Thank you for poppin' your head in the door for a peak at my guide. I have written various guides to target many ebay related topics with a TOP REVIEW on my guide titled PAYPAL FRAUD & SCAMS! HOW TO SPOT THEM! WHAT TO DO! Check it out! It is very informative and educational. I was inspired to write this particular guide by a new ebay user named Kim. I have been mentoring her (for lack of better words) via email. She was impressed with what I tought her. So here I am sharing some insights, thoughts and experiences with you too.

I am going to start off by covering alot of strategies and insights to various selling and shipping topics on eBay. These topics will help you with troubleshooting. And help you get a better bang for your buck when selling. I have put all the topics in capital letters at the beginning of each topic for easy navigation so you don't have to read what you don't want to read.  You can just read what you feel is important if you like. But if you like my writing, please give me a yes vote before you haul booty.

KNOWING HOW TO PRICE YOUR ITEM: Pricing your item should never be guess work. It is very simple to know what to charge for an item. Simply perfrom a search for the item you are selling. On the left hand side of the page I want you to go and click COMPLETED LISTINGS. Then click SHOW ITEMS. This will give you about a 2 week history about how your item has been bought & sold. I want you to go to the top right hand corner of the same page and click HIGHEST FIRST where you see END DATE:RECENT FIRST. Study the prices & formats on how items sold. This will give you good ideas and insights on what price to ask for your item as well as what selling format to use. After you checked the highest price I want you to go to the same box and click LOWEST PRICE FIRST. This will show you how poorly an item sold and why. I can't say enough about how effective this tool is. It takes SECONDS to do. It will also tell you whether or not your item is worth investing TIME AND MONEY into such things as pics, listing fees, item descriptions, shipping issues etc...etc... This is the most important exercise there is to selling. And it is FREE!

CHOOSING YOUR SELLING FORMAT: In order to maximize the money you want to make, you have to decide on a selling format. The last exercise should have displayed this for you. I personally like to sell my items fixed price. Auction style with low opening bids is less expensive. But the over all odds of making more money in the long run (even over the cost of the listing fees) is not as great as a fixed price Buy It Now listing. At least you have much better odds of getting the premium you want with fixed price listings. The exercise above would have indicated that to you as well. Then you have a listing that is set up auction style with a high opening bid. Let's say we are selling a widget. I have my widget for sale with a Buy It Now price of $99.99. This is what the exercise in the last paragraph indicated that people will buy widgets very well with this kind of offer. Another seller has the exact same widget for sale. He has his set up auction style with a high opening bid of $99.99 in hopes that people will compete for his listing and he will make more money. Now you are the customer. If you had a choice between buying your widget from 2 sellers with equal credentials and shipping prices. Are you going to bid on HIS widget and HOPE nobody comes behind you at the last minute and gets it from under you at the last second after you waited ALL WEEK LONG for this listing to end. And you get to start your search for a widget ALL OVER AGAIN. Or are you going to buy MY widget and have it in your home before the other listing even ends? I think I just sold you a widget. Meanwhile the other noodlehead seller just wasted his time, money and listing fees because he wanted to be greedy. KNOW THIS: You are a shopper too. You hate when greedy sales people come your way. Why would anyone else like it. The noodlehead seller was greedy. Greed does not pay. Just that plain and simple. And I just showed you why.

Picture yourself shopping for a widget. You see that a cool guy like me has one you can buy RIGHT NOW for $99.99. So you come to my listing. You check out my stuff. Then you decide your going to WATCH my listing. Odds are great that you did this because some other noodlehead has one going off auction style at a much lower price than I do. And definatley a safer bet than the high opening bid from Mr Noodlehead. So I can't blame you for saying to yourself "If I don't win this auction, I will get the Buy It Now from the cool guy. (That's me.) And your odds are as favorable as there is the # of bidders around when the fat lady sings and the auction is over. And chances are if you win the auction, you DID save a little money. I told you this to show a point. Being a greedy noodlehead does not have any advantages. Another point to be made here is that the guy who opened up HIS widget auction style with a low opening bid didn't make $99.99 on his widget. He sold his for $87.41. Point made. Do I make sense? You might be asking yourself if my widget sold. Remeber me? The cool guy? Well guess what? You weren't the only one watching my widget. I had 5 people watching my widget. The user you just beat at the auction was thinking the same as you. He bought the widget from the cool guy.( Did I mention that was me?) Ka-ching! A sale is made. You got maximum premiums too. And you did it honestly. Good job!

