Starting out as a seller on eBay can be a little daunting and confusing, the aim of this guide is to try and explain it in real English, and break down some of the more advanced stuff into chunks, and terms that you can understand. I know that some of the wording may still be a little obscure, or difficult to understand, but if after reading this your still having trouble remember to ask away. There is no such thing as a stupid question. There is a fair bit to read through, but even if you need to read it over a number of sessions remember its here for you, and the more you know the better your sales can be. Feel free at this point to go and brew a cuppa so that you're nice and comfortable. I would at this point like to thank the countless cups of tea and cigarettes that gave themselves to make this guide possible.
Ok first up, common slang terms used here on the discussion boards, and in listings:
FVF - Final Value Fee Bump - Bring Up My post (to move your thread to the top) NPB - None Paying Buyer (fairly obvious) NPS - None Performing Seller (they don’t do what they should) BNWL - Brand new with labels (price tags don’t really count, this means brand tags) BNIB - As above but boxed MIB - Mint in box TOS - Terms of Service BIN – Buy it now (an option to set a price to buy it without bidding, you need 10 feedback, buying or selling, before you can do this) BBL – Blocked Bidders List Shill Bidding - Using a friends or fake account to try and bump up the final price of an item. (Very naughty thing to do, and can get you banned) Keyword Spamming – adding words to your description that don’t apply to what your selling (for example, “Nike trainers for sale, NOT addidas, puma, fila, other brand” again naughty and not allowed) NR - No reserve price (the starting price is as listed) S&H – Shipping and handling (basically P&P plus a small charge to pay for your trip to the post office) LOL - Laugh Out Loud (chat speak slang) Pinks - eBay staff, called pinks because thier posts are highlighted this colour
ADD A PHOTO! Ok it may seem obvious to some, but it’s a great idea to show people exactly what they are bidding on, even show multiple angles for larger or intricate pieces. Don't have a top-notch camera? Ok 3 ways are simple and easy. First is the standard digital camera, anything from 2MP (mega pixels) up will give people a decent view of the item, to be fair, cameras are only about £30 for a basic model, and newer mobile phone cameras can take pictures of high enough quality) Second is the Ghetto Digital Cam: get a cheap disposable camera, take all the shots you want and/or need, and get it developed on a Kodak photo CD, it costs about £5 but its a good investment for how much a picture will increase the value. Last up: If your items flat, Use a scanner! Again obvious, but sometimes only once someone points it out. The only time this wont apply is with fabric items, they must absorb the light or something because they just come out as a black mass.
A good photo tip I read right here on eBay: Rather than get some crazy light set up for Uber pro looking photo's, if you’ve got a white bath, use that! It gives great lighting, and provides the big white background you need!
DESCRIBE YOUR ITEM WELL! Again obvious but so many people out there don’t bother. If your selling a fender strat with a huge amp, don’t just say electric guitar and amp, give specifics, the year, colour, condition, country of origin (in some cases) size, and any extras you might be throwing in regardless of how small it is, hell even give some history on the piece, the more people know, the more they will want the item. The reason I use the fender strat as an example, the country of origin can double the value of the guitar, and this applies for a lot of items.
CREATE AN ABOUT ME PAGE! You don’t need any HTML skills, a degree in the inner workings of computers, or know the entire history of the common spoon. It’s all laid out for you nice and simple, just fill in the form which you can find here: https://signin.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn&UsingSSL=1&pUserId=&co_partnerId=2&siteid=3&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi3.ebay.co.uk%3A80%2Fws%2FeBayISAPI.dll%3FAboutMeLogin%26AboutMeLogin%3D%26guest%3D1&pp=pass&pageType=570&i1=0 and include what you want. It’s a great place to feature your TOS and tell people a bit about yourself. Its a small piece of customer care that a lot of people love to see, plus it saves putting the same old stuff in every auction, just put a link to your page. If you want something more flash, one of the American ebayers was nice enough to create this http://www.ambassadorboard.net/hosting/free-form.php just fill in your details, and post it as HTML in your me page creator, all you need to do is hold down your left mouse button and drag your cursor (the thing you point at stuff with) over all of the text it gives you, then let go of the left mouse button, now put your cursor (pointy thing) over the text that should now be blacked out, press the right mouse button. A drop down box will appear, select “copy” by clicking it with your left mouse button, now go to the HTML box in the me page creator, and delete the word “default” right click your mouse, and this time select paste, that’s it your all done! If you need help with this just ask. It also works for creating flash looking auction listings. How to get pictures to put in there is further down this page.
