To start a business on Ebay, it's great to know some things first.  I knew nothing, and lost money for the first 2 years.  I was lost on here, and there were not guides.

It's a little easier to start as a buyer, because then you have learned how it works.  And it's really  hard to start to sell, if you don't have a "Feedback Score" because no one knows who you are, or if they can trust you.

1.  Start Small, Stay SIMPLEl  So, to get going, start small.  Pick something you know something about, and can easily sell.  It helps if you have your idea already. 

2.  Make it Easy.  Next, make your listing easy.  People on here write so many terms, and details, it's almost discouraging. It should not look like the Bible, I was looking at one auction with about 30 paragraphs, and had to go take a break.   Too much crap in there - NOT NECESSARY.  

Be simple.  My listings say the item, a small description that is accurate, in short detail, that I ship to US only, new or used, final sale, and non smoking.   All of those other multi paragraphs on terms, and feedback and returns, and bad experiences, are not necessary, and detur the person from concentrating on the item.  I have never put all of that into my listings.  No one cares and it does not prevent anything both bad and good experiences still happen to everyone, despite overwriting of blah blah blah

3.  Accurately Describe Your Item. I only sell new things.  That's personal for me.  I don't like to sell something that I don't know the history.  If it's used, it may break, or be damaged, and then the buyer is going to be upset.  I stick with new, but many people on here sell used or antique items and are fine with that. For me, I only want new, but for you, it's whatever you feel comfortable with.

4.  Pricing - I remember listing items that cost me $7.00 and listing them for $4.99.  I assumed that there would be a huge bidding war on that item, and it would sell for the $15.00 that I wanted.  And I only got one bid, and had to sell my $7.00 item, pay the fee to list that, and sell it at a loss.  Yes, I cried.  Did I learn from that??  No, I assumed that was a fluke, and tried another item at a lower price than I paid for it, assumed that the new item would be bid on by several people and get to my desired price this time.  Did it?  No, it did not.  Yes, I cried again. 

What I realized is that I had to have confidence in my item and myself, and ask for the price I need to have, and if it was bid up higher, good, if not, at least I wasn't using all of my lost money on kleenex.  Some items don't sell, but then Ebay may not be the place for them.  But don't lose money. It does take a while.

It is not good to list your item cheaply to save in fees, and then mark up high shipping.  It is discouraged now by Ebay, and you are marked down for it because legitimate shipping charges are high enough, so the thing to do is make enough money on the product that you can afford the fees.  If you are only making a few dollars on an item, it's not going to be lucritive.  You have to find something you can double at least over your costs - all of the costs from fees to shipping, and the cost of the item.

5.  Learn your Market  Items that may sell on here, may not sell somewhere else.  It changes alot, so I always test the waters on things.  Meaning don't buy 4 dozen on a maybe.  Buy 2 or 3 single items, first see if it sells, then you can buy more.  Things are cheaper in bulk, but not if they don't sell.

Live Auctions get the most visibility, and are the most expensive.  But they work.  The larger audience looks on all of the live listings. 

Fixed price auctions enable the buyer to not wait, and know the set price.  But when you are starting out, live auctions introduce you as a business, and give more time for the person to see you are out there.  If you use a fixed price, and it sells in 2 days, then there's 5 days that others don't even know you are out there.

To find your category to list your product under, there are many ways to do it.  Every name in the title can put your item in another category.  for example:  if you are selling a pink t shirt, and it's Disney, you can type DISNEY PINK MICKEY & MINNIE MOUSE TSHIRT LARGE  your listing will end up in the Disney category, tshirt, mickey mouse, minnie mouse, and pink. 

For any items, you want your title to lead people to your item, so make the title appear in multiple categories.  That takes some learning.  You do not need to spend the money to list in 2 separate categories - that doubles the fees, but not necessarily doubles the chances of a sale.  If someone has what you want, they will bid.  It happens to me in one category since day 1.

6.  LEARN BEST TIMES TO LIST - THIS IS MAJOR

Watch when other auctions end, and see if they have bids on the items.  If you list out of the majority time for your shopping audience, you may not sell the item.  This take some homework.  All things sell better at different times.  And all time zones are looking that things.

7.  You need to be sure that you are selling something authentic.  By that I mean, you can't sell things that have copyright infringement issues.  If you don't know where your item is from, you need to check.  If you sell anything that violates trademark infringment laws, they will and have the right to close down your store.  So fake pocketbooks, etc, are highly visible on here.  This is a nationwide, international, worldwide audience.  And it's huge.  Merchandise is monitored, so even if you think you won't have a problem, you will.  Don't try it, you will lose your account.  And it's not worth it.  There are so many things on here you can make money with.

