I just have a few items that i would like to get rid of. Advice from any experts would be appreciated. 
Tips for selling stuff on ebay?
- Thread starter tbike06
- Start date
dartworth
Lifer
- Jul 29, 2001
- 15,200
- 10
- 81
Look before you list. The most effective way to get the most money is to know your market. Before you list your item, perform a quick, title-only search on eBay for items similar to yours. Then, click on Completed items (under the Display heading) and sort the results by price (highest-priced first). Keep in mind that any given item on eBay is worth only what others are willing to pay for it, so ignore any listings that never received bids. Scrutinize the most successful sales and see how the sellers have described and promoted their items in order to earn top dollar.
Price to sell. When you're ready to list, set your Buy-It-Now price in the neighborhood of what you expect your item is worth; raise it a little for particularly in-demand or scarce objects, or take a few dollars off if you want to move your merchandise fast. Set the starting price (the opening bid) much lower, though, anywhere from a single dollar to no more than half your item's value; this will encourage healthy bidding, thus raising the perceived value and the final price. If you've done your research, you won't have to worry about your item selling for too little.
Reserve judgment. If you're considering a reserve price for your listings?don't. The reserve price is a secret dollar amount below which you're under no obligation to sell, and it is useful only if you don't know the value of your item. Reserves tend to scare away bidders and accomplish nothing more than lowering the closing price unnecessarily. Even worse is the use of a Buy-It-Now price alongside a reserve price, as bidders easily confuse the two and give up any hope of getting a bargain.
Spelling counts. The success of any auction item relies almost entirely on the likelihood of its being found in searches and?to a lesser extent?eBay's category listings. eBay searches are seeded by the words you place in your auction titles, so include as many relevant keywords as possible without wasting space with unnecessary punctuation, nonsense such as "@@ Look! @@," or any other terms for which your customers won't be searching. Since eBay uses exact-match (as opposed to fuzzy) searches, the words in your titles must be spelled correctly in order to show up in search results. But if you have the space, be sure to include some intentional misspellings (Delorean, Delorian, or Delorion, for example) to accommodate your more spelling-challenged customers; just make sure the correct spelling is also there.
With only a scant 45 characters in which to work, there's rarely room to spare in an auction title. If you're inclined to highlight the condition, scarcity, or other special aspects of your item, do so in the subtitle. Although subtitles are indexed only in title-and-description searches (not the more common title-only searches), they do appear in all search results and category listings and are effective in getting extra attention. A subtitle costs 50 cents, so don't bother for any item worth less than about $25.
Dress for success. A little color and spice in your auction will not only make it more inviting and more professional-looking, it will help emphasize important details in the auction description. Among the most vital are the payment and shipping details, both of which are unfortunately buried far beneath the photos in eBay's new auction page design. The clearer, simpler, and easier to find your terms are, the less likely you are to be hassled by confused or disappointed customers or deadbeat bidders.
HTML: Make it look good. A rudimentary WYSIWYG description editor is part of eBay's Sell Your Item form (Internet Explorer only), but it offers little more than basic control over the font size and appearance. For the best-looking and most feature-rich descriptions (including such niceties as in-line images, tables, and even JavaScript), you'll want to turn to your favorite Web page editor; Adobe GoLive, Netscape Composer, or even Microsoft Word will do. The problem with these applications is that they generate complete, standalone pages, not insertable HTML code that can be pasted into a Web form. Fortunately, Creative Element Power Tools (free trial, $18 registration fee, www.creativelement.com/powertools) comes with an Extract HTML Page Content tool, which bridges this gap. Type and format your auction description in your Web page editor and save it as an HTML file. Then, right-click on the file, select Extract Page Content, and paste the formatted text into the description field of eBay's Sell Your Item form. Finally, click on Preview Your Description to double-check your work.
Easy payment plan. The easier you make payment for customers, the more likely they'll be to give you their business. The most popular payment method these days is PayPal, which lets members send money to anyone with an e-mail address. The only cost is assessed to sellers, on the order of about 3 percent of the amount a seller receives. But don't be put off; the extra bids you'll get with that PayPal logo in your auction will more than make up for the measly 3 percent fee.
Although PayPal goes to some lengths to safeguard its members, you'll want to take a few extra steps to protect yourself. As a seller, refuse any payments from buyers who don't provide confirmed addresses (meaning that PayPal has verified them through their credit card records). Otherwise, you'll be forced to forfeit any money later found to be from a stolen credit card. And as a buyer, always fund your payments with a credit card for an extra layer of protection from your credit card company's charge-dispute department.
