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.

I am trying to plan a silent auction fundraiser… but my mom says that I’m not being realistic and that it takes like a mountain of people to pull that off. The fundraiser is for the Make-a-Wish Foundation

I don’t know that it requires a "mountain" of people…but certainly, you’ll want help. Having done this myself in the past, I’d suggest a committee with the following positions:

Advertising: Need someone to get the info (date, time, charity, etc.) into the places where people will see it. You’ll want to have this in your school newspaper, PTA newsletter, local newspaper, and chamber of commerce calendar (and get it published as many times as you can in each publication).

Donations: Someone to go around to folks in the community to get the things to be auctioned. This is a tough job, because it involves begging, and a lot of people have trouble with this. It also takes a lot of follow-up, as a common response to the initial inquiry is, "Let me look into it and get back to you." Your school and/or PTA will probably have lists of local companies who have been generous in the past…this is probably a good place to start. But in theory, every local organization should be contacted. Retail stores are good, as are corporations – many times the corporations will have established social services funds, which means they can give you a cash donation. You’ll want to go to them with a plan of how you’d spend their money…often, it can work for them to subsidize the dinner/lunch/appetizers you’re serving at the event, or even the location fee, if you have one. Additionally, many corporations have the ability to donate things like tickets to a local sporting event or concert.

Treasury: Someone needs to keep track of how much money you’re earning, and how much will have to be paid out.

Forms: Someone needs to prepare the auction forms…It’s pretty simple, but it can take a bit of time. For this, you really only need a space for their name, as well as their bid. It’s also likely that you’ll need "promo sheets" for some items. For example, if you have a pair of concert tickets, you really don’t want to leave them out on the table where they could easily be pocketed. Instead, put together a simple sheet that explains the event (including time and date). If possible, pictures of the artist/item are handy, as is a paragraph telling the bidder why they want the item (gotta use your sales tactics here!!).

Set-up: You may need a couple of people to help set up. It’s good to have these folks see the event location in advance, so they know what to expect once they get there. They’ll need to set out each auction item, along with the auction forms & pencils so that the guests can easily submit their bids.

You & your friends could totally pull this off…Feel free to email me if you need any advice!

I seem not to be doing so well selling scrapbooking items on EBAY. I keep my prices below everyone elses and I sell top line products. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong or is sales down for everyone that is trying to sell on EBAY?

The key is to sell products that cannot be bought in stores. It is hard to compete with the sales in retail stores. Good luck!

I have created a product that I would like to sell online as well as different retail stores. A few friends and acquaintances of mine have already purchased the product, and I already own the site where I will soon begin selling it online. I have also sold an earlier prototype of the product on ebay using the same name I am trying to trademark, but the logo was different at the time. I usually bring the product with me in case someone likes it and wants to buy one, but I have not done anything concerning sales or revenue taxes yet.

Now I am filling out the forms to register the trademark, and I have come to the page for assigning a file basis. I can choose between Section 1(a), Section 1(b), Section 44(d), and Section 44(e). To avoid filing yet another form in the future, I would rather choose Section 1(a) than 1(b), but I do not know how much proof they will want that I am already using the mark in commerce now. Is my trademark eligible for Section 1(a), or will it be declined if I choose 1(a)?

One other part of the form that I was in doubt about was on the first page that asks for my name and then the entity type. For entity type I can choose individual or sole proprietorship, among others. The business I started which sells the product is a sole proprietorship, but I am an individual, so which should I choose. If I choose sole proprietorship, must I check the option under my name "Doing business as" and write the name of my business?

Thank you for the help!

I need to really caution you that registering a trademark is not as simple as merely filling out a form. If you screw up your trademark registration, you may risk losing rights to your trademark. Once you lose valuable rights to you trademark, you cannot fix it by just filling out another form in the future — those rights may be forever lost. I can’t stress this enough. My advice to you is to hire a trademark attorney to help you through the process. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.

If you really want to do this yourself, the first step is to familiarize yourself with the TMEP, which I have linked below. It is the "Bible" of trademark procedure with respect to the USPTO.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/tmdb/tmep/

That being said, from your limited facts, it does not look like you even meet the requirements for a 1(a) application.