1. Set competitive prices. Do your research to find out what similar items are selling for on eBay. You don’t want to price your items too high, or you won’t make any sales. But you also don’t want to price them too low, or you’ll lose money.
2. Offer free shipping. Free shipping is a great way to attract more buyers to your listings. Most buyers are more likely to buy an item if it has free shipping.
3. Pack your items carefully. Make sure your items are well-packaged and protected from damage during shipping. You don’t want to lose any customers because their items were damaged in transit.
4. Ship your items quickly. Buyers expect their items to be shipped quickly, so try to ship them out within 1-2 business days of payment.
5. Provide excellent customer service. If a buyer has any problems with their order, be sure to respond to their messages quickly and help them resolve the issue. Good customer service will help you build a positive reputation on eBay.
6. Get positive feedback. Positive feedback is essential for building a successful eBay business. When you get positive feedback, it will show potential buyers that you are a trustworthy seller.
7. Respond to negative feedback. If you do receive negative feedback, try to resolve the issue with the buyer as quickly as possible. If you can’t resolve the issue, you can always try to get the negative feedback removed by contacting eBay.
8. Be patient. It takes time to build a successful eBay business. Don’t expect to become a millionaire overnight. Just keep working hard and be patient, and you will eventually see your business grow.
9. Be consistent. One of the most important things you can do to be a successful eBay seller is to be consistent. That means listing new items regularly, shipping your items on time, and providing excellent customer service.
10. Learn from your mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, but successful eBay sellers learn from their mistakes and don’t make the same ones twice. If you make a mistake, don’t dwell on it. Just learn from it and move on.

Following these tips will help you be a successful eBay seller. Just remember to be patient, consistent, and learn from your mistakes.

The post 10 eBay Seller Tips first appeared on Tips For Sellers & Buyers.

For tens of thousands of eBay users, making a living from online auctions isn’t a dreamit’s reality. It’s definitely possible to sell enough items to generate a livable income from eBay auctions. It takes a lot of hard work and it’s as complex as running any other business; but it can be done.

One of the steps to running your own eBay business although not a requirement, by any means is to become an eBay PowerSeller. eBay’s 100,000-plus PowerSellers generate enough business to warrant special attention from eBay, in the form of dedicated customer support, premier tools, and the occasional special offer. Plus they get to display that cool PowerSeller logo in all their auction listings.

To become a PowerSeller, you must meet the following qualifications:

• Maintain a consistently high level of eBay sales
• Maintain a minimum of four average monthly total item listings for three straight months
• Have been an active eBay seller for at least 90 days
• Achieve and maintain a minimum feedback rating of 100, 98% positive
• Deliver post-auction messages to successful bidders within three business days of each auction close
• Be an eBay member in good standing and uphold eBay’s “community values”including honesty, timeliness, and mutual respect

The most important point is the first, because it’s the most quantifiable. There are five levels in the PowerSeller program; qualification for each level is based on average gross monthly sales, calculated over the past three months of selling activity.

Note: To keep your PowerSeller status, you have to maintain this sales rate. If your sales drop below these levels, eBay will give you 30 days to bring your account back into compliance; if you don’t, your membership in the program will be revoked. (You’re free to re-qualify at a later date, however.)

That’s right, there are some eBay sellers who average $150,000 or more a month. That’s almost two million dollars a year in revenues from eBay auctions no slight accomplishment!

Membership in eBay’s PowerSellers program is free. However, you can’t apply; PowerSeller status is by invitation only. Each month eBay sends out invitations to sellers who meet the PowerSeller criteria. You become a member by (1) meeting the criteria; (2) receiving an invitation; and (3) responding positively to the invitation.

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Why bid 10 seconds before close? It takes about this long to transmit the bid from your computer to the online auction site and for the bid to be registered. If you bid any earlier than this, you leave time for the auction to send an outbid notice to the previous high bidderand you don’t want that person to know that until it’s too late to do anything about it.

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eBay’s list of prohibited items includes the following:

– Alcohol
– Animals (except for tropical fish and snails) and wildlife products
– Catalog sales
– Counterfeit CDs, videos, computer software, or other items that infringe on someone else’s copyright or trademark
– Counterfeit currency and stamps
– Credit cards
– Drugs and drug paraphernalia
– Embargoed goods and goods from prohibited countries
– Firearms and ammunition
– Fireworks
– Government IDs and licenses
– Human body parts and remains
– Lock-picking devices
– Lottery tickets
– Mailing lists and personal information
– Multi-level marketing, pyramid, and matrix programs
– Postage meters
– Prescription drugs and devices
– Recalled items
– Satellite and cable TV descramblers
– Stocks and other securities
– Stolen property
– Surveillance equipment
– Tobacco
– Weapons and knives

Other items, such as artifacts and adult items, fall into the questionable category. If you’re in doubt about a particular item, check out eBay’s Questionable Items page at pages.ebay.com/help/sell/questions/prohibited-items.html.

