Let me start by thanking you for reading my guide. I have compiled a listing of the top five things to know about eBay. First, let me give you my background. In 1998, I was entering my Junior year in college - Bloomsburg University, and I discovered a website called eBay. NOBODY had heard of eBay that I knew of at that time! I browsed the site and saw thousands of listings for these little dolls called Beanie Babies. My sister and I were doing a fund-raiser for school, and had to go to the Bloomsburg Hospital to pick up some supplies at the Hospital gift shop. To my surprise, these " Beanie Babies " were for sale in this little tiny gift shop in the middle of the hospital. They had what looked like 100's of these things and a sign propped up in the middle - $5 each. I had $30 on me (in college - that is like $3,000!) and bought 5 for $25 plus tax. It took me a while to put them on eBay since eBay was MUCH less user-friendly at that time, but I did, and was happy with the results - sold all 5 for just under $150.00! I found that the bears would sell for much more than any others, so I concentrated on them. After a while, Beanie Babies got even hotter, and that little gift shop started realizing what they had, but I was hooked on eBay from that point on! Now on to my list, which I have formed after almost eight years of selling and buying on eBay - Three selling tips and Two buying tips:

1. SELLING - Finding things to sell on eBay is the most important piece of the puzzle. Where do I find my stuff - I am happy you ask - MANY places. The biggest profit margin is buying at garage sales. I get all kinds of stuff at these sales for pennies on the dollar. I love to see a .50 bin at a garage sale. Pick 12 items and offer $5 and it is a done deal! I must average about $4 - $5 dollars per item I pick up for less than .50 - that is 8 - 10 times mark-up! Flea markets are great too, same deal. I also browse Craigslist for large lots of items, especially baseball cards. The only trick to garage sales and flea markets is getting there BEFORE the posted time! If it starts at 9AM, be there at 850 and have plenty of quarters and ones - you want FIRST pick!

2. BUYING - This next tip is probably the most useful tip for buying items on eBay, and it works a lot! I found this process by accident - please read on! When I was finished with the Beanie Baby craze, a new craze was sweeping eBay back in 99-00. There were these gaming cards called Pokemon. With the great experience I had with Beanie Babies, I was ready to jump on the band wagon again. Unfortunately, so was everyone else! I could not find these cards anywhere, and when I did, I could get them cheaper on eBay. I looked into buying in bulk - by the case, but the mark up was less than 10%, and I would have had to invest a lot of time and money up front, which I did not have at the time. I would search for Pokemon cards on eBay, but they were all going for around the same price, until one day. I searched for Pokemon cards, and only 15 or 20 listings came up, and they were cheap as dirt! I looked at the spelling, and it turned out, I had spelled it Pokymon. I bought every listing for well under the going rates and resold for a nice profit. I got to thinking, why not try other stuff? And I did and still do, especially with Japanese items that are hot - ever heard of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards? How many ways can that be spelled? If people can not search for it, people can not bid on it - so spell your listings right!!!LOL.

3. SELLING - What does shippable mean? Well it is something I look for when I am at a garage sale, fleamarket, or yard sale. People hate paying more for shipping than on the item itself, so learn your postal rates. I always use the USPS - the post office because I know the rates. I can look at something, and tell you approximately how much it will cost to ship - and at which class. Want to know my savior??? The USPS has two great sizes of flat rate boxes availabe for FREE online, just go to their website and order them. You will get them in a few days. One is approximately the size of a shoebox, and the other the size of a dress shirt box. No matter what you ship in them (regardless of weight) they are $8.10 as of July 14, 2006. Oh - and did I mention they are PRIORITY? 2-3 days anywhere in the US!

4. BUYING - No matter what I am in the market for to purchase, I use eBay as a consultant. 95% of the time, eBay is the cheapest place to purchase anything! Recently, I was looking into upgrading my digital camera. I was looking specifically at the Sony Cybershot. Best Buy was having a huge sale on digital cameras, and they had the Cybershot on sale for $249.99 PLUS, you got a $25.00 rebate by mail - 4-6 weeks. So if you count in the rebate, I was looking at $225 with tax. After five minutes on eBay, I found the camera with a buy it now of $199 plus $8 shipping USPS Priority with tracking and insurance. It came sealed and works great - just look at my auctions now!!! The point is, always take a look at eBay before you purchase anything, it is always competitive. One last thing - LOOK at feedback - it is VERY important!

5. SELLING - This last one is going to be a few words of advice. Look at point one - you can just as easily reverse this, buy on eBay, and sell at a flea market. I did this for quite a while and was profiting about $200 per week, but I missed my weekends, and then bought a house, so all my free time is now dedicated to that! ALWAYS have a picture of whatever you are selling - I can not stress that enough. Be as descriptive as possible. Know what you are selling by looking at others selling the same thing. Price your items at the lowest amount you will take for the item. Answer emails at least once daily, even on weekends - you do not want someone to lose interest in your item. Stay organized! - Dedicate a room or an area to eBay. Keep four piles of items at all times: Items sold and ready to be shipped, Items currently on eBay, Items scheduled and ready to go on eBay, and items not ready for eBay yet. You can never have too many shipping supplies!!! The best place to get shipping supplies you ask??? Yes - eBay. Just type in bubble in the search. If you want to make sure - go to staples or office depot, and see what they charge!!! And nothing beats free if you plan to ship priority!!! NEVER trust emails that look like they come from eBay! I get two or three per day now. If it is a real eBay email, it will have your registered name at the top, and it will be in your "My Messages" in "My eBay". Save your auction templates in a word document and use it over just by changing the item and the shipping, it saves a lot of time.

Well, I think that does it for my first guide to eBay. Let me know if it helps by voting. If I get a positive response, I will publish part two since I do not want to write a novel this time! Again, thank you for reading, and happy hunting!!!