THE RIGHT PRICE! Believe it or not, knocking 1p off of your starting price will save you in listing fees. Rather than sell an item for £5 set it at £4.99 and save about 15p on your listing. You can find out exactly how much it costs to use each starting price here: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/fees.html
LAYING IT OUT! Another way to save money on your listing. Don’t use a listing designer; just make your ad eye catching. A well Laid out advert will get you more interest than a pretty pattern around the outside. If you absolutely can’t do without the border, use turbo lister, it adds them for free, that’s another 7p saved! You can also use the link I gave for creating a me page, just remember to enter it as HTML (the random looking text it gives you) in the HTML part, there is a little tab for it beside the plain text one, right above where you type in your text.
Ok next on the list, BE HONEST! Ok again seems obvious, but its better to be honest and get slightly less for the item, than to lie and get a negative mark on your feedback. Even when your honest about the condition you’d be surprised how well it may do, as an example, a couple of years ago I sold a pair of “New Rock” boots, they had a hole in both heels, and a few scuff marks, they still sold for £60 and the buyer was happy, if I had lied about the condition they would have left negative feedback and demanded a refund.
NOTHING IS EVER UNTESTED! Ok most of the experienced ebayers know that untested means knackered, some unlucky newbie buyer might not, but its true. But don’t say that it’s knackered, because someone may be able to do something with it, list it as for spares or repair. Only ever say its untested if your at least 70% (minimum) certain that it will work, a happy buyers going to come back. An unhappy one will give you feedback that is as useful at what you sold them.
RAPID DELIVERY! Ok if you look at my TOS you'll see that I say to wait for 5 days minimum for a cheque to clear. This is actually a lie; I post most items that sell for less than £10 the same day I receive the cheque. The reason I say wait for clearance is so that the guys with bad feedback don’t moan when I wait for the cheque to clear! It costs more than £10 for them to bounce the cheque so no fool is going to willingly bounce a £9 when it costs £15 when it goes wrong. This gets you really good feedback from surprised buyers who have often the item quicker than they imagined they would. Again a happy buyer will come back!
DONT BE SCARED OF THE NEWBIES! Ok for some reason a lot of sellers have a newbie phobia (as I’m sure some of you noticed when you first joined) Don’t worry about the newbies, 9/10 they try harder to make things go smoothly because they want their first star, and don’t want anything to go wrong with their first purchase! I have only ever had three none payers, all but one had 100 + feedback, newbies push up your prices, pay quickly, and communicate well, take advantage of that!
START OUT WITH A FEEDBACK SCORE! One tip that will help you sell, before you start out, buy a few cheap items to gain some feedback. We all have to start out somewhere but not all buyers care about that and will not buy from someone with 0 feedback. Remember thought that 50 glowing positives from one seller, only counts as 1 feedback on your overall score,
DONT BE INTIMIDATED BY THE VETERANS! Ok say for instance you only accept cheques and postal orders, if someone with 100,000,00 feedback demands to pay be pay pal, tell them no, its their own fault they didn’t read your TOS and by bidding they agreed to do business the way YOU set it out. Just because they have been here longer, doesn’t mean their right.
DON’T CRIPPLE YOUR OWN PROFITS! Ok one thing I’ve seen, and love to take advantage of is that loads of people only accept paypal. Not everyone has, or wants to use paypal, so your item will get far less bids. Look in the video games section for the best example of this, the exact same title, in the exact same condition will get double the bids if they accept multiple payment methods. I’ve managed to get extremely rare titles for far less than there worth by using this to my advantage; don’t let yourself get ripped off the same way! Yes I know I'm kind of spoiling my own chances here but as much as I take advantage of it, it irritates me to see it happen.
