Learn How to Start Your Own Home Based EBay Business

You're sitting at home; looking through the ads at that new TV you want. Or you're dreaming about the perfect car that you could have. Or you are looking for some extra cash to have on the side. You're off to a perfect start, selling items on eBay can be a very profitable business and takes minimal effort to set up, and takes only a few hours a week.

Hi, I'm Cody Stanton and I have been selling items on eBay for the past 3 years. Reading this guide is your first step to making yourself a richer, happier, person. This guide will take you step by step of how to create an eBay account, how to create an eBay seller's account. And how to sell your very first item, including how to list it, how to ship it, and most importantly, how to make the most money out of your item. This guide will show you the inside and outside of selling things on eBay from your very own home. Including all of the tips, secrets, and techniques that experience eBay sellers don't want you to know! I will tell you everything I know that will make your expenses the lowest and your profits the greatest.

Chapter Two - Start-up

There are many items that you need to start your home based eBay business, I will break each item down individually, including where to buy them, and what to look for.

You will need:

q Computer

q High Speed Internet Connection

q Printer

q Digital Camera

q Packaging Items

q Great Attitude!

Buying these Items:

- Computer

If you already own a computer SKIP THIS STEP! If you need a computer this will tell you how to buy one. You will need a very basic computer. My recommendation is that you check the weekly Office Depot and OfficeMax ads, they have a new computer every week that is an all in one bundle with many mail in rebates to save you money! Go to your local OfficeMax/Office Depot Store and get a Computer if you do not have one already. Be Sure you fill out the mail in rebates as soon as you get home! All too often many customers get too excited with their new computer that they forget where they put the UPC codes, boxes, rebate forms, receipts. Forgetting to fill out the rebate forms can end up costing you hundreds of dollars!

Now that you have your new computer, you have to set it up, and prepare it for Internet usage.

-High Speed Internet Connection

If you are still using dial-up, STOP right now. Call your DSL or Cable Provider and have them sign you up right away! The difference is night and day, not only will having high-speed internet save you many many hours while on the internet, but when you decide to buy an item on eBay, you will always be able to put your bid in at the last second to get your item for the lowest possible price.

-Printer

Your printer will be a big part of your eBay business, it will be used for printing packing slips, shipping labels, and many other things that you will use your computer for, such as personal items, or your child's homework.

Tip: When buying ink, NEVER, I repeat, NEVER go to the store. You will end up paying 5-10 times more than you need to. Learn how to use google to your advantage, find out what kind of ink your printer uses and search for it on the Internet. You will learn fast that the best deals are on the Internet, and not your local Wal-Mart. When I buy my ink I pay just under Two Dollars for both Black and Color Ink. If I went to wal-mart I'd pay up to 16 dollars for just a color ink cartridge!

-Digital Camera

As technology gets better and better everyday, digital cameras get cheaper and cheaper. My recommendation is to buy a nice camera, so you can use it when you go on vacation, or family pictures, or any other use you would have for a camera. If money is tight, look for a cheaper digital camera. 3.2 Mega pixels are plenty of detail that you will need for your camera. I'd say the lowest amount to go in mega pixels is 2 mega pixels. If you're looking to save a few extra dollars, check eBay for a used digital camera that will fit your needs.

Tip: When buying a digital camera, immediately buy a larger memory card for it. All too often many people who purchase digital cameras stay with the memory card that comes with it, and end up filling up their memory card with only a few pictures. Prices for memory cards have dropped significantly and you can pick up a recommended 256 Megabyte card for under Twenty Dollars.

-Packaging Items

These are the items that you will use for shipping the items that you sell on eBay. These items include:

- Tape

- Bubble Wrap

- Boxes

- Packing Peanuts

- Scale

- Shipping Labels

- Permanent Marker

I recommend buying all of your packing items from www.esupplystore.com. They have some of the best prices on the Internet. Going to your local UPS store and buying these items will end up costing you more than you need to spend. For your boxes, you can get free priority boxes from www.usps.com. The only catch is that you have to use their priority service. You will learn later in this guide that you will want to use priority. All the time.

For your scale I recommend purchasing it off of eBay. There are many different types of scales, the best is a digital scale, be sure to purchase the correct poundage of the scale to what items you are going to sell.

Shipping labels I also recommend buying off of eBay. EBay simply has the best deals and will save you much money. There are many auctions for shipping labels; they are all going to send you boxes of free labels that they get to your house. So you can get them for cheap, the only catch is that they usually have a company brand name along the side, but that doesn't matter because you will just be throwing that part away.

Lastly, you will need to get yourself a big fat juicy permanent marker. There is nothing more satisfying than writing "FRAGILE" in huge letters on the sides of your box. You can get this at any store for less than two dollars.

