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?

One of the easy ways to make extra money is through eBay. You can save money buying almost everything on eBay at attractively reasonable prices and/or you can make some extra income by selling items that you no longer need, or build your own business. It is like a yard sale that gets potential buyers from every country in the world and it is not too difficult.

Selling on eBay is hassle free because we can work from home, which is both flexible and comfortable. You don’t need to travel to work at inhumane hours, facing the challenge of daily traffic jams and the 9-5 rat-race atmosphere. You also have no bosses – whom will tell us what to do and when to do the tasks. This means we’re not working to contribute to anyone else’s success but our own.

Today, the eBay community includes over a hundred million registered members from around the world. People spend more time on eBay than any other online site, making it the most popular shopping destination on the Internet. And do you know that, on any day, there are millions of items listed on eBay.

People come to eBay to buy and sell items in thousands of categories from collectibles like trading cards, antiques, dolls, and house wares to practical items like used cars, clothing, books and CDs, and electronics. Buyers have the option to purchase items in an auction-style format or items can be purchased at a fixed price through a feature called Buy It Now.

People from all over the world buy and sell on eBay. Currently, eBay has local sites that serve Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

EBay offers a wide variety of educational tools, features, and services that enable members to buy and sell on the site quickly, safely, and conveniently. These services include online payments by Pay Pal, tips on safe trading, and the Developers Program for community members who would like to develop their own technology solutions.

Those selling products on eBay, is easy for the customer to choose. The sellers then they divide themselves into classifications of manufacturing, wholesaling/distribution, or retailing. Add to these the sub-divisions, large vs. small products, durable vs. consumable products, etc., and the differences grow, and grow, and grow. And all sellers, no matter what classification they fit into, believe that the others’ arenas for selling are always easier. But not everyone sells products on eBay. There are those who sell services. It is said that selling services is the largest and fastest-growing segment of the economy.

Buying and selling on eBay is safe and trusty because the company is responsible for keeping the marketplace a safe, well-lit place for people around the world to trade with one other.

You can find lots of items on eBay.  On the other hand, no matter what you’re selling, eBay is actively promoting your items to potential buyers through integrated marketing, merchandising, and advertising campaigns.

By creating value you are justifying the cost, and thus telling the customer exactly what they are paying for.  And by explaining every feature and function of your product, you are giving reasons for the visitors/viewers to buy your product.

Why should someone buy a product from you, when they can buy it somewhere else? Because you are convincing them by giving them reasons to buy- that is by creating value, through your thorough clarification on the features, functions and benefits of the product that you offer.

Remember, more often than not when a person clicks on your listing they already have the desire to purchase the product that you are selling.  They want what you’re selling- otherwise they would not have searched for it.  So, when viewers click on your listing, they have the desire to purchase what you are selling and you will have their undivided attention.  They are ready to buy and they are now on the edge of taking the next most important action: to buy from you… all you have to do is to convince them that they are making the right decision!

In many examples, sellers assume that everyone who visits their listings already knows everything there is to know about the product, so they write a brief description with no explanations of what all those features and functions actually mean. What they don’t realize is that they are losing a lot of money in the form of bids.  Most of the visitors actually want more details, and some get confused after reading the descriptions (in cases where the features of the products have difficult, technical names for instance). The confusion leads to doubts, and doubts lead to feeling of discomfort.

Even though other sellers might be selling the same thing, their description is much more detailed and informative.  The description also gives reasons for buying the product, and build up its value.  So who do you think would get more bids, the seller with the brief description or the seller with the detailed listing?

The answer is obvious, the seller with the detailed description seen more valuable and has the upper hand.  Product listed with all those great features and functions explained are viewed as more valuable in the eyes of the visitors.  It will also be associated with the feeling of desire and comfort, while the product with the brief description might bring feelings of confusion, frustration and doubts.

When you write your description of the item you are putting up for sale on eBay, be sure to describe it completely. Some potential buyers/bidders may find your auction through the search engine, so use as complete and descriptive headline with good keywords too- this will make your listing easy to find.

