Auction Power Guide

How do I make a profit selling on ebay? I have plenty of stuff to sell. And please don’t tell me to read those books.

To do this, you should take good, clear pictures, and learn to write nice descriptions with all the important details.

If i see two people on ebay selling the same thing, i will almost always bid higher for the item that has the best, clearest pictures and a good description that’s not full of crap or disinformation or lies or fluff.

You probably should NOT sell your best items until you get practice on selling, and get some feedback built up.

Many years ago, i tried to sell an engagement ring and i only had 2 feedbacks. People would email me and demand that i use Escrow, and some even told me that they would bid if i had higher feedback score, etc. I ended up selling it for a lot less than I should have, because i was inexperienced.

SO, sell a few books and trinkets first to get the hang of eBAy. In the mean time,learn what the value of your better items is.

The best tool is to use eBay itself. Look under the completed listings section (Advanced Search) and see what similar items actually sold for.

Don’t outright copy people’s listings, because that’s illegal. But it’s perfectly ok to learn from them.

Now, if you want to truly make profits – that is.. buy things cheap and sell them for more than you paid for them.. the key is your BUYING skills. Buying and sourcing really has nothing to do with eBay. Ebay just gives you the platform from which to sell your stuff. The buying part is up to you. After you sell all your stuff from your home, the next step is to learn how to source products. And make sure you only sell things you’re knowledgeable about.
Sourcing ideas are garage sales, auctions, even retail stores if the item is marked down significantly. Selling things to foreigners is a good way to increase profits. There is more risk in shipping stuff to ENgland or Sweden or Germany, but these Europeans like American stuff and sometimes pay a lot for it. But sell things Domestically first, to get the hang of it. Then move worldwide.

Also, sometimes you can use eBay to buy stuff to resell on eBay. But usually you can’t do this profitably until you have lots of experience, and you are buying from someone who is not experienced.

Finally, you should learn what eBay’s fees are. They definitely eat into your profits, and are approximately 9 to 15% all together, including PayPal fees.
So, if you sell something for 50 dollars, eBay and PayPal will probably take up to 7 dollars right off the top 🙁
So, if you paid 43 dollars for that item and sold it for 50, you didn’t make ANY profit. Ebay took it all 🙁

Finally (again) – eventually you will need to get your business and tax paperwork filed. If you sell one or two things a year, no one will care. But if you sell hundreds of items a year, you will be owing taxes. And of course that eats into profits too, for Uncle Sam and your State.

do you have any tips for how i could promote my store or tips for selling products? thanks a lot.

If you have your store setup, you’ll still want to be sure and do regular auctions on some of the items since auctions get more exposure and this will help bring traffic to your store.

Be sure and create your about me page. Make sure and use keywords customers would search for in your titles. Take great photos and always work to improve the look and feel of your listings. Make sure your shipping fees are reasonable. Offer a shipping discount for purchasing multiple items. Put your store items on sale now and then. Create a Squidoo lens about vintage clothing and add a link to your eBay store. I think eBay still lets you a create a free blog thru them, I haven’t done that yet, but should.

Just keep at it and you’ll discover there are many things you can do and not enough time to do them all. I’m currently selling women’s clothes on eBay and although competitive, it can be done.

Wishing you all the best!

With the spiraling eBay fees and competitive pricing, the last thing eBay ebook sellers want to worry about is buying new resalable content. However, there are many sources that you may not have thought about which provide you with free resalable ebooks that you can successfully add to your inventory. This article details just a few of them.

1) Ebay:- That’s right eBay is a great source to pick up free ebooks (OK they’re not quite free but very cheap). Many ebook sellers run auctions that start at 1p to attract customers. If nobody bids on these auctions you can pick up a very cheap resalable ebook.

Furthermore, some sellers run 1p ebook listings in their eBay store. That means that you can actually purchase the item as a Buy It Now for 1p and in some cases receives it instantly. Again another way to pick up a very cheap resalable ebook, courtesy of eBay. Do a search on eBay for “ebooks resell” or something similar, and then list them lowest priced first to see what you find.