DON’T GET RIPPED OFF ON POSTAGE! The “new way” of posting items is to use pre paid labels that you can print off through eBay; this will NOT save you any time since you need to get the item weighed anyway. Support your local post office or it may be one of the thousands set to close this year. Then where will your local chavs cash their giro!? If you don’t want to use royal mail this thread on the payments and postage boards gives a list of couriers: http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1100033616&tstart=0&mod=1183006087524 try to avoid parcels to go though they have a very poor reputation for the condition of goods when they arrive, most people have dubbed them “parcels to throw”
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE TV! Ok sounds crazy, but the last thing you want to be doing is selling an England shirt that finishes half way through an England mach, the last hour of your auction is the frenzy hour where bids get into silly season. Take note of what’s on TV, and guess how popular it is. For instance my target audience is aged 16 - 30. These people like big brother, sports, some soaps, and go to school/college/work so I cater may sales time around that. Most of my stuff ends either on a weekend, or at about 8pm ish. This way there’s no sport, the 6-7 Channel 4 stuff has finished, the soaps are over, and most people are home and often surfing out of boredom.
DONT USE A RESERVE! Ok a lot of people hate reserve prices, and will give up trying to guess how much you want for it after a while. The minimum reserve price is now £50 and eBay will charge you 2% of the final value ON TOP of your final value fee. If you want £50 for an item, save yourself the cash and hassle and start it at £50.
FREE PICTURES! Yep that’s right you can have all the pictures of your item you want without paying for a single one. How? Well it’s pretty simple, and like before, you don’t need any skill with HTML although you may need to ask for some help from a nerd, but honestly it’s easy. First thing you need, pictures obviously, scanned into your PC by one of the methods I mentioned earlier, next you'll need your own web space. A lot of companies offer free web pages as part of your Internet package; others will give you one for free. The best one to use right now is photo bucket, http://www.photobucket.com/ Next you upload your pictures to your site, that’s the bit you may need a NERD/10 year old for. Now open your site up, and look for the images you want. If your using photobucket, click on the picture you want to use. Position your cursor (pointy thing) over the picture and click your right mouse button, a little list will drop down, select COPY. Now go to the advert your making, and right click again, now select PASTE anywhere on your advert. AND LOOK! A picture, in your AD that you haven’t paid a penny to use! That’s another 12p per picture saved! Abuse this to your hearts content, just remember not to use too many pictures, the more there are, the longer it will take for your advert to load.
RELIST YOUR ITEM! Another that some people don’t know. If your item hasn’t sold first time around, rather than making a new advert, simply re-list it, so long as you only re-list one, and it sells that time, its free! Just don’t re-list it more than once, its better to make a new AD with more pictures and posh words because you’re going to have to pay to re-list it.
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK CAN BE A GOOD THING! No I’m not senile, I’m not old enough. Believe it or not, a lot of buyers and sellers will judge you better, by how you reply to poor feedback, than they will to 50 pages of good feedback. Just make sure your reply is factual, and not insulting, and reasonable (no lies or Santa will knee-cap you)
HELP IVE SOLD EVERYTHING I OWN AND NOW IM EATING OUT OF A PAPER CUP! Ok just because you’ve sold everything that’s nailed down, there’s no need to panic or run tot he closest wholesaler. The best places to get new stock are: CHARITY SHOPS, your supporting others AND getting new stuff to sell, and hey maybe even replace the furniture you sold! CAR BOOT SALES, Ok now headless Barbie wont get you much outside of the fetish community, but you can get some really great stuff from car booties, a lot of people are clearing out their old stuff but are scared of Ebay, take advantage of it! SCHOOL FETES: A weird thing I've noticed about these things is that they are somehow able to sell the latest PC for 50p, and if you ask nicely, or haggle, they will throw in a new TFT monitor too. Ok maybe that’s an exaggeration but they have great stuff, for the equivalent of a 6 year olds life savings. GO GRAB A BARGAIN AND HELP THE KIDS!
DONT BE A TIGHT SOD! Ok this is a request rather than advice, a lot of charities want your used stamps, as a seller your going to get a lot of them, even the standard 1st class stamps are worth something to them. So fill an envelope with them, leave a small border around them and send them off, if you don’t know who to support, here is the address of the one I support, and it will only cost you the price of the stamp you use to post it!
