Here are a few steps that you can take to find saleable and ‘wanted’ items on eBay:

Start with a well-known list. Some of the hot sellers on eBay are:

•    Baby Clothing
•    Books
•    Car Accessories
•    Cosmetics
•    Coupons
•    Jewelry
•    Kitchen Supplies
•    Health and Beauty Products
•    Bags and Purses
•    Gift Baskets
•    Costumes
•    Toys
•    Skin Care Products
•    Sunglasses
•    Sewing Patterns

Use “eBay Pulse”:  You can make the use of a tool called eBay Pulse to know more about things to sell on eBay.  This tool helps the sellers to find the keywords that have been searched by buyers the maximum times.  You can sort the list to the top five or ten searches to discover the items that sell well on eBay.  Now, filter out the things that you want to sell on eBay and make sure that you focus on the ones that are sold and brought more.

Use “eBay arbitrage”:  You may find the hot sellers on eBay using a method called “eBay arbitrage”.  eBay arbitrage is a technique of finding the poorly listed auctions due to any wrong reason such as incorrect description, incomplete information, wrong categorization and many other reasons.  You can get in touch with wholesale suppliers and drop shippers to end your search for the things that sell on eBay.  With the help of this technique, you can find the items easily and get them shipped directly to the buyers, thus making money.

Items of your interest:  the easy way is to start you research work with items of your interest and profession. Thereafter, you have to make a short-list, select and refine the items that sell well on eBay using the above methods. What types of products are of interest to you, the potential seller? For example, some individuals might collect certain items or have an interesting hobby. These areas could be a starting point to help you to determine what you might want to sell.

Once you have a few ideas of what items to sell, test the eBay market. Set up an eBay and PayPal account. Don’t invest a lot of money for products. Sell items that you might already own or purchase one to three items of a product in different styles, colors and attributes. Then set up your auction. By testing and purchasing a small amount of product, you are lowering your financial risk of having a lot of inventory in case your item doesn’t sell. Doing a test auction will allow you to see how long it might take to sell this particular product as well as seeing how many visitors look and bid on your auction.

Questions to ask yourself are:  If the product is being sold, is the market oversaturated? If there seems to only be a few people selling your product, what can you do to make your product stand out from the others?  Can you package it with another item or simply sell a wider selection of color, styles, scents or hard-to-find items? And most importantly, what are the items being sold for? Is it enough for you to make a profit?

If you want to buy something great online, you better join eBay and check the site. I’m sure you’ll come across some great products at great prices too!  Here’s the step to buy something on eBay:-

1.   If you are not yet an eBay member, join eBay now, because you have to be a member in order to buy.

2.  Once you’ve become a member, either visit eBay’s front page and type the name of product or item that you desired in the search box or browse through the listings by category to shop for the item you have in mind.

3.  If you come across any item that you like in the search results, click on the ones you’re interested in and read the listing descriptions in detail. Check the price, seller quality and feedback received, shipping information, terms, and most importantly, the product description to make sure that the item is the one you want.

4.  When you’re ready to bid or buy, either place your bid or Buy it Now.

5.  If you bid on an auction rather than purchasing with Buy it Now, monitor your bid in My eBay (your personal eBay page) to check that you win.

6.  If you are the winning bidder, make sure to complete the transaction by making your payment via PayPal or whatever other means you’ve agreed to by bidding on the item.

7.  Once you’ve received your item and are satisfied with it, leave feedback giving your opinion of the transaction.

I’m pretty sure that you will win too coz everyone is a winner!

1. Your title should be authoritative and tell exactly what the item is. Instead of saying Turkey Platter, list specific info such as Turkey Platter, stoneware, late 70’s and maker. You are limited to around 80 characters for your title, so be sure to choose it wisely. Avoid words like ‘look’, ‘must see’ etc., as most experienced eBay shoppers don’t pay attention to them.

2. Choose the category for your listing carefully. With hundred of different categories to choose from, this can be a bit difficult to determine. If you feel your item fits in more than one, feel free to select a second category. More than one category does incur extra fees, so be aware of that as you list.

3. A picture is worth a thousand words in an auction listing. All items need at least one picture. Higher priced items need more than one. Use a good quality digital camera or a scanner if the item is flat. Proof your pictures to make sure they are clear and crisp, crop where needed.

4. List all the details of your item in the description box. Be sure to point out any flaws in the item. Think of any keywords that you would look for if you were searching for the item and include those in the description. Also list what payments methods you will accept, how long the buyer has to get payment to you and what shipping methods you will use.

5. Determine the lowest amount of money you will take for your item and begin the bidding at that amount. Think about using a ‘Buy It Now’ price if you’re willing to let the item go for another few dollars above your opening price. Avoid using ‘reserve’ auctions as many eBay buyers will skip over them as not worth the time and effort.

