Auction Power Guide

I’m in high school and I play sports all year-round, so it’s hard for me to get a job. I remember seeing an infomercial one time about selling on ebay and people making thousands of dollars a month. Now I’m not looking to make that much money, but I want to know how. What do these people sell that they are profiting from? You can’t just sell your own stuff and make money. So what do I do?

If you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on ebay is getting tougher — just look at the number of auctions that closes without a bid. Go to the boards on ebay and you will hear even oldtimers complaining about how stiffer competition plus higher fees make it so much harder to sell on ebay.

The key success factor is: Sell products that people actually want.

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.

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.

But understand that eBay has a minimum age of 18 policy.

My grandma wants to start selling things on Ebay, and we were wondering how you go about shipping the items? Also, if anyone can explain the whole Ebay selling process to me, I don’t know how this stuff works so any info you have will be great! : )

To start selling on eBay, start with the EBAY SELLING BASICS page http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/howtosell/sellingbasics.html

Remember though, if you want to earn serious money from eBay, you need to have a well-thought out business model. Selling on ebay is getting tougher — just look at the number of auctions that closes without a bid. Go to the boards on ebay and you will hear even oldtimers complaining about how stiffer competition plus higher fees make it so much harder to sell on ebay.

The key success factor is: Sell products that people actually want.

It is important to determine exactly what the hot items to sell on their marketplace. Use eBay Pulse = "a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay".

As for items to sell, you can:

1. Buy bulk liquidation items such as those at Liquidation.com. The capitalization may be big, but the idea is to sell the items individually and profit from it.

2. Find manufacturers of items you want to sell and buy discounted items from them

3. Make deals with retailers in your area, and offer to buy their unwanted items for deep discounts. jayandmarie – the most successful ebay sellers – made deals with music stores where they will buy the entire inventory in the discounted bins, and then sold the items on ebay for 1-cent starting bid.

4. Look for possible partners on the Web, preferably outside of the US. Import items from them and sell them on ebay. There’s huge profits to gain from this approach.

5. Check out deals from outlet stores. Focus on brand names, which you will find to be easier to sell.

As for shipping, many sellers have bought weighing scales that can give the weight of the item. You can then use that information to put in on eBay so eBay can calculate the shipping for you.