Leukaemia Research Fund 43 GT Ormond Street London WC1N 3JJ
GOOD MONEY FOR OLD CRAP Ok now that tank top you found in your gran's attic might look like the worst thing you’ve ever seen, but some punk somewhere will give it a good home if you make a good advert, and you should be able to by the time you’ve made it this far down the Page! Here’s a true story, my brother in law came home from work one day and pulled into his drive. He ran over an old tomato soup tin, so for a laugh he sold it as a modern art sculpture and made a quick £10. Another guy I know buys all the music mags he can, cuts out every article, and separates it into different groups and interests and puts them in different bags. He then sells the bags (once full) to the Americans for £20 a shot. That’s right he makes money on an Asda bag full of old paper!
DO WHAT YOU DO BEST! I don’t know much about what music is collectible, or what classic trainers are worth a mint, so I don’t try to buy or sell them. If you know antiques, specialise in them. Good with pet supplies? There’s a market for them too!
MAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF! Ok so you’ve been selling modern art for the past year, but your user name is something like "Uber CD Seller" change it! The only thing that changes is your name; everything else including feedback follows you. You MAY however (I may be wrong however) need to remake your Me page, but if you’re changing what you specialise in you will want to do that anyway. I have had 3 ID’s and each has in some way reflected what I sell, you read my ID and you know exactly what I sell (most of the time)
NEVER CLOSE EARLY Ok one thing that comes up on a regular basis is people asking them to sell them the item their selling for X amount if they finish the auction early. THIS IS RARELY A GOOD IDEA. People who want you to do this usually fall into one of 2 groups. First is someone who knows the true value of your item, and want to get it cheap before the last hour frenzy kicks in. The other is a rival seller who wants you to close the auction so that their item will get more attention, you will never see the money from that group.
SOME COMPANY KEEPS GIVING ME FREE STUFF I DONT WANT! Ok Guinness keeps sending me stuff, and as you know Guinness stuff is pretty collectable. So what I do is I save it for a few months so that most people who have received one have either sold or lost theirs. Then I list it and make a fortune from both the British and American collectors! If you get free stuff, make the most of it! I’ve seen people selling the free pens that the makers of viagra send out sell them for up to £5, that’s pure profit!
NEVER TRADE ANYTHING IN! Ok a lot of companies now offer trade ins on loads of stuff like Games, DVD's, Videos, and old people. They will never offer you as much as you'll get if you sell it on here, seriously, go ask blockbuster how much they will give you on your DVD, then sell it on here, and see how big the difference is, sure it means waiting for the money, but its going to be more.
DONT PAY OVER THE ODDS FOR YOUR ADVERT Ok I’ve already said how to save money on photo's and listing designer, but there are other ways too. Think about how often a bold listing title will catch your eye compared to one that’s all in capital letters, sure it annoys some people if you use all caps, but its free! Another is that little coloured band they charge you to have, I never pay attention to them, using a gallery listing is money better spent! Just lay it out well, abuse the free photo idea, and make your description stand out, give good rates of P&P and gallery listing. The only thing in that list you’ve paid for is the gallery. But be warned, if you keyword Spam, I will personally write to Jesus to make sure he punishes you for it!
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP! Ok as much as you want to make a million before your X years old, don’t try and get it all at once. Before you try to sell your item at what YOU think its worth, look at who else is selling it. If yours is in better condition, start yours higher, if not, use the same or less. It might mean a lower profit margin, but at least it will sell!
IT’S WORTH THE WAIT! Ok this is one that not everyone will agree with, but if I have an item that I know will sell well on a Saturday, I list it on Wednesday, and let it run for 10 days. This lets the people who are searching for that item a better chance of seeing your listing, but it means you'll have two weekends for people to find it, and there are more buyers out here on a weekend! The drawback to this is that not everyone is willing to wait for the longer duration of the listing so may go to a rival instead.
DONT FLOOD THE MARKET! Ok this is just good business sense. If you’ve got 10 of the same thing to sell, don’t list them all at once! If people have the choice of 5 identical items, they will go for the cheapest, which means less overall profit. There’s ways around this. Only list one. THEN once the auction is over, if the bids are high, issue second chance offers to the best 2 - 3 bidders. Then list your next one, and keep doing this till they’re all gone.
HELP IVE GOT A NONE PAYER! Well this happens to the best of us, don’t panic or jump in and neg them right away! Instead send a payment reminder, if that doesn’t work, send a mail reminding them that they have entered into a legally binding contract by bidding on your item. If these fail, phone them! Get their phone number here http://cgi3.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MemberSearchShow and give them a call, you will be surprised how often this scares them into paying!