2) Newsletters:- When you signed up for this newsletter I gave you two free ebooks. Some newsletters that I am currently a member of give me 5 free ebooks every week. I would recommend joining ebook related newsletters as not only do you receive valuable tips from that ebook seller, you also get free products to add to your eBay store. Have a browse through eBay for the top ebook sellers. If they have a newsletter joins it. It costs nothing and you are likely to benefit greatly.

3) Ebooks: – Usually when you buy a new ebook it contains links to many bonus ebooks with resell rights. Although you may have to pay for the first ebook, this is another way to get a plentiful collection of free resalable ebooks.

4) Online Forums:- Many users at online forums will give away free resalable ebooks or give away links that allow you to access free ebooks with resell rights. Just have a browse through the posts and see what you can find.

5) Ebook Websites:- Many websites that sell ebooks have a free download page. From this you can download free ebooks which quite often come with resell rights. Type “resell ebooks” into Google or any other major search engines, and have a browse through these websites. I am sure you will find more than enough ebooks to keep you going for a while.

Although free ebooks with resell rights are likely to be outdated in relation to the ones you pay for they are still a good way to bulk up your inventory at relatively little cost. The larger your store inventory is as an ebook seller, the more chance that you will get a sale. If you bulk up your inventory with free resalable ebooks which you then sell alongside the more expensive, up to date, resalable ebooks you are sure to enjoy increased success. Good Luck with your Ebook Sales!!!

Kumarsunil

I’m trying to sell my preowned clothing on ebay, but I’m not having a lot of success. I mostly list dress shirts for $10 + $5 for shipping. I don’t have many sales. Is my list price too high or do people just not like dress shirts in general? All my clothes are in good condition and I only use brand names.

I always sell my old clothing on eBay with lots of success! 🙂 Are your listings ‘But it Now’ or Auctions? Definetly go with Auctions. People love to bid and if you start with a low enough price (dont be afraid to!) most changes are people will bite so quickly, BUT a bidding war will ensue and you’ll a lot more for your item than you think. I always sell my clothes in these huge groups (brand name clothes!!) and start the bidding at an irresistible $15. Jumps to $100+ every time 🙂

These are MUST DO’s:

1. Have at LEAST 3 detailed pictures of each article of clothing. People can’t be there in person to see the clothing items so they will appreciate nice, clear detailed pictures. I usually do 1 regular shot of the entire garment, another shot very up close to show the detail of the pattering or stitching or other nice aspects of the garment, and another shot to showcase another nice detail about the item such as cute pockets, a bow, the buttons, ect. Lots of photos!

2. Talk about each item and how cute it is. Tell people about why this dress or shirt is nice.

3. Try selling your old clothes in lots (groups). Ive never sold anything individually. Selling clothes in lumps helps to take away from the fact that they are all used. Not only that but they will be excited about getting lots of gently used clothing at a deal.

4. You already mentioned that the clothes you sell are brand-name. That’s a bonus. I only own brand-name clothing. Not because Im a snob, but because Im plus-sized, and the only places where I can GET cute clothes for my size is at nice stores in the Mall and such.

5. Presentation! Make sure your photos are nice and clear and have good lighting.

6. My biggest tip is to sell your old clothes all together in a group. I dont know, maybe people like group sales more? Thats the only way Ive ever sold all my clothes and Ive always sold them for a good amount. But if you want to only sell one thing, definitely lower the price some. The dress shirt you mentioned is $10+ 5. That’s $15 for a used item. Depending on where you got it from that may be too much. The clothes I list in my auctions usually are usually $30- $35 for the top alone. So if the item is used, $15 would be a good deal. However, if that top came from say Old Navy for $18, then $15 isnt worth it. Maybe somewhere around $8 and they’ll go for it.

7. Also taking this into mind: Like I mentioned Im plus-sized and we dont have as many stores to shop at as smaller people, so maybe my clothes sell so well because shopping for us can be a pain. So I can imagine is smaller people have so many places to shop, fewer would be on eBay.

