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10 Steps To Getting Up and Running Selling On Ebay

Guest post by: Teresa Bohannon

Article Overview: Ebay has taken a lot of bashing lately for changing its policies. When the latest round of changes were announced, the powers that be at Ebay were accused of being everything from architects of evil to lousy businesspeople--at least from the point of view of many long-term Ebay sellers. But in many ways the new and "some say" improved Ebay does provide a better experience for the buyer, which means that in the long-run, quality sellers offering quality products--and the wonderful mish-mash of eclectic junk that made Ebay a mecca for collectors in the first place--will find their businesses more profitable. If you ever wanted to try your luck starting a Home business on Ebay, or just putting your company's products on sale there as an added outlet...now is the time to begin.

10 Steps To Getting Up and Running Selling On Ebay

Here are 10 steps on how to quickly and easily get up and running selling on Ebay. With the economy such as it is and a lot of people needing a way to quickly bring in some cash working from home, Ebay offers a perfect solution.

Even if you are already in business and just need to bring in additional sales, selling on Ebay can help you get a quick and inexpensive start online. You probably will not get rich there, but it is a great way to bring in money fast with a minimum of investment, while also building a solid foundation for other online selling venture, and bringing wider exposure and new customer to existing brick and mortar businesses.

So follow the information outlined here in order to successfully sell your items and start making a profit this week!

Step One:
Get started the right way. Accurately describe your item. If it is new say so, if it is not--state that as well. An accurate description will ensure that the buyer knows what they are getting.

Step Two:
Have great keywords in your title. Look for an item just like yours in an Ebay search. See what comes up. Using great keywords will get your item further up on the search listings. People can only purchase your item if they can find it.

Step Three:
Use pictures. Now that the gallery is free, there is no reason not to use pictures. A digital camera is all you need in order to take a really great photograph. This is what will tell your buyers about your product. Get this right and your item has a much better chance of selling.

Step Four:
Accurately list your shipping and handling charges. Buyers are turned off when listings are obviously padding their shipping. You are entitled to have the buyer pay for the actual shipping plus reasonable handling charges. Another option may be to have a buy it now option with free shipping. This marketing tool really works well.

Step Five:
Use an online payment service like PayPal. Many buyers do not want to bother with a check or money order. They want to make an online payment. PayPal is safe and you can start with a personal account and move up to a premier or business account at a later date. In fact it is extremely difficult to work from home on Ebay without an online payment solution.

Step Six:
Promptly ship your items after you receive payment. A delay in shipping will result in unhappy buyers. This is very important. Make sure you list all shipping options. It is always a good idea to offer an expedited service as well as standard. Always ship your item with a form of delivery confirmation. Require insurance on fragile items.

Step Seven:
Keep good communication with your buyer. Email them to let them know payment was received. Contact them to let them know their item has shipped. Send them a follow-up email to be sure they were happy with their purchase and ask them if you can put them on your email list.

Step Eight:
Create an email listing of your customers, with their permission. Let them know when a similar item is for sale. For example if you sold a customer a Limoges box, let them know when you have similar items for sale. Developing a list of happy customers is a great way to get repeat business.

Step Nine:
Stay informed. Use the Ebay Forums and community links to stay on top of what is going on in the Ebay community. You will know when specials are offered to buyers and when there are events. Workshops are a great way to learn more about Ebay. The more you know the better you can run your business.

Step 10:
Know what is hot on Ebay. Visit the What's Hot page daily. Make sure you know what is selling well in your category of items.

Developing a niche market is important. You cannot cover every category. Choose an area of expertise. Write an FAQ or an informative article and post it to Ebay. All of these tips will help keep you profitable.

Follow these 10 steps on how to work from home on Ebay and your business will be off to a great start. It takes hard work to build any business; however, building one on Ebay can be rewarding and fun, and as start-ups go...finding a more inexpensive solution that starting on Ebay is almost impossible.

*****

For other quick and easy ways to start earning money fast... see my seven part series of articles
Low and No Budget Home Based Businesses Any Woman "Or Man" Can Start!
Also see my two part series... Step by Step Guide To Starting Your Own Home Business

*****
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 ? 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

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Article Tags: accurate description, better chance, brick and mortar, digital camera, ebay, ebay search, economy, free shipping, marketing tool, money order, mortar businesses, perfect solution, photograph, search listings, selling on ebay, shipping and handling, shipping and handling charges, solid foundation, working from home



Related Forum Posts
Re: Selling on eBay - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":ctamvpom]Does anyone know if you can remove an item that you've listed for auction on eBay and then conduct a private sale? Is there a way to do this without violating the rules on eBay?[/quote:ctamvpom] If you are going to have a private sale with someone that saw the listing on Ebay and you complete the sale off the Ebay site, it violates their rules as far as I understand them. You can re-enter the info on Ebay and let someone bid right away to complete the sale and then Ebay gets their share. Chris
New Guy Here - Automobile Industry - Hi Everyone, My name is Ray and I work as a sales trainer in the automobile industry. I have just completed a new training curriculum for automobile salespeople in the industry. It is called The Baby Steps of Selling Automobiles. I am beginning my marketing efforts through press releases and seminar formats. I joined the community due to my continued desire to work independently creating my own happiness and growth. Thank you for having me and I look forward to more correspondence in the future.
Ebay actually drives prices up... - I have an acquaintance who collects rare books. He went off on a rant about Ebay in his blog a couple of weeks ago. It used to be he could buy books for quite reasonable sums, but ever since Ebay debuted, people are putting their stuff up their with inflated reserve bids, and the uninformed public are buying those books at ridiculous prices...so now even book collectors that don't deal on Ebay are also inflating their prices, because if people are too stupid to know what is proper market value... For myself, I fell victim once... not so much to a scam but to my own lack of knowledge of what I was buying... Way back in the 70s Forrest J. Ackerman published 8 issues of a magazine called Spaceman, and I wanted them all. I also thought they were very rare and was willing to pay any price to get them. So I bid $100 for a beat up old issue of Spacemen 1, and got it, and of course next week another issue was up there for $20. So I was not a happy camper. Lessons are - know the market value of what you want to buy and realize that there are other places besides Ebay where you can get it.
Re: Picking an external hard drive to backup my files - I bought one from Ebay and it worked great for about a year - I forget the brand. But, about 2 months ago, it froze up and all the info is stuck there. Luckily most of the info was still on my desktop computer - but I had a quote of $250 to get the info off the hard drive. I love the flexibility of moving info from one computer to the other with an external hard drive, but seems I would need to find a way to back up the hard drive somewhere else as an insurance policy. When mine froze up - I found a good number of questions on forums from people who had the same problem. So, it doesn't seem that buying Ebay was the issue. I've bought plenty of electronic things on Ebay and they have all worked. I think the issue with my external hard drive could've been because I was using it all day every day to store and retreive files and it was also turned on all the time - until I did that, I didn't have any problems at all. Shri
Re: How Important is Feedback in eBay? - 1. Have you made eBay purchases? Almost once a week. 2. Was the seller's feedback important? VERY! I always looks for seller's with good rep. 3. Do you sell on eBay? No. 4. Do you worry about your feedback score? If I were to sell anything on Ebay, I would. The feedback is very important. A lot of sellers are crooks and Ebay buyers are aware of it.


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