SAVE YOURSELF SOME HASTLE For some reason, I’ve noticed that some sellers don’t list their full address. If you want people to mail you payment, they need to know where to send it, so rather than waiting for them to email you to ask where to send it, make sure your address is already there in your profile, this will also cut down on the number of none paying bidders!
OTHER WAYS OF GETTING PAID! Ok not everyone trusts pay pal so they don’t accept it. Some buyers may want to pay by bank transfer. DONT PANIC, they are not trying to rip you off, they don’t need any more info from you, than is on any cheque you send out. All they need is you bank name, your account number, and sort code, look at your cheque book, this info is on every single cheque! Please remember though if you use Paypal, send the item by a traceable means, or a dishonest buyer could get a refund by claiming it never arrived. The only way of preventing this is with proof that you sent it by supplying a tracking number.
DONT BE RIPPED OFF! Ok so someone has asked to pay through some third party, and for the item to be sent to their friend/relative/company/poodle who just happen to live abroad. This is always a con! It happens ALOT on high value items like laptops, and mobile phones. Don’t even trust western union. Only accept traditional means like pay pal, cheque, cash, postal order, and DIRECT bank transfers. Anything else is probably going to end badly!
BAD DAYS HAPPEN! One day, and one morning every week is a bad day to sell! All Day Sunday for some mystery reason Ebay is full of bugs and glitches, nobody is quite sure why this happens, maybe is gods wrath for listing on a holy day, I’m not sure, but Sundays can be touchy, the best day on a weekend to sell is a Saturday. The morning that’s bad is Friday, this is when Ebay gets its updates and repairs done, it usually starts on the morning and ends at about 2pm ish, sometimes earlier.
HELP IVE LOST HIS ADDRESS! Ok this annoys the crap out of me, and I’m sure I'm not the only one, a seller sends an email to let me know that my item will be delayed because they have lost my address, and need to email me for it a second time round (this works when your buying too!) Where it says stuff like mark paid, and leave feedback e.c.t. there’s a little arrow, click on this and a small drop down box will appear. Now select "View Payment Status" This will take you to a page that shows both yours and their addresses for you to use.
EXPORTING DVD’S AND VIDEO GAMES! Ok one thing people forget is that with a few exceptions these items are “region locked” we are PAL and Region 2. America is NTSC and Region 1. Be sure to point out in big bold colourful writing that your item is PAL (console games) or Region 2 (DVD) and will not work on a standard American player. You don’t need to worry about this for Europe or Australia. PC and Nintendo DS games are not region locked, but remember to mention if they are in another language other than English.
LIST IN THE RIGHT CATEGORY! Ok another one I like exploit for my own profit and pleasure. Quite often people list their items in the wrong category. Before you even think about hitting the proceed button, make sure you have it in the right category, if your selling a tea pot in the plates section your not going to get too many bidders. Double and triple check it if your memory isn’t good, if your memory is awful, make a note to reassure yourself that you have checked it, remember to throw the note away afterwards. Just make sure it’s in the right place.
MAKE SURE YOU SPELL YOUR ITEM CORRECTLY! Once again big profit potential if you’re a buyer, bad if you’re a seller. If you’re selling a Dog and list it as an Ogd (please don’t though, your not allowed to see live animals on eBay, it makes baby jeebus cry) it is not going to show up when people search for your item. So as before double, triple, and quadruple check (leave yourself a note.)
CROSS-PROMOTE ITEMS! If your selling two items that compliment each other remember to mention them in your listing. For example, your selling a pair of new football boots, mention the shin guards your also selling in the listing, and vice versa. Don’t however plug your teapot; chances are your customer doesn’t care.
EBAY SHOPS! The question “Do I need a shop?” is quite common, if your reading this then the answer is most likely “not yet” If your just starting out, its likely that your only listing a few items here and there, a shop is for those who list a dozen items or more per week. If you do however fall into that group, you can find the full list of fee’s here: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/storefees.html Weigh up the cost of auctions V’s shop items and see if its worth it for you. Remember though that you will still need to list a few items in traditional auctions to help promote your shop. And once you have one, remember to plug it in every auction you list. Remember that your shop items will all be “buy it now” you wont have the option to allow people to bid on them, which could potentially hurt your profits.
