ANYONE can sell on eBay, but NOT everyone CAN sell on eBay

(Understanding this statement will go a long way to increasing  your
chances of making a success of your selling experience on eBay)

• Anyone can join eBay
• Anyone can list an item for sale on eBay
• Anyone can post an item sold on eBay

BUT

Does everyone selling on eBay make a Profit on their items sold ???

I am here to tell you that the answer to this question is NO !!!

One of the main reasons an item may not get the price you want, or not sell at all, is due to the way the listing has been presented.

A poorly prepared listing may be the result of:

• layout is visually unattractive and/or difficult to read
• no item description
• no photos
• item description is written in poor English, has numerous spelling and grammatical errors and is hard to understand
• photos used are of poor quality and do not clearly depict the item for sale
• too much information
• ambiguity of what the final cost will be after the listing has ended - is GST included or added afterwards ?
• no postage costs - many potential buyers will simply not bid if they do not know what the postage and handling costs will be

As a seller, you need to minimise the reasons for an item not selling before you have even listed the item. Remember, as a seller, you could be competing with dozens, if not hundreds of other sellers offering the same or similar items to what you are selling, so you need to ensure that your listing will stand out from the rest.

Turbo Lister

A very useful and FREE listing tool is eBay's Turbo Lister. You can use TL to create professional looking listings offline and to upload your listings in bulk - this can save you considerable internet connection costs and time. Take a tour and see what TL can do for you at: Turbo Lister Tour

Photos in Listing

It can not be stressed enough the importance of a listing being clear and easy to read. Similarly, using a photo(s) is a must, especially in the gallery, if you are going to compete and stand out from other sellers of similar items.

A good, brand-name 2-3 mega pixel digital camera will do but try and make sure it has a macro setting for taking close-ups (good for jewellery etc.). Also check that it has a manual setting for turning off the flash.

Check out what is available on eBay at: Digital Cameras on eBay

When adding photos to your listing, remember that the larger the photo (pixel size) the longer a page may take to load on someone's computer. Adding a number of photos, again will further affect the loading time of a page. This needs to be taken into account as many eBayers are still on a dial-up connection (not broadband) and may give up trying to view a page if it takes too long to load.

If you have a dial-up connection, you may have noticed it took a while for this page to load due to the photos included below. With this in mind, consideration should be given to using a photo editing program that will allow you to both edit and resize your photos.

Following are the results of us reducing a 640x480 pixel photo to 320x240 and 160x120 pixels.

Some well known brand name photo editing programs can be found at: Photo Editing Programs on eBay

Whilst on photos, it is important to protect your work, i.e. prevent them from being "pinched" and used by someone else. Watermarking a photo or adding your business logo to a photo is the way to go as the following illustrate.

Making your photos stand out in gallery is also a good idea. This can be achieved by adding a border around a photo or by placing a mask around a photo as you can see above.

For more nformation on selling, preparing listings and photos, have a look at: Learn to Sell On eBay Basics, eBay Photo Tutorial, & Tools for Selling on eBay. Also check out eBay Picture Services which is a great tool that we use daily for our listings.

If you feel you still need help or could benefit from private tuition, why not consider contacting an ebay Education Specialist to Learn How to Sell on eBay or contact The Auction Buddy where a tailor-made course can be designed to help you get and selling on eBay real soon.