How to sell on ebay, a guide for beginners

I want to share all the selling secrets that I've picked up as an ebay user for over 10 years, including the tips that ebay don't tell you and all of the tricks of the trade

this page is constantly being worked on so pop back again later for more advice!

Don't have time to read all of my easy money making advice today? there is so much information here that it's run on to 2 pages so take a look at the bullet points and links at the bottom of the page and come back later with a cup of coffee to read in more detail....

Then you can click here to read part two

Some of the tips I pass on may seem blindingly obvious, but if that's the case why is it that on any day you can see dozens or possibly hundreds of listings on ebay all with the same silly mistakes? what may be obvious to one person is a mystery to someone else.

My first tip to being a successful seller on ebay is to start by being a buyer

Until you've seen how eBay works from a buyers point of view you can't be a successful seller - sure, you can be a seller, anyone can sell a brand new pair of shoes for 99p but that doesn't mean that the sale was a success, unless you are the lucky buyer, then the sale was a great success!

So start by taking a look at my how to buy on ebay page and spend a little time and money on a making a few purchases and absorb what you'll discover about how ebay buying works, then move on to doing some fun eBay selling. When you are buying you'll be learning by example (both the good examples and the bad ones) and you'll be building up feedback from the things you've bought so that when you list the first item for sale you won't be starting with a big fat zero by your name. A zero feedback seller is a bit off-putting unless they are selling something really inexpensive. The buyers will have more confidence in you if they can see that you've been around for a while and have some experience under your belt.

I'm assuming that you are planning on selling your own and family possessions, if you are buying or making things to sell then you've already crossed the line into being a business seller which brings it's own unique blend of joys and frustrations, more about that on my starting an ebay business page.

So you've had a major attic clear out? wardrobe re-organisation? garage blitz? you need to look at your cast-offs from a detached point of view. This is hard because these are items that you loved when you bought them so you see them through rose-coloured glasses but do your best to look at them as another person would and cull the things that aren't suitable to sell on ebay.

Be ruthlessly honest about the condition of the stuff and ask yourself if anyone will give you their hard earned money for your things, particularly as the postage costs will be factored into the sale too. If you decide that they aren't suitable for eBay then maybe a car boot sale is a better prospect as any flaws can be seen and assessed by the buyer and there are no delivery costs to consider.

Now it's time to do some research on ebay to see if this kind of item is selling and for how much. Search ebay as if you were buying the item and look at the similar items and see how they are described and what their prices are. Then look in the left menu for Completed Items, these are the ones that have either sold or not sold recently, you can get a better idea if yours will sell, and it's expected price this way.

Take a closer look at the listings to see if you can work out why some of them sold and others didn't. I expect that you'll be able to spot the reasons why. The ones that didn't sell probably had very 'limiting' aspects like 'collection only', blurred photos or a weak description.

Photographing your items

When you've got the stuff ready to sell the next thing is to photograph the items. It's hard for me to give specific tips on photographing for ebay as the item you are going to photograph could be as small as a ring or as big as a caravan so forgive me if I generalise a bit.

When I asked you to act as an ebay buyer first before selling I was hoping that you'd see a mixed bag of photos and you'll be able to see what works and what doesn't, you can then emulate the style that caught your eye. The listings that you were drawn to will have had a gallery shot that was good, strong and clear with no other distractions in the image. This will have enticed you into looking at the listing page, it may even have persuaded you to read the description and buy the item. That gallery photo won you over - it's as simple as that.

So now you'll have seen that the best photos are taken with the minimum of other stuff in the background so depending on what you're selling you have to just do the best you can with this. Try to use natural daylight where you can as flash causes nasty flares which bleach out part of the image and make shadows that distract the eye. I've always found that the morning is the best time to take flashless photos.

Get the angles right. Let's say that you are photographing a chest of drawers, the shot will be much better if you kneel down and take the photos looking at the chest 'at eye level' rather than standing up as the top edge will end up looking bigger as the lower part of the chest tails away. Try it and see.

If you've got a tripod then use it but if you don't have one just do your best by bracing your arms against your chest to hold the camera steady.

When you are sure that you've got a killer gallery shot then carry on taking dozens more photos, it won't cost you any more to take them and at the end of the session you'll have lots to choose from. Take photos from all sides of the item. Remember what you looked at when you bought the item, you'll have opened it up, turned it around, looked at it's underside, peered at it's inside etc... your buyer can't do any of this so you have to do it for them in the photos.

When you write up the listing include as many photos as you think are needed to make the buyer feel as if they've held the item in their hand, OK, not the caravan, but you get the point - you can't have too many photos, particularly if there is a flaw, you'll write about it in the description so a photograph of what you're describing is essential. These photographs aren't going to cost you any extra for the eBay listing if you host them on a hosting site such as Photobucket or if you use an Auctiva template for the listing; there is more on this later.

When you've have all the photos put them through the photo editing set-up that came with your camera and tweak them if needed. With some shots you may want to adjust the brightness or colours etc but be careful that you don't end up with an image that isn't true to the actual item.

I have written a couple of eBay guides to taking eBay photos, the links are at the bottom of the page. There is also a link to a fantastic site written by 'camerajim' who is a renowned and prolific adviser on the eBay USA community. His site describes in clear detail how to photograph the majority of items that you'll ever list on eBay.

Get ready to list the item

The next thing to do is work out how you are going to parcel up your item and get the materials you need before you list it so that you can weigh the item with it's packaging so you don't either under or overestimate how much it weighs and get the postage costs wrong.

I recycle (or is it scavenge?) most of my packing boxes from supermarkets or shops but you may need to buy more materials such as mailing bags, bubblewrap and tape, look on ebay, you'll find them all there... I wrote an ebay guide to packing breakables, you'll find that link at the bottom of the page too.

This guide continues in part two click here to go directly,

In a nutshell

Spend time buying a few items first, scrutinise the listings and work out what you liked (or didn't like) about the listings, use these observations when you write your own listings
Build your feedback up by buying some items to give buyers confidence when you start selling
Only sell items that you'd be happy to buy, don't waste your time and money on stuff that is too shabby to sell
Research eBay to see if similar items to yours are selling and what price they sold for, look and learn from other sellers listings
Take your time with the photos, even the nicest item can look like rubbish with a poor photo - take plenty and use plenty
Make full use of Keywords and Item Specifics, I can't stress this enough! no 'one word' titles please....
Describe your item well, don't miss out any details that the buyer will want to know, some buyers don't bother to ask questions so they move on to someone else's listing if they don't see what are looking for
Make sure that you take care to post the item with the safeguards you need to cover it's value if it gets lost