If you don’t want to sell your own stuff on eBay, you can let someone else sell it for you. In essence, you let another seller sell your goods on consignment. If the items sell, you pay the consignment seller a percentage of the final price. The consignment seller handles all the eBay stuff for youtaking photographs, creating item listings, managing the auctions, collecting payments, and packing and shipping the items. All you have to do is deliver the merchandise to the seller, and let him do all the work for you.

eBay calls this type of consignment seller an eBay Trading Assistant, and there are lots of them. Many individual sellers operate as Trading Assistants; there are also numerous local and national businesses that operate eBay consignment stores.

If you’d like to become a Trading Assistant yourself, go to the Trading Assistants Directory page and click the Create/Edit Your Profile link. To become a Trading Assistant, you must have sold at least four items in the past 30 days, have a feedback rating of at least 50, and have a positive feedback percentage of at least 97%.

To search for a Trading Assistant near you, go to eBay’s Trading Assistant Directory (pages.ebay.com/tradingassistants.html). Enter your ZIP code and select a category (for what you want to sell) from the pull-down list, and then click the Search button. This returns a list of Trading Assistants in your area; click the link to view the Trading Assistant’s profile. If you like what you see, click the Contact Assistant button to send a message and get the process going.

Not all Trading Assistants are individual sellers. eBay consignment selling has become a big business, with lots of stores opening their doors in communities all across America. Locally-owned consignment stores can be found in your local Yellow Pages. The two largest national chains are iSold It (www.i-soldit.com) and QuikDrop (www.quikdropfranchise.com); visit their websites to find a location near you.

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Half.com specializes in specific types of merchandise: books, CDs, DVDs, videotapes, video games, computers and software, and general consumer electronics (cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, home audio, televisions, and the like). Buyers can purchase items from multiple sellers, and have all their purchases consolidated into a single shopping cart and checkout. They make one payment, and then eBay deposits funds into each seller’s account individually.

To sell on Half.com, all you have to do is click the Sell Your Stuff link in the left-hand column. When the Sell Your Items page appears, select a category and click the Continue button. You list each item by using the item’s UPC or ISBN code. Half.com then inserts pre-filled item information from a massive product database. (It’s the same database that feeds eBay’s pre-filled information in the same categories.) There are no listing fees, but you do have to pay Half.com a commission when an item sells. You’ll pay a 15% commission on items under $50, and lower commissions as the price rises. Instead of a buyer paying you directly, Half.com collects the payment; the site sends you your payment every two weeks.

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What makes for good copy? First, you have all the space you need, so say as much as you need to say. Unlike with the title description, you don’t have to scrimp on words or leave anything out. If you can describe your item adequately in a sentence, great; if it takes three paragraphs, that’s okay too.

When you’re writing the description for your ad, be sure to mention anything and everything that a potential bidder might need to know. Note any defects or imperfections of the item. Include your desired payment terms and your preferred shipping methods. If the object is graded or evaluated in any way, include that assessment in your description. In other words, include everything you can think of that will eliminate any surprises for the buyer.

You should probably put the most important and motivating information in your initial paragraph because a lot of folks won’t read any farther than that. Think of your first paragraph like a lead paragraph in a newspaper story: Grab ’em with something catchy, give them the gist of the story, and lead them into reading the next paragraph and the one after that.

There are certain key data points that users expect to see in your item description. Here’s the bare minimum you should include:

• Name (or title)

• Condition

• Age

• Original use (what you used it for)

• Value (if you know it)

• Important measurements, contents, colors, materials, and so on

• Any included accessories (including the original instruction manual, if you have it)

• Any known defects or damage

If you don’t know any of this stuff, that’s okayas long as you admit it. If you’re not that familiar with the type of merchandise you’re selling, just say so. Better to plead ignorance up-front than to have a more savvy buyer cause problems for you after the sale.

Because other users will be bidding on your item sight unseen, you have to make the process as easy as possible for potential bidders. That means describing the item as accurately as possible, and in as much detail as possible. If the item has a scratch or blemish, note it. If the paint is peeling, note it. If it includes a few non-original parts, note it. Bidders don’t have the item to hold in their hands and examine in person, so you have to be their eyes and ears.

That’s right; you need to describe the item in painful detail, and be completely honest about what you’re selling. If you’re not honest in your description, it will come back to haunt youin the form of an unhappy and complaining buyer.

Although you need to be descriptive (and in some collectibles categories, you need to be obsessively so), it doesn’t hurt to employ a little marketing savvy and salesmanship. Yes, you should talk about the features of your item, but it’s even better if you can talk about your product’s benefits to the potential buyer.

Let’s say you’re selling a used cordless phone, and the phone has a 50-number memory. Saying “50-number memory” is stating a feature; saying instead that the phone “lets you recall your 50 most-called phone numbers at the press of a button” is describing a benefit. Remember, a feature is something your item has; a benefit is something your item does for the user.

