Often people try to pitch get rich quick schemes on eBay. These are rarely ever legitimate. There are several ways to make money on eBay, but unfortunately all of them take at least a bit of time. This isn’t to discourage you from starting a business selling on eBay. I just want to explain the process in 7 basic steps that if followed will have you selling on eBay in no time.
1. Get an account. Seems straightforward but it is the first step to making a living selling on ebay. Go to eBay and start the process, it will take only 5 minutes and you’ll thank yourself later.
2. Sign up with PayPal. Another simple thing that will create a solid basis for making money on eBay and taking payments via a secure & safe middleman.
3. Build up a little star power. When your account is new the best thing you can do for it is to buy some stuff. Yep, I said buy some stuff. This is for two reasons. Firstly buying stuff will give you the experience of how other sellers do business. You can learn from their mistakes & what they excel at. Secondly, if you pay quickly you’ll get sellers eager to leave you good feedback, this positive star power will help you look more reliable to buyers when they start to buy from you.
4. Know your market. Take some time to think about exactly what it is you want to sell on eBay & why. You need to know your market & do some preliminary research into what they want and why they want it. This will pay off as the market your in changes & you stay ahead of the curve because you’ve always had your finger on the buying market’s pulse. It also helps knowing how much items will go for in auction so when you buy the items to resell you don’t pay too much & cut out all your profit margin.
5. Get a system down. Use Auctiva or another selling platform that allows you to create formats and use them over and over. This will help if you sell more than one of the same item over a period of time. The only time you won’t need a system is if each and every item you sell is completely unique. But that rarely happens, so if you have 50 widgets create a form for the first one & then the other 49 will be easy to get up and sold.
6. Be a photographer. Don’t just take random pictures of your items & put them up, one of the biggest factors in the price an item sells for on eBay is the picture. Items with more & better quality pictures always go for more.
7. Title right, check for misspells & pack it right, pack it tight. Make sure your auction looks good before posting it to eBay, no misspells or horrible grammar etc. Then when it does sell be sure to be timely about getting it out the door and to your customer. My motto is when it comes to packing items you sell is pack it right & pack it tight. Use lots of bubble wrap, or whatever you need to ensure the packages safe journey to its new owner.
If you have more power seller tips that I left out having to do with selling on eBay please leave them in a comment! Happy selling!
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