So you have decided to explore the possibility of earning a few extra bucks on eBay selling items from around the house. When determining which items are worth listing on eBay it is important to keep a few thoughts in mind that are frequently over looked. Consider the item you are trying to sell and the type of listing you want to use. Different listings involve different fees. How will you ship the item?
Many items seem to sell well for what seems like a reasonable price, but when you deduct eBay, PayPal, and Shipping fees, you may not net enough to make it worth your time. Keeping all of this in mind, a good general rule of thumb is to start a pile of items you think may interest other eBay users enough to make a profit.
Once your pile has been gathered sit down at your computer and start looking for same or similar items to try to estimate what yours may sell for. One good tip for carrying out this task is to use the "Advanced Search" button to the right of the standard search button. Using the advanced search will direct you to a page that will allow you to narrow your search by several parameters. In this case we want to select the check box next to "show completed listings" then enter our search term and hit enter.
Using this method, you will be able to discover items that are the same or similar to the item you are thinking about listing that have sold recently on eBay. Check the description of the item you wish to sell against the description of the item that has already sold. Make sure to pay more attention to the previously sold eBay listings that are most like the item you wish to sell. An example of this would be a cell phone that you no longer use. When searching for that model under completed listings, make sure that the sold phone you are looking at is with the meant for the same carrier, in basically the same condition, comes with mostly the same accessories, etc. A special note about this: in many cases a small piece of original packaging can make a large difference in the sale price.
Once you have researched items similar to yours, try to estimate what yours will sell for. In the earlier example of the cell phone, let's say that you conservatively estimate that your item will sell on eBay for around $50 with free shipping. Depending on the location of the buyer, the size of the packaging, and the accessories, manuals, etc. that you are including, you should expect to pay between 5-$10 for shipping, around $0.30 to list your item, $5 eBay final value fee, and about $1.50 PayPal funds handling fee plus packaging materials. Let's say about 12-$17 for this example. Your net profit is 33-$38. Not bad really. The phone is just sitting around, you don't use it any more, and where else are you going to find someone who wants to buy your cell phone besides eBay? So you decide to sell the phone and go to the next item in the pile. You continue to do this until you have determined which items will sell, and which items you don't think will be worth your time listing on eBay.
Before you start to list items on eBay, a few more important thoughts you should keep in mind, what format will you use to sell? Buy it Now, or Auction? How many days will you run your listing for? If you list your item as an auction, what will your starting price be? My personal preferred eBay Auction listing method is to list a 7 day auction on Monday evenings with a $0.99 starting bid, and no reserve. This can be a risky method for those less experienced with eBay though as minor flaws in your listing could cause your $50 phone to sell for 99 cents. Once you have listed your items on eBay, it would be a good idea to try to promote them.
Novice eBay sellers and experts alike are capable of making small mistakes such as spelling errors, or mis-categorizing and item. Making these mistakes will cause your item to receive far less traffic that it would otherwise because most buyers use narrow search terms to find what they are looking for. If the cell phone referenced above was a Nokia ba-1581 and you entered "nokia ba-1851", you could expect to see about 70% less traffic, and therefore usually a lower final selling price. To ensure high traffic and maximum selling price, most power sellers and other eBay Pros will utilize outside promotion services to promote their eBay listings. Nearly all of these services are free and are most commonly referred to as "Bump Sites" or some other sort of eBay promotional tool. One of the best auction bump sites to use is xbump.com which simply requires you to enter your item number into the box and hit submit. There are many other bump sites and it is recommended that you promote your listings on as many of them as possible to maximize the exposure your eBay item will receive.
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