Ebay Basics, How I Learn New Things All the TIME!

OK, you've heard there's millions of people buying stuff on Ebay. You have stuff you want to sell. So you set up an Ebay account. Now what?

Well, the next thing is a Paypal account. It is the best way to accept payments, easy to register, and provides protection to the buyer and the seller.

Once you've accomplished these two steps, now the work begins.

- make sure whatever you're selling is in sellable condition, clean, ready to ship and in secure packaging

- take a picture, preferably digital, at least one, more are better (the pic here is a fairy I have in my Ebay store, 1 of 2 in the listing)

- once you have the picture you like, reduce the size or pixels, so it's easier to upload

- write a detailed description of your item, noting size, color, weight, materials, etc.

Now, you know what you're selling. Next, you need to know how to find people who are buying what you're selling. You need to find a category. There are a few ways to do this.

Ebay asks you what you're selling when you start the SELL page. It will automatically search out a selection of categories that might work for your item. I suggest you do a search for your item, see if there's anyone else selling the same item or something similar. Take note of the following:

- what's the price

- how many VIEWS or hits does the item have

- are there bids on the item

- what are the shipping options

- check the category where you found the similar item

- if no similar item is found in your search, try again with a manufacturer name or another characteristic of the item

- if you still get no similar items, take Ebay's advice on this one

When you first start shopping with Ebay, you notice that there are some very successful sellers, the sellers that have a high volume of items for sale & who SELL a high volume of items. Most of these sellers provide a collection of products in a small niche, a specific topic or theme, like action movies on DVD or Pokemon cards or vintage Mustang car parts. This way, when a someone finds you, you have the product that they were looking for but lots of other RELATED items to sell as well. This way someone who might just buy one item now has the option to buy several items.

This is when you should also consider you're shipping policies. I use a reliable formula that can be included in your listing preferences. Once you set it up in your listings, you can choose to use it over & over again, or change it as is needed for different types of items.

If you're doing international sales, shipping preferences are a little trickier. I've found it best to require people to request a shipping quote first, then pay by invoice, so you as the seller have a chance to get an actual cost for shipping to the specific customer address.