WRITING A PRESENTABLE ITEM DESCRIPTION:  HONESTY! HONESTY! HONESTY! There is no more powerful of a tool than HONESTY when it comes to ANY activity on eBay. Be sure to be thorough with your item description. State the items true condition. (MINT, Near Mint, MIB, NIB, USED, GENTLY USED, NWOT) Many sellers will write VERY COY item descriptions and ask you  to email them with any questions or concerns you might have. The reason they do this is because they don't want you to know how deceiving they MIGHT be tryng to be. Some people are just down right lazy too. Giving an item description as full and accurate as you can gives the buyer a sense of comfort with decision making when it comes down to who they will buy from. If there is a defect, say it! There is no shame in being honest. Although there is shame when you have a dispute for being coy.

WRITING A TERMS AND LIABILITY DISCLAIMER: The disclaimer that I write with many of my listings goes as follows. You can tweek and fine tune to suit your own taste and needs. I usually include the following statement IMMEDIATELY after my item description.

Buyer to pay $X.XX for shipping. Each aditional item is $X.XX per item. Payment is due 7 days after the sale of the item has ended. I accept Paypal, Money Orders and Cashiers Checks only please. DO NOT send a Personal Check! I will mail it back to you. Insurance is recommended for all items sold here. I WILL NOT be responsible for lost, damaged, misdirected or uninsured mail. And I DO NOT ship to blah blah blah country! Please feel free to email me with any questions you might have. I am MORE THAN HAPPY to help how I can. Thank you for your interest. Good Luck!

RETURN POLICIES: Return policies are VERY IMPORTANT when selling a MINT, NIB, MIB, NWT, BRAND SPANKING NEW, NWOT and Unopened material. When you state that you are selling these things, people want to KNOW they are the real deal. Your ability to "put your money where your mouth is" is a GREAT way of making more sales. Stand behind your honest item description to encourage and entice more buyers/bidders. Used or "gently used" items should always be sold "as is' and stated as such with no returns. You can NEVER guarantee how well someone will or won't be happy with such items like used or gently used. And the customer should know they are taking your word in your item description at face value. Buying a used item should not come with a return policy if you are honest and accurate. Most people are buying used to save money. So they should not have the expectations of anything better. If it happens to be better than what they expected they just got a bargain.

WHAT DURATION DO I WANT TO SELL MY ITEM FOR? This is a VERY  touch-n-go subject that not many pro sellers will touch. I am going to tackle it though. I have some good experiences to share. You have 1,3,5,7,&10 listings available for you at your disposal. The reason many pro sellers won't tackle this question is because of how touch-n-go it is. There are certain times of the year when bidding and traffic is at its peak. The demand for an item and what time of year to sell it has alot to do with the duration of time you want your listing to run. 3-5 days is a pretty good standard year around. It is not always the best standard year around. It also depends on the type of item you are selling/presenting. If you have an item that is rare/scarce, you definately want a long time exposure to it. If the item is truly that rare/scarce, BUYERS WILL BE THERE AT THE END OF THE AUCTION! So I would go with a minimal 7 day auction on this type of item. Remember, the entire country is your audience. You want everyone to have a chance to see it. The more people that see it, the better your traffic and bids are. Also find out how the item does by using the first exercise in this guide. If you truly have something to hoot and holler over, the eyes will be on the prize. Another thing to remember is that ebayers email your listing to other ebayers. This provides more eyes and more time to gear up for the Grand Finale. BUYERS WILL BE ON HAND AFTER 7-10 DAYS IF YOUR ITEM REALLY IS THAT EXCITING! And the payoff is GRAND! I believe that 1,3 & 5 day listings are good for semi rare and common items that are easy to find or relatively easy to find. Buyers are not as likely to hang our for 7-10 days for something they can get from another seller in less time. 1,3, & 5 day auctions are quite ideal for these types of items. Think about it. Are YOU going to hang out for 7-10 days for nothing if you don't have to? To top it off, the item is easy or semi easy to come by. I would be hard-pressed to think so. But if you see rare/scarce you just "gotta have" and the opportunity is just that, an opportunity, YOU WILL HAVE YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE TOO in hope you can win the prize. When it comes to buying and selling on ebay, one hand washes the other. It is just that plain & simple.

