EBAY tips & hints

Treat EVERY transaction as you would want someone to do for you! Trust me.. Ive been doing ebay for 4 years & Im a power seller now... just treat every transaction & every person as good as possible, anwser all questions & mail items as fast you possibly can! I send along small free gifts also! Its about building relationships & getting people to want to come back & shop with you again!

Thanks Brandy! Are you actually running a small business through Ebay? I've heard some people do that.

I'll be checking back for tips I'm thinking about starting to work with Ebay.

I've been thinking about selling stuff as well on there. Looking forward to reading some tips as well!

Darn- I was hoping you were giving out hints and tips. I'm probably more clueless than you. ~Sorry~ `

I have tried it with limited sucess. I don't have any good tips though.

=) Don't know anything about this sorry.. Gave you a ten anyway...

We have been on Ebay for awhile too, but just recently sold a few items.

I don't have much advice, but I do want to say, ALWAYS give feedback for others. If you are a seller and they give quick payment, give them great feedback, saying that, adn Thanking them.
Also make sure to get the item mailed quickly. Also, when you buy something, always leave feedback when you recieve the item.

It kinda makes me mad when someone doesn't leave feedback, we just sold 5-6things, and not one has left feedback yet for their items when they recieved them, and I know that they had to have recieved them. We shipped them all priority (I think) and we were told they should arrive in 2-3days.
Of course we left them feedback immediatly upon recieving payment.

Also, when selling something, if it is a great seller, the more popular the type of item is, the more people start selling that item.

We were selling Christmas sweaters, because we had needed a couple ourselves for a Christmas party and had looked on Ebay first, well they were going for a lot, so then we went around to all the local thrift stores, and found several and put them on.
At the time we started there were less than 100 on there at any time.
Now if you go search Ugly Christmas sweater, there are about 1000, so they are all going for less. ALso, certain ones, like ones with reindeer, or moose were going for more, so look for something specific, and of the items, see what specifically is more popular.

Also, a lot of it is presentation of the item.
The way your photo looks, the description of the item...
YOu need to try and make the title catching, and have a great photo for people to look at. Because they probably won't even click on the item, if the photo on the listing doesn't look appealing..

Thank you for the great info. Amanda!!!

The thing I 've learned about buying on EBay, is to bid at the last minute. When people bid ahead of time it drives up the price. So if you wait until the last few minutes to bid, you're likely to get the best price.... though when you wait this long you can get out bid if someone else is doing the same. I've had pretty good success with that technique though.

I buy a lot from ebay,sometimes the S&H is so outrageous,
I can't afford to buy the item.

I have been on and off ebay, did Yahoo auctions until they quit, done Bidville, am back on ebay...
The most important thing I can think of right now is the shipping/handling question. You may need to research this and try different things. It is soooo time consuming/confusing to put different shipping/handling amounts. Try to figure out a flat rate that is not only fair to you but also the customer. And offer discounts for multiple items. I get a bit of complaining from my 1 item customers, but if they would shop more and maybe find something else, or two of, it wouldn't be so bad. I sell beads, vintage beads, handcrafted and vintage jewelry. Most packages are quite small. I charge a flat rate of $4.50 - which is high if someone buys one .69 item. But a great deal for someone who buys 10, .99 cent items.
And don't forget to include your handling items... packaging, (bubble wrap, envelopes, boxes, sealing tape, labels, etc. etc. etc. (and these days gas to the post office)).
I too, include a little 'freebie' in each package.
Feedback is VERY important. As is READING the feedback. I recently got positive feedback from a customer, but she wasn't really happy with the product. It was a two tone bead and she didn't get a good color selection - I sent her a free package of a few more of each bead with better color. Guess what???? She has came back and ordered again. And it really didn't cost me anything to please her - just the extra count beads after bagging a strand. Sometimes its those little things that really count.
Most of all, NEVER, EVER, do anything to a customer that you wouldn't want done to you. If you've made a mistake, own up to it, fix it the best you can (send replacement, right item, refund for item, whatever you have to do), and move on. People are really getting into honesty these days. My motto is "if my customer ain't happy, I ain't happy." And it seems to work for me.
In 60 days my feedback has went from 0 to 64 and my sales have been $475. I don't think that is too shabby for beads!!!!
Don't outprice yourself. Do research. See what others are selling for and be competitive. I sell my handcrafted peyote stitch bracelets for from $1.99 - 3.99 and sell a ton of them. My best friend lists hers at $5 and up. Guess who sells more????
Presentation is important too. Look at other people's pages selling similar items. Jazz up your description. Use the font tools that are there. Use the insertions. Put in a smiley face, a clown, an icon that represents you or your item.
But keep it simple... I have sent customers to my friends site for things I don't carry. They come back and are not ecstatic about her site, hard to navigate, too much reading, etc.
If you want to see, let me know and I will share the two sites with you so you can compare and see a bit of what I'm talking about.
ebay is a constant learning place.
If I've missed something, or there is more you want to know, just email me and I will see what I can do.
Above all - keep it fun!!! It IS a job!!! I do it 7 days a week, 8 hours a day. Listing, relisting, revamping, researching, etc. But I keep it fun, when I'm not having fun, I know its time for a break (like cleaning house, or doing dishes or laundry, or some of that other FUN stuff!!!!)

