Should I Sell on eBay?

eBay is a great way to test the waters to see if internet retailing is something you want to get into. Setting up an account is easy - it just takes a few minutes. Collecting payment and shipping is all handled by the system, so in the end all you have to do is describe your product, post it on eBay, then drop it off at the post office when someone wins the auction.

On the other hand, if you have a product that you believe will do very well, it is probably better to invest in developing and promoting your own site. Competition is fierce on eBay, and that tends to drive profit margins way down. It is also important to realize that eBay takes a cut of the sale. There's an insertion fee and a final value fee. Even if your item doesn't sell, you still have to pay the insertion fee.

Establishing an Account

The minimum requirement to sell on eBay is that you have an eBay account. But it's also extremely helpful if you have a PayPal account. Many people won't even bother with you if you don't have a paypal account! People

shopping online are looking for instant gratification, and often won't want to take the time to send a personal check, wait for it to clear, then have their product mailed. They want it mailed tomorrow! Today if possible! And for that you need PayPal.

But let's worry about PayPal later. Setting up your account is straight forward. Go to their registration page and fill in the information.

eBay, for all it's greatness, is not laid out very cleanly or intuitively, so you should take some time to look around. The main navigation is near the top of the page: you'll see links for "Buy," "Sell," "My eBay" and more.

Step 1: Buy Something

Once you've browsed around a bit and have a good feel for how your account is organized, it's time to get into some action. I recommend that new users buy something before they try selling, to make sure they understand how it works from the buyer's point of view.

So click the "Buy" link near the top of the page...

and find something to buy. : )

Before you bid on an item, go over a check-list:

• Do they ship to my region?
• Will they accept my form of payment?
• Do they clearly label shipping cost, or could I be in for a nasty surprise?
• Do they have good feedback? (extremely important!)
• Do they have a reasonable return policy?

If the answer is "yes" to all of those, then you are ready to bid. Trust me, it's humiliating to bid on something, then come to realize it's located in another country, and they won't ship it to you!

It's important to be careful about those details, as bidding on an item is equivalent to a legal contract, and you're at the seller's mercy if you goof up and bid when you shouldn't have.

To bid, simply go down to the bottom of the page and enter the maximum amount you're willing to pay for the item. eBay will automatically bid just over the highest current amount for you (not necessarily your maximum bid). If someone else bids after you, eBay will automatically jack your bid amount up just over theirs until your maximum has been reached. At that point, you can give up, or raise your max bid. It can be an adrenaline rush in the last couple minutes of a hot auction!

Once you have won an auction and gone through the checkout process, you should have a good feel for how it works. And that brings us to...

Step 2: Sell Something

Now go find something in your garage you can live without. : ) Or maybe a book you read years ago, that has been collecting dust on a shelf ever since.

Click the "Sell" link in your ebay account. You will be taken through a process that will prompt you for all of the information about the auction. You will have to come up with a good, catchy title, write a description, figure shipping cost, decide on a starting price, etc. There is plenty of help available on ebay offering tips on setting the price, laying out the page, and more - take a look at their seller's help page as a starting point.

Once the auction ends, eBay will send you an email with instructions on what to do next. The customer will (usually!) pay shortly after the auction ends, at which point eBay will send you their shipping address.

And that's it! If you get into using eBay a lot, you will find shortcuts for doing things (i.e. using the free Turbo Lister - a program that is absolutely essential if you're going to be doing more than a couple of auctions per month).

Now What?

So you're comfortable getting around eBay (or will be soon!) - now you need to find something to sell. The optimal solution is to find a steady source of products with a consistent demand. That is - you need to find a wholesale source for a popular product (you might want to look at our resource page on drop-shipping for guidance).

Of course, you can also try selling garage-sale treasures or something along those lines, but it's hard to make any kind of decent income doing that, unless you really enjoy garage-sale-ing!