Worth a thousand bids. Nothing sells your auction better than a good photo, and you can improve your auction photo? taking skills with a few simple tricks. Shoot your item at an angle to exaggerate its depth and to make it look like it's about to jump out of the screen. Light your item from two different sources (including your camera's flash) to reduce shadows and enhance detail. Finally, make sure it's in focus! Move farther away from your item to help your camera focus on the whole thing, and crop out excess background later.
Open communication. Everyone hates junk e-mail, but your attempts to curb it may be costing you more than you realize. Overly aggressive spam filters are probably the biggest cause of negative feedback on eBay, as sellers' payment instructions often don't get to their customers' in-boxes. And bidders frequently retract bids after receiving no replies to questions sent to sellers, usually because of spam filters on both ends. Start by disabling any spam-blocking services you (or your ISP) may be employing and replacing them with a more passive spam scanner. PC Magazine recommends Norton AntiSpam 2004 (www.symantec.com/antispam) or SpamCatcher (www.mailshell.com), which mark suspected spam so that your e-mail program can trash the messages?but only after you've had a chance to inspect them.
If you suspect that your e-mail isn't reaching its destination, there are a number of back doors you can use. First, use eBay's Contact Member form whenever possible, as e-mail originating directly from eBay's servers is less likely to be trapped by an errant junk filter. If that doesn't work, send your message from an alternate account just in case your return address is what's causing the problem. If you're a seller, put a note in your auction and payment instructions that tells customers to disable their spam filters if they don't get e-mail from you. Finally, try to answer your bidders' questions right in the auction description to educate?as well as reassure?all your potential customers.
Tools to use. Creating new eBay listings can be cumbersome and time-consuming, especially if you're listing a dozen or more items at once. Automated listing software lets you create templates into which you can insert item-specific information. You can save the listings on your hard drive, which makes selling similar items or relisting the same item easy.
You can also use listing tools to schedule your listings without additional fees (a service for which eBay otherwise charges a dime per listing). You can also take your time to compose your listings at 1:00 A.M. and then upload them to eBay the next day at work. Auctions that begin and end during the daytime (by your customers' clocks) fetch higher prices than those that close while your customers are asleep.
eBay's own very capable Turbo Lister application for Windows is available for free from http://pages.ebay.com/turbo_lister (although normal listing fees still apply). Another worthy and free tool is Auction Submit (www.auctionsubmit.com), which adds post-auction record keeping, such as the final price and high bidder of each successful auction. Both tools help you list more items in less time and fund your own binge shopping at the world's largest flea market.
Price to sell. When you're ready to list, set your Buy-It-Now price in the neighborhood of what you expect your item is worth; raise it a little for particularly in-demand or scarce objects, or take a few dollars off if you want to move your merchandise fast. Set the starting price (the opening bid) much lower, though, anywhere from a single dollar to no more than half your item's value; this will encourage healthy bidding, thus raising the perceived value and the final price. If you've done your research, you won't have to worry about your item selling for too little.
Reserve judgment. If you're considering a reserve price for your listings?don't. The reserve price is a secret dollar amount below which you're under no obligation to sell, and it is useful only if you don't know the value of your item. Reserves tend to scare away bidders and accomplish nothing more than lowering the closing price unnecessarily. Even worse is the use of a Buy-It-Now price alongside a reserve price, as bidders easily confuse the two and give up any hope of getting a bargain.
Spelling counts. The success of any auction item relies almost entirely on the likelihood of its being found in searches and?to a lesser extent?eBay's category listings. eBay searches are seeded by the words you place in your auction titles, so include as many relevant keywords as possible without wasting space with unnecessary punctuation, nonsense such as "@@ Look! @@," or any other terms for which your customers won't be searching. Since eBay uses exact-match (as opposed to fuzzy) searches, the words in your titles must be spelled correctly in order to show up in search results. But if you have the space, be sure to include some intentional misspellings (Delorean, Delorian, or Delorion, for example) to accommodate your more spelling-challenged customers; just make sure the correct spelling is also there.
With only a scant 45 characters in which to work, there's rarely room to spare in an auction title. If you're inclined to highlight the condition, scarcity, or other special aspects of your item, do so in the subtitle. Although subtitles are indexed only in title-and-description searches (not the more common title-only searches), they do appear in all search results and category listings and are effective in getting extra attention. A subtitle costs 50 cents, so don't bother for any item worth less than about $25.
