When we begin selling on eBay, most of us are pretty naive to the avenues of information available to us. I, like so many others, had to figure things out for myself. I have to say, that led me to do, what I now consider to be, some pretty crazy things. I am going to try to give you some pointers that may help you in determining what to list, how much to list it for, and what category to list it in. I will do this by showing you how to make that determination. The key, I believe, to successfully selling on eBay is RESEARCH!

Research takes a little bit of time, that is true. In the long run, however, the time it takes to research may save you money in fees paid for unsuccessful listings. I will try to take you step by step through the very process I use for researching items. I have added some pictures to help you understand what I am talking about. In some of the pictures you will see a red outline. Those will help you zoom in on specifics that I mention.

The first thing I do when I get my hands on an item is go to eBay. I sign in then click the "Buy" tab. I type in my item and click the "Search" button. In the first example I typed in "well pump." If I had a specific manufacturer name and/or model number, I would include that as well. Let's assume for this example that I do not have that information. This is what that search yielded for me.

I can see what is currently listed that fits my search description. I can look for something that resembles my item and get a general idea of how many are listed, what they are selling for, and what starting bids are being used. I want to make sure that I am as close as possible to comparing apples to apples. I will search many pages to get a good idea of what is going on in my market place.

Another good way to search is to type in your item but this time make sure the "Completed Listings" search option is checked off. You will find this search option to the left of the listings.

This will show you several things. First, you can see how many listings ended successfully. The sold items appear in green. You can see how much they actually sold for. You can see the items that did not sell and begin to hypothesize as to why they did not sell. Were they priced way above all the others listed? (There is a perfect example of this pitfall in the last photo.) Was the shipping outrageously priced? You will get very good at figuring these things out as you gain experience with this process. You can also begin to hypothesize why the ones that sold did so.

There are many things to consider. You should focus on the successful ones. Investigate what exactly the seller did correctly (besides have a good item to sell). To get a better picture of this, click on the item. Take a look at the category the item was listed in. Look at what the starting bid was. These things, when done comparatively with the other successful listings, will give you a better idea of what made these items successful.

Also consider how much they charged for shipping. Consider for how many days the item was listed. The research can become as involved as you would like it to be, with so many factors playing a role in the success of an item. But, these few things that I have mentioned will give you a good strating point.

I would like to point out the pitfall I mentioned earlier. I typed in "Belkin Lighted USB Cables" to illustrate a point. I know that if I went to Circuit City to purchase this particular type of cable, I could expect to pay $29.99 plus tax for it. So, I could very easily sell it on eBay for about $15.00 and $5.00 shipping for a $20.00 total. Right? Wrong! The market is over-saturated with this particular item.

In this picture you can see that someone did not research what was going on before they listed their cable. Why, if there are a plethra of Buy It Nows for your item for 3 or 4 dollars, would you bother to list yours for $14.99? And there are pages and pages of these things listed. Quite frankly, it's like throwing money out the window.  If this person had known about researching and had spent about 2 minutes doing so, s/he would have realized how futile listing the item as s/he did was.

I hope this helped you at least a little bit. Using "Completed Listing"  gives you a true picture of what has happened in the recent past while doing a search of current items gives you a good idea of what is going on now. These two searches together can help you to be a better informed seller. And the information, if utilized properly, can help you to sell more successfully.

Good luck!!