ARE THERE STRATEGIES FOR SELLING MUTIPLE SIMILAR ITEMS THAT WILL ATTRACT MORE BUYERS? Yes there is! Please read the above paragragh to better understand what time durations to use for what types of items. After doing so, this paragraph will make more sense. I am not writing it twice when it is directly above this paragraph. We are back to selling widgets now. I sell my usuall widget at a Buy It Now price or $99.99. this particular widget is nothing special. There are alot made and they are relatively easy to come by. I list them in 1,3 & 5 day listings. NOW I have a very rare widget. There is only 500 of these special limited edition widgets made. I post it for sale with a 7-10 day listing because I want everyone to come and see my rare/scarce widget. I want ebayers to email other ebayers that they know who are in the market for my rare widget to come and see it. My rare widget is SURE to attract ALOT of attention. Attention is the key word in that sentence. In my listing for the rare widget I mention that I also have the regular widgets on sale for $99.99 Buy It Now. I have scattered them over a period of 1,3 &5 days. I invite other buyers to see my widgets for sale by clicking View Sellers Other Items. My common widgets are selling like hot cakes because of the attention drawn to my RARE widget. And every time a common widget sells I post up another common widget. I am going to milk this til the rare widget ends. I also highlighted and put a purple banner on my rare widget because it is just that rare. And I really wanted to stand out from the crowd and be noticed. It cost a few bucks sure. But look how many widgets I sold. THIS IS SMART SELLING! Post your rarest and most expensive item first. High dollar "like" items should ALWAYS be listed first and longest before the lesser items. List the lesser items IMMEDIATELY!

TAKING PICTURES FOR YOUR LISTINGS: Having nice clear pics is important to any listing. People want to see things as best they can. As much detail as possible. Taking good pictures IS a pivotal money maker. ESPECIALLY items that carry great detail. Make sure the background of the pic is nice and clean. A plain cloth or clean shelf makes for a nice back drop and brings more focus and attention to the item you have for sale. Also BE SURE to picture EVERYTHING that is included in the listing. I don't recommend putting multiple listings of different items in one pic. If you have 2 things to sell, take 2 pics. Multiple pics are a great idea if you are going to sell a very rare or scarce item that has a great amount of detail to it. Multiple pics cost more. BUT if you really have a nice item that is rare or scarce, and you know is sought after, people want to see pics. Not just a pic. In many cases, the pics will be a good investment. As for ordinary everyday items that are not hard to come by, I would only do one pic. But make it a good one.

WHAT DO I CHARGE TO SHIP AN ITEM?: Please see my other review titled SHIPPING AND HANDLING FEES! A RIP OFF? Shipping charges are a real issue here on eBay. You want to be fair to the buyer. But for some people there is the temptation to overcharge for shipping. I call this greed. Greed is a mother ______! Be honest. Be fair. The first exercise should give you IDEAS on a comfortable price range to ship an item. Certainly you don't want to undercharge. Not with the prices of listing fees and final value fees. And certainly you don't want to over charge and be greedy. You will shy away your customers. You don't like being raked over the coals for shipping charges. What would make you think people want you to do it to them? I remember a time when I heard someone say "I want to be raked over hot coals with shipping charges because I like giving my money away to a nameless and faceless strangers on eBay for no damn good reason at all!" That guy was Mr Noodlehead. He is now wearing a straight-jacket at the Betty Ford clinic. Be kind. Be fair. Keep your inflated shipping prices minimal. No more than .50 cents or $1.00. This way you are sure to have your shipping fees covered with just a little bit of POCKET CHANGE to help with fees if you really need the help. I say this because some people actually think they need that much help that they have to hit someone else over the head for the expense of ebay listings. When in reallity greed has just come to bite you in the butt. And I have NEVER had a complaint about my shipping fees in the duration of my ebay experience.

HOW DO I HANDLE PAYMENTS? Paypal is HANDS DOWN the most poular form of payment there is on eBay. Paypal offers buyer/seller protection on a majority of its transactions. Buyers can pay from the comfort of their own home without ever leaving the house. Payments often times arrive quicker than payments that are mailed in. You also get your payments the INSTANT the buyer sends it. Paypal DOES charge a %age fee to sellers. It is FREE for buyers. Paypal saves the buyer the time of going through checkout, making an invoice, putting it in an envelope with stamps (costs buyers money), buying the money order (also costs money AND time because they have to go get the money order.) and then drop it in a mailbox. And they also just spent money on gas to go get the money order. WHEW! That was a mouthful! So MOST buyers are happy to pay using Paypal. Money Orders/.Cashiers Checks are a good way to entice more buyers to bid. Some people do not have Credit/Debit cards registered with Paypal. So they have to go through the song & dance I just mentioned. NOT accepting Paypal as a seller is SURELY going to lower your sales percentages for the same reasons I just stated above. People DO pay less premiums when they have to do the Money Order/Cashiers Checks dance. You might want to consider this as a seller. My first exercise will confirm the effectiveness of this knowledge I am sharing with you. I want you to consider weighing what the losses/gains are. With Paypal the fees are on YOU the seller. Without Paypal the fees are on the buyer. But consider this. If 95+% of the people on ebay have Paypal that means only -5% DON'T! There is more interest and competition on an item when you have 95+% working with you. Hence the other -5% is not in your monitary favor. This formula FAAAR OUTWEIGHS the advantages over disadvantages. People DEFINATELY will be busier at a Paypal auction than they would a non Paypal auction. The profits and differences end up in YOUR POCKET after all is said and done with the fees.

