How to Get Started as an Ebay Seller

First of all, decide on what to sell. Some seller's like to sell whatever people are buying. However, niche sellers seem to have more consistent success and less burnout. They sell things they buy themselves and are experts on them. Many of them started out as hobbyists. That way, they write better descriptions and can answer questions from buyers and sound like an expert. Also, their repeat customers trust them more. Many of the top power sellers were offline brokers of products such as antiques, and therefore have the knowledge necessary to find the cheapest priced items.

If you think you don't have a product in mind or one that is of particular interest to you just ask yourself what you buy and where you go online. It should come to you quick. Also, don't rule anything out. What kind of clothes do you like to wear? The EBay marketplace is so diverse that there is a niche for everything, even things that I wouldn't buy in a million years. With a lot of the novelty items I sell, I hear people ask "why would anyone buy that?" Well, I don't know, nor do I care. People just buy. We live in a world of impulsive, compulsive consumers.

The next thing to consider is the auction price. As a new seller, you may want to consider investing in bulk items, which you can do on EBay in their reseller section or at websites like DollarDays.com. That way, when you sell them one at a time, your price will be the lowest. Unless you have extremely rare treasures or antiques you will want to focus on having bargain prices as your hook until your rating and report have gotten higher.

Items that are light, and not to expensive will have a better chance of selling. If you want to become rich on EBay, don't think about finding that one in a million product, it's better that you sell a lot of small products for a small profit and just duplicate it. EBay has a Turbo Lister that allows you to upload hundreds of products so you can submit them at once.

I have had some success with drop shipping, as they supply you with the images and the products and do the shipping for you. However, many others use these and from personal experience, people who peruse garage sales and swap meets and do it the old fashioned way tend to make more money. SurplusAlert.com is the best that I've seen, but they do require a monthly fee. I have sold a lot of their products and am able to consistently list items for a significantly lower price than other sellers. EdealsGoneWild.com requires no monthly fee and I've have success with some of their novelty products as well as their leather jackets. It's a good way to start if you don't have any products or money to buy products.

If you sell enough, you should register your EBay business as an official business, either as a sole proprietorship or partnership. You can find out about this at SBA.com, the Small Business Association websites. You can save all your receipts and save money on taxes. Also, make sure that you sign up for a PayPal.com account, as EBay is gradually fazing out other forms up payment to exclusively focus on PayPal.com. PayPal's partnership with EBay allows you to print out all your postage information off your computer when you link your EBay account with your PayPal.com account.

If you want a detailed guide to selling on EBay, and are especially serious about doing it fulltime, there is an excellent e-book guide titled everything EBay that helped me learn the ropes, especially when it came to selling valuable information guides burned onto CD's, which are making me a lot of money at EBay. It is available for $1 at http://www.americanrublesdollarstore.com in the Making Money Section.