8. Is all about being a smart seller. Often I will get rid of a group of my old clothes because I realize they wernt that great to begin with. But if I dont want them, who would? So, to make the listing more appealing I make a sacrifice and pick one more top or two from my wardrobe that I can bear to let go that’s really nice. That adds spice to my listing by adding in more items that people are likely ro want really badly and ensures that I not only sell my listing, but I get a good price for it too. 🙂

How much should I sell my broken ds lite for?
The only thing that’s wrong with it is the motherboard, I just replaced the entire touch screen (the part you touch and the display part), I bought a brand new charger for it, and a brand new battery. I will be selling it with:
x1 DS lite (broken, but good for most parts, and shell is in good shape)
x2 DS lite batteries
x1 DS lite charger
x1 extendable metal and plastic stylus

Total I paid around $70 for everything. I’m hoping a can make that back or close to it and put it towards a DSi

So how much should I sell it for?

After a little E-bay research, I found that completed listings for broken Nintendo DS Lites over the past few days had a:

Mininum of $24
Maximum of $58

and mean of $45.

I would recommend taking these statistics into account whien you chose a price. Ebay auctions can yield a lot, but if you are inexperienced at selling, as I am, they could make a new minimum statistic 🙂

I would advise trying to get $50+ for it. This way you can get above the average without being greedy. I don’t think that your "wish" of getting your money back is going to happen, however. Sorry!

Good luck with your sales!

I have tried selling items before but they haven’t sold, does anyone have any good tips on selling an item!

Be truthful!! If an item you are selling has a mark on it, or is damaged,or faded etc you must put it in the description.Take a couple of good photos and include the the price when bought new.get the postage cost right too-a lot of sellers bump up their sales by adding too much on postage. I always get items properly weighed then add a bit for packing.Make sure you get your spellings right-so many sales are lost because of this cos the ‘search’ doesn’t pick them up.And make people think they are getting a bargain.I personally think that reserve prices put people off-I never bid on anything with one as you can usually find the same item without a reserve price.Be realistic, think about the minimum amount you would let the item sell for then use that as your starting bid.Auctions that start at 1p are great, but there’s always the chance that this could be your only bid and you end up paying out more in fees than what you sold it for.Always put at least one photo on-people won’t buy what they can’t see.Good Luck

I’m trying to win an auction for an Apple Video iPod and I was just wondering some techniques that anyone may have for me?

Any item on eBay that is very popular tends to demand high prices. So finding a video ipod for "cheap" is kinda hard to do. I would recommend a few things to reduce your cost.

1. Do an advanced search for the ipod but filter for "buy it now" only. Buy it Now’s are only available if there are no bids on the item or the reserve is not met. Sometimes you run into a seller who is looking to get rid of an item quick and puts a good price for buy it now. I have found some sweet deals on BIN’s.

2. Look for auctions closing on off hours (midnight to 6am) or on Thurs, Fri, or Sat. Historically eBay has less traffic on these days / hours. Less traffic generally produces lower auction prices.

3. Do searches for misspellings of the item title. "ipid" "ipof" "i pod" etc… The misspellings will have less views because they are hard to find. Less traffic generally produces lower auction prices.

Hope that helps!

I like to sell goods to eBay but I do not from where I can buy goods to sell it in eBay ? Can anyone tell me ?
I wanted to say that I will not buy goods those will sell to ebay. I wanted to know who can give me the goods to sell on ebay and after selling goods he/she/they will get price of that goods and I will receive my commission selling her/his/their goods in ebay!

It seems you want to be a "consignment seller" or "trading assistant"

As in you want to list other peoples items and then charge a commission off the sale.

This business model tends to fail but if you want to pursue it -put up flyers around your community, get the word out that you offer this service.

Churches, colleges, supermarket bulletin boards.

I write about stuff like this in my blog here

http://sunforged.wordpress.com/category/ebay-selling-tips/

To be an official ebay "trading assistant" you need a feedback level of 100.

Auctiva.com offers free listing accounts that includes options to keep track of consignment sales.

Google "consignment sales" "trading assistant" and read my blogs as i write them, lol

But, it would be more profitable to sell your own product- check your local craigslist, buy and haggle for stuff you know will sell well and high- i averaged 1200 a month profits at one point buying only wiis and xboxes off craigslist for resale – usually with less that 15 auctions a month! my business has since expanded, but its a great start for seed money

Im 18 and I want to make 250 dollars for a blackberry. What can I sell on ebay to make that much? I know it might take a few months and thats fine. What sells the best?