Try to leave no stone unturned – if I neglect to mention some crucial piece of information, bidders are most likely to steer clear due to uncertainty.  If  I’m selling a computer game, forgetting to mention if it’s for a PC or Mac will spawn a lot of email enquiries.  It will attract the wrong bidders who own Mac’s buyijg my PC game.  If the (Mac) buyer is not able to use it later on.. hmmm… think about the negative feedback that I will get.

Tip @ 2: A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Photos make you and your item credible.  The better you are with your camera, the more bids you’re likely to get.  Take several photos of your important aspects or angles of the item, flaws, defects, if any.  If your teapot has crack in it be sure to take a picture of that as well.

Tip @ 3: Remember to Say Thanks

Send a ‘thank you’ note/receipt email to your customer (winning bidder) every time they pay.  Include your eBay username and other contact information so that they can contact you if they need to.  Kindly ask to leave feedback in your email.  Include a convenient link to the feedback forum, and 9 out of 10 times, they will drop a good word for you.

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.

That’s why you should always check the seller’s reputation, or ‘feedback rating’. This is a quick and easy-to-read summary of their history as an eBay seller, which gives you some idea of whether or not you should trust them with your money. Buying anything is a calculated risk: you want to minimise or mitigate that risk.

How to Check Feedback Ratings

On each item’s description page, there is a box in the top-right hand corner about the seller, with the title SELLER INFO. This contains the seller’s name, their feedback score, and their positive feedback percentage, as well as any “eBay star-rating” they have earned.

Different coloured stars are given to eBay sellers depending on their rating, in this sequence: yellow, blue, turquoise, purple, red, green, shooting yellow, shooting turquoise, shooting purple, shooting red, shooting green and silver shooting star. Anyone with a ’shooting’ star is an experienced eBay member who you should be able to trust.

[ Notes: ]

If you click on the seller’s name, you can get to a more detailed view of their reputation – their ‘member profile’ page. This page shows the total number of people who gave them a positive or negative rating, as well as a breakdown by time. You can also see a complete history of all the comments that have ever been left about them, with the most recent first.

What to Look For

You might assume that anyone with a very high number can be trusted, but that isn’t always true. It is more important to look at their positive feedback percentage – and you should really consider anything below 99% to be a red flag and investigate further.

Take a look through the first visible page with the most recent transactions: are there any negative comments? What do they say? Take others’ experiences into account, as they could happen to you if you deal with this person. Be careful not to punish sellers unfairly, however, if they did bad things in their past on eBay but have improved since. You should look at the breakdown by time and ignore any negative feedback that was left a long time ago. Equally, though, you should sit up and pay attention if a seller seems to have been left an out-of-character amount of bad feedback in the last month or so.

Hope that the tips provide some extra precautions for us to mitigate the risks in our ventures.   Till then…. Best of lucks in your eBay business!

The Right to Receive Your Item

Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it doesn’t arrive in the post as described, you have the right to a replacement or a refund, whether it’s the seller’s fault or not.

The fact that you bought something on eBay doesn’t mean that you don’t have the exact same rights that you would have if you bought it in a shop (these rights are pretty much the same all over the world). Plus, under eBay’s rules, the seller isn’t allowed to change their mind about selling you the item: once the auction ends, it becomes a contract – you must buy and they must sell, or face eBay’s penalties.

The Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction

Sometimes sellers don’t wrap items properly, and so they get broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details that would have caused you to change your mind about buying. If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement or a refund.

So How Do I Use My Rights?

First, you should take it up with the seller – most will be responsive, as do not want to have their reputation damagedwhen an upset buyer leaves negative feedback for all their future buyers to see. If that doesn’t work, report them to eBay.

While eBay don’t have many people handling complaints, they do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.

Finally, if that doesn’t work, then you should seek advice from consumer groups in your country, and as a last resort from the police. You should never have to get this far, though: problems on eBay that can’t be resolved easily are extremely rare.

Don’t Be Too Quick

Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller: nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they were being held for me at the post office!  Always try your best to communicate and think of everything that might have gone wrong: eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out their problems together, instead of reporting each other to the authorities straight away.