Thanks for the tip Jesse! Did you have a bad experience with this?

Sharon~ Thank you so much for the great response! Happy selling!

thanks for sharing

I use to do the yahoo auctions too and I've been on ebay for almost 8 years now. It's changed quite a bit and shipping prices are outrageous. When I sell, I try to keep the shipping reasonable...Good luck :)

I was also thinking about selling things on EBAY. Thanks for posting.

The shipping part is difficult as a seller... I try to go and get an estimate before I list it, but its hard to be exact because the price changes depending on where you are sending the item. I actually lost 3 bucks on my last transaction because I didn't charge enough for shipping.

Hi Cami :) I have used ebay for about 5 or so years now. I notice that the fall and winter are the best selling times. And if you are buying, the summer is better to get lower prices. A supply and demand thing I would imagine, less people spend time online shopping in the summer. I am not a power seller, I sell things we don't need or things we are up grading. Definitely do your research before you list an item, to see if similar items are selling (you can do this by a general search, and then click on "completed items" this will actually show you SOLD prices. I found that to be very helpful. No sense listing something that won't sell... then you lose money with the listing fees, etc.
Hope this helps some.

Happy Holidays!

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Alie~ Thank you for the info! It hadn't even crossed my mind about the seaonal thing, but it totally makes sense. Have a great night!

just coming back to add, that there is this site called Bidnip, for when you are bidding on items on ebay.
You go put in a bidnip, and set it to go at between 10-30seconds from auctions end. That way you can put in your max bid early on, and it will not show up as a bid till the last minute. If you don't win the auction you get your bidnip back.
You get 5 free to start out, and they you pay for the rest, but you also get 5 free ones for referring people.
We have used this, and won a few auctions, and I don't know if we would have otherwise won them.
If you want to use me as a referral send me a message, and I will give you my email address to put in as the referral, but you don't have too unless you want, but I do recommend signing up for bidnip!

as for buying, i always just watch the items i want, then on the day they end, i see how much they have bid up, if the price is ok, i wait until the last 10 seconds run, then i bid ( the most i would pay for the item) and mostly i get the deal... sniper is what they call it. i snatched a pair of brandnew Levis for 1.23$ + 4.95 shipping the other day.... also if an item has a low "buy now" price i buy it via www.bing.com and get 8% cash back in my paypal account. as for selling, just try to describe the item as good as you can, i also , if i sell something expensive, i put the reason why i am selling it in my listing. the other day i sold husbands Zune, he had bought it in august, then after 2 weeks it stopped working, so we send it back and they send us a brandnew one... i put this in my listing and boom 1 hour later it was sold for 190$