I've compiled my top ten list for successfully selling your items on ebay. Some may seem obvious but there sure are a lot of crummy auctions out there, and a lot of unsold items!

1. Be a buyer before you're a seller. Pay attention to the listings you are drawn to. Pay attention to how you're treated by your sellers and emulate the good ones.

2. Check and recheck your spelling, especially in your item title. There are currently 15 items using the word "vace" in the title, rather than "vase". Few buyers will find you, and those who do will have a bad impression of you.

3. Use all available characters in your title for keywords that might draw bidders. Buyers are using keyword searches to find certain item; they're not window shopping. And most are doing only title searches, not title and description. If you item title is "Pretty vase", no one will find it. If it's "Fenton White Hobnail Milk Glass Vase, vintage" you'll get much more traffic. Leave out a comma if it allows you to fit one more important search term. Personally, I prefer title case with certain words in all caps for emphasis. All small letters looks unprofessional.

4. Use Auctiva (dot-com) for free, rather than paying fees for extra images, listing designer, and scheduling.

5. Leave feedback for your buyers only after the transaction is complete, which means they've received the item, you've resolved any dissatisfiers if necessary, and they've left feedback to tell you they were satisfied. Follow up with buyers and ask for their feedback if none is received in the first few weeks.

6. Do your research. Know what similar items have sold for (Completed Items) and price your item accordingly. Items are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. For certain types of items, it's entirely possible that a live auction or garage sale is a better venue.

7. Take a good picture. Crop your pictures. I don't want to see your whole dining room, just the details in the Hummel you're selling. To avoid those blurry close-ups, take a step back with the camera and then crop later, rather than getting so close that the picture is blurry. Take the picture from an angle, not straight on if using a flash, so the flash doesn't bounce directly back and ruin your picture. Take pictures from several angles. Maybe someday I'll write a guide on this topic.

8. Be honest in your assessment of the condition. Listing the item as "Like New" and "Excellent" might net you this sale, but the wrath of a disappointed buyer and the resulting negative feedback ain't worth losing the next five sales!

9. Gallery pictures are usually worth the thirty-five cents.

10. Start your auction at a decent hour on both coasts! Auctions ending at 10pm PST are ending at 1pm EST. And vice versa. Auctions ending at 10am EST are ending at 7am PST. Maximize your audience since often bids come at the eleventh hour. I think the best time to end your auction is around 10pm EST / 7pm PST on Monday-Thursday. Pay attention to the ending date when you start your auction; don't end them during the Super Bowl, the season finale of Lost, or Christmas morning.

If you found any of these tips useful, please take just a second and click on the "yes" button below. Thanks.