity. I recommend to all Ebayers to create a new
email to use only for Ebay (Or Ebay and online buying). Sometimes,
thru no fault of your own, an Ebay member may take offense to something
you have done or not done on Ebay, and make it their mission in
life to Spam your email to death, or try to annoy you in other ways.
Be smart, and pick a “disposable” account from a free
provider like Yahoo!Mail as
your back up Ebay address.
Also, avoid making your email address your username,
as this gives your address away, and circumvents Ebay’s various
methods of protecting users (such as forbidding direct emails from
people not involved in a particular auction, and spammers.)
Show me the money!
Decide on your payment methods in advance. It’s probably best
to pick a small variety of payment receiving options, and stick
to them. Money orders are always safe to receive, just be careful
who you give your address to. And on a side note, I NEVER meet my
buyers in person, even if they live locally. You never know who
may show up (if you must meet someone, try to make it at a public
place, like a StarBucks, or Barnes and Noble).
I like PayPal personally, because
they have been in the business the longest and it seems like almost
everyone has an account already. C2it/AOL
quickcash is an option, but there are few users out there, and
Citibank hasn’t gotten their act together. I am constantly
having problems with their service. On the upside, they have great
24 hour support and they answer their phones really quickly. For
the seller, C2it is great, because it’s free for you, but
your sellers may be in for a rude awakening: Some credit cards post
the C2it payments as CASH ADVANCES, adding on steep
financing charges. You may need to warn potential buyers.
Make a habit of emailing your buyers to acknowledge that you have
received payment and will be shipping soon. This is the polite thing
to do.
Dress to Impress.
It seems obvious, that if you run a clean store, you’ll get
more sales. That’s why I like Best Buy, and not Dave’s
Electronic Shack when I shop in person! On the internet
no one will know that you are running your auctions out of a 1 bedroom
shack and not out of a clean Warehouse! Make your listings clean,
and advertise well. If you are selling something that has not too
much buyer interest, then really go out to make your listing look
good. You can of course use HTML in your listings, and I recommend
it. Colors, and graphics go a long way toward making a professional
auction advertisement. Personally I love Dreamweaver as my HTML
editor, but it may be a bit complicated. You can always use Microsoft
Word to create listings and “Save As” HTML.
Know your stuff
In your description, be sure you know what you are talking about.
Don’t post false features, or list things that show you are
inexperienced at what you do. Avoid selling items that you are unsure
how to describe properly or are uncomfortable selling.
Describe it well
This is a key part of your auction ad. People want
to know all the details, and often will pay more
for it. Instead of listing the name of the item only and the model
#, etc. Take a second to describe in detail things like the condition
of the item. Is it scratched, dented, or otherwise somewhat less
than mint condition? Do all the features work as advertised? Did
you recently test the item yourself and are you willing to accept
returns? Why are you selling yours? If it seems too good to be true,
people may wonder “what’s wrong with this auction?”
Taking a moment to accurately describe the item, will be worth it.
Longer, more descriptive Ebay auctions often do better than poorly
worded ones.
These tips are especially important if fewer people are interested
in your item (e.g. a 1966 copy of The Cat in the Hat” vs.
a Sony DVD player!).
Also take care to describe your terms of sale. Are you shipping
for a set fee, or does it vary by location? Are you shipping insured?
How about overnight? Are you including a tracking number? In general,
the more expensive the item you are selling, the more careful you
should be.
A Picture is worth $1000
You NEED a picture. Ever go on a blind date, because
your friend said,” Sure, she’s cute! And a GREAT personality?”
You’ll never do that again right? I got to see it to believe
it, especially if it’s a used item. I want to see exactly
what I’m paying for, with close-ups of all the included accessories.
Take a moment to get a good digital picture (or borrow a friend’s
camera) of your listing. Include all the things you are selling,
(Box, batteries, chargers, CDs, books) in the photos, and take more
than one, if you think it will help. You can upload the pictures
to Ebay (1st one free) or post them on a free hosting service (not
Geocities, because they don’t allow linking to Ebay anymore).
For Mac users I recommend Apple’s own iDisk, and PC owners,
I’d check with your ISP as many of them allocate some web
space you can use.
Also, include a picture from the manufacturer’s website, for
some high quality pics that are generally excellent quality. This
is especially useful if your item is brand new.
Example: See picture one, where you see this collection of Pin
Pals ends for without a picture, while another
reaches $150 with a nice photo (little blurry in my screen capture)
When to post?
It used to be said that Sundays were always the
best days to post, and most of the time this is true, as there are
more people are at home surfing the web. I have found that for some
reason, many of my auctions on Monday close better
than Sunday. In general, I go for Prime Time night hours 8-11 PST
as a good closing time, while people are surfing @ home. Avoid morning
hours. Also, I avoid Fridays and Saturdays in general,
as lots of people are out on those days, and not surfing Ebay. For
Simpsons Items, avoid Sundays 8pm-8:30pm in your time zone, everyone
is watching Simpsons on Fox!!
Be courteous and kind
Two of the twelve parts of the Boy Scout motto,
and for a good reason. Everyone likes a nice guy, so make sure you
are prompt in your email replies to people, and be polite. Emailing
the winner as soon as the auction closes is always good, but remember
to give them a couple days to respond. Not everyone checks their
email every day, or they may be out of town. Try to resolve any
disputes before posting bad feedback on Ebay, because there’s
no way to retract the fact that you called someone a ”cheating
swine!”
Ship insured
Shipping insured and tracked protects
both you and the buyer. If you offer insurance
and the buyer elects not to take it, YOU may be the one that regrets
it if the USPS loses the package, because you’ll risk the
wrath of the buyer and negative feedback. Even worse you may get
the money taken away from you by PayPal or others. If your item
sells for more than $30-50, I’d be sure that insurance is
mandatory.
That being said, I like to ship all of my more expensive items via
UPS. (Check out their Internet
Shipping, where you print the labels at home, and drop off the package
at any UPS counter of MailBoxes Etc. location) They have much better
tracking info than the post office gives. You can follow the package
day by day, and watch for delivery. UPS also includes $100 of insurance
for free in the cost of shipping your package. UPS tends to be cheaper
for shipping items closer distances, while the post office charges
a flat fee by weight. Insurance per $100 is also cheaper on UPS,
so I especially like UPS for items that aren’t shipping across
the country, which require insurance. Email your buyer the tracking
number, so they feel secure that you’ve made good on your
promise to ship.
Bottom line: protect yourself, and ship insured for you big items.
Be aware that the post office requires you to wait 30 days before
they will investigate claims for insurance, another reason I love
UPS. (So far after 200+ auctions, only once has a person claimed
they did not receive an auction, Thanks Post office guy!)
Leave feedback
Do your part to promote honest buying and selling on Ebay, buy leaving
a descriptive statement for your buyers! “Great auction! Fast
payment and courteous buyer” is better than “Thanks”.
Taking a second to acknowledge your buyers in a nice fashion also
encourages them to do the same for you.
You can follow up your auctions a few days after they have received
the auction, to ask if everything went well with the sale. At this
time you can also politely ask bidders to leave feedback for you
who haven’t already done so. Don’t be annoying or irritating,
just ask nicely!
Good luck!
The advent of Ebay has changed the national and maybe international
economy in many ways, and has made a new internet subculture all
it’s own!
Comments or tips?
Please post them in our forum!
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