Make
& Save
Money With
Ebay
I’ve
been a member of Ebay since about 2001 and have bought and sold around about
150 items. Most of my sales have been items from local (real) auctions or
car-boot sales and made a profit on and what I’ve bought I’ve saved a lot of money from high street
or other internet retailers. E-bay is not only fun, but addictive. On this page I hope to offer some advice, both to buyers and sellers, so that
they can have a trouble-free and possibly financially rewarding experience on one
of the worlds largest-ever cyber marketplaces. This isn't an article about how
to submit an item to sell on e-bay, but an article
on what I've found works for me. There is plenty
of good instruction about how to put your item up
for sale, register, bid etc. on ebay itself.
Selling
When you list an item on
ebay, you can either list it of 7 days or 10 days. Personally I have found the
7-day listing more effective as I believe this is more than enough time to
generate interest and for those who are watching and waiting to bid at the last
minute, if the item has been there a long time and has no other bidders, it can promote a negative effect. In
my mind, there is no fun on bidding for an item that nobody else seems to be
bothering with.
Timing
What
I have found more profitable is to time my auctions so that it ends on a
weekend, as more people have time to be on their computers then. But if this
is not possible try to get it so that it ends around
mid evening - around 8 o'clock. My theory on this
is that many last-minute bidders will be looking at items
before settling down in front of the T.V. for the
evening. You can choose a specific time on the Ebay
site to end your auction, but this costs extra and
will come out of any profit you are making. But
if you put it up at say 8pm, it will end 7 days
later at the same time.
Photos Enhance Sales
Many buyers
bid for items if they can get an idea of what they are
buying from a clear photo. This is where the old
adage "a picture paints a thousand words"
can really pay off. Many time when I've got to bid
for something, if there's no picture of what I am
interested in, I navigate away from the page to
one that has one. Many bidders think like this too,
so it is always better to include one picture. At
the time of writing [Ebay doesn't charge for the
first photo which can be up to 2 MB in size, but
does make a small charge for extra ones. This is
where you would need to decide for yourself whether
the item you are offering is worth paying the extra
to promote it with extra photos or not.
Listing
Choosing the correct category for your listing is very important and sometimes
listing in 2 categories can be useful but only if the item you are selling is of
a high enough
price to warrant extra charges. A good
title to your auction is also important as this can attract buyers. If you can
try and think what somebody would enter in the search facility, because I have
discovered that many buyers use this rather than wade through page after page
of similar items. If possible, within
the word limit, try and get a full explanation of what it is you are selling
together with any unique features it may have.
Speaking from a personal
point of view, if there’s one thing that annoys me is when somebody tries to
“jazz up” their auction page with animated titles and other “bells and
whistles”. I just go for a factual text description and a simple picture of an item, and from my
experience other ebay users seem to feel the same way.
Bidders also like to know
what the cost of posting and packing is going to be before bidding on an
auction and I have found that it is always best to put an honest assessment of
your shipping costs into the auction. I use my wife’s kitchen scales to weigh
the item and charge according to the post-office charges adding a little extra
for the packaging. If I have made a mistake on the odd occasion and under-charged, I have always stuck with my
original agreement as asking for more can cause mistrust and a possible negative
feedback. Your feedback is a valuable asset when selling and buying as it
promotes trust amongst other users. At the time of writing I pride myself on
having 100% positive feedback. Obviously we cannot please all of the people all
of the time, but we can have a damned good try at it!.
Starting
Price
There is no doubt about it that starting
an auction price low at 99p (cents in USA) for an
expesive item is the way to create interest. Again,
it is advisable to put this in you title if possible.
(For example: Digital Video Camera starts 99p -
would easily start a "bidding war" - just
what a seller needs!) But this is something that
you would have to work out for youself. Having to
sell and expensive item for a winning bid of 99p
because there are no other bidders would not be
good, but there is always the option of putting
a reserve price that you would not be prepared to
sull under.
Getting Paid After the Auction]
To make trading easier use Paypal
This is an online bank, that is
free to sign up to that makes it far easier to send and receive money. To receive
money, there is a small charge of around 3% or 4% [at the time of writing] but
many sellers pass this on to bidders, although this is something I have never
done. Without a doubt Paypal definitely
attracts more bidders for your item because of the simplicity and security in paying, for the
winner of the auction. On the Paypal
site there are many “tools” to add to your auction page (or any webpage you
may own for that matter). But as this article is about Ebay and
Paypal is
now owned by them, logos can be automatically loaded in your item
description page. My personal opinion on this is... Where are you going to get
a credit merchant account withouth forking out a
lot of money? It is Low cost. No start-up or monthly fees, no cancellation fees and no minimum
payments Lower
transaction fees than other merchant accounts, Quick setup so that you are up
and running in minutes. No extra software or
hardware needed. It's secure. In fac an industry leader in fraud prevention and risk management,
Paypal
claims to have 60%-70% lower fraud loss rates than other merchant accounts
and now most on-line auction buyers now has an account
and there is over 58,000 users worldwide that sign up each day.
So, because of Paypal,
you can invite bidders worldwide - a massive potential
"audience" for your goods.
After the Sale:
There
are a few [personal] rules that I follow here...
Always
be prompt in sending off your items.
If you
need to wait for a cheque to clear, always e-mail
your winner bidder telling him what's going on and
when he can expect his item. Quite often I have
sent items on trust before cheque clearance. Some
may think I am taking a chance, but it has produced
good will that has showed up in my feedback. In
business, people have to pay for publicity and praising
feedback is worth a lot!
Pack the item well,
with name and address written clearly of both
recipient and sender. If possible use recorded delivery.
It's well worth the little extra one has to pay.
Buying
Used
correctly, buying from ebay can save a fortune in
comarison to buying from the high street or sometimes
even on-line stores, but not always. I have been
looking for a popular DVD and gone on to ebay only
to find out that there is a "bidding war"
going on - the bidding is going beyond what
it can be purchased for on Amazon !
However, bidding wars aside, I have got some incredible
bargains from ebay such as computers under £100,
CDs & DVDs for 50pence each and lots more. However,
during the "thrill of the chase" when
bidding for something, the fact that you are paying
over the odds for an item can cloud your judgement,
so I tend to decide how much I am willing to pay
for an item I am interested in and enter the full
amount straight away on ebay. Then, when others start to bid, your bid will
go up slowly in increments everytime somebody tries
to outbid you. If somebody bids more, then
you will lose the item, but seeing that you have
decided that is all you are prepared to pay for
the item, you can just let it go. Another similar
item will nearly always come along.
Before
bidding, it is always best to check on what type
of payment the seller expects. Sometimes, he/she
will only accept a cheque, sometimes only Paypal
and
sometimes either. However, you will need to look
out for charges if using paypal as sometimes the seller may
pass his costs onto the seller. Whatever... I strongly
advise any new buyer or seller to sign up with Paypal
- it's free, more secure and convenient.
After
Winning the Auction
Once I get that e-mail
that says I've won an item on Auction, I tend to
pay as swiftly as possible. Before I had a paypal
account, I used to have a cheque in the post to
the seller the same day and just out of politeness,
I would e-mail the seller, thanking him/her for
the auction and telling him/her that payment was
on it's way. Then, when the cheque arrives with the seller,
he/she
invariably informs me by e-mail of receipt and when
I can expect my item.
All
in all, E-bay can be great fun and profitable. I
hope this article has been of some use.
Thanks
for reading.
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