How to Make More Money when Selling on EBay

Are you a full-time or part-time eBay seller? There are millions of people around the globe who sells items on eBay, and some manage to earn the equivalent of a full time salary by selling on eBay. Anyone who has ever sold a few items or has just started selling items on eBay is probably wondering how making any real profit is possible after paying the high eBay fees.

You can make a full-time salary on eBay if you have a steady supply of a product that you are able to purchase at a low enough prices to make a decent profit, and it is a product that is in demand. While that is certainly not an easy part of the formula, having that part alone will not guarantee a good return. The basic eBay fees will take a hefty part of your profits and many people are paying eBay unnecessary fees for extra services that are readily available for free. When you list an item on eBay, you're charged an Insertion Fee. If the item sells, you are also charged a Final Value Fee. For an item, such as shoes that you sell for $19.99 the listing fee for a fixed price sale would be 35 cents. If the item sells, you are charged 12% of the sale price as a fee. That means that of the $19.99 sale, you will receive $17.24. If you accept payments through PayPal, (no more direct checks or money orders are allowed) you will incur a fee from PayPal as well (approximately $0.45) for handling the purchase the same as you would pay a credit card brokerage for accepting a credit card. Now you have $16.79 from which come your shipping supplies, cost of the goods sold and if you didn't figure postage carefully, a few extra coins for any misjudgments there. Once you have that bottom line number, the eBay sales extras come into play.

None of the fees listed above include all of the extra listing enhancements that eBay offers, such as extra photographs of your item at 15 cents each, and the listing designer, which is basically a template for a listing that costs an extra 30 cents per listing, a subtitle at $1.50, and scheduled listings at 10 cents each.. As you can see, your fees will quickly skyrocket, leaving you with little or no profit. These are listing "enhancements" that eBay suggests will help you to sell more merchandise. As a seller, you must remember that eBay make their profits from sellers, not buyers. Yes, some of these enhancements will make your listings look more professional, and will increase sales, but you don't have to pay for them!

Having extra photos of items that you are selling on eBay is necessary for some types of items, and is helpful in pointing out specific details or flaws in an item. You can add as many photographs as you want to your listing by creating a free account at Photobucket. You simply upload your photographs to Photobucket (they even have a free online photo editor) and copy the html code of the photo. While you are creating your eBay listing, choose the html view, and add the html code for your photo. Switch back to the regular view and adjust the size and position of your photo(s) as needed. You have saved 15 cents per photo, and added value to your listing. There are at least a dozen other free photo hosting sites; just do a Google search for exactly that.

The Item Subtitle is an eBay feature that in no way helps you, the seller. It is not searchable, unless an eBay buyer chooses to search all descriptions of listings, and that rarely happens. Most buyers only search titles. Save your $1.50.

The listing designer that eBay offers does make your ads look more professional. But at 15 cents per listing, the fees can add up at the end of the month. You can go to Auctiva (www.auctiva.com) and create your listings right there for free. They have over 1,500 auction templates to choose from while eBay offers about 12 templates. Auctiva also allows you to upload hundreds of images at a time, at no charge. You can also schedule listings to start at a certain date, for free, saving you the 10 cents a listing that eBay charges for the listing designer ad frame.

There are other free services besides Auctiva that offer many of these services also. ChannelMAX is also an excellent choice for free upgrades to your eBay listings, including a dynamic flash gallery. There are other sites that offer paid services as well. While you may be trading added eBay fees for their fees, the quality of their services is far beyond what eBay offers for the same amount of money. The object is to make your eBay listings look as professional as possible, generating more sales (and profits) for you.

For more information, visit Auctionbytes to see a list of auction management services and the fees (if any) associated with each one. Be sure to visit their forums for more money saving tips from other eBay sellers.