Has the EBay Bubble Burst? Can You Still Make Extra Money Selling There?

We have been using eBay since 2000, and have been running an eBay store since 2004, it has been a really nice source of extra income. There are a lot of ways to make a little extra money there, providing you study the listing fee structure before you decide how to create your listings.

When you start listing items for sale on eBay there are many items which have a specific category that they are fit within, and this factor will occasionally change the price range of your listing fees, for example eBay Motors is a little more costly category to sell within than other categories like perhaps arts and crafts.

There are many different listing styles that you can use for each type of listing. They have a simple fixed price listing style, onto which you can include a "buy it now" price along with a "make an offer" or you can also create a sale based on items that are listed as auctions only. You can create over 300 separate categories for your store, and these are editable and adjustable at any time.

There are tools available that you can use to set up item sales, and move things from fixed price over to auction, and back if they do not sell. There are days when we sell only one thing, but we also have other periods where we will sell 16 or 17 items in one day!

One of the greatest features of eBay's overall business setup is Linking your eBay to your PayPal account and you can also print your shipping right through your PayPal panel.

Once you have PayPal credit card account you can use this to pay for your shipping as well as use it to buy things from other members. eBay is like this really neat club where people have all kinds of interesting things for sale, and many of these are unique and highly collectible.

There are a number of easily learned tips and tricks which I have taught to some of my friends over the years, and the especially useful ones are regarding shipping rates and options. We have a number of sources for free cardboard boxes for shipping, and when these are not the right size, we can always use the free boxes and packages that the United States Postal Service will ship to your house for free! You can even get some that are private labeled with eBay on them!

One of the real tricks to successful selling on eBay is to make sure you are offering what people want when they want it! For example showcasing any Valentines Day items is pretty much a useless effort to offer those until late January or early February. You do have to take into account shipping time, so that your customers have time to receive the items before the holiday. In our experience Halloween really does pick up an extraordinary amount of sales over the weeks leading up to Halloween.

Another trick that we have learned is to make sure your item prices and shipping rates are competitive! eBay even gives you access to specific tools which can help you research the selling price for items which may be similar to the ones you are listing!

Whenever I am creating a listing I find that it is very important to do the following three things extremely well:

1) Take a lot of really good pictures, this helps your buyer know exactly what you are selling. Many views and close ups help them visualize the item you are selling in their home or workshop. On eBay pictures really are worth a thousand words!

2) Give as much detail in the text as you possibly can, be thorough and do not gloss over defects like nicks and scratches. Doing this can be perceived as being shady, and this will reflect poorly in your feedback from buyers.

3) Research exactly what the item weighs and plan ahead for the real shipping costs! I use the USPS and UPS shipping calculators religiously since there can be a big difference in the shipping cost if the item goes over certain weight and size limits.

Ignoring or embracing These three most important items can make or break a decent eBay seller!

One example i can give on the shipping issue might be when the USPS parcel post shipping rate if the item is below 13 ounces then shipping is really cheap, but if it goes over that 13 ounce weight limit then the shipping could double or triple. Then buyers may shy away from your items as they may feel you are too high on your shipping mark up! I make a point of not marking up shipping so this is never an issue on any of the sales we make on eBay. Even though some buyers still ding you for shipping cost or times, when it was their choice to go with the cheapest and slowest method! Some buyers also forget that shipping does not occur until cleared payment, and that the shipping clock starts at that time, not back when they committed to buy.

Creating a store sale is a simple click and select process which really helps generate traffic into our store! There are a number of free features that help anyone get started and to show you how to make creative and interesting listings! The simplest thing to do with this is to actually take advantage of the "Help" button and read everything you can about being a better eBay seller. You can also go to eBay school when they come to your area. This is a for a fee class which helps sellers understand all the intricacies of the eBay system.

I will point out that eBay rules and policies have evolved to the point where it is more "buyer-centric" than it is geared for sellers. This is not really a problem providing you keep your feedback at or near 100% positive.
Sellers and buyers have to agree to eBay terms and conditions in order to be members on their site. As a result the rules about using eBay are fixed and are not up for debate. If you ignore these rules you will be removed from the site. One thing a lot of buyers ignore is that committing to "buy" is the same as entering into a contract, you cannot really change your mind later! This is why they make you click through three steps in order to finalize a purchase. So really there is no way you can "accidentally" purchase an item through eBay.

It really does seem like we learn something new every week or two, and our research binder of information has outgrown its original size a few times over now. We are constantly evolving as sellers, and eBay keeps updating their methods, and improving their support, so I don't see this system failing us anytime soon.

Good luck, and don't be afraid of the system, because it is easy to learn and it is a simple way to make some extra cash, especially around the holidays! If you would like to see how my eBay store is designed please send me a message here.

Thank you for reading my articles here on AC-Yahoo!