Do you have eBay inventory sitting around the house? Maybe you
are new to eBay and just have a few items on hand that you are
waiting to sell. Or, maybe you have turned selling your eBay
inventory into a part-time or full-time income-generating career!
Whatever your case may be, you are more likely to make more money
if you keep your eBay inventory organized. So before heading out
to garage sales, auction sales, and secondhand stores searching
for those unique products, make sure you have a plan in place for
organizing.
Depending on the amount of you eBay inventory you currently have
to sell—or plan on selling—will determine how much space you
need. For the purposes of this article, we will assume that you
plan on running this business at a rate where you can manage the
inventory from your home. However, many of these same techniques
can be used if you decide to upgrade to a small warehouse.
If you are new to selling on eBay, it is easy to get caught up in
the excitement of the world’s largest e-commerce site and want to
sell everything. However, I encourage you to start selling at a
low number. This will help you become familiar with how the
auction process works. Your goal is not only to sell items for
profit, but to develop a good feedback rating. This rating is
based on product quality and customer service, so the better
service you can provide the higher rating you will receive —
which is key for building a good reputation.
4 steps to organizing your eBay inventory:
1.Dedicate a spare room, basement, or garage to organize and
manage your eBay inventory.
Ideally, you will clear out this space before you bring your
newfound treasures home. Within this room, keep a filing cabinet
with plenty of files and folders with tabs. You will create a new
file for each product you sell. By keeping your inventory in one
confined area, you can keep better track of your inventory and
reduce the chance of items getting misplaced or broken.
2.Categorize your merchandise.
Think of your eBay room as your “store.” You know how convenient
it is to walk into your local grocery store? You know just where
to go for the milk, bread, and cheese. This is because items are
laid out in a fashion that makes sense. Literally, set your eBay
room as a store. Set up tables or shelves where you can display
the products in a nice and organized manner. “Seeing” these
products will help you know what is in your inventory and know
where you have “empty shelves” to fill.
Let’s say you specialize in selling perfume, vintage t-shirts,
golf clubs, antique teapots, unique dolls, and collector baseball
cards. It would make sense to group all of your fragile items
(perfume, teapots, and dolls) together. Perhaps keep these items
on a higher shelf or table out of the reach of small children or
pets. Then, organize these items within each category. You could
organize by value, brand, etc.
If vintage t-shirts is a category that you anticipate selling on
an ongoing basis, it would be wise to hang these in a closet or
hanging rack, or fold nicely so you can easily see the graphics.
Again, organize these within its category. You could organize by
size, color, graphics, brand, etc.
The golf clubs are unique because they probably won’t sit up on a
shelf or table. In this case, simply line them up along a wall in
an organized manner.
And last, the baseball cards. You would want to keep these
organized in a protective baseball card organizer. You could
organize by player, team, year, value, etc. It would be wise to
keep a print out of your card inventory right inside the organizer.
3.Organize merchandise information.
Just as important as the merchandise itself, is organizing the
information that supports it. For every product you bring home,
create a file. This file should contain product information,
photos, and a copy of the description you post on eBay.
Items to include in each product file:
• Product information - For example, let’s say you just found a
beautiful unique doll at a garage sale. Create a file where you
will keep all of the information related to that product. If you
don’t know much about this particular doll, research it. Find out
about her origin, her history, her creator, etc. Keeping all of
this information in one file will help you as you go to write your
product description.
• Product descriptions - When you write your product descriptions,
be as visual as possible. Make your products sound exciting to draw
the bidder in—just be sure to not over-exaggerate. It is essential
to be honest in your descriptions. If you have an interesting story
of how you found the product, include that too.
• Product photos - To give your bidders a fair picture of your items,
invest in a high-quality digital camera. Take clear pictures at
different angles. It might be wise for you to set up a corner in
your eBay room for a mini-photo studio. A well-lit corner with a
nice backdrop would suffice. Setting up a permanent mini-studio
will save you the hassle and time of doing this every time you
sell a product.
4.Shipping center.
In your eBay room, don’t forget to include an area or “station”
for shipping supplies. A variety of padded envelopes, boxes,
padding, packaging tape, and mailing labels should all be set up
in an organized manner. This station will help you ship your
products out quickly—which is an excellent customer service practice.
With this useful organizing system, you will feel like you have
better control over your eBay inventory—enabling you to make
more money, faster!
"Article & Information Provided by The Wholesale Network for Online Business at wnob.com"
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