Determining WHAT to sell on eBay

Ok, so you’ve opened an eBay account and paypal is ready to go.  Now you just need to figure out what to sell.  For starters, I’d suggest you put ANYTHING up just to experience the process once.  But if you’re going to get serious about making money off of things around the house, it’s best to understand what will sell and what is just a waste of time.

Obviously, I (and no one else) can tell you exactly which items around the home are a guaranteed hit, but I can teach you how to minimize your risk, because you are indeed paying to post products whether or not they sell.

When you are scouring your house look for the following products:

• New in the box – never opened items. Never used that can opener you got for Christmas last year.  Throw it on eBay.  New in the box items are the easiest to sell and you can expect a good profit.
• Parts of a set - manual to a camera, remote to a tv, track for a particular train, etc.  If something came together in a box and you no longer have one of the pieces, sell the rest.  These are really easy to get rid of since buyers looking for that random tv manual or a piece of a train track will be hard pressed to find it anywhere else.
• Electronics – Big seller, especially electronics that are working and come with manual, wires, batteries, etc.  Even your old cell phone could be a money maker.  A buddy of mine sold his old nokia phone for $40 to a professor in Michigan who was collecting the phones for some reason.
• Jewelry – Look for fine jewelry with decent value if you want to make a profit.  Costume jewelry does sell, but not for much.  So don’t “make” jewelry to sell on eBay.
• Toys – Go for unique toys, popular toys, gently used toys, and toys that retain value.
• Books – Popular books will have a lot of competition, so be wise with your starting bid and pay attention to shipping since books tend to be heavy.
  
• Clothing – No thrift store stuff here.  Look for barely used, good condition clothing.  Sorry, but buyers aren’t looking for your old sweatshirt.  Brand named items are a plus!

Here are some other ways to determine what’s going to make you money and what’s going to waste your money:

• Search for that potential product on eBay. Not sure whether or not your old crockpot will sell? Search for it.  Are there a lot of listings for that crockpot already?  How are the bids?  Are people bidding?  If there are 20 listings and no bids, you might not want to waste your time. No listings at all could be good or bad.  Only you can say whether it’s worth the risk.
• Size/ material.  Think about shipping.  Would this be a difficult item to ship?  I suggest that large or extremely fragile products are best sold on sites like craigslist.com where buyers are expected to pick it up.  Sure people sell large items like appliances and cars on eBay all of the time. But unless you want to limit your reach to local pickup only or want to get into the freight business, I suggest you keep it simple.

Don’t think too much. I have to admit that some of my best sells came from items that I just casually threw into the “I don’t need this” pile and listed on eBay to just get rid of it.  I’ll never forget one HD cable that I posted on eBay after the camera it went to was stolen. It sold for $12.  And an old belly dancing coin belt that I hadn’t used in 8 years… $35.

So, while it’s impossible to know ahead of time exactly what will sell and what won’t, you can use these tips to better narrow your focus and keep from spending too much money on products that had no chance to begin with.  And the best tip of all – be prepared to be surprised – it’s the power of eBay.

How to Sell on Ebay

With the economy down the tube and recycling in vogue, now is the best time to gather up some unused items around the house and sell them online. The best place to sell (for most items) is ebay.com and that’s because of the site’s shear popularity. The larger the potential audience, the more money you’ll make. Of course, there are several niche auction sites online, but we won’t go into those in this blog.

My first suggestion is that you BUY on eBay before your SELL on eBay so you have an idea of what’s going on.  See my “Determine What to Sell on eBay” blog for product selling ideas.

Setting up a Seller Account (NOT an eBay store)

The first thing you’ll need is to set up a sellers account. If you already have an account on ebay, there’s nothing more you need to do to sell products too.

But if you don’t have an account, you’ll need to go through the registration process. You do this by selecting the “register” link at the top left on the homepage and following the instructions. There are two things you need to be aware of: 1st – pick your username wisely, because it will be displayed with every product you sell, so keep it serious.  2nd – you will need a paypal account. Paypal is the most popular way to do commerce through ebay. Setting up that account is another process all together, but for brevity, you can get one at paypal.com and it’s free.

Once you set up an account, you can start. All you have to do is login, go to the “sell” > “sell an item” page and follow the instructions.

IMAGES & DETAILS: It’s good to already have the pictures of each item you are selling along with some details about the item before starting the selling process.  I suggest you put together either a text or word document with item information, so you can easily copy and paste from one source.  The information you’ll need is:

• Item name
• Brand
• New or Used
• Size (if relevant), measurements, etc – this helps your buyer to better gauge how something will fit on them or in their home.
• Item details – usually best to find this online from the original manufacture’s website.
• Any added details about this particular item  – ie, scratches, dents, problems, etc
• Suggested retail price.