8.  If your item is seasonal, list it ahead of time. 

If things don't sell right away, don't forget there is a process, and you need to entice people to shop with you.  They need to trust you and to like what you are selling.  It is the lucky person who has the perfect item and starts making money right away.  That was not me.  I had no idea what to sell, how to list, and the price ranges that my things were worth.  I could write a book now.

9.  Save some Profit from this - If you start making money, you don't need to re-invest it all into more merchandise.  If you do, you end up with more and more to sell, and nothing in your pocket.  I ususally only revinvest a certain percent.  I did end up with more merchandise than money, and I learned the hard way.  It's easy to get excited and keep buying products, but the great thing is to learn from my mistakes, and don't overbuy.  I no longer overbuy, but it took a long time to get that part down.  I am a girl, I love to shop, and it was so much fun.  

10.  Use Insurance or Delivery Confirmation on everything.  If anyone claims they did not get it, you have proof you sent it.   Also, I don't even rule out the requests to ship oversees.  I do it.  However, I only use priority mail with a customs recipt.  Many people will ask you to ship first class or cheaper.  It can take weeks and weeks to arrive.  I won't do it because if it does not arrive, they are going to leave you the bad feedback, and you may have to pay them back, so I will ship it, but so that it works for both parties.  Do not let the buyer try to talk you in to saving them money because they will be first to say it never arrived..

11.  Feedback is a two way street. I am very reluctant to leave anyone bad feedback, I always try to work it out first.  If they are really bad, rude or don't buy the item, I still might not leave that negative feedback, it depends on the circumstances.  Because they can leave it for you as well.  I try to work with everyone.  There is a way to block bad bidders from buying again, and do it.  It's impossible to remember the user names, and they may wait to buy again, only to ruin your score for a deal from before.  In my Ebay, you can go to the site map, and block bidders - up to 1000 names.   And now sellers can't leave negative feedback per say, but if you have a really bad buyer, you can report them to Ebay, or carefully word comments in your feedback.  The way I feel is that when people cause problems with you, they tend to cause them everywhere, and eventually they do themselves in.  And also, it took me more than 2 years to learn how to block any bidders that aren't good, and prevent them from shopping again.  It's inside the "site map" at the top of the page, and you find "block bidder", you have to type in their user name exactly, and it will block them from your auctions until you change it.  You are allowed multiple "blockings" of people, so use it when you need to.

12. Buying things on clearance in retail stores can be an inexpensive way to start also.  But be careful, sometimes items on clearance are odd sizes, won't sell on here either.  I sell alot of clothes, but some things I bought on clearance to resell on here, still have not sold.  That was a hard thing to assess, and even when I have marked these items down really low, they have not sold.

So bottom line, - try it, keep it small, keep it short and sweet,  be clear, take good pictures, and keep your profits in your pocket, not in inventory.  Have fun, and definately try it.

If your first idea does not catch on, or make you money, it's OK.  You can still find other things that do work.  I have found that if you sell things you are not interested in, you get very bored and don't have fun with it.  Like I know nothing about electronics, wouldn't work for me to sell them.  Or sports memorabilia, I know nothing about it.  That's not my thing, but when I sell what I like, it's great and easy.

I sell a guide inside my store called Before you Lose your Money, Learn from Me, and it has a much more detailed way to learn all of this, plus you can refer to it right next to the computer.  The thing to remember is that we all started from scratch, and noone gets to be a millionaire when they start.  I am still waiting, but in the meantime I have figured out how to keep my costs down, and my profits up.

There was a guy on here once complaining that his costs and fees were about 15%.  That's a miracle.  He found very cheap things like antiques etc, and marked them up alot and also did live auctions.  He thought he could cut his costs even more, and I told him no, he could not.  He was doing phenominal business with low costs.  Fees on here between Ebay and Paypal are about $15% give or take.  You have to add in your cost of pictures, camera batteries, uploading, time, etc.  So it's great when you can mark up 3-4 times your cost.  Or sell in volume, with less profit, but more turnover.

When I started, if I was losing money, as I was, my costs were over 100% because I was doing it wrong.  SO make sure you ask for enough, buy low enough, and expect to pay up to 20% in fees, and you are doing great.  If it's a little higher, still great, but you can learn to find things as you go along that sell and have high turnover, great markup and it may be something you had never thought of at the beginning.

That's why you start small and only get a little,  If it works, you can get more of it.

Good luck, enjoy and don't stress over it.