Dress for success. A little color and spice in your auction will not only make it more inviting and more professional-looking, it will help emphasize important details in the auction description. Among the most vital are the payment and shipping details, both of which are unfortunately buried far beneath the photos in eBay's new auction page design. The clearer, simpler, and easier to find your terms are, the less likely you are to be hassled by confused or disappointed customers or deadbeat bidders.
HTML: Make it look good. A rudimentary WYSIWYG description editor is part of eBay's Sell Your Item form (Internet Explorer only), but it offers little more than basic control over the font size and appearance. For the best-looking and most feature-rich descriptions (including such niceties as in-line images, tables, and even JavaScript), you'll want to turn to your favorite Web page editor; Adobe GoLive, Netscape Composer, or even Microsoft Word will do. The problem with these applications is that they generate complete, standalone pages, not insertable HTML code that can be pasted into a Web form. Fortunately, Creative Element Power Tools (free trial, $18 registration fee, www.creativelement.com/powertools) comes with an Extract HTML Page Content tool, which bridges this gap. Type and format your auction description in your Web page editor and save it as an HTML file. Then, right-click on the file, select Extract Page Content, and paste the formatted text into the description field of eBay's Sell Your Item form. Finally, click on Preview Your Description to double-check your work.
Easy payment plan. The easier you make payment for customers, the more likely they'll be to give you their business. The most popular payment method these days is PayPal, which lets members send money to anyone with an e-mail address. The only cost is assessed to sellers, on the order of about 3 percent of the amount a seller receives. But don't be put off; the extra bids you'll get with that PayPal logo in your auction will more than make up for the measly 3 percent fee.
Although PayPal goes to some lengths to safeguard its members, you'll want to take a few extra steps to protect yourself. As a seller, refuse any payments from buyers who don't provide confirmed addresses (meaning that PayPal has verified them through their credit card records). Otherwise, you'll be forced to forfeit any money later found to be from a stolen credit card. And as a buyer, always fund your payments with a credit card for an extra layer of protection from your credit card company's charge-dispute department.
Worth a thousand bids. Nothing sells your auction better than a good photo, and you can improve your auction photo? taking skills with a few simple tricks. Shoot your item at an angle to exaggerate its depth and to make it look like it's about to jump out of the screen. Light your item from two different sources (including your camera's flash) to reduce shadows and enhance detail. Finally, make sure it's in focus! Move farther away from your item to help your camera focus on the whole thing, and crop out excess background later.
Open communication. Everyone hates junk e-mail, but your attempts to curb it may be costing you more than you realize. Overly aggressive spam filters are probably the biggest cause of negative feedback on eBay, as sellers' payment instructions often don't get to their customers' in-boxes. And bidders frequently retract bids after receiving no replies to questions sent to sellers, usually because of spam filters on both ends. Start by disabling any spam-blocking services you (or your ISP) may be employing and replacing them with a more passive spam scanner. PC Magazine recommends Norton AntiSpam 2004 (www.symantec.com/antispam) or SpamCatcher (www.mailshell.com), which mark suspected spam so that your e-mail program can trash the messages?but only after you've had a chance to inspect them.
If you suspect that your e-mail isn't reaching its destination, there are a number of back doors you can use. First, use eBay's Contact Member form whenever possible, as e-mail originating directly from eBay's servers is less likely to be trapped by an errant junk filter. If that doesn't work, send your message from an alternate account just in case your return address is what's causing the problem. If you're a seller, put a note in your auction and payment instructions that tells customers to disable their spam filters if they don't get e-mail from you. Finally, try to answer your bidders' questions right in the auction description to educate?as well as reassure?all your potential customers.
Tools to use. Creating new eBay listings can be cumbersome and time-consuming, especially if you're listing a dozen or more items at once. Automated listing software lets you create templates into which you can insert item-specific information. You can save the listings on your hard drive, which makes selling similar items or relisting the same item easy.
You can also use listing tools to schedule your listings without additional fees (a service for which eBay otherwise charges a dime per listing). You can also take your time to compose your listings at 1:00 A.M. and then upload them to eBay the next day at work. Auctions that begin and end during the daytime (by your customers' clocks) fetch higher prices than those that close while your customers are asleep.
eBay's own very capable Turbo Lister application for Windows is available for free from http://pages.ebay.com/turbo_lister (although normal listing fees still apply). Another worthy and free tool is Auction Submit (www.auctionsubmit.com), which adds post-auction record keeping, such as the final price and high bidder of each successful auction. Both tools help you list more items in less time and fund your own binge shopping at the world's largest flea market.