More often that not receiving what they paid for, buyers have an altogether different problem: they knew what they were paying for, but didn’t realise that what they were paying for was overpriced, low quality or a scam. So, learn all the tricks and open up your eyes so as not be ripped off by those one or two dishonest sellers on eBay.

So, how is everyone doing? Have you seen any improvement in your eBay business?  I hope so.  For me, there have been ups and down.  But, overall I think I am getting the hang of it.  I felt that this year will be a great year to make a success in my eBay ventures.

Enuff said… let’s share the next tips:  How to outdo the other bidders in order to grab items you like in an auction.

eBay isn’t just an auction and a marketplace. Often it can feel quite a lot like a game. Like any game, you can get ahead if you think strategically, using your head to outwit the other buyers and get the best price. Here are a few things you can try:

Beat Them by a Few Cents

Outbid people by a few cents instead of a few dollars – if they don’t check back before the auction ends, then you will be the winner. To avoid people using this tactic on you, though, always bid strange, hard-to-guess amounts instead of round numbers.

Play Dirty

If you know when the auction ends, you can get in there at the very last second and outbid your rivals. The chances are that they won’t have the time to sit in front of the auction waiting for it to end – as a rule, he who stays wins. If someone else does retaliate at the end of the auction, though, try not to get carried away in those last few seconds and end up paying too much!

Take Risks

This is a strategy for the braver eBay buyer. All of the advice you will see for eBay beginners tells you to buy items that have good pictures, clear descriptions, trustworthy sellers and all the rest. If you’re brave, why not take a risk and do the exact opposite?

Many buyers won’t want that item from the seller with a feedback rating of 5, no picture and a one-line description. If you take a calculated risk and bid anyway, you might be able to make a tiny bid and win by default. There are people on eBay who make their living from winning auctions like these, taking good pictures of the item, writing a good description and then reselling it at a huge profit. Be careful, though: do this for long enough, and you will inevitably lose your money at some point. It’s especially unwise to try it with very high-value items.

Avoid Bidding Wars

There are few things on eBay that are so rare that you’ll only see them once and never again. There are usually quite a few sellers who have an item. What’s more, they will generally have more than one to sell, even if they haven’t listed them all at once. Always check your seller’s history to see whether they sell your item all the time – and if they do, then wait for the next one instead of bidding to the skies.

Shop in the Summer

This is simple, but effective. Summer is the quiet season on eBay – almost everything sells for less. While everyone else is out enjoying the sun, invest a little time to find some real bargains.

Wait to Bid

If you bid, then everyone can see you’re interested – and that might make them interested too. Leaving the item alone for as long as you can bear will make it look less popular, and keep the price down so you can come in at the last minute and get a bargain.

Make an Offer

If the seller is selling an item using ‘Buy it Now’ and it still hasn’t sold when the auction is about to end, use eBay’s ‘Best Offer’ service to make them an offer on it. The chances are they’ve listed the item two or three times before, and they’ll be so annoyed at the prospect of re-listing it yet again that they’ll accept your offer just to get rid of the thing.

Conspire with Other Buyers.

You might not have thought of this, but if there are two auctions for the same item and only you and one other buyer are bidding, why not get together and work out a ‘you take this one and I’ll take that one’ deal? This avoids you raising the price on both auctions just to get one each. If you make a few friends, you can even work together on auctions long-term, taking it in turns to bid.

Be Snobbish.

Send the seller emails asking questions about the condition of the item, and making it very clear that you are a discerning buyer and will only accept things of the highest quality. This will make them feel better about selling you their item for less.

Don’t Feel Guilty

There really are too many sellers on eBay now, to the point where you can get common items at very low prices. Long-term, this will probably force those sellers out of business, but that’s the way a market works – it’s supply and demand.

Buy in Bulk

When auctions are slow, many sellers will have had the same stock for a long time. If you offer to take ten things offtheir hands all at once then you can almost name your price – the chances are that they’ll fall over themselves to give you a good deal. If you come back again and buy another ten items then they’ll love you even more.

The longer you spend on eBay, the more experienced you’ll become – and the greater the chances are that you’ll stumble across an auction for something very odd, and quite unexpected.   Try it yourself, you’ll be amazed!

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.