Getting Started with Selling on eBay

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Articles, Yahoo! Contributor Network
May 14, 2007 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
  1. Set up your auction so that it ends on the weekend. Most people are online at these times.
  2. Take the best pictures possible of your items. People can only go on your description and the photos you provide them.
  3. Offer a clear return policy, many buyers do not bid on an item if there is no return policy. A very small percentage of people return items anyway.
  4. Learn how to write html or become familiar with a wysiwyg editor. This way you can set up the page to any style you want.
  5. Host your pictures on another hosting service then upload them on your auction pages. This way you don't have to pay the 15 cents per extra image fee that eBay charges. The more photos an item has the higher the bids are likely to be.
  6. Use automated shipping software such as Dazzle from Endicia to print postage on sticky postal labels with your printer. This way you give your packages a more professional look and increase customer satisfaction and increase the percentage of positive feedback.
  7. Be completely honest about your item. Honesty and integrity are the cornerstones of business success.
  8. Do research on the items that you plan to sale. Go to eBay's advanced search section and click the box entitled "search closed listings", then do a search for your particular product, this will give you an idea of what the final bids were for your type of product.
  9. Learn from other's mistakes and successes. Look through the closed auctions and see how items with low final bids were described compared the descriptions of the same items that got higher bids. You will learn more from this exercise than from anything else.
  10. Make sure your auctions close during a time of day when people are on the computer. This is usually on the weekends or when people are home from work or school.
  11. Only leave negative feedback as a last resort. Even if you did no wrongdoing people will retaliate by leaving negative feedback of their own.
  12. Think like your customer. What type of product description are they looking for, what facts do they want to know, what price would they be willing to pay for the item? What are their hobbies, what kind of occupation do they have, what is there lifestyle like? Get a good picture of your intended audience so you can tailor your auctions toward them.

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