eBay Selling Advice - eBay Selling Tips

This article discusses eBay selling advice and tips to help you start running a successful online business at eBay.

selling Some of the best advice I can start your off with is by purchasing either a book like eBay For Dummies or How to Buy, Sell, and Profit on eBay. I personally read the second book and it helped give me a lot of eBay selling advice and tips. I will discuss some of them here, but this book goes into a lot more detail than I will here.

eBay Selling Advice

Set up a Terms Of Service:
The first thing you should do is, set up a Terms of Service (TOS) in your personal profile. You can make reference in your auctions for your readers to view. The TOS is made to protect you as a seller. What are your policies? When should you received money by? What do you do with returns? Do you charge a "restocking" fee? When do you mail products after payment? Immediately? 2-3 business days? Do you ship internationally?

The clearer you are in your TOS, the less your customers will have to complain about or ask you questions about. Customers do not like surprises. If they do not read your TOS, it is not your problem, as long as you make sure you refer potential buyer to your profile summary to locate the TOS.

Always Have Photos:
People want to see what they are buying, and most viewers buy things by looking at the thumbnail photos on the listing. Trust me when I say, ALWAYS have a thumbnail photo. Your product is less likely to get scanned over by consumer eyes. Remeber, people are lazy. They do not want to have to click on your auction to see what they are buying.

Make sure your photos are high quality and can show details of the object you are selling.

Make Your Ads Stick Out:
One of the best pieces of eBay selling advice is to find a way to make you ads stick out from the rest. Using symbols such as "*" and "~" as well as capital letters will help you sell more items. eBay also offers and option to bold face your listing. I suggest you use that option as well.

Here's a general example of what I used to do:

***NEW*** Videogame Control GREAT BUY! - FREE SHIPPING

***1000 Magic the Gathering Cards - NEAR MINT CONDITION

Notices I capitalized certain things that are important about the product. It's new, has free shipping, anything you think might be important for a buyer to seeing that is scanning. You are up against scanning eyes. The ad that makes you eyes take a second look gets the sale.

Be Detailed:
Tell you buyer everything you can about the product. The condition, the weight and dimension if application. Are there any blemishes, and where can they be found. The more honest you are with your customers, the more likely they will buy from you again. If you need to have multiple photos, add them.

You do not need flashy auction description made by a graphic designer. I sold plenty of product with plain text adds with splashed of color on the important parts.

List at the Lowest Price Possible:

The lower your starting price, the lower you eBay fees at the time of sale and listing. If you have an item you know will fetch you a good price whether you start it at $100 or $0.99, go ahead and start the auction at $0.99. It will save you money on every sale.

Keep Shipping Costs Reasonable

The last piece of eBay selling advice I will give you, is to keep shipping costs as low as possible. Some sellers try to make profit in their shipping costs. I used to try and absord some of my eBay fees into the shipping cost, but do not try and scam and extra dollar or two out of people. Why? Because people can see outrageous shipping a mile away. Also, remember, you have competitors, and shipping is a big selling point on eBay.

To help you learn how to source products to sell on eBay, be sure to check out Financial Freedom Informant's number one recommended resource - What Do I Sell.com.