Hello, I have worked for an auction company for 6 years now and have been selling on ebay fro 3 years nowm the 2 go hand in hand but they also have their differences,

I would like to give you some tips about ebay and live auctions.

Live Auctions (and garage sales)

Always try to go ahead of time to scope out the merchandise, most auctioneers let possible bidders come a few hours early to preview the sale, this is great if you live close by enough to back to your house and check what items are selling good on eba ya thte moment or research the price that you can bid a the live auction to turn a profit on ebay.

Take some kind of packing materials with you, the company i worked for usually provided this, but a lot i went to did not provide any, throw a plastic tote or box with a few newspapers in it in your vehicle in case you purchase anything breakable. (good for garage sales too)

Set a limit, sometimes people get caught up in an auction and overpay for items that they wanted to resale for a profit, hey it happens sometimes....  Set a limit that allows for ebay fees and at least a 30% markup,

dont buy too much, again since i work for an auction company i sometimes am giving the opportunity to buy 20 boxes of misc for only $2, and i cant help myself, but this usually provides me a new problem, what do i do with it, i dont think that it is worth my time to try and list everything for 99 cents, ebay fees would kill me, if you happen to do this, sort through and find the items that will sell for over $4, (cuz you only gave $2 for it all) make a few piles for your items, one to throw away, one to donate, and one to maybe sell through another auction, only donate good items, dont give the goodwill the trash, they dont want it, if you have a lot of items that are not good items to donate but still have some value, put them in boxes and send them to another local auctioneer, this way you can go to that auction and watch your stuff and maybe make a few buck, but it also gives you an excuse to go to another auction! (sometimes donating can get you a few dollars off of your taxes and save on items going to landfills)

If you plan on selling items on ebay, get a tax number, this has saved me lots of money, then i just send in any tax that i collectd from sales in my state, never more than a few dollars because most of the time the item sells out of state

When at a garage sale if the price is a little high for you to make a good profit, ask for a discount, if buying more than one item, ask "how much if it take it all" this usually gets you a Great deal on items.

Ebay rules

One thing that i learned is never charge too much for shipping, there are a lot of people on ebay that charge 3-4 times the actual shipping price, allow yourself 1-2 dollars for handling and in case you undercharged on your shipping price, if the shipping price is only a few stamps, offer FREE shipping, this can boost the price of you final sale by more than what you would have charged for shipping

insurance and delivery confirmation, if anything of mine sells for over 15 bucks i always pay for delivery conf out of my own pocket, because it protects me, not the buyer, if something sells over $30 i make insurance mandetory,

Bad buyers, sometimes you get people that get the item that you went into great detail to describe in your listing, but they decided that it is not what they want but they do not want to send it back either, they just want their money back, this has happened to me a few times, i try to resolve the issure so that they have to send it back to me, and i will refund their purchase minus s/h, sometimes they do not go for this, then if it is under $5 i just chalk it up as a loss and refund their money, i do not sell much items during some parts of the year and can not handle negative feedback, i look at it as a $5 positive feedback, i may be wrong here but i only do this after i have had at least 3 contacts with the buyer.

Another thing that i do sometimes is give a free gift with a purchase if i made a HUGE profit off of something, it may bring that buyer back to you as a repeat customer, priceless!

since i own an antique store in Abilene tx (wink wink) it is easy for me to throw a cheap little thing in the box, the buyer really appreciates it,  sometimes i just through in a few old coins, sometimes i purchase a large lot of coins off of ebay and some are not worth very much, but i will make little bags of about 10 coins and put it in their orders, the buyers love it and it didnt cost me much at all!

If you have more than one item to sell, list one, and when it gets a bid, wait until that one only has a few hours left before listing the other one, if there is a limited amount of them for a buyer to bid on, they may pay more for it

Offer a shipping discount, if you fit 2 items in the same box (without them breaking) enclose a check with part of the shipping as a refund, again this really impresses buyers (even if it is only a 1 or 2 bucks)

If this helped you in any way, please say so, (if you are ever in Abilene, please send me an email and i will tell you where my store is LOL)