Attention New Sellers!!!
Tips for Successful Selling.
As a new seller you may be wondering, "How do I get started?", "What is the best price to list my items?", "How do I attract buyers?" and many other questions. This guide is intended to help answer some of those questions. This is not intended to be a complete "How To", but rather a few helpful tips to get you started in the right direction.Maximize Your Chances for a Successful Sale
(The following is right from the eBay Selling Tips section, but I've added My 2 Cents!:)The Most effective strategies are ofter the simplest. Follow these simple but sometimes overlooked tips to attract buyers and get the most cash for your stuff.
- Find out What It's Worth: Use the What it's Worth? tool to find useful information about your item such as the average selling price, average starting price, and volume of recently sold items. You can also find great information on pricing, features, and key words that attract buyers by browsing Completed Listings.
- My 2 Cents!: Search for current eBay listings of your item to see what your competition is and think about what would attract you as a buyer and what would make you go to the next listing.
- Get Free Shipping Supplies: The United States Postal Service offers a variety of free shipping supplies, delivered directly to you within a few days. Shipping Boxes come in a variety of sizes and work with any Priority Mail or Priority Flat Rate Service.
- My 2 Cents!: Make sure you have the shipping materials on hand so that you can send your item as soon as it has been paid for. Think about the negative impact of delayed shipping: your item might be for a Birthday, Christmas, Valentines Day, Anniversary, etc. If you send an item too slowly your buyer may give you negative feedback which will hurt your chances with future buyers.
- Start Pricing Low with No Reserve: Getting that first bid is critical, as buyers are more likely to jump in if there are already bids on an auction. Reserve Pricing can cause buyers to lose interest if they assume an item is overpriced. Many sellers set a low opening bid with no reserve to jump start bidding and increase their final selling price.
- My 2 Cents!: Consider starting your auction listing at $0.98 to get listed first, since most people start at $0.99 you will come up on the first page for lowest price. This is very effective!
- Include Reasonable Shipping Costs: Specifying reasonable shipping and handling costs in your listing is essential for smart selling. eBay's free Shipping Calculator provides real-time shipping costs to buyers all over the world, so you can increase your chances of success.
- My 2 Cents!: Don't rip people off with your shipping and handling fees. Just like above it can hurt your feedback scores and can really cost you any chance of selling your item. I suggest you only charge what it is really going to cost you. You can get a postal scale for $20.00 from your local post office and use eBay's calculated shipping feature if you intend to sell a lot, or simply go to the post office and inquire what your item weighs or what it will cost to ship.
- Maximize Your Item Title: Be sure to include key words that buyers will search for, unique or descriptive attributes and always check your spelling. Your item title is critical in helping users find your items, so use each character wisely and check your spelling.
- My 2 Cents!: Key words are crucial. Think about what you would type into the search box if you were trying to find your item, and include those words in your title. A standard eBay search will search the title line for the words that are being searched for. You may ask a friend what they would type if they were searching for your item, because different people think differently and might search with different key words.
- Describe Your Item in Detail: A good description is concise, well organized and easy to read. Create bold section headlines, bulleted lists, and be sure to include item style/type, brand, condition, and other attributes. Think about your listing from the buyers perspective--the more information you provide, the more likely buyers are to place a bid.
- My 2 Cents!: OK, now this is in the body of your listing. If you were able to get someone's attention enough to look at your listing, now you need to really sell your item. Give good clear descriptions of your items. This is where you go back to the research you did above. What did you like or dislike about other peoples listings of items like yours. Remember: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but plagiarism is just bad manners!"
- Include Photos: A picture is worth a thousand words! Use clear, well-lit photos from a variety of angles to accurately showcase your item. Use good lighting and an uncluttered background to get the most out of your photo. Add additional photos to showcase details and unique features of your item.
- My 2 Cents!: photos to your listing without paying is to do a Google image search for your item and when you find a good image of it, do a "right click" on your mouse and "copy image" and "paste" right into your listing. Always remember two things when using this method; some images may be copyrighted so beware and check back on your listing because if the source website deletes the image from their site then it will be deleted from your listing.
- Communicate: Always respond quickly to any buyer questions. Include extras or a handrwritten note in the box to really surprise and delight your customers. Make sure to leave feedback for your buyer so they'll do the same for you.
- My 2 Cents!: This is crucial in two ways. First if someone is considering weather to buy your item or someone else's, it may come down to who responds first. Remember you are in sales, so take the opportunity to tell them a little more about what makes your item so special. Secondly, communicate after the sale and let the buyer know when you've shipped the item and be sure to thank them for the purchase. This ultimately goes back again to your feedback score. Your feedback score and comments are crucial so that others will trust doing business with you. You may also gain repeat buyers this way!
- Save a trip to the Post Office: After the sale you can pay for shipping, print labels on your home printer, and schedule free carrier pick-up all online and at no additional charge--so you can save money, time, and a trip to the post office.
- My 2 Cents!: I don't have much to add here. This is just convenience factor for you. I have a Post Office 2 blocks away and prefer to drop off so I can know the item ships faster.
- Tell your Story: Customize your My World profile and let others know what you buy, sell, collect--whatever you're passionate about. It's free and helps buyers get to know and trust you.
- My 2 Cents!: This last bullet point just lets others get to know a little more about you. This is sort of your opportunity to talk to potential buyers and tell them a little about you. Remember this isn't MySpace so don't get into the Jerry Springer soap opera drama of your life, just give the info that pertains to eBay and or your expertise in a certain area. To see an example click on my "me" next to my name.
I sincerely hope that this guide has been helpful to you and that you have many successful sales!
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