Selling on eBay - 10 Steps to Success

[jeffrey]

By Paul Hudson

eBay has created a revolution in online trading, selling products and services is now feasible for everyone. Even many successful businesses, including mine are using eBay to promote their products and services and drive traffic to their site.

Here are my top ten tips for successful selling on eBay.

Step 1: Identify your market

Watch some auctions and determine what is selling and what is not. You will soon find a few items than consistently sell for a good price. Find the right product/service and establish your price.




Step 2: Watch the competition

If there is a particular trader that consistently sells their items for a good price then take a look at there ads. What are they doing that the others are not. Consider their titles, layout of the ad and the text and images that they use.

Step 3: Find a product

Having found your product, call as many suppliers as you can and try to beat them down on price. Remember ordering in bulk will normally secure a lower price but don't tie up too much capital in stock. Make sure that you make a decent margin, find something that you can sell for a lot more than you paid for it. This may seem obvious but a lot of people waste their time making pennies so it is worth reiterating, the bigger your margins are the less you have to worry.

Step 4: Start small

Don't throw money at bad ideas. Start playing around with different ad text and images. It doesn't cost a lot with eBay to try the most outrageous ideas, some will work and some won't. Best still you will know the results of your trials very quickly.

Step 5: Test and repeat

Once you have found a strategy that works keep doing it! But also keep testing new ideas the more strong sales strategies that your find the more reliable you sales will be.

Step 6: Work out a business plan

This doesn't have to be a professional document, just an outline of the market that you have broken into and possible opportunities. Identify your strategies that work and the items that are selling. Work out based on your current ROI (Return on Investment) what sort of budget you are prepared to risk. Remember with budgets it is all about risk assessment: what is the risk of losing everything weighed against the likely returns.

Step 7: Invest and expand

Introduce your money, investment means profit. Start buying inventory, but not more than you can sell in a reasonable amount of time. The last thing you want is unsold stock lying around because that is tied up capital that could be used for marketing. Make sure you get the lowest price possible. Buy in bulk and try to catch the supplier at opportune times such as the end of the month when they may be looking for the extra sales. Also try buying at the end of the day when they just want to get home and may be inclined to just close the deal. As you establish a relationship with your suppliers, secure further discounts on account of your continued custom and increasing quantities.

Step 8: Make it official

Once you have made a thousand pounds or so in sales, get your self registered as a business. Build a website and link your ads to the site. Visitors can then find out more about you and importantly find more of your products and services. Start to advertise in different places, on and offline, after all you should know what sells now and should be an expert of marketing your products and services.

Step 9: Automate

Create auto responders for emails to save you answering the same questions and to give quick responses to customers. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.

Step 10: Never give up

It is not just skill or knowledge that enables people to succeed. There are loads of skillful and knowledgeable people that are not working for them self; it is perseverance that wins the day. When it looks like it is all going wrong, chances are you are about to make a break through and when someone says it can't be done, you know that you are getting closer!

If you really are trying to build a successful company, then go for it and work hard.

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Paul Hudson has more resources online at iso-design.co.uk.

[reviewer]

I made about $600 over one summer by visiting garage sales and selling items on eBay, as well as weeding out some stuff I didn't need (and haven't missed). I really loved it because it was so much fun to get something that probably would have been thrown away or unappreciated to be in the hands of a loving collector!

Sell something that you know. For me, it was books (mostly nonfiction) and video games. I had a pretty good idea of value but there was always some risk.

My mom also made a killing selling old Halloween costumes she had made on eBay. At a garage sale we would have practically given them away.

Before you go whole hog, try eBay out as a seller and get to know the process. Half.com is also good (not an auction site) - you don't pay a fee until an item sells. Half.com is now owned by eBay too.

[poundwise]

I would add to the above list: Keep good records

Income (profit) from an eBay business (side-business or otherwise) is taxable, but its not necessarily simple. For instance, to determine profit you have to keep up with costs. Expenses such as eBay fees, etc. are deductible. And so on...

Of course, the argument can be made that most people don't do this properly, however, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Also, the IRS has specifically stated that they are going to target eBay selling in the future because they know it is going unreported by many.

(Note: If you sell an few personal items through eBay, that likely doesn't constitute a business. You probably don't make a profit and you don't meet the other marks of a 'business' so don't worry. However, if you are buying and selling, making a profit, etc., then you have a business. Fortunately, operating as a business has some benefits.)


Here are some resources:

www.ezinearticles.com

TurboTax: Tax Center for eBay...

MSNBC: Taxes... eBay

[The Budget Man]

Ebay gives you access to customers you just couldn't reach before.

We've been experimenting with selling "Budgeting Made Simple - the secrets the Bank Manager forgot to tell you"

We were told that you couldn't sell a budgeting book on eBay. Fortunately it turns out that eBay is like anything else... you can't sell rubbish, but people are looking for genuine breakthroughs.

The pleasant surprise is that if you have an exceptional book like "Budgeting Made Simple" people will come and buy. On the other hand, eBay is overflowing with low quality, low value books and buyers are merciless in bagging sellers if they think they have been ripped off.

So here's an encouragement... If you have something that is of genuine worth, there are people who visit eBay who could well be interested.

The key is that there are enough people looking on eBay to make even the smallest niche worth trying.

Enjoy Your Money
The Budget Man

www.PersonalityBudgeting.com
The starting point for a budget that works

[Deelip]

I suggest selling something which others are not selling.
For example, I was looking for touch up paint for car and there are only very few of them who are selling touch up paints. Now, if you start selling touch up paint then you will have better chance of making sales rather than with the normal products.

[shizane101]

I'm an eBay fanattic! I though I'd point out a fairly new service eBay offers that many people still don't know about. They now have a classified ads section. It costs $9.99 to list a 30 day ad.

So why would you pay for an ad when you can put one on Craigslist for free? Exposure, that's why. Your classified ad appears right next to all the other auctions. With the right key words, you can get a ton of eyeballs on your ad.

One caveat: You can only place an ad for things you can't sell on eBay. In other words, if you sold insurance, this is something you can do to pomote yourself.