Seller Tips

Here are some tips for successful selling and for maintaining buyer satisfaction on eBay.Listing your item Make sure the item is legal and allowed. If you are not sure that your item is allowed, check eBay's policies on prohibited, questionable and infringing items (see Knowing eBay’s Rules for Sellers). Take one or more pictures of your item in a well-lit area. Effective pictures that are sharp and bright will help sell your item. Evenly distributed artificial or natural light is better than a camera’s flash for most items. A tripod steadies your camera and ensures your picture will be in focus. Choose the most specific category available. This will help buyers find your item. Use the Suggested Categories feature to have eBay suggest categories for you. For an additional fee, you can list your item in a second category to maximize your item's visibility. Imagine you were the buyer when you prepare the title and description for your listing. What would you want to know about the item? What are its most appealing characteristics? What words might buyers use to search for your item? Keep the item close by in case you need to add information to your description. (see Writing a Good Title and Description). Save time by composing your item description in a word authoring program first, and then pasting it into the item description area in the Sell Your Item form. Be clear and complete, but use short sentences that are easy to read. Including specific details about the item, such as dimensions, shipping, and payment, and so on, may help reduce the number of email questions you receive about your item. Use of Advanced Selling Tools will also save you time creating and managing your listings. Plan your pricing strategy. Look at similar completed eBay listings using the completed listings search. You can also visit online stores that sell similar items and ask friends to help determine what the item is worth. This will help you set your starting price or your Buy It Now price. Also, decide whether you would like to set a reserve price. Consider using calculated shipping and decide which shipping service you will 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 begin to list it. When you use calculated shipping, you won't need to guess the amount it will cost to ship the item. Consider registering for selling-related services before you begin the Sell Your Item form. For example, if you want to sell in the Mature Audiences section, it will make the listing process easier to complete the ID Verify process before you list your item. If you want to open your own eBay Store, see eBay Stores Overview.

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Successful eBay Buying Tips

eBay buying is a great way to have fun while saving money. eBay buying is easy, and there is no charge to register as an eBay buyer. The key to eBay buying is to find quality brand name products at low or wholesale prices. Ebay There are millions of products available through eBay auctions. Products for babies, holiday gifts, kids products and toys, computers, games, clothes, crafts, movies, electronics, household items, and many others all exist every day on eBay. eBay auctions offer a fantastic and fun opportunity to shop online and get great items at wholesale or near wholesale prices. eBayers buying in specific categories get to know others over time and even though they're competing for the same items it also makes for an interesting aspect. On eBay, you enter the maximum amount for the item you are willing to pay, and then eBay's bidding system bids for the items on your behalf. Of course you will not always win if someone bids a higher maximum value, but then it will not make you over spend, and because it's eBay you can always come back again and bid on a similar item from a different seller. Also, very important, keep in mind, many common phrases and brand names are often mis-spelled on ebay. Because most ebay buying is based on the correct spelling, the mis-spelled versions have fewer visitors, less competition and lower prices. It's a bit scary to jump into the eBay auction waters unaware, not knowing where to look and how to find exactly what you are looking for. When I first started off with eBay, I had no idea what I was doing. But with some guidance and support from other eBay Power Sellers (people who sell more than $1,000 on eBay on a monthly basis) and a couple of hard knocks of my own, I figured out what works and what doesn't. I now know that with the right information, some time and energy and a bit of direction from an expert, that even a complete moron could transform a potentially difficult eBay purchasing experience into a profitable pastime or money-saving endeavor. Start by making some small purchases to get a few positive feedbacks and to get your feet wet on ebay. Bidding Bidding on eBay is meant to be fun, but remember that all bids on eBay are binding, except in the sales of real estate or businesses and the sales of items that are prohibited by law or by eBay's user agreement. On eBay, you enter the maximum amount for the item you are willing to pay, and then eBay's bidding system bids for the items on your behalf. A good strategy here is to use eBay's proxy bidding system to automatically bid on your behalf. This means you don't have to keep coming back to re-bid every time someone places a higher bid. For a example,search for an item you want to bid on. say the current minimum bid on the item is $18, enter your maximum bid of $30, if there are no other bids on the item, eBay's proxy server will bid for the item at the minimum of $18. EBay then emails the other bidder to inform them that they have been outbid. If there is another bidder with a higher maximum, you will obviously be outbid. But if no other bidder has a higher maximum, you win the auction, and the item is yours and this saves you the time and effort of having to sit around to bid again anytime you are outbid. Keep in mind that the starting bid price might be well below wholesale but could easily go over regular retail during a bid war. Keep your cool when bidding and don't get caught up in the emotions of the moment. Most bidding is done on the last day of the auction and in the last hours of the auction. Catch auctions at the last minute and make sure no one else can bid any higher than you have. You should never bid, without knowing the exact amount that will be charged for S&H to your postal address. If the seller does not reply to your request, then don't bid. Knowing who you're bidding against(which is a controversial topic at the moment) is also sometimes the impetus behind whether or not you make an offer at all. If we can't see who else is bidding on items, then how will we be able to know if there are fake bids going in in order to raise our buying price. I am upset about this hiding of bidder IDs and think it will be problematic. As a buyer, I am very worried that this is going to encourage sellers who shill bids with their friends, and from a seller's standpoint, I see it taking confidence away from a lot of bidders. I have been told by bidders that have bought from me before that they are less likly to bid on high ticket items since they can't see the ID of the people bidding against them. Buyers who bid in competitive areas of collectibles and jewelry know more or less who their competition usually is and they feel mistrustful now that they can no longer openly see who else is bidding. They are worried about getting bid up high by a fake bidder and are therefore not putting in maximum bids as high as they used to. I am also hearing from people that since they can no longer see what other people are actively bidding on in the buyer lists, that they have lost an important research tool and are finding it harder to find the items they're wanting to bid on. This is making for less bids on any given item. These things will definitely hurt sellers, and as a buyer myself, I have also lost the feeling of confidence in being able to put a high bid in and have the auction run with fairness. I, also, am putting in lower maximum amounts on my own bids because I am afraid of getting shilled. My Suggestion: I wish eBay would at least give an option to sellers to have all their auctions open or not- and then buyers who want an open community could gravitate to the openly displayed auctions and they would also know that when they bid on those items their IDs will be displayed like they used to be. Article Written By J. Foley John Foley Has A Great eBay Auction Site. Checkout Some Great eBay Deals & Information Here Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_J._Foley

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