The last thing you will need to start your eBay business is a great attitude. The only way to be successful in life is to have a great attitude. Be excited, because this is your gateway to new opportunities and a richer income. Chapter 3 - Setting up your eBay user ID

1. Go to www.ebay.com

2. Click 'Register'

3. Enter Personal Information, common items such as name, address, and city, zip. Be sure not to use PO boxes, use your Physical Address.

4. Pick a Username, can be anything. Use your imagination!

5. Create a password that is easy for you to remember, and hard for others to guess. Remember it well, you will use it a lot

6. Your secret question is used for when you forget your password. You answer the secret question and they will email you your password.

7. Enter your Date of birth and agree to the Terms of Use.

8. Press Continue

9. You will come to a screen that looks like this:

The only difference is that inside of the red box will be your name and address.

10. Here is where you will need to enter your Credit Card or Debit Card Number

Tip: If you do not have a debit card, it is recommended that you get one. Therefore all transactions will go directly into your bank account.

11. Enter all of your Credit/Debit card information and press continue

12. You will come to a screen that says an email has been sent to your address, this is simply to validate your email address. Go to your email inbox, open it and click the link inside to have your email validated.

This is what the email will look like; all of the information in the red boxes is unique to you.

13. When you click the activation link, you will then be taken to a new window that confirms that you are now registered with eBay, you can now search and bid on eBay.

SETTING UP A Seller's account:

1. Click on Create Seller's account

2. You will be taken to a screen like this:

3. Click Create Seller's Account, Please note that you will need a Credit or Debit Card and a Checking account number to continue.

4. You will then be asked to Place a Credit or Debit card on file. Enter your Card information; again all of the red boxes will be your own information.

5. Press Continue to go to the next screen

6. You will now be asked to put a checking account on file, time to go grab your checkbook!

7. Look at the diagram given, and compare it to your check. Enter the information required. Again the red box will be with your own information. Press Continue

8. You will come to another screen to pick which way you would like to pay your fees. Select the one that suits you best.

9. You can now sell!

10. You will be taken to the above screen, catch up on some reading or continue here.

SETTING UP A PAYPAL ACCOUNT

Paypal is a Company owned by eBay. It is by far the easiest way to send and receive money online. You most certainly should make an account immediately. And I'll walk you through it.

1. Go to www.paypal.com

2. Click 'Sign Up'

3. Choose Personal Account, and click continue, for you advanced users, choose the one right for you. If this is your first account, Choose Personal Account.

4. Fill in all of your personal information, you know the drill. Just like eBay.

TIP: Be sure to use a different password from your eBay account. Also make your email account password easy for you to remember, but hard for others to guess. If someone finds out your password to your email account all they have to do is ask to send your passwords to your email address and they have everything. Don't let this happen to you!

5. Paypal will take you to this screen, follow the steps. Same drill as eBay.

6. Your email will look like this:

7. Click to activate your account, and enter your password. You will be taken to the following screen:

8. You can continue to be verified which is recommended, simply follow the steps. Or press skip to finish your account.

9. If you press skip you will be asked to sign up for Paypal mobile, it is simply a service that you will never use. Skip it. Click 'Go to My Account'

10. You now have a Paypal Account! Congratulations!

11. In time you will want to add credit card information, and your bank account information, you will also want to be verified, all of those are the same drill as eBay had you do.

Congratulations. You have now set up an eBay account. Set up an eBay seller's account, and even set up a Paypal account! You are that much closer to creating your own eBay business!

We will now go through selling an item on eBay.

Chapter 4 - Selling an Item on eBay

Now, you have everything that you need. You can now sell an item on eBay! Now you can decide what exactly do you want to sell. To start off you should simply sell items around the house that you don't need. That old cell phone that your plan expired on, the old antique that grandma gave you but you still can't find a spot for it. No matter what it is you can sell it on eBay!

First I recommend using eBay's program called eBay Turbo Lister. You can download it off of eBay's site. I included an installation of it on the disc. It will help you list your items with more efficiency, and allows many of your settings to be automatic. Be sure to set your preferences for all the items, so you will save time when you want to list more items. There are 5 Main parts to your item.

- Title

- Pictures

- Price

- Body

- Shipping Price

Your title is the first thing that a potential buyer will look at. Be sure it is detailed. Try to think of if someone was looking for an item, what they would type in the search bar, be sure to include if it is new or used. Don't just put "Teddy Bear." Be specific. Such as Ty Beanie Baby Black Bear "Blackie"

Pictures are the most important part of your auction, don't skimp out. Take excellent pictures, make sure they are correctly lighted, turn all of the lights on in the room, open up a window, and use the flash. Take pictures of all sides of an item.