6. Choose your listing time wisely. Many sellers feel that eBay has a higher traffic ratio on the weekends. Some feel that Sunday afternoons (between church times) are best, while others close their auctions late on Friday or Saturday night.

7. Answer any questions that you receive from potential buyers promptly. Some buyers may ask for a clarification on your listing or additional pictures. Be ready to provide them the information they request.

8. After the auction has ended, make sure you correspond with your buyer. eBay will send you notice to your email account of how much the item sold for and the email address of the high bidder. Keep the lines of communication open until everything about the transaction is complete.

9. After receiving payment for your item, ship it promptly by the stated method. Send an email to the buyer to let them know their item is on its way. You can leave feedback at this point or wait until the item is received and the buyer posts feedback for you.

10. If you plan to do a lot of selling on eBay, you may want to consider signing up for a PayPal account. Many eBay buyers only purchase items from those sellers that do accept PayPal as a payment method. It is free to sign up and all you will need is a checking account.

Selling on eBay can become addictive and for some a very lucrative venture. If you find that you enjoy the online garage sale, you may want to download eBay’s Turbo Lister to help make listing your items much faster. Good luck with your eBay selling experience.

Have you found out everything you possibly could about your items? Try typing their names into a search engine – you might find out something you didn’t know. If someone else is selling the same thing as you, then always try to provide more information about it than they do.  It’s a free market competition on the go!

Do you monitor the competition? Always keep an eye on how much other items the same as or similar to yours are selling, and what prices they’re being offered at. There’s usually little point in starting a fixed price auction for $100 when someone else is selling the item for $90.

Have you got pictures of the items? It’s worth taking the time to photograph your items, especially if you have a digital camera. If you get serious about eBay but don’t have a camera, then you will probably want to invest in one at some point.

Are you emailing your sellers? It’s worth sending a brief email when transactions go through: something like a simple “Thank you for buying my item, please let me know when you have sent the payment”. Follow this up with “Thanks for your payment, I have posted your [item name] today”. You will be surprised how many problems you will avoid just by communicating this way.

Also, are you checking your emails? Remember that potential buyers can send you email about anything at any time, and not answering these emails will just make them go somewhere else instead of buying from you.

Do your item description pages have everything that buyers need to know? If you’re planning to offer international delivery, then it’s good to make a list of the charges to different counties and display it on each auction. If you have any special terms and conditions (for example, if you will give a refund on any item as long as it hasn’t been opened), then you should make sure these are displayed too.

Have you been wrapping your items correctly? Your wrapping should be professional for the best impression: use appropriately sized envelopes or parcels, wrap the item in bubble wrap to stop it from getting damaged, and print labels instead of hand-writing addresses. Oh… and always use first class post – don’t be cheap.

Do you follow up? It is worth sending out an email a few days after you post an item, saying “Is everything alright with your purchase? I hope you received it and it was as you expected.” This might sound like giving the customer an opportunity to complain, but you should be trying to help your customers, not take their money and run.

Being a really good eBay seller, more than anything else, is about providing genuinely good and honest customer service. That’s the only foolproof way to protect your reputation. Maintain the integrity and professionalism and the money will flow in.. Believe it!

If you’ve ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a long time seller with their reputation (good feedbacks) in the thousands doesn’t require any thought or fear – it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales

In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top of your user page for everyone to see. Who’s going to want to do business with you when they’ve just read that you “took a month to deliver the item”, or that you had “bad communication and sent a damaged item”? The answer is no one!

Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.

It’s even worse if you consistently let buyers leave negative feedback – once you get below 90% positive ratings, you might as well be invisible.

You Can’t Just Open a New Account

Besides eBay’s rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.

You won’t be able to use all the different eBay features. Your existing customers won’t be able to find you any more. Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours about you.

A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales

When a seller with lots of positive feedback tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is then I trust them – they’re not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know you’ll go to almost any lengths to do so.

This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy something for $50 from a seller I know I can trust than for $30 from someone with average feedback. It’s worth the extra money to feel like the seller knows what they’re doing, has all their systems in place and will get me the item quickly and efficiently.

You really will find selling on eBay so much easier, and there’s only way to get a good reputation: make sure you please your customers every time. But some customers can be, well, just a little difficult to please though. So, take it as a challenge…

The reason is obvious: a dissatisfied customer will leave negative feedback, and negative feedback is to be avoided at all costs. That one piece of negative feedback will always cost you more than it would have to deal with the complaint, whatever the value of the items you sell. You should consider any positive feedback percentage under 100% to be an absolute disaster, and a personal failure on your part.

But What If…

But nothing! There is no situation where you, as a seller, should get into any dispute with a buyer. Here are a few common situations and how to handle them.

