My 12 tips for selling on eBay are designed to help you to make as much money as possible. It’s all too easy to make what many would regard as a minor mistake that could finish putting a sizeable dent in your profits.
Although my list is compiled with the home based business person in mind they equally apply if you are just clearing out unwanted items from home.
12 Tips for selling on eBay
- Always try to begin your eBay career by selling personal items that are superfluous to requirements. You will rapidly learn how to take and upload photographs, compose titles and write good descriptions.
- Items with brand names always sell better than unbranded ones. ‘Sony 50” TV’ is more powerful than just ’50” TV’
- Getting the title right is absolutely vital and could mean your item selling rather than that of the competition. Don’t waste characters on words that no one will search for. People rarely put in model numbers or adjectives like nice, beautiful, comfortable etc. But do include keywords related to the product if you have the space.
- Your description should be comprehensive. Include everything that you would like to see there including, colors, dimensions, weight etc. Be honest and use spell check.
- Find out what you should be selling for by filling in the search box on eBay with your item description, then click on ‘completed items’ in the left hand side bar to discover what they sold for.
- If you need to save space in the title bar there are abbreviations commonly used on eBay. BN – brand new, BNWT – brand new with tags, BNIB – brand new in box, BIN – buy it now and VGC – very good condition. Only use these if absolutely necessary.
- Be careful with auction ending times. You don’t want them ending in the middle of the night. This sometimes happens when listing in a country other than your own.
- It may seem obvious but don’t sell stuff out of season, barbecues in December – it happens!
- eBay sometimes has ‘free listing’ weekends watch out for these.
- I cannot advise on tax but remember if you are running a business on eBay you need to take professional advice.
- Feedback is everything. Do everything you can to protect it by giving outstanding service. If a refund is needed, give it quickly and with good grace.
- To advertise free delivery is a powerful marketing tool.
I hope you find my tips for selling on eBay useful, there are lots more but if you get all of the above right you will be well on your way to being the next eBay powerseller!