The post What Is Not For Sale on eBay first appeared on Tips For Sellers & Buyers.

– Books
– Coins
– Antiques
– Clothing, shoes, and accessories
– Collectibles
– Computers and networking
– Consumer electronics
– Cars, parts, and vehicles (eBay Motors)
– Art
– Cameras and photo
– Business and industrial
– Cell phones
– Crafts
– Dolls and bears
– DVDs and movies
–  Entertainment memorabilia
– Gift certificates
– Health and beauty
– Home and garden
– Jewelry and watches
– Music
– Musical instruments
– Pottery and glass
– Real estate
– Specialty services
– Sporting goods
– Sports cards and memorabilia
– Stamps
– Tickets
– Toys and hobbies
– Travel
– Video games
– Everything else…

Most of these major categories include dozensor hundredsof subcategories for specific types of items. For example, the Collectibles category has more than three dozen subcategories (from Advertising to Vintage Sewing), and most of these subcategories have subcategories of their own. The result is that eBay is divided into literally thousands of separate categories and subcategorieswith more being added every day.

note: eBay management is constantly reevaluating its category listingsintroducing new categories, subdividing crowded existing categories, or eliminating little-used categories.

The post What You Can Sell on eBay first appeared on Tips For Sellers & Buyers.

An online auction is an Internet-based version of a traditional auctionyou know, the type where a fast-talking auctioneer stands in the front of the room, trying to coax potential buyers into bidding just a little bit more for the piece of merchandise up for bid. The only difference is that there’s no fast-talking auctioneer online (the bidding process is executed by special auction software on the auction site), and your fellow bidders aren’t in the same room with you, in fact, they might be located anywhere in the world. Anyone can be a bidder, as long as they have Internet access.

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eBay’s mission is to provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything.

What eBay does is simple: It facilitates the buying and selling of merchandise between users, over the Internet, in an auction format. This makes eBay a person-to-person auction site. eBay itself doesn’t buy or sell anything; it carries no inventory and collects no payments. eBay is just the middleman in the auction process, hooking up buyers and sellers around the worldand collecting fees for doing so.

The post What is eBay? first appeared on Tips For Sellers & Buyers.

eBay was born over Labor Day weekend in 1995, when Pierre Omidyar, a computer programmer, wrote the code for an auction website that he ran from his home computer.

Today, Omidyar’s hobby is known as eBay, the world’s largest online marketplace – where practically anyone can sell practically anything at any time. It’s an idea that BusinessWeek once called “nothing less than a virtual, self-regulating global economy.”

With a presence in 39 markets, including the U.S., and approximately 84 million active users worldwide, eBay has changed the face of Internet commerce. In 2007, the total value of sold items on eBay’s trading platforms was nearly $60 billion. This means that eBay users worldwide trade more than $1,900 worth of goods on the site every second.

The benefit to consumers is clear: eBay provides an open trading platform where the market determines the value of items that are sold. Over the years, the site has become a cultural barometer of sorts, providing a view into what objects consumers want most at any time.

Since its initial public offering in 1998, the company has continued to innovate and connect people – and not just through its marketplaces. Two critical acquisitions have made eBay Inc. a global leader in online payments and communications as well.

PayPal enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. Acquired by eBay Inc. in October 2002, PayPal builds on the existing financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards and uses the world’s most advanced proprietary fraud prevention systems to create a safe payment solution. Today, PayPal is a global leader in online payment solutions: It has 149 million registered users and is accepted by millions of merchants worldwide – on and off eBay. PayPal’s Q1 2008 global total payment volume of $14.4 billion accounted for nearly 9 percent of worldwide eCommerce.

Acquired by eBay Inc. in October 2005, Skype is the world’s fastest-growing Internet communication company that has revolutionized the way people talk online. With more than 309 million registered users as of early 2008, Skype allows people everywhere to make unlimited voice and video calls online for free using its software. Skype is available in 28 languages and is used in almost every country on Earth. This business unit generates revenue through its premium offerings, such as calls (using its software) made to and from landline and mobile phones; voicemail; call forwarding; and personalization, including ringtones and avatars. In addition to its presence on eBay, Skype has relationships with a growing network of hardware and software providers.

Other key acquisitions have strengthened eBay Inc.’s portfolio of ecommerce companies, including shopping.com, a pioneer in online comparison shopping; Stubhub, a leading online marketplace for the resale of event tickets; rent.com, the most visited online apartment listing service in the U.S.; StumbleUpon, an online solution that helps people discover and share content on the web; and market-leading online classifieds sites including LoQUo.com, Intoko, and Netherlands-based Marktplaats.nl. The company has also grown its classifieds business through Kijiji, which launched in the U.S. in 2007.

*Data pulled from eBay website.  For the latest company data, please refer to the press releases and Fast Facts sections of the newsroom at http://news.ebay.com.

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