Do a buy it now auction or set a reserve.
I've been burned on selling things for a lot less that I finally just threw in the towel on the old fasion auctions and switched to buy it now options.
You can accept offers or decline them as well.
I've been burned on selling things for a lot less that I finally just threw in the towel on the old fasion auctions and switched to buy it now options.
You can accept offers or decline them as well.
Appledrop
Platinum Member
- Aug 25, 2004
- 2,340
- 0
- 0
disagreed. people want to feel like they are getting a bargain on ebay, which won't be what the seller is wanting to sell it at... It/'s better to do an auction with no reserve, and a over the top buy it now price to inflate the value so bidding approaches it imo. If you dont want to sell it at the price it is at, bid it up on another account just before the end of auction if you must.
Originally posted by: KK
So your friends can't buy any of your items that you have listed on ebay?
Not if you asked a friend to bid on your item.
Originally posted by: KK
Originally posted by: leon94
Originally posted by: KK
So your friends can't buy any of your items that you have listed on ebay?
Not if you asked a friend to bid on your item.
What about if you asked a stranger?
Still no.
Thats shill bidding and you can go to jail for it. 10 years or more.
Slew Foot
Lifer
- Sep 22, 2005
- 12,379
- 96
- 86
Agree with Dartworths excellent post above and it should be made mandatory for any aspiring ebayers.
A couple things I dont fully agree with though. I tend to get higher prices on M-Th evenings around 6-8 pm PST, fridays are hit and miss, saturdays are dead, and Sundays for some reason dont work for me.
Dont make your auction page too splashy. A lot of people stick 100 animated gifs and random images in their ads, they just distract the buyer and make it hard to find info. Your description should be short and succint, and a lot of good pictures will make up for that. Good luck!
A couple things I dont fully agree with though. I tend to get higher prices on M-Th evenings around 6-8 pm PST, fridays are hit and miss, saturdays are dead, and Sundays for some reason dont work for me.
Dont make your auction page too splashy. A lot of people stick 100 animated gifs and random images in their ads, they just distract the buyer and make it hard to find info. Your description should be short and succint, and a lot of good pictures will make up for that. Good luck!
Kelemvor
Lifer
- May 23, 2002
- 16,928
- 8
- 81
Best thing is to have the auction look nice. Don't just type some text in a big paragraph and expet people to flock to your auction. You can even use a free service like Auctiva (http://www.auctiva.com) which has templates and things for you to use to make it look nicer.
Other than that, set it so the end time isn't in the middle of the night or during the day when people are at work. I always end mine around 8:30 CST which is 9:30 east cost and 6:30 west coast. that way most people are home from work by then. Can also end it on a weekend.
Other than that, set it so the end time isn't in the middle of the night or during the day when people are at work. I always end mine around 8:30 CST which is 9:30 east cost and 6:30 west coast. that way most people are home from work by then. Can also end it on a weekend.
Well, what's more terrible is when something sells for a LOT LESS than you hoped for it to sell. I've done a lot of selling currently and people use the BIN feature or offer and if it's a reasonable offer I let the item go.
I'm sorry but with bidding you never get what you want for it.
It depends. Most of my auctions ended up in the range of what I expected. A few of them went higher, a few lower.
Originally posted by: leon94
Originally posted by: KK
Originally posted by: leon94
Originally posted by: KK
So your friends can't buy any of your items that you have listed on ebay?
Not if you asked a friend to bid on your item.
What about if you asked a stranger?
Still no.
Thats shill bidding and you can go to jail for it. 10 years or more.
LMAO... Ya... you get put on the do not fly registry and might get shipped to cuba too.. You terrorist you.
FelixDeCat
Lifer
- Aug 4, 2000
- 31,057
- 2,692
- 126
:roll:
If you must have both, for a few cents more you can have a bid amount less than your BIN price if you must have one. You dont even need a reserve, as you you can set it close to your BIN. If your BIN price is fair and competitive people will pay a few more bucks for convenience.
It's not illegal, but it's against the T&C of Ebay. It's called shill bidding and will get your account suspended. You might have done it for years without getting caught, but keep doing that and eventually Ebay will get to you. Every single one I know who has done that has been suspended
And how exactly does ebay know this? Do they message everyone who places a bid and asks them if it was a shill bid???
Magic. A friend of mine got caught doing this like four years ago,, when I'm sure they had worse technology to catch them than they do now. He was having his freind bid on an item or two at seperate times, from different locations. Ebay knows
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