For photos – think CLEAR.  Clear out any background noise (if possible) and shoot the item from various angles.  Using a white sheet as a backdrop is really good too!  I also suggest you use a reference object in your picture to show size, especially for jewelry.  If you are selling clothing, shoot on either a mannequin or a hanger.  (Try your best to not post pictures of your clothing lying down.)  If you are selling a book, no photo needed, as ebay has all of the photos for you.

Listing Type

There is a simple listing and a more complex listing.  Both templates are available to new sellers for the same price.  For your first posts, though, I suggest you stick with the simple form and that’s the one I will go through in this blog.

Selecting a Category

The first thing you’ll have to decide when you create the listing is which category do you want to sell your product in.  Read carefully, because the category choice will make or break your success.   If it’s not obvious to you which precise “ebay” category your product falls in, my suggestion is to do a quick search on ebay for the product you want to sell.  Once you find where others are posting that same type of product, you’ll know where to start.  (see example 1).

In the example, you can see that these “pearl earrings” are being listed at “Jewelry & Watches > Fine Jewelry  > Fine Earrings > Pearl” .   Equipped with this information, you can now fill out the category section on your new item listing.

The reason this is important is because you want your product – pearl earrings, in this example – to be posted with like products.  If you mistakenly post your item in the wrong section, chances are you won’t sell it or it will sell for cheap.

Title

Use as many words as you can to name your item.  Instead of calling your earrings “pearl earrings,” call them “Multi-Color Freshwater Pearl Silver Hoop Earrings 5-7mm”.  The key is to use as many descriptor terms that someone would use to find that product.  I suggest color, material, brand, size, etc.  Once you do this a few times, you’ll get good a naming your products.

Photo upload

Put your best foot forward.  Always use your best picture first and be aware that the upload can take a while if you don’t resize your pictures.  I suggest a max of 800px wide.  Also, be careful with the amount of photos you upload. I know that $.15/photo doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up.  So for an item that is only a few bucks, no more than 2 pictures is my suggestion.  The more expensive the item, the more photos you can justify posting.

Item Description

This is self-explanatory, but I will tell you to keep it brief, use bullet points, use information from manufacture website if available, and add in your multiple items shipping policy (which I will touch on later).

Price and Time

Start cheap.  I know you don’t want to sell thus pearl earring for $.99, but that’s how you get people hooked.  Post it cheap, sell it expensive!  I’ll have more on this in another blog.

Buy it now is an option you can select, but I haven’t had much luck with it for anything I’ve posted. I don’t really know why that is, but my guess is that shoppers unconsciously associate “buy it now” with larger manufactures, but that’s just a guess.

As far as the length of the bidding goes, use your best discretion.  1 day may be fine for quick moving items like toys and electronics; 10 days may be fine for slower moving items that are more rare and have a small audience.  3-5 days is my average for most products

Shipping

Okay, now is the time to be reallllly realistic.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve charged what “seemed” like a good price for shipping and ended up giving my entire profit to the post office.  Don’t let that happen to you. Here are a few of my tips on shipping to get you started:

• See what others are setting as the shipping rate on your item.  That will give you a good idea of what it may cost.
• Use USPS “flat shipping”.  If it fits, it ships.  Go the post office and take several of their flat rate boxes home (they are free).  Or order them online and get boxes shipped to your house for free!  Doing this, you can determine which box you’d use to ship your item and thus how much it will cost to ship.
• Invest in a scale. The post office sells them for between $30-$50.  For any serious ebay seller, this is absolutely necessary.
• Unless you want to start guessing international rates, I’d suggest shipping only to the continental U.S.  You can add in your product detail section that international rates will be quoted individually once a product is purchased.

How do you want to be paid?

That’s a no-brainer… into your paypal account. More later on how to get money OUT of your paypal account.

Insertion fees

Yes, yes, yes, eBay has to make money somehow.  It costs money to sell products on eBay. It’s not a lot, but it does add up.  Here a quick rundown of what you need to know getting started.

• The first insertion is free
• The rest are based upon your starting bid. The higher you start it, the more you pay.
• You pay for pictures, galleries, subtitles (which we didn’t go over in this blog), longer listings, and buy it now options.
• eBay doesn’t charge you right away.  They keep a running total of how much you owe them and charge you later (about once a month you’ll get a bill in your paypal account).
• Access your account at “My eBay” > “Account”

But that’s not all. The insertion fee is just the beginning.

• If you sell your product, eBay charges you another fee based on what the product went for. It’s typically 1-2% of the amount.
• If you don’t sell your product, you still owe your insertion fee.
• eBay will only refund your insertion fee on an unsold item if you post the product again and it sells the second time. But you still have to pay for the second insertion fee.

In conclusion

I know this is a lot to digest in one sitting, but I’m trying, if nothing else, to get it all down.  I will continue to expand upon this information in subsequent blogs. There really is a lot to eBay, so stay tuned.