They say the item never arrived: Politely asks the buyer to wait a few more days to see if it turns up, and then email you again if it still hasn’t arrived. If it still hasn’t arrived, you should assume it was lost in the post somehow and offer to send a replacement if you have one, or give them a full refund otherwise. You should be bothered so much on how much it will costs you. Are you serious about selling on eBay or not?

The item has been damaged in the post: You must offer to replace it or take it back for a refund without hesitation.

They say the item doesn’t match the description: Resist the urge to email back with “yes it does, you just didn’t read the description properly”. Take the item back for a refund, and edit your description if you need to, to make any confusing points extra clear.

I’m sure you’re spotting a pattern by now. Offering a refund will make almost any problem go away, and it really will cost you less in the long run. Remember, one piece of negative feedback will stay with you forever, while having a 100% positive rating is like owning a bar of solid gold.

You should always handle customers’ complaints before they complain to eBay – in fact, you should email them pre-emptively to ask if they have any. Going through the dispute process is time consuming, reflects badly on you and is downright unnecessary.

Are you still not convinced? Think this would only work with cheap items? Well, you see, the higher the price of the items you sell, the more your reputation is worth to you. Let’s say you were selling $10,000 worth of items each week, for example, and making a $1,000 profit per week overall. You might think that refunding one customer’s $1,000 purchase would be a tragedy, losing you your whole week’s profit. It’s far better to look at it this way: if you don’t give that refund, then not only will you lose the next week’s profit, but you’ll probably lose a few weeks’ profit after that too. Now which option looks better?

Don’t bother with eBay clichés: There are plenty of eBay auction titles that say things like “Super rare camera wow look low price”. These are stupid things to put in your title, as no one is going to search for them.

Think like a buyer: If you were looking for your item, then what exactly would you type into that box?  If you think it’d help, try searching yourself to find someone else selling your item. What were the first things you thought of typing?

Think like other sellers: Keep an eye on which sellers are doing best with items like yours, and try to copy their title styles – if it works for them, it can work for you.

Be specific: You should be sure to write the item’s brand and specific model number in the title, as people will often search only for this information. Make sure that you also say exactly what the item is.

Here are a few examples of good titles. They’re real, and they were on eBay, successfully made their sellers money. So what made them good?

Example 1: “DELL PC P4 3.0 GHZ DESKTOP COMPUTER WIN XP 2 PRO”

If you know about computers, you’ll know instantly what this auction is selling. It has manufacturer (Dell) followed by a few technical specifications (P4 3.0 GHz is the processor speed). Notice also that the title includes the two words ‘desktop’ and ‘computer’, as the seller wants people looking for any of those words to see her auction.

Example 2:  “OASIS Don’t Believe the Truth CD Album (New)”

This auction for a CD is well formatted: it gives the artist name in capital letters, followed by the album name. It then manages to include the two key words ‘CD’ and ‘album’, as well as the word ‘new’ – that means that anyone searching for ‘new oasis cd’, ‘oasis new album’ and so on will find this auction.

Example 3: “1840 Penny Black stamp, certificate, four margins”

Here’s a slightly more obscure one, from the exciting world of stamp collecting. A penny black is one of the oldest and most famous stamps. It uses a few key words that collectors will consider important: ‘four margins’ indicates that the stamp has been cut out with some margins around it and so isn’t damaged, and ‘certificate’ tells you that the item has a certificate of authenticity – it’s a real penny black. Remember to use every bit of space to squeeze in as much important information as you can in the title.

Going full-time as an eBay seller is living the dream: making a real income, working from home, being your own boss and all the rest of it. It’s the promise of a million scams, and it’s finally come true – at least for some.

What they don’t tell you in the success stories, though, is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is by no means for everyone. You really, really ought to try it part-time before you even consider taking it up full-time, and even then, caution is advisable.  Before you burn your suit, here’s a list of questions you should ask yourself.

Q1:  How Much Do I Earn From eBay Now?

Work out how many hours a week you spend doing eBay-related things (be honest here), and divide it by the average amount of profit you make in a week. If you were doing full-time hours, would you earn as much as you earn now?

Q2:  Do I Have a Good Job?

Think about what you might lose if you give up your job to focus on eBay. If you’re in a well-paid job with good promotion prospects then it’s well worth reconsidering: you might get a few years down the line and wish you’d stayed in your traditional job, as you’d probably be the CEO by now.

Q3:  Would I Really Make Much More Money?

Unless you’re selling a large quantity of small goods, most of what you do on eBay will be waiting for auctions to end – and you can wait at work just as easily as you can at home. This is why whether you would make more money on eBay really depends on what kinds of items you’re selling – for low value items, going full-time could be a good move. For high-value ones, the chances are you’ll hit the limits of how much money you have to invest in inventory long before you hit the limits on your time.