It doesn’t matter what you sell. As it is often said, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Most everyone collects or wants something or other.

SMALLER ITEMS – sell on eBay
BIG and/or HEAVY items – sell on Craigslist

The thing you want to be aware of with the most popular items is that you will have the MOST COMPETITION from other sellers who sell the same items. To wit, you can’t be competitive and make a decent profit unless you get the best wholesale price to maintain an adequate profit margin. If your opening bid price is higher than other sellers selling the same items, you won’t have many sales.

Other suggestions for items to sell:

Look no further than ebay itself. You will not be looking for single item listings but rather your target will be listings that have similar, grouped items. There are ebay ‘vultures’ who just love to swoop down on similarly grouped items in one listing. When they win these auctions, they turn around and sell the items individually and, in most cases, get one and a half to 2 times and sometimes three times what they paid for them on an average item basis. I know this works. When I had more time (read unemployed), I was one of these ‘vultures.’ This is one of those situations where the parts are worth more than the whole. However, do be cautious if you venture into this arena. You have to know your merchandise. Stay in those areas you are familiar with. You can’t jump in blindly to any and every auction that has grouped items.

If you can buy a large lot of similar merchandise for $100 to $200 and turn it around for $300 to $600, it works out very nicely, indeed! Most buyers of these large lots will be vultures as well so you could be ‘butting bids.’ Keep in mind that the higher the closing price at ebay, the less your profit on the turnaround. It’s not an exact science and it does take a little experience to really know what you’re doing but you can’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is. When I see an auction of grouped items it tells me loud and clear that the seller is far more interested in getting rid of their stuff the quickest, easiest way possible and ‘be done with it’ rather than in making a decent profit or profit at all.

Short of items to sell and where to find items to sell? Garage and yard sales, church bazaars, flea markets are obvious. These can be the cheapest sources of merchandise. ‘Junktique’ shops are not that good because these folks know their merchandise. This being the case, it is usually OVERPRICED, not under priced.

If you want to let your fingers do the walking, you too can be crafty ‘vulture’ like a select group of other ebay sellers. Become a member of several smaller auction sites and search for bargains there. But as before, ‘stick with what you know.’

These smaller auction sites are great for buyers for the same reason they are bad for sellers:

Fewer potential bidders = Less competition = Lower closing prices.

Turn them around on ebay:

The ebay formula:

LARGEST auction site by far = MAXIMUM competition = HIGHER closing prices

There are also volume sellers who concentrate on only a handful of popular items by buying in volume / wholesale at a discount and selling at a discount. The average schmo at eBay can’t compete with volume sellers of a particular item.

GOODWILL sometimes also has good bargains, but not always. Mondays / Tuesdays are the best days to visit Goodwill as most people will drop off their donations on Saturdays and Sundays and it has to be cleaned, sorted and marked before it can be placed on display.

To maximize profits, sell WORLDWIDE, not just one country. A basic business tenet is, ‘The greater the potential market, the greater the potential to maximize profits.’ It’s TRUE! You will now have access to 200+ million members.

GOOD LUCK!

To any longtime Ebayers out there- what policies should Ebay change? My only complaint is the feedback change- where only buyers can leave negative feedback.

Also, sniping on auctions should be prohibited.

Do you have any complaints about Ebay, or are you happy with it?

It’s the only game in town, there is no alternative online auction site with the same traffic..seems we have no choice but to take the good with the bad…

You’ll get different answers from registered business sellers but from an occasional seller/buyer perspective the biggest gripe I have is the requirement to offer PayPal on all sales. PayPal is owned by eBay so between the two of them they rake in a good percentage of any sales. The fact that PayPal also includes your postage cost in its % cut is simply obscene. (The Australian courts ruled the link as anti competitive in that country). There is a lot of trouble with feedback, as you’ve implied, such that many sellers do not bother to leave any anymore. A positive only for any buyer is one of the most stupid things eBay have ever done (apart from appointing its last but one chief executive who managed to preside over a massive decline in sales and confidence). Many buyers are using alternative sites such as Amazon and unless eBay gets its act together and gets back to realising that its business depends on both buyers and sellers it will become an also ran site.