5 Lessons of eBay Selling

Hey, do you have a house and a garage full of stuff? If so, chances are you don’t need all of it. So, if you are looking for a way to make some quick cash, why not sell it on eBay?

eBay is a fantastic platform for getting unwanted stuff out of your garage and for putting some quick cash in your pocket. But like any tool there are ways of using eBay to get the most out of your stuff to make more cash.

For example, I recently sold a cover for Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 that was thrown in as a sweeter with the Galaxy purchase deal. I didn’t really like the cover and because it was brand new, I though it would be a hot little item to sell on eBay. I didn’t think much about how I was going to go about selling it and put in a bare minimum of effort into listing. You know how it is… A couple of quick photos, a two line item description and 7 day auction. Well, after the auction has ended and I paid for postage. I ended up with $4 in pocket. On an item that at the time retailed  for 50 bucks! Sucks, right?

So, what went wrong? I recently came across an excellent post on Ramit Sethi’s “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” blog that sheds some light on the tips and tricks of eBay selling. The post author actually interviewed Jim Griffith, the dean of eBay University who teaches thousands of people how to use eBay as a platform to build their businesses, and has been an expert seller since eBay got started.

Without boring you too much, here are the main 5 take away points:

1. Use loads of high quality pictures. The more pictures you use and the better quality they are, the more credible you will look and the more confident the buyer will be.

2. Use good descriptions. Sounds simple but many sellers (myself included) are lazy and only do a slap dash two or three line description. To get a good description look up a similar item for sale or get the description from the manufacturer’s website.

3. Research your item. Do a Google search. Look at other eBay sellers offering similar things for sale. This will give you an idea of the price and what conditions other sellers are offering (i.e. free postage). You will also learn whether people actually buy what you are trying to sell and whether it is worth your efforts to list.

4. Use a 10 day listing starting on Thursday. This gives potential buyers to weekends to notice your wares as weekends usually have higher traffic.

5. Deliver ASAP! This is very important is you want to build good seller rating.

Bonus tip – you can make money on eBay by finding cheap stuff locally that you can buy either wholesale or on major sale. Have a look at yard sales or Sunday markets.

All of the tips above are common sense but it is surprising how many people use the “list and hope for the best” strategy when it comes to eBay. Well, my dear Capitalist, the rest is up to you now. Have a look through the junk in your cupboards or in your garage and start selling!