Q4:  Is my Home a Good Place to Work?

Quite apart from anything else, you might find that the dream of home working is more of a nightmare in reality. People can start to depend on you to get things done that need to be done during the day. If you have a wife and children then they can resent the fact that you’re in the house but refuse to have anything to do with them for large parts of the day. Giving in to any of these things and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to fall.

Q5:  Can I Survive if it All Goes Wrong?

In the end, would you be able to get by if you had a month or two where you sold literally nothing? Or would you be desperately looking around for a job and cursing the day you ever discovered eBay? That’s the real test.

If you made it through all these questions, then I guess you’re cut out for the eBay life – and even if you didn’t, you’d be surprised just how far you can get part-time.

I believe anybody with passions and the ‘right attitude’ will eventually be making tons of money through eBay.  However, to be able to make money a seller needs a product or item to sell right..!   So, have you decide on what to sell?

Here are some ideas!  Look around the house and gather any items in your house that you don’t want anymore.  Instead of throwing them away, why not put them up on auctions on eBay and pocket some money.

[Tips: The best items to start with are small and light weight items that have low shipping cost.   Examples are old books, CDs/DVDs, watches, paintings etc.]

Once you managed to sell a few items, keep in mind about a long term plan. Find a niche, preferably in something you really interested in and you know all about, like a hobby of yours. Say, your hobby is in photography, then you are more likely to be pretty familiar with the prices, quality, brands etc. of photography-related items.  If that is the case, then you may stand a better chance if you aim to establish your eBay business in selling photography-related items.  You can sell items like camera parts and consumable items like glossy paper in which you know where to source for them at much cheaper prices. Or even sell a written-guide (an ebook) on how to snap a better picture using camera.

Keep an open mind about selling on eBay.  It should be a fun venture- one that relates to something that you love about (as in your hobby) and at the same time lets you earn money. Otherwise, you might be better off focusing  your commitment towards your day job (regardless of how stressful it is) and try to build up your career.

So, as a final thought, research your market, plan strategically and consider eBay like an actual business project, but the one that is FUN to do.  Hopefully, all goes well and we will finally be able to truly enjoy our life as we set our own time working from home selling items online.

[Note: I had earlier bought an ebook from another eBay seller. The said ebook, then was emailed to me, which I have then downloaded into my PC.  Take note that I also have a picture of the ebook in my PC]

All right then! Here’s what I did:

Step 1: I signed-in to my eBay account.  We would know that we have successfully signed-in when our user ID appears (at the top of the site, just beside the logo).

Step 2: On the top right hand corner, I see BUY / SELL / MYeBAY/ COMMUNITY/ HELP.  I then moved  the computer cursor on SELL, then on the dropdown list appears ‘Sell an Item’.  Click it.

Step 3: On the next page, I clicked START SELLING.

Step 4: On the next page, I was required to select a category (for the item I want to list).   Since I wanted to sell an ebook, I typed ‘ebook’ in the requested field and click SEARCH. A page similar to the one attached below appeared- I then select the relevant category and clicked continue.

Step 5: The next screen appears.  I then scrolled down to study the whole page before I start to fill in the required fields accordingly.

Field #1:   Title (Be creative to come up with ATTENTION GRABBING title!)

Field #2:   I then scrolled down a bit and clicked on ‘Add Picture’.  The following screen appeared.  I clicked on BROWSE, select the relevant picture from my PC, then clicked UPLOAD.

Field #3:   Describe the item you’re selling.  Here I typed in several lines describing what is it that I’m selling, how will it be useful to the potential buyer, how will it be delivered to the winning bidder etc.  We can actually tell anything we like here.  Some people simply put in one line.  Some put thousand of words.  Try looked at how the other eBayers are doing it and you’ll also have an idea how to describe your item.

Field #4:   Choose how you’d like to sell your item. There are options given.  We can either choose to sell using AUCTION style or decide on a FIXED PRICE for the item.  Key in the amount and fill in the relevant fields/boxes.

Field #5:   Decide how you’d like to be paid.  Select PAYPAL (recommended).

Others#:    Fill in other required field/boxes, particularly those marked * (in green color).  Then clicked CONTINUE.

Step 6: On the next page, I then prompted to REVIEW MY LISTING, checked the LISTING FEE involved (Its FREE to list first 5 items every 30-day under auction listing style!).  Upon being satisfied, I then clicked LIST MY ITEM.  I was done!

[Tips: Within seconds, I was able to see my item on auction.  Actually, up to the last several hours before the auction ended, I was also allowed to make certain changes to my listing]

So, try it yourself.   In my experience, it was easier than I had expected.