WAITING FOR YOUR LISTING TO APPEAR! Nothing on eBay comes quickly, the staff take regular siestas, the auctions spends weeks at a time waiting for a buyer, just sitting about, customer services, well lets not mention them…. Your item also likes to take its time showing up, and depending on what it is can take anything from minutes, to days to show up. If you want to know why, or how long you can expect to wait this thread is a great place to look: http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1100084977&tstart=0&mod=1183413342416 as always feel free to ask them questions, they are a friendly bunch.
BLOCK THE IDIOTS! Ok eBay like the rest of the world is full of idiots, and scam artists, you may at some point encounter these people. Rather than give them the thrashing they deserve it is considered more civilised to block them from bidding on your auctions. You can block up to 1000 of these people at any time, to add someone to your list go here: http://cgi1.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin (you may need to log in) If one slips through the cracks you can cancel their bid here: http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CancelBidShow You can also set up a criteria that bidders need to meet in order to buy from you by following the instructions on this page: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/buyer-requirements.html
EBAY AND FEEPAY HAND IN HAND IN HARMONY! EBay like money, or more specifically they like YOUR money. With the exception of buying, almost everything you do will incur some kind of fee or another. You pay a certain amount o list your item, and once the item has been sold, you need to pay a final value fee. You can find a full list of eBay's demands here: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/fees.html you need to pay these at the end of each month. I strongly suggest using either PayPal or cheque to do this, as their direct debit system has been known to cause a lot of headaches. Also remember that eBay own Paypal so they will also charge you for receiving money.
WORLD WIDE POSTAGE! It can be intimidating to export your goods, but it’s not all that different from selling within your home country. Just remember that you will need to charge more for postage, and its best to accept Paypal for these to avoid banking charges to convert the currency. Unless you’re selling large heavy items, there’s not really much reason not to, so long as you have PayPal of course. It wont cost you any extra, and extra bidders can never be a bad thing. There are 3 options for where you intend to sell your goods, and you can set these in your listings. They are; UK only, Worldwide, and UK plus the selected countries. You can set these in the postage costs section of your listing. Remember though if you only want to sell to the UK and one or two other countries, DO NOT select worldwide, select “UK and the following countries” Remember that surface mail can take a long time (weeks to months depending on where its going), so airmail is probably your best bet.
SECURITY MARKS Sometimes a cheeky blighter will try to convince you that you’ve sent them a broken or defective item, when in fact it’s a completely different one that they happened to have (yours is a replacement for example) and that they want a refund. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of defective things sold regularly without the seller realising. How to stop this? Its really quite simple, all you need is a UV pen, which you can buy for £1 here on eBay, and a UV light, which is about £10 either here on eBay or from a high street shop. The UV pen is invisible to the naked eye so your buyer wont see it, but put it somewhere discreet anyway, just a signature, or little mark that you will recognise. This way when they send it back you will know for sure that the item was yours. More details here: http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?messageID=403580696&forumID=3002#403580696
HOW COME I DON’T HAVE THOSE EXTRA SETS OF STARS LIKE OTHER SELLERS? This is the DSR, or Detailed seller rating. Once 10 of your buyers have rated you using this system (when they leave feedback) they will be shown. Its another reason (other than Santa’s list) to be honest with your buyers, and efficient and friendly. Its not just negative feedback you need to worry about now. It’s how people rate your service. So long as you’re a good seller you don’t need to worry about this but for more info on it if you are, here is eBay’s explanation of it. http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/feedback/detailed-seller-ratings.html
CHEAP PACKAGING! Remember that packing supplies don’t need to be expensive. First up the majority of items don’t need a jiffy bag. Its far cheaper to buy brown paper and bubble wrap here on eBay than its is for a jiffy bag that comes in pre-set sizes. You can also get free bubble wrap if you’re willing to be cheeky. Many supermarkets and electrical stores get a boat load of bubble wrap going spare that they are usually more than willing to give you if your brave enough to ask. Also if you need heavy duty packaging for a small item, the box’s that washing tablets come in are nigh on indestructible, even the supermarket own brand ones. Stuff them with newspaper or packing materials and you’ve got a cheap way to send fragile items.