Tip: to save even more money on picture hosting instead of paying ten cents for each additional picture, you can use a third party host. My favorite is www.imageshack.us you can upload each picture individually or purchase credits to upload a ton at a time, it saves you tons of money, and you can now host as many pictures as you want, so the more potential bids you can receive!

The body of your auction is what will sell it to the buyer. Let the buyer know all about the item you are trying to sell. Include condition, if you bought it new or used, why you are selling it, and many other items that the buyer may ask about it.

Shipping price is a factor that all buyers look at, if the shipping price is outrageous the buyer may not even place a bid, be sure it is reasonable, if the buyer found another item exactly like yours, they'd see that you have a lower shipping rate so they will bid on your auction.

Tip: Simply putting a flat rate shipping cost makes it easier for the buyer to understand how much they will be paying. It will cost pretty close to the same thing for no matter where you send it, so make it easier on them and give them a flat rate for shipping cost instead of having a calculated shipping rate. You will notice that most all-successful sellers use this technique.

Chapter 5 - Shipping an Item

So you sold an item on eBay! Congratulations, but now you need to get the item to them. In the first part of what materials you need I said that you should get the free priority boxes supplied by the United States postal service. You should have a variety of these sizes available, they are free anyways! Find the box that fits best, it shouldn't be too cramped in there, remember you are paying for weight, not size. So if a box doesn't fit, find a bigger one.

Wrap your item in bubble wrap, depending on how fragile it is affects the amount of bubble wrap to use. Use common sense here, how much does an extra foot of bubble wrap cost, compared to them sending you back their broken item and you having to give them a refund. Fill the bottom up with packing peanuts, then place the bubble wrapped item in the center of the box. Then fill the rest of the box up with packing peanuts. Don't forget the packing slip!

Close the box and tape it shut with the packing slip and item inside, you know you used enough packaging when you are comfortable with dropping it 2 feet off the ground onto the floor. You now have a box, but where does it go?

Remember those shipping labels and scale you purchased. You will be glad you purchased those. They will save you time and money in the long run. Turn on your scale and place the package on top, remember how much it weighs. Go to the item on eBay and click "Ship this item" it will take you to a form where you can enter the weight of the item, and hit "pay." Print off the shipping label they give you, peel it off the paper and place it on your package.

Tip: when shipping an item priority, if you pay for postage online, they provide FREE Delivery Confirmation. Delivery confirmation will help you if there is ever a dispute about your item. If you don't have any way of saying that the package you sent was actually delivered to their place, they can dispute your item, and win! Therefore they get their money back, you lose your item and you're not happy!

Now take your big fat juicy sharpie and get ready. You can write FRAGILE, in big black letters along every side of your box. So maybe, when a post office employee thinks twice about handling your package. Be sure not to write over your packing slip!

Now USPS offers a service so you don't even have to go to the post office and wait in line. You can schedule a carrier pickup for the next day, and when they come they will pick it up from your house! Now that you paid for your item without even going to the post office, you don't have to drive, don't have to park, don't have to wait in line, not only that, but you can never make it to the post office because they are always closed by the time you get done with work.

Now that you shipped your item, you can leave feedback to the buyer. The feedback system is the backbone of eBay. It is what lets people trust you when purchasing an item. It is important to build up an excellent feedback reputation, as people with higher feedback ratings get higher bids and make more money!

Chapter 6 - Creating your business

Now that you know how to sell an item on eBay. You can now get ready to sell as a business. First, give your business a name, such as Jodi's Scraps, Bob's Toys. It doesn't matter what you name it, make it easy to remember. Some sellers use eBay store's to sell their items. This allows you to sell your items in a buy it now only format. This may be seen as an advantage for some people, but when people are looking at items through ebay, the items for eBay stores are listed at the very bottom, where nobody looks. The best way to get the most attention to your item is to list it in a normal auction format.

You're going to want to find an item to sell. This can be the most challenging part. Think of anything that you can sell that someone else might want. It is easiest to sell a specific kind of item, and know everything about it than trying to sell everything you can. You can think of businesses in your town that sell an item that other people might not have and they might want. When a business goes out of business you can buy their old office equipment and sell it. When a business goes out of business you can sell their liquidated items. Think if you know how to do something that someone else doesn't know how to, tell them how to do it in an ebook. Just remember that no matter what it is, you can sell it on eBay. Chapter 7 - Conclusion

I have now walked you through the steps of creating, listing, managing, shipping, and leaving feedback for an item that you sold. You can now repeat this process over and over and you will have a business in no time at all. You have learned many secrets to selling on eBay, including many tips of how to save money and how to make more money.