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Top 10 Tips for Selling on eBay

1. Start Small.

It is always a smart move to start small. Most people want to rush into action immediately once they have a good idea. In theory, businesses take from 12-18 months to become established. Lots of people know this but still they hope to get there in as little time as possible.

It is a big mistake to throw your life’s savings into buying case loads of stock from a wholesaler even at very low prices, hoping that they could make a killing on eBay - before they even know how eBay works! Buying one or two items from eBay to get the feel isn’t enough! Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security after doing this. Being a “seller” is a lot different and a little more complicated than being a “buyer”. Even powersellers agree that there are new things to be learned all the time. Its best to start selling small and inexpensive items for a couple of months before going full scale. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll learn during this period of time.

Spend this period on buying and selling a variety of inexpensive items that wouldn’t put a dent on your waller. Track which of them sell best so you can narrow down your items to a few strong ones. After a couple of months doing this you will have experienced the best and worst situations on eBay. This way, you’ll be more prepared to step things up a bit.

2. Respond to questions as quickly as  possible.

Put yourself in your customers shoes! You would want to receive a response to your query as quickly as possible right? Usually, answering queries within the first 36 hours is considered reasonable. But keeping it below 24 hours would be a lot more welcome to most customers. Most people nowadays use the Internet because it provides what they need instantaneously: information, contacts, gifts, advice, and so on. So, its important to check your emails as often as you can and reply to queries as soon as you can.

3. Organize your time and keep a schedule.

If you have a fulltime job and working to get your eBay business in motion after you get home, then its a must to organize your time and keep a schedule. List what needs to get done and stick to it so you’ll make the most of your precious time available.

Once you are working on eBay fulltime, this becomes even more important! Yes you have more time and more space to maneuver your schedule but its sometimes frustrating to find out that at the end of the day, you’ve hardly gotten anything done. So its wise to keep a planner or diary and make a timetable of all the things that need to be done. Its also good practice to label your activities based on their priority.

4. Take professional photographs from the beginning

First impressions always last! If you want people to get interested in your products, you need to use appealing and professional looking pictures of it. A buyer would want to see the item clearly and properly. They’re most likely to put-off buying your products because they can’t see if it is really what they want. So it would be advisable to work on creating the most appealing and professional pictures you can. Spending money on photo equipment could be a worthwhile investment for your business venture.

5. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Use other ways of selling apart from eBay. Although it’s one of the best places to start, it is not the only profitable medium you can use to sell your products online.
There are lots of other ways you can increase your web presence. You can use classified ads in Yahoo or some free classifieds website, you can make a press release of your auctions, or you can write about it in a social nerworking site like MySpace. There are plenty of cheap and easy ways to advertise your products.

6. Keep a constant look-out for other products to sell.

Never become complacent! While monitoring your products carefully, it is good practice to look for new products you can sell. You can browse for new and upcoming trends, read magazine article, find decor programs and more. You might miss out on a good opportunity that’s waiting to happen. And this would also give you more breathing room if one of your products suddenly turn sour.

7. Keep constant communication with your wholesale supplier.

Make sure that you are always well informed and aware of any stock issues. A backorder means a lot of extra work for you trying to soothe a disgruntled customer. It might also mean losing a valuable customer and even future customer… word gets around fast you know. So a regular dialogue with your supplier is of utmost importance and it could do wonders in building a better relationship.

8. Carry out regular keyword and market research.

This is another important factor that most sellers miss out on. You must always be on top of your game. You must make sure that your potential customers will find you successfully. Keyword reasearch is one way to ensure this. So you need to set aside some time everyday for marketing and research.

9. Use software to help organize your sales.

Investing in a good software can help make things much easier for you. Selling more than 15 items in eBay is not an easy task and you could find yourself making costly mistakes like under-ordering stocks, forgetting to ship to a customer, and so on. A good software can help ensure that you will not make these costly mistakes.

10. Never offer free shipping unless you can afford it.

Make sure that, when you do offer free shipping, you have factored in the costs into your retail price. Shipping costs depend on how far away you are sending it, on how much your product weighs or the size of your product. Although it is a very effective way to attract customers, you might end up selling at a loss. It especially becomes an arduous task if you apply it to a variety of items of different shapes and sizes… not to mention the different locations you need to ship them to.

