10 Steps to Successful Selling on Ebay
Step 1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn’t out of the items you’re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You’ll probably see the ‘sweet spots’ quite quickly – those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.
Step 2: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.
Step 3: Find a product: Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are – don’t be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you’ve seen are higher than the supplier’s, then you’re set.
Step 4: Start small: Don’t throw thousands at your idea straight away – get started slowly, see what works and what doesn’t, and learn as you go. Remember that it’s very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!
Step 5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don’t be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you’ve just found a good niche.
Step 6: Work out a business plan: A business plan doesn’t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you’ve spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.
Step 7: Invest and expand: This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.
Step 8: Make it official: Once you’ve made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don’t worry, it’s not expensive or hard to do – a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.
Step 9: Automate: You’ll probably find that you’re writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.
Step 10: Never give up: Even when it looks like it’s all going wrong, don’t stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you’ll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.
Peter R
How do I start a successful part time ebay business after selling home items? want to wrk 20 hr wk $3-4k per m
I’ve started selling items from home, and I’m trying to figure out what my next step should be. I do not have a niche market yet. I’ve only sold a few items so far, but it’s pretty interesting. I can commit to 20 hrs per week doing this thing. I’m just wondering what would be the best route for me to take in order to make this a successful part time gig? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance
The key to a successful eBay selling is simple — Sell products that people actually want.
Buying from garage sales or selling items from your home and selling on eBay is fun, and good getting a few dollars here and there from ebay. Sometimes, you luck out on an item and hit big, but many times it will just be so-so (assuming you can even get the price you paid for it). In terms of fun factor, it is great. But from a business stand-point, it is not sustainable.
If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on eBay is not as easy as some portray. In fact, go to eBay and check out the number of auctions that end without a single bid. Competition is getting tough, as more sellers go to eBay; even the big boys are joining in the eBay marketplace. Add to that the increasing listing and final value fees.
One success model of ebay is the couple Jay and Marie Senese (username jayandmarie) of the 1-cent CD fame. They have the highest positive feedback number of all sellers on eBay. Their business model is to buy very low cost CDs in bulk (those that CD stores sell in their discount bins) and offer them on ebay at a starting price of 1 cent http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_23/b3886080.htm Their success is based on the fact that they stumbled on a sustainable business model with products that people really want.
eBay has several ways for you to determine exactly what the hot items to sell on their marketplace:
Items In Demand = the most popular items currently within that particular category. To see the In Demand page, go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/sellbycategory.html
Hot Items by Category Report = a monthly report that lists the fastest growing categories on eBay for the previous month. Go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/whatshot.html and select "Hot Items by Category" from the menu on the left.
eBay Pulse = "a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay". Go to http://pulse.ebay.com/ to see eBay Pulse in action.
Merchandising Calendar = eBay promotes specific categories on its home page each month. Savvy eBayers know that this home page exposure results in more interest in such categories. Go to http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/calendar.html to view the current Merchandising Calendar.
References :
Sydney Johnston, a well-respected expert in the Net auction world (who literally makes hundreds of thousands of dollars through online auctions), gives you the benefit of all her knowledge and experience in "Make Your Net Auction Sell!, The Masters Course." She helps you get started the right way.
She takes you step by step through the process. You’ll avoid the pitfalls and innocent mistakes due to inexperience. And most importantly of all… you will generate great income and build a business that you own (instead of being dependent upon eBay) — you know, the enough-to-save-for-retirement type of income.
It’s a FREE download from http://www.icanebay.com/
References :
You might check out: http://www.bestwholesaleelectronics.com/Marketing/DD_index.asp
I bought a turnkey website from them about 6 months ago and it is doing real well to my surprise. I have tried several different turnkey businesses with not much luck. This is the first that is actually making money $200-400 weekly on average.
http://www.bestwholesaleelectronics.com/Marketing/DD_index.asp
References :