WHAT TIME FRAME IS FAIR TO ASK FOR PAYMENTS TO BE IN? This topic varies WIDELY. I personally accept Paypal, Money Orders and Cashiers Checks only. I require payment in full on my items in 7 calendar days. 7 days is PLENTY of time to send a Paypal payment or a Money Order/Cashiers Check within the country. It also gives a little cushion to your customers possible busy life so they can send payment in a timely fashion. Some people run out of money in the Paypal account. Then they have to request more funds from the bank account. This can take 3-4 business days if this is the case. I can tell you as a RESPONSIBLE buyer that I have NEVER in my eBay history needed even 7 days to pay for an item under any circumstance. And I by no means have a money tree in my back yard. (Okay, So I do. But I am not telling YOU I have a money tree in my back yard LOL!) Payment is a matter of honor, respect & responsibility. Be flexible. You never know who your customer is and what lifestyle they have. None-the-less, I find 7 days to be very comfortable. I have sold to celebrities a couple of times. It only goes to show that you never know who is the nameless and faceless user ID that is in your buyers column.

NON PAYING BIDDERS: Non paying bidders is another concern here on ebay. You can always try to initiate communication with your buyer FIRST. Ebay will ask you if you did when you goto file a report. If you do not get the buyer to communicate, well, you pretty much don't have a choice but to file a Non Paying Bidders complaint. The complaint MIGHT open up lines for communication with your buyer. Odds are great your buyer will hand you a load of crap. Very few people are actually honest about oweing money. It DOES happen though. We ARE humans. If no communication happens during the Non Paying Bidders process, this is a good thing. I say it is a good thing because you are on your way to recovering your listing fees and final value fees for your listing. So at least you didn't lose your money. You have still lost the time. But you hafta chalk it up as a loss. Ebay, nor can any other entity give you back time. Also ebay will send within the Non Paying Bidders report to the buyer a notice that they will lose feedback priveleges for the trasaction. So you will be protected from a wrongful negative feedback IF you go through the entire Non Paying Bidders form. YOU MUST COMPLETE THE TRANSACTION ON THE FORM TO GAIN PROTECTION and leave negative feedback for other ebayers to know about that user.

DOES EBAY HAVE A SITE MAP? Yes! Ebay has a site map CHOCK FULL of various topics related to ebay. You can go to your My Ebay page and look on the top/right hand side of the page. Click SITE MAP. There are HUNDREDS of topics within the map.It is very informative and educational. It is also FREE!

SHIPPING SUPPLIES: This IS NOT another reason to hit your customer in the head for extra shipping money. Shipping supplies such as boxes, envelopes and peronalized address labels are FREE from USPS. You can go to the website USPS,COM and get all the supplies you want for FREE! You can also call 1-800-ASK-USPS. The are very helpful with your shipping needs. I recommend calling them and asking for an order form so you can see what they have available. The web site(last I checked) was very subpar. They can send you an order form so you can see all that is available. And the best thing is that they will ship them right to your door for FREE! Yes, I said FREE! Tell them the cool guy sent you. They will think your a little weird. But they will still give you FREE STUFF!! Clean boxes make a nice presentation. Clean boxes also make a statement about you as a seller. If you have no intention of being ebays next power seller, you might want to check with your local dept. store, a grocery store or a liquor store. Boxes are usually abundant in these locations. PLUS they will get at least one more use before it gets canned. USPS also has a number of boxes available that are called Flat Rate boxes. One in particular is commonly known as the USPS Flat Rate Shoebox. This is a GREAT box! USPS will ship the box for you for a flat rate of $8.00 regardless of the weight. It just has to fit in the box and be sealed shut. WHAT A BARGAIN!!!

USPS no longer provides free packing tape to people any more because, you guessed it, people used it and abused it. AHHHH! Those WERE the days! To my knowledge, packing peanuts, bubble wrap and packing paper never were available. But there are ways to substitiute. Old phone book pages make a good substitute for packing peanuts if you wad them up. Newspaper works just fine to wrap fragile items. Be sure to package the item in a clean bag before wrapping anything in newspaper to prevent ink from rubbing on the item during transport. If you are an avid buyer on ebay, you might want to save, recycle and reuse CLEAN pieces of packing materials when you get your packages in the mail. I have even gotten things in the mail that had plastic grocery bags for cushion. One time someone sent me a beer stein in a clean babys diaper. I don't recommend this. So I blew my nose in it and sent it back. I told the lady I didn't order this. Somehow she didn't find it as funny as I did. I did keep the stein. True story.

