by Lori Greig

How to Sell on Ebay – 10 Tips

With nearly 1 million people earning all or part of their annual income from eBay it is now a fact that eBay has become a juggernaut marketplace capable of creating fortunes.  If you sell on eBay and are interested in making the most of your auction posting than read on to learn 10 tips the powersellers use to rack up giant sales numbers and to keep that pipeline open.

1.   Sell non-mainstream/unique items at a discount – With eBay being open to anyone with a computer and ambition, you’ll find that most of the larger markets have been cornered.  So unless you can give your prospect a better reason to buy from you or a much better price point, stick to selling those items that are harder to find.  Industry or hobby specific items come to mind such as industrial oscilloscopes or rock climbing gear.  So narrow your market and you’ll see a rise in sales activity.

2.  A good customer is worth his weight in gold – Nothing will hurt your sales more than too much negative feedback.  Not only does it destroy your chances with new buyers but unhappy customers don’t buy from you a second time.  Repeat buyers are the bread and butter of successful sellers.  Just ask any powerseller and they will tell you that most of their sales are made to customers who have purchased from them before.   So Ship Items Quickly, Notify After Shipping, Waterproof and Pad Shipped Items and don’t forget to say thank you to your customers for their business.

3.  Use images wisely – The vast majority of buyers search for items with images, so if you’re not using pictures to sell your items… start.  However, a poor quality picture can be as bad as no picture at all.  Invest in a camera that’s 7.0 Megapixel or better and isolate the item to be sold for starters.  Good lighting will help make your item stand out and take more than one shot of the item from different angles.  If your selling products that have specific specifications such as PC power supplies ensure that you get a shot of the label showing all the specs.  Do the same for similar items, it gives the buyer proof that the item is exactly what they are looking for.

4.  Make your auction titles descriptive – People look for items by brand name, model number, item specification, color, size etc…   Ensure that you include these in your auctions title.  Use the common sense approach, put yourself in your customers shoes and do a search for the item yourself and see what you can find.

5.  Make your descriptions focused and concise – Keep it as simple as possible unless you know how to achieve high returns by writing direct marketing letters.  Your description should expand on your title.  Reiterate the brand, specifications, model number, color, size and anything else that might be of importance to your customer.  Contrary to direct sales a person searching on eBay does not need to be convinced that they want to buy your product, so your job is simply to get as many interested prospects to your auction post as possible and let the buyers find you.  Everything else will take care of itself.

6.  Learn how to find great deals to resell – You’ll discover that many of the larger sellers have contracts with manufacturers, for those just starting out however, many items can be found on the internet and resold for a profit on eBay if you know where to look.  A simple search on Google can turn up many products below retail price.  If you have an idea in mind for a product you’ll want to write this down.  Open Google up in a new window or tab and type this in without the quotes “closeouts product/item name”.  You would obviously replace “product/item name” with the product or item your looking to buy.  You can also use words like liquidation, wholesale and discount in place of closeouts.  With this method you should be able to find plenty of low cost products to resell on eBay.

7.  Create an eBay store for more profit – If you sell multiple items in the same industry don’t hesitate to create an eBay store.  This will net you many more sales for the same amount of effort.  All of your auctions will carry a link to your store where you will showcase your other auctions.  Chances are if someone is buying an industry of hobby specific item from you they will also need other items from that same market.  Take some time to brainstorm all the items someone in your market might be looking for and add them to your inventory.

8.  Make use of the Buy-It-Now option – Most of the time you will do much better to include the buy-it-now option.  This is because most buyers would prefer to get the product than out bid the other prospects.  Most of the time you will not see any worth while increase in profit by letting the buyers’ bid-it-out, in fact you’ll more likely than not make less for your product than if you had set a buy-it-now price.

9.  More payment options are better than less payment options – It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway.  eBay users use many different methods to pay for goods,  the more you accept the more sales you will make period.  Just make sure that you have the infrastructure to support every payment type you accept.

10.   Research, Research, Research – Find your customers hot buttons, better yet find their buy now buttons.  This will save you more time, money and heartache than any other tip on this list.  Through research you’ll learn what your customer is searching for, what price to set, how to word your titles and descriptions and even how to expand your inventory for greater profit.  So set aside some time to visit eBay and search for your products keeping an eye out for what the competition is doing that might be making them sales.

For more eBay success tips and to learn how to sell on eBay visit http://www.ebaysellingsystem.com and claim your Free eBay Success Kit Now!