Hello all and welcome to my first guide.  So please bare with me, i'm deffinately no professional writer, lol.

First le me introduce myself, my name is Marylou and i'm a stay-at-home mom to a 4 almost 5 yr. old girl.  I'm writing this guide to help others that are looking into selling on ebay for the first time, that are new to the whole selling process.

I started selling on Ebay, about 5 years ago, under another screenname.  I started selling my daughters used clothing, mind you...I had absolutely no knowledge of ebay or it's workings.  What I found was I was getting alot of money for my daughters used clothes and I love it, lol...who would'nt.  Well I became obsessed and when I ran out of my daughters clothes to sell, I wanted more.  I started staking out second hand shops for quality name brand clothing that I could sell and make a profit from.  This was working for me and I wanted more! lol...I tell ya, it's an addiction, once you start you can't stop :-)  Probably by the 6th month my house was full of stock, I went and got credit cards just for buying name brand clothing to sell.  I was going way overboard.  It was starting be such a pain to take the pictures, edit them, blah, blah, blah...

Anyhow, About a year later I wanted to start selling something else because I felt I was'nt making enough money selling the children's clothes now.  Yes, I wanted more!!!  I did some little research and found that wow, name brand jeans sell great, but how do I get them?  I had no knowledge of selling jeans, but this was dollar signs in my eyes.  I searched ebays wholesale section to see if I could get my hands on a lot of wholesale name brand jeans.  I found one, looked reputible had high feedback.  They answered all my questions.  The cost of the lot was $1200.00 Dollars.  I was very excited i'd found a great deal, too excited to do more research I guess, lol...I was all set to make my payment with my credit card through paypal.  Then I got an email from the seller that requested I western union the money so that they would be hit with such huge paypal fee's.   I was a little nervous, they were from the UK and i'd never dealt with a supplier before.   Well I sent the money and waited and waited for my new lot to make it's way to my doorstep.  2 weeks came and went, sent and email to the seller, got no response.  Waited a few more days, still no response.  By now I was a nervous wreck!  Oh god, what did I do???? Was my first thought.  I filed my dispute and contacted my credit card company right away.  The money was gone and their answer was we don't cover it if you western unioned it.  I started to cry, I had lost so much money.  I did'nt know how to tell  my hubby, it was such a mess.  A few months later I found a reputible supplier so I thought, I did get my jeans, but ended up getting them taken off ebay by ebay's vero program.  I guess the jeans were imitations.  I was so frustrated, I gave up on ebay for quite a while, I was just so mad.

So there I was at a loss again...I was so unexperienced with ebay and made some really rash decisions.  What I'm trying to say is that don't ever jump into something without first doing a full research.  I jumped the gun.  Everything takes time and time will make you money.  You need to find your niche and what you love, if you love it you will sell it.  My most important tip...Research! Research! Research! Use the internet as your friend, you'll spend alot of time together.

Well to go on, I have always love making crafts and I said to myself, well maybe I'll try selling some of my items on ebay, I figured I'd give it another shot.  Well I started a new account CountryCornerCrafts.  I already had the business name and tax id because I was trying to get this off the ground a few years before.  Just never had the money to do it.  Well between, my daughter, activities, husband, mother, blah, blah, blah...I was finding it hard to make time for my crafts.  I could'nt keep up.  I need more inventory to make this work and I was sure as heck going to make it work this time, I was so determined!  By now I was getting to know all the do's and don'ts of ebay, best ways to sell etc....

Well I was off on my mission to find wholesale companies I could deal with to get the products I needed.  I searched the internet and It was like finding a needle in a haystack.  There was so many things, so many scams!  I told myself, i'm not getting taken to the cleaners this time, I don't care what they do to try and draw me in and take my money.  I'm standing tall and not letting my guard down, lol...

There were so many companies out there offering you wholesale access after you pay their fee, ya right...Well I signed up for a trial just to see what it was like and wow, what do you know they were all companies that I could go on the interenet and search for for free instead.  Most I had already come upon on the internet.  They are a scam, their are plenty out there, be aware.  You can do all this research on your own time for free, not a cent to pay, it just takes some extra time.  Most of what I found under the trial was companies that were middle men, not even real wholesale companies. 

This may all seem so aggonizing, it's really not...just don't give in...if it's in your heart, it will work...stick to what you're good at.  Don't try to sell electronics if you know nothing about electronics, there is alot of warranty issues, which in turn can lead to negative feedback.  If you sell what you love you won't get bored, you'll always want to make it bigger and better!!!

Even though I got scammed a few times, I still sell on ebay because I feel I have enough knowlege now to know what to do and what not to do.  If your new to ebay and your thinking about selling, read...read...read...suck up enough information as you can, good or bad.  Talk to other ebay sellers, get some great advice.

Please email me if you need any advise...I'm more than willing to help :-)

Marylou Hall

countrycornercrafts