SHOULD I CHARGE FOR INSURANCE ON MY ITEMS?: I recommend making insurance MANDATORY in your listings at the buyers expense (post these fees and statements in your listing) for any dollar amount you would not coming out of your pocket in the event of a dispute. On high end items most buyers are aware of what they are buying and can typically expect to pay insurance. Without insurance on high end items or items you don't want money coming back out of your pocket in a dispute, I highly recommend doing the insurance thing.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I NEED TO INCLUDE DELIVERY CONFIRMATION?: This is the single most important thing to have if you ever have a Paypal dispute filed against you. If you don't believe me, YOU NEED TO READ MY   "PAYPAL FRAUD & SCAMS! HOW TO SPOT THEM! WHAT TO DO!"   I am not writing that one twice. But I will tell you that it is EXTRAORDINARILY educational in every facet of the word. It is BY FAR my proudest and best review. It put me in the top review categories FAST! Everything you want to know and more is DEFINATELY in that review. And once you see it you will understand VERY CLEARLY why I didn't want to write it twice.

WHAT TIME OF DAY DO I WANT TO LIST MY ITEM?: Folks, I want you to understand something here. I personally do not like to ship outside the U.S. I will ship to Canada upon occasion. This brings me to my next lesson for you. It is important to remember that you live in a country with multiple time zones. I live in Florida. I live in the latest time zone. While on the West Coast you have California. This is your earliest time zone. Those people are coming home from work about the same time I am getting ready to watch a movie after a shower (sorry for the visual) or getting ready to put peanut butter on the roof of my dogs mouth. Uhhh! I mean, have dinner. Yep! That's what I mean. Having dinner. My point is that you have an entire audience that is as big as this country. The ENTIRE COUNTRY is your audience. So you want to make sure that the entire audience can see your show. I end my listings between 8:00 & 10:00 PM Monday through Saturday. I do not have my listings end on a Sunday. I will tell you why in a minute. If you list your items in a way the entire country can see them. AND get home on time to bid on them, you will want to end your listings so people on the west coast can bid on them. This means more competion and people looking at your item in the closing minutes of your sale. Traffic on a smartly listed item is just about always heaviest when the fat lady is juuuust getting ready to clear her throat.( My apologies again on the visual.) You want the west coast to be there when she gets ready to sing.

Now, I do not let my items end on a Sunday for a few reasons. First of all. I am a VERY AVID shopper. 99% of the time I shop for only certain things. I buy things to resell and make money. And for the things I shop for, Sunday night has historically been my lucky night for buying. This has been 5+ years running now. My THEORY is that alot of other sellers like their listings to end on Sunday. For one reason or another my bidding and watch page is always at its fullest on Sunday. I truly believe that (at least for the things I shop for) there is more product than there is competition. I have a set budget for EVERYTHING I am hunting for. And I NEVER pay more than what my budget permits with shipping and handling INCLUDED in that budget. Now with that being said, when there is more product than there is competition, prices are much lower.When prices are lower, profit is lost and time is wasted. Opportunity just whizzed right by if your a seller. Remember, I am only speaking for the things I shop for. I obviously resell those things. So I know enough to make sure they do not end on my lucky buying night. I buy on one user id and sell on another. This is another way I know this is effective for ME.  YOU might want to refer to exercise #1 to see if this is good for YOU.

AS A SELLER, HOW DO I KNOW I HAVE MADE MY LISTING THE BEST IT CAN BE? The best way to know if you set up your listing to be the best it can be is to be a buyer. Your probably scratching your head right now and saying "Huh? Did he just tell me the best way to know if I did a good job on my listing is to be a buyer?" YES! I did say that. You HAFTA wear a buyers shoes to know what a buyer wants. Think about it. When YOU got shop for an item on ebay. Don't you ask yourself questions like?... Does this seller have good sellers feedback ratings? Will he/she be responsive to my needs? Can I ask this seller a question JUST to see how well they respond? Are the shipping prices fair? Are ALL my questions answered in the listing? Am I getting a good quality item for my money? I DID work hard all week for it. TRUST ME when I say that the same questions that go on in your head are going on in your buyers head. If you are a seller and you would feel good about buying the thing you are actually selling, you did a good job on your listing. GOOD JOB!

Thank you for reading my review. Pleas eindicate that you found this review helpful. Thank you and good luck with ebay! Mike.