Looking to increase your sales on ebay? Here are 20 of the best tips to make extra cash selling on ebay…..
-Learn To Sell On Ebay Before Considering Starting A Business On eBay– Learn ebay by looking around your house and taking the time to learn how to list. You will make some mistakes—we all do. You will get better with experience.
– Create A Brand Label For Your Business – Get or create a “Logo” and a “Look” for your stores and auctions. Use your logo on invoices, receipts, business cards and packing slips. If you don’t know how to do it, there are those on eBay who will do it for you in style, font and colors for a set price. A blog banner can cost as little as $19
– Add Attractive Backgrounds To Your Listings. Go to: http://www.grsites.com/textures to get free background textures for your auction item descriptions. Over 6000 backgrounds are available at no cost.
-Build A High Feedback Store Quickly When Beginning – At first, sell items at a very low price. Put up listings for a fixed price, and don’t worry about making money. Be sure to just break even. Mail out the items quickly, and post great feedback for each buyer and send each buyer an email politely asking each of them to return the favor.
– Sell Really Unique Items, Than Store Bought Items– The best item to sell on eBay is something used or a very specialized (niche) product that others aren’t listing. There is a lot of competition from established sellers and even big online companies for products that are sold in the stores, so stick to vintage, handmade, or antique items that are hard to find. Forget trying to sell computers, digital cameras, iPods, and plasma TVs. There is no way you can compete with the big guys. Instead, find several small niches that you can dominate.
-Use Fixed Price Listings If You Sell Items With A Low Dollar Margin If you are a Low Volume Seller, you may need to run multiple Fixed price Listings (FPL) to make a good living on eBay. FPL is used when you have several identical items for sale, which you can therefore set a minimum price you are willing to sell for, and specify the quantity for sale. eBay only charges one low listing fee no matter how many items you have for sale within that one listing. When someone buys an item, it sells right away and the balance of the items remain listed until they are all gone or until the listing ends.
-Use Multiple Variations Listings When You Are Selling The Same Item With Different Sizes Or Colors- This works if you have a set of identical plates in different colors, or shoes that are like one another except the color. The buyer selects the size and color from drop down menus in your listing. Once they purchase it, that size/color combination is automatically removed from your available stock for that listing. By using one multiple variations listing, you save a fortune in eBay fees.
– Make Customers Feel More Comfortable Ordering From You- Writing and post an “About Me” page, join eBay Groups, set up a Blog, write reviews or guides (or both). Ebay users want to be able to find someone they can follow and trust. If you sell a niche product, customers are always on a look out to follow those whom share a key interest (eBay, hobbies or collecting).
– Use Templates To Save Time – A template is an already created format that you just plug in the specific information. Take the time to put together a series of templates that will cover whatever you sell. Always use numbers rather than spelling out the number, (i.e., use “7” rather than “seven”) This allows a buyer to scan listings and ads faster.
-Don’t Use Stock Photos – The stock photos that eBay provides are no good for you. Half of the other sellers will be using the same photo and your item will NOT stand out. Not only that, people want to see the item’s condition. If it is in a box, show the box in your own home.
– End Your Action Sunday Evening – THE absolute BEST time to have your auction end is Sunday evening! Most people are home on Sunday, where as through the week, most people are carting their kids around town for sports and school practices. You can either make sure you have your 7 day listing submitted on Sunday evening OR make use of the Scheduling tool when listing your auction. If you begin your listing around 9 or 9:30 PM EST. This will have the auction end between 6 pm and 6:30 on the West Coast.
– Use Vendio Templates- Vendio provides auction templates where you type in your auction listing, product text and images. It allows you to set your price, terms, length of auction, and schedule your auctions to launch on a specific day and time. If you launch more than 40 listings per month, Vendio will salve you the money you spend on eBay special fees will easily cover your monthly subscription cost. Vendio also tracks your inventory and sales. Many are hesitant to pay a monthly fee to an auction management company, but many people report that Vendio is better than eBay’s tools such as Turbo Lister and Selling Manager. Vendio also works with Amazon listings.
