Here is a brief guide on how to start selling on eBay. This is a quick run down that contains the few major things you should know. The best tip I can give you is experimentation. You learn by doing your own things and making your own mistakes. This guide will get you started. I have broken these down into five sections; Inventory, Item Description, Shipping, Payments and eBay Selling Features.

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First things first, if you are a brand new eBayer with no feedback score, it would be a good idea to purchase a few small things. That way you can establish a feedback score. You can get cheap things like stickers or coupons. This will look better when you start selling things as opposed to having a zero feedback score.

Inventory:

• After you built up your feedback score,  it's time to find things to sell. When I first started selling, I sold things from around the house that I didn't use anymore. You will be amazed how much money you can get from things just sitting around collecting dust. After you get rid of all the junk in your house, you might want to sell things for your friends and family members. This is good because it builds your feedback as well as giving you more selling experience. If you want to charge your friends and family members, that is up to you. After all that, it's time to get some inventory. When you decide what you want to sell, you should choose something that you have some general knowledge about. It wouldn't be a good idea to sell antique vases if you know nothing about them. Sometimes you end up selling a lot of different items.

• A good place to stock up your inventory is clearance centers and outlet stores. Most of these places sell things that are still brand new but came out a few years ago. For example, I found brand new Nike Polos at a clearance center for $5.00 each and was able to sell them for over $20.00 each. Another way to get inventory is from wholesalers and distributors. I do not deal with either so I won't go into any details on how to find information on them.

Item Description;

• Now that you have your things to sell, it's time to setup the auction. A picture is vital for your auction although it technically isn't needed. When you provide a picture, it gives your potential buyers the chance to see the exact item they are bidding on. Would you rather be told the shirt you're thinking about bidding on is green or would you rather see the color for yourself? It is also a good idea to show multiple pictures of your item, like the front and back of a shirt. To reduce eBay fees, sign up for a free Photobucket account at www.photobucket.com. With Photobucket, you can have multiple pictures in your auction without having to pay extra eBay fees. A very important thing to have in your auction is accurate shipping costs. I will go over this later in the guide.

• When you write your item description, it's imperative that it is honest, accurate and thorough. Your description shouldn't be too long but it should contain that obvious things. Item condition, the size, the color, any specific characteristics and the brand and/or manufacturer of the item should all be included. If you sell something that is used, make sure your description states that.

• There are a lot of opinions and ideas of listing times for your auctions. I usually list my items for the standard seven-day duration. The best time to list is when the most people are online at the same time your auction ends. I have had the most success listing items that end Friday-Sunday between 8:00-11:00PM EST. This is a popular time when people are online from the east coast all the way to the west coast.

Shipping;

• In your item description, make sure you let your bidders know how much shipping is. Try to be as accurate as possible and try not to overcharge the shipping price. Not only is excessive shipping against the eBay policy, but it will also result in smaller sale prices. In order to provide an accurate shipping cost, a scale will be needed. Wal-Mart has digital scales for $20.00. You can also use the shipping calculator on www.usps.com, it will also show you all the services that can be used.
  

• You can order free priority shipping boxes from www.usps.com. In order to use the free boxes, you must ship with their priority service which is a minimum of $4.60. You always want to ship with delivery confirmation. This will protect you from any of the scammers on eBay. I highly suggest using Paypal shipping. When you use priority shipping with Paypal, delivery confirmation is FREE. You print the label, stick it to the box and drop it off at the post office. No more waiting in those long lines! You can purchase shipping labels that Office Max or Staples for about $0.30 cents each.

• When I ship priority, I charge $5.50. This covers the postage ($4.60), the label ($0.30), the ink used to print the label and the gas to get to the post office. Priority is the service I use the most because it's quick (two to three business days) and relatively cheap ($4.60 for anything one pound and under). Always make sure you try to ship within one business day of receiving payment.

eBay Selling Features;

• eBay offers special selling features to help make your item stand out and possibly get more bids. The only two I use are the gallery and subtitle. The gallery shows a small picture of your item next to your auction in the search results. This is good when you are selling items that have a distinctive looks. The subtitle is a space below your auction title that provides a little more information about your item. This is not searchable though.
  

Payments;

• Last thing to go over is payments. Personally, I only accept Paypal as payment unless a bidder emails me for approval to use a money order. I then look at the buyer's feedback to make my decision. The reason I only accept Paypal is because of two people. Person #1 mailed me a check. I told them once the check clears I would send their item out. Well, I was receiving two to three emails each day asking when their item would be sent out. Once the check finally cleared and I shipped the item, the buyer refused to leave me positive feedback. Person #2 mailed me a money order. I received it on a Monday, mailed the item on that Tuesday and deposited the money order on that Friday. The next Monday my bank returned the money order and charged me a $7.00 return check fee. I called my bank to see what the reason was and they said the money order was a fake. I emailed the buyer and didn't receive a response (of course). Good thing the money order was only for a few dollars. Imagine if it was for a few hundred. I would have been hurting bad. eBay allows generally three forms of payment; money order, check and Paypal.
  

Well these are the basics on how to start selling on eBay. Good luck with your sales! If you have any questions or feel that I missed something, please email me. Thanks for looking!

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