SAVE TIME IN YOUR LISTINGS! Ok I've told you how to copy and paste text, if you sell a lot of one item, or even just one type of item, you can save time with your listings by cutting and pasting the text to a word document. Save it to your desktop, or somewhere else that you will easily remember, and you can save time by simply pasting your commonly used stuff into each advert to save you doing it over and over again.
DON’T GET SCAMMED! One common scam to look out for on high value items. You may get asked to end your auction early, and in return the buyer will offer far higher than the market value, generally they will then to ask if they can pay by western union, and they will arrange the courier. They will send you a link to show that the money is waiting for you. The really cheeky ones will ask you to send the item yourself to their friend, or relative in Nigeria. This is basically a con, the cash isn’t really there, and you will never see your item again if you send it. This can also happen at the end of an auction but the majority that I’ve seen have asked the seller to end early. The main target of these scams are either mobile phones, or laptops. A more detailed thread again is: http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1100101100&tstart=40&mod=1183413474906
DELIVERY COSTS! To save you time and effort in working out your postage costs, its is worth investing in a pair of scales that weigh in grams and kilo’s. This way you can get an idea of how much it will set you back to send it. Kitchen scales are fine, I personally use a plastic set of kitchen scales, and they are accurate enough to get the job done. Once you know mow much it weighs you can find out the price here: ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rm/Price_Guide_FINAL_26Jan07.pdf You can get adobe acrobat to read it, if you need help getting hold of it let me know, it’s a free programme for home use and invaluable for the internet as a whole. Next you need a size guide, you can pick them up from the post office for free, this will let you know the size of the package for royal mails new rates.
ADD YOUR PAYMENT ADDRESS! Obviously if your accepting cheques and postal orders, people need to know where to send their payment, the fairy post box is no longer a viable option so they need your address for this. Click on “MY EBAY” on the left hand side under “MY ACCOUNT” is the “ADDRESSES” link, click on that and fill out your postal address in the second box (Under registration address) Don’t worry, the only people who will ever see your postal address are eBay and your buyers.
PROTECT YOUR CUSTOMERS IDENTITY! Ok this is massively important. Anything with your buyers name and address on it needs to be shredded. With Identity theft on the rise you cannot be too careful. A cross shredder is best, but any will do so long as your destroying that information (After you’ve used it to send them their item of course, leave a note to remind yourself if your forgetful) This isn’t required but a good seller takes care of their customers.
BUYER PROTECTION! If your going to use paypal, you really should get yourself verified, this gives your customer a measure of reassurance that you’re an honest seller, its also really easy to do, you ask to be verified, they deposit 2 small amounts into your bank account, and then you report back what those amounts were. It’s that simple. This is also more important now that eBay will only protect buyers that have paid via paypal. It’s obvious why when you know that they own the Paypal service, but regardless you need to give this reassurance to your buyers. As always a happy buyer comes back, and in this instance, is more likely to buy in the first place.
PAYPAL T&C The last thing, but most important that you need to know about Paypal is what they can, and cannot do, but more importantly what they will make you do. There is far too much for me to type here without doubling the size of this guide, but please please please take the time to read through this page: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/ua/EUUA-outside and make sure that you pay particular attention to section 4. It’s a pain in the backside, but a valuable service so it’s worth knowing about, especially when things go wrong.
THE FINAL PART OF THIS GUIDE! One last strong recomendation before I wrap this up. At some point in the last few years some idiot decided it would be cute to add a talking widget to thier advert. This idea sadly caught on, usualy taking the form of the wizard from microsoft office. Buyers HATE it, I hate it, and if you use one, everyone you have ever known will hate you for using it. Its not cute, it makes your advert take ages to load, and the day I find out who that first person was Im going to take the (somewhat blunt) pen that eBay were nice enough to send me, and kill them with it.
OTHER USEFUL THREADS FOR YOU TO LOOK AT! Some of these have already been linked to in the guide, but its useful to have them together so you can find them quickly. All of them I consider a worth while read, some of them cover one or more of the issues in this guide, but in greater detail.
Finally, I would just like to add as it has been suggested many times, I do NOT intend to sell this guide, and NEVER will. It has been written to help the community as a whole, and under UK law is protected by copyright, and by British law under international treaty, so do not plan on even TRYING to sell it, I will persue you for it.
The 'New to Selling' Help Board
Learn more about RSS
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
)