If you’re looking for a way to earn extra income online, selling on eBay is one of the ways to go… but not necessarily the easiest! So take this article with a huge grain of salt. As always, its important to do your part… do research, research and research!

Stay tuned for more updates on the Wholesale buying business.

To your success,

Eric Delos Santos

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Are you interested in the Wholesale business? If you’re really looking into going into this type of business, especially through the internet, I’d like to share an article with you on how to know if the wholesaler you’re dealing with is legitimate.

You’ve probably heard of a lot of people being scammed by would-be wholesalers. This is bad news… especially if you’re new to this and just starting to venture into this business. There are no sure-fire ways to tell if a wholesaler is a legitimate one or not but here’s an article with a few tips on this subject.

I can’t reiterate enough how research plays an important role in anything you do… whether it be an offline or online business. So I am continuously writing or sharing articles about what I’ve learned or read to help lessen the time you’ll spend doing research. These will surely help you get on your way to start with a comprehensive reasearch plan. I must warn you though that these articles are meant to give you a heads up on some issues but they’re not in any way an assurance of your success or that you will not be scammed. (Please read the Privacy Policy of this website). If you agree to this, then you may continue reading the article below.

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Catching the Crooks: Is Your Wholesaler Dodgy or Legitimate?

Written by SaleHoo.com © All Rights Reserved

Fleeced, ripped-off, cheated, conned. We’re all afraid of losing money to wholesalers who turn out not to be the real deal. The horror stories can certainly be very off putting - especially to those just getting started. The trick is to spot it and stop it before it’s too late!

So what are signs that you’re dealing with a crook?

In our experience, there are 6 particular indications that you may not be dealing with a legitimate wholesaler:

• The wholesaler doesn’t sound business-like or professional when answering the phone. For example, he will answer with a plain ‘Yes?’ or ‘Hello?’, without identifying himself or the business name.
• The wholesaler doesn’t request your business license or sales tax ID during the initial contacts. Most true wholesalers will require one of these. While this is not a hugely important deal, if you are looking at dealing in large amounts you will need to get registered and should check that the wholesaler is registered as well.
• The wholesaler gets shifty when you request a product sample. Most wholesaler are only to happy to offer a sample of their product (usually at a higher price) so if they do not offer this be careful and question their reasons for not offering one.
• The wholesaler’s claims to take a secure form of payment (credit card, Paypal etc…) but later turns around and says they only accept wire transfer or western union. Not all wholesalers that take western union and wire transfer are scammers, but this is the most common way scammers operate and you should always steer on the side of caution if you are asked to pay be these methods when not having dealt with or knowing the person first.
• Their website offers no physical address or contact phone for you to get hold of them. Be blunt, ask them for a contact address and phone number and if it is ok if you come in and have a look around their offices. If they are serious this will be no problem at all for them.
• They claim they don’t currently have stock in and still expect you to pay up front. If this has been happening make sure you get some photographic evidence of their stock with the days newspaper or something (while this doesn’t always work, it means some one must have stock that they know of.)

Although these are not hard and fast rules, you should certainly proceed with caution if one or more of the above apply to a new wholesale contact you have made. If you have any tips to add or past experiences then we’d love to hear from you. Your experience is valuable to the SaleHoo community and I’m sure others would appreciate your comments.

About the Author: SaleHoo is one of the fastest growing product sourcing portals on the internet. It contains a database of drop ship, wholesale, closeout and manufacturing suppliers offering thousands of product suppliers to consumers! Located at http://www.salehoo.com, visitors are allowed to sign up for unlimited and lifetime access to the completely searchable database of products and suppliers. The database is regularly updated, ensuring that the latest retail products are always available for purchase and SaleHoo carries the BBB Reliability Seal!

Join SaleHoo Today for their Special Startup Offer!

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Hope you found this post relevant and helpful! Come back for more posts on the Wholesale buying subject in the days to come.

Thanks for your time!

Cheers!

Eric Delos Santos