-Don’t Hide Your Profit In The Postage. This is now against Ebay policy, but more importantly, buyers resent it. The lower your postage, the more customers you will have. Give bidders an option to buy insurance, especially for those items which are breakable, without being nasty, and state that you will not be responsible for items not insured, but will do your best to package it well. If you sell expensive goods, BuySAFE is a company that provides fraud insurance to your buyers. It cost a little to sign up, but BuySAFE will increase your bids and final values much more than the cost of their service. Sign up at www.buysafe.com.
– Auction Timing Does Pay Off – Try hard to have your auctions completed in Prime Time (9-11 pm Eastern through 6-8pm Pacific). Towards the close of your action, the item is listed towards the top of the eBay searches, even searches not directly related to the item you have up for action. There is little competition when an items ends in at 3am or 5am in the morning.
– Don’t Stand In Line For Your Stamps – Work with Stamps.com. They often run special deals when you sign up. Often times they will give you XXX in free postage, along with a free electronic postage scale when you sign up. You don’t have to stand in line at the post office, you can just drop your packages at the back door like most of the other businesses in town do.
– Is It Worth Spending Money On An Ebay STORE Subscription Fee? This is something that every seller has to contemplate as he or she starts selling more on ebay. There are three packages to choose from, Basic, Premium, Anchor. With these packages you can either pay month to month or sign a contract for a year. For example with a basic monthly plan you pay around $19, compared to $15 per month for a year. The difference between the packages is how many free listings you get each month. Check out what secretoftheinternet on ebay thinks at this video.
-How To Determine If A Shirt Is Male Or Female– Especially if you come across a button up shirt, it can be hard to determine if it is mans small, youth shirt or women’s dress shirt. In this video, one time tested tip is to look at which side the buttons fall on. If all other signals fail, one time tested secret is most manufactures place men’s style shirt buttons on the right side. Seen on secretoftheinternet on ebay
– Know The Rules Of Listing On Ebay – Make sure you know the rules for sellers before listing on eBay. If you’re not sure that your item is allowed, check our prohibited and restricted items policy.
-Add Audio In Your Auctions, And See An Increase In Sales. Added audio to your auctions with Xiosoft and your sales will double. Xiosoft allows you to just dial a 800 number, record your message, which you can then go to their website and copy a short line of code to paste into your auction. It is really easy.
– Be Sure To List Your Item In The Right Category – Choose the most specific category available to help buyers find your item. For an additional fee, you can list your item in a 2 categories to maximize your item’s visibility.
-Offer Combined Shipping To Entice More Sales– Offer good combined shipping rates (not just $1 off the second item) to entice buyers to purchase more. It saves you time and money because you only have to ship one parcel, but it also gives you more feedback opportunities.
– Save Time By Using Ebay’s Advanced Tools – Use our advanced selling tools to save time creating and managing your listings.
– Tell Your Buyers What The Reserve Price Is (Reserve Price Auction (RPA)– Often times people will steer away from Reserve listings, as they just want to know if they have enough money to bid on the item. Who said it has to be a secret. Use reserve listings, but also tell them what the reserve price is.
– Use Calculated Shipping Options – Consider using calculated shipping and decide which shipping service you’ll use. Pack your item for shipping so that you can weigh it and measure the length, width, and height so you have this information when you list it. When you use calculated shipping, you won’t need to guess the amount it will cost to ship the item.
Additional Links:
- Discussion Boards http://pages.eBay.com/community/boards/index.html
- Leave Feedback http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/feedback.html
- Rules and policies http://pages.eBay.com/services/tsindex.html
- End my listing http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction&EndingMyAuction=&guest=1
- eBay Fees http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
Interesting Pro Sellers
– How To Buy From Government Auctions – Skip McGrath
-My Top 99 Whole Sale Sources For Ebay Sellers –Skip McGrath
– Top 5 Mistakes I made My First 5 Months Selling on Ebay – Youtube
-Ebay Powerseller Gives Away Tips- Youtube
-How To Avoid The PayPal Scams – Youtube
-How to Ship with EBAY – Tips, Tricks & Strategies! Youtube
-What Sells–and What Doesn’t–on eBay – Good Morning Texas
-How to Sell High on eBay by Starting Low – Good Morning Texas
-How to Maximize your Selling Price on eBay – Good Morning Texas
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