 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
What sells
From cars, to antiques, to electronics, you are very likely to be able to sell it on eBay. New, Used,
Surplus, Refurbished, Irregular, today you can sell most anything on eBay. Not too many years ago,
in 1998, 8% of the items on eBay were beanie babies. Today there are 125 million users buying
and selling over $1,000 of goods every second. Most of these users are buyers, with under 10%
selling.
Tips on Items that Sell
- Collectibles do great on eBay. Vintage toys, and items from the 40's to 70's can bring a very
good price. - Most items with a name brand and model sell well. Electronics, machine tools, sporting
goods, etc. - Some other items we've been pleasantly surprised by on eBay include auto parts, musical
instruments, ink cartridges, stereo equipment and exercise equipment - These lists are long...in the thousands you can get a good feel if your items will sell by doing
a search on eBay to see what is selling now.
- Most furniture. Unless it is a sought after name brand, furniture will often return limited value
on eBay. It's not the shipping costs, it's that buyers are typically shopping these items by
brand name. Have a hand carved antique table, this is probably not the best place for it. - Artwork...unless it's by a well known artist.
- Believe it or not, jewelry. Again, if it is a well known name brand you'll have a good shot at it,
but a gold necklace, or even a diamond ring, probably will not bring what you expect.
How to start selling on eBay
If you have items to sell on eBay you now have the options of selling them yourself, or using a
trading assistant.
Trading Assistants are experienced eBay sellers who will sell your items on eBay for a fee. Most
trading assistants handle photography, listing, questions, payment collection, packing and
shipping. In addition sellers can benefit from their high seller ratings that may attract more bidders
and drive higher Prices. All trading assistants are not created equal. We recommend using a
trading assistant identified as a "Trading Post" or "A Staffed Drop-off location". Two of the leading
franchises for eBay drop off stores are iSoldit and QuikDrop. ESPRE Partners manages one of the
leading drop-off locations in the country under the QuikDrop franchise so while we believe our
advice here to be unbiased, we will also provide a link to QuikDrop where you can find eBay drop-off
locations in the QuikDrop franchise.
Main Page
To get started you'll need to open a sellers account through the eBay registration process.
Registration
If you've never registered on eBay before the link below will get you started. The registration
process is safe and will take a few minutes. During the registration process you will need to
choose your eBay ID which is name that will be displayed on your eBay listings and bids.
eBay Registration Tips
- If you have a website, try and find a name that matches your website address. This may
be helpful for several reasons which we won't go into here. - If there are certain types of items you expect to sell you may want to choose a name that
reflects your interests. With so many registered users already it is unlikely that you will get
your first, or even third choice. - If those don't work, and you have a business name, try that.
Once you have registered with eBay return here to open a PayPal account. PayPal is the primary
means of paying for items on eBay and without a PayPal account you will be at a serious
disadvantage. The link below will take you to the PayPal registration starting point.
- In Auction...whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay. Sounds like a smart answer but
it's the fundamental truth. Provided that people who would be interested in the item are
able to find it and that you have accurately described it, and that you have at least two
bidders, your items should sell for a fair market price.
TIP If you would like to see what comparable items have sold for on eBay; 1) Conduct a
search for your item on eBay through the search tool below. Do Not pay any attention to
items listed that have no bids, they are relatively meaningless. On the left side of the
screen you will see a check box for "Completed Listings". Check this box and run your
search again. Take note of whether items sold, or not, and note the pricing on the items
that did sell. This should give you a feel for what comparable items sell for. There are
other services available to help value items, from online data banks to valuation
companies
Customer service is important. Your time selling on eBay will be much more enjoyable if you
maintain a positive approach. It is important that every customer you deal with leaves you positive
feedback. There are some times you just can't make a buyer happy but to maintain a healthy ID on
eBay you should not let your eBay rating fall below 95%.
1. Beware of the fraudulent! The more activity you do online the more fraud attempts will be made
against you. We get many every day. Most are easy to detect provided you follow eBay rules, and
stay smart.
- Don't accept payment through Western Union
- Don't accept a credit card from an international buyer unless you can validate them. This
goes especially for transactions with Indonesia. - In general be very skeptical of any payment requests outside of the mainstream.
- Don't ship your item without having received payment for it.
- If someone sends you a link to an Escrow service do not click on it. If you know an escrow
service go directly to it. There are a lot of spoof escrow sites out there. - There are countless fishing scams involving paypal so never click a paypal link you receive in
email.
2. Think like a buyer! Use words in your title and description that buyers will search on. If your item
has a make and model, be sure that is in the title. A good exercise is to try and find similar items.
Take note of the words you search on to find it and make sure those words are in your title. Take
great photographs and be sure and capture the important aspects of the items you are selling. Be
accurate and honest about the condition.
3. Use some of the eBay marketing tools. If your item is worth over $50, it's certainly worth showing
multiple pictures of it. It's also worth selecting the Gallery option during the listing process.
4. Basic Listing Strategy. We believe that a 7 day auction is typically the best choice. You should
consider alternate durations if you are nearing a holiday or other event that bidders might want to
receive the item by. If there is a very clear market value it is a good idea to offer a buy it now price.
This should be just slightly above what you expect the market will bid to. If market value is unclear
then it's best to stay away from buy it now. Try and have your auction end when the majority of the
region most likely to buy it is online.
5. Shipping If it's of value, Insure it and track it. In most cases the buyer pays for shipping and while
you will be requested to use less expensive methods, only do so on items you can afford to loose.
On higher priced items, most good buyers are willing to pay for a quality service. Just be sure to
specify how you will handle shipping up front so it should not be a surprise.
6. Advanced selling If you start listing higher volumes you'll want to implement some additional
tools. Opening an eBay storefront will allow you to cross promote your sales and provides a sales
option where you can list items at a much lower charge than eBay auctions. These items don't
participate in eBay's search the same way but if you have a lot of inventory, there are some good
strategy's with a store. If you are running over 50 auctions a month you should consider using eBay
listing software to help and there are a number of third party programs to choose from. In addition,
you will want to look into a photo hosting service so you can minimize your additional photo costs.
Contact US.
Copyright 2006 ESPRE Partners, Inc.
The information on this website shall not be reproduced or copied without the written permission of ESPRE Partners, Inc