Don’t forget to spell-check and proofread your listing. Bad grammar and misspellings can cause potential bidders to doubt your veracity and even to totally disregard your auction.

And if your listing starts to get a little long, you should break it into more readable chunks. Use separate paragraphs to present different types of information, or just to break one long paragraph into several shorter, more readable ones. You can even use eBay’s formatting options to use different type sizes and colors for different portions of your listing description.

Breaking up your description enables you to put a lot more info into your description. When it comes to informing potential buyers, it’s impossible to be too complete. (And if you don’t define a detail, the buyer willin his or her mind.) Don’t assume that buyers know anything; take the time to spell out all the details about payment and shipping and the like.

The very last things you can put into your listing, at the bottom, are some extra words. Remember, not every person uses the same words to describe things. Remember, they’ll be picked up by eBay’s search engine if they’re anywhere in the description area.

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• Include the appropriate information so that anyone searching for a similar item will find your item in his search results.

• Make your title stand out from all the other titles on those long listing pages.

Do those two things, and you significantly increase your chances of getting your item noticed and sold.

Let’s tackle the first point first. You have to think like the people who will be looking for your item. Most users will be using eBay’s search feature to look for specific items, so you want to put the right keywords into your item title, to make your item pop up on as many search results pages as possible.

If you’re unsure how best to word the title for your item listing, check out auctions for similar items and “borrow” their wording.

Beyond including as many relevant facts as possible in your title, how do you make your title stand out from all the other boring listings? Obviously, one technique is to employ the judicious use of CAPITAL LETTERS. The operative word here is judicious; titles with ALL capital letters step over the line into overkill.

Avoid the use of non-alphanumeric characters, such as !!! or ### or ***. eBay says that their use is prohibited, although that rule is seldom enforced. More important, eBay’s search engine sometimes ignores titles that include too many of these nonsense charactersand could exclude your listing from buyers’ search results.

Instead, I advise you to think like an advertising copywriter. What words almost always stop consumers in their tracks? Use attention-getting words such as FREE and NEW and BONUS and EXtrA and DELUXE and RAREas long as these words truly describe the item you’re selling and don’t mislead the potential bidder. (And don’t bump more important search words for these fluffier marketing termsthat won’t help your item show up in bidder searches.)

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MahG5-rfSM[/youtube]

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You have to put your item where people will expect to see it. The problem is that eBay has all those categoriesalmost too many of them, especially if you’re not sure just what it is you’re selling.

If you list your item in the wrong category, many people looking for that type of item simply won’t see it. Take the time to search for similar items currently on auction, and see what category they’re listed in. Go where the others goand, if you’re still not sure, use the second category option to list in two different categories!

Mistake #2: Set Too High a Starting Price

I know that you want to get as high a price as possible for the item you’re selling. But if you try to start the bidding at too high a level, you’ll scare off potential biddersespecially if your idea of a fair price is higher than the going market price. It’s better to start with a lower starting price and let the bidding take the price to its natural level. Or, if you honest-to-goodness don’t want to sell at too low a price, use the reserve price option to protect yourself if the bidding doesn’t go high enough.

Mistake #3: Don’t Adequately Describe the Item

Let’s face it. People shopping on eBay are bidding on items more or less sight unseenso you have to help them feel comfortable about what they’re bidding on. That means describing the item in words, to the best of your abilities. The better you describe the item, the more comfortable potential bidders will feel about itand the more likely you’ll be to sell the thing.

And describing the item also means describing its faults. If you’re selling a used or distressed item, you better let potential bidders know about all the dings and dents. You most certainly don’t want to misrepresent what you’re sellingso be up-front about every little thing.

Mistake #4: Don’t Include a Picture

It’s a fact. Auction listings with pictures are more likely to sell than those without. Don’t include a picture, and you start the auction with two strikes against you. Don’t make this all-too-common mistake; get out your digital camera and start snappingbefore you create your item listing!

Mistake #5: Don’t Charge Enough Shipping and Handling

Oh, how many times I’ve been burned by not charging enough shipping and handling! This is probably the most common seller mistake. You want to include a flat shipping and handling charge in your item listing, so you do a little homework, weigh the item, look up the shipping rate on the postal service site, and enter a number. But when you take the item to the post office, you find your guestimate to be off by a buck or two, and you end up eating that additional shipping cost. The difference might even be big enough that you end up losing money on the transaction.

How do you avoid this problem? First, be sure to weigh the item ahead of timedon’t just guess at the weight. And don’t stop at weighing just the item; you also have to weight the box you’ll ship it in, and all the packing materials. (And that includes those Styrofoam peanuts or shredded newspapers you pack inside the box.) Then be sure to pick the appropriate shipping method (don’t change your mind after you’ve placed the listing!) and the correct distance.

Ah, the correct distancenow there’s a problem! You know your ZIP Code, but you don’t know the buyer’s ZIP Codebecause you don’t know who the buyer will be. This is one very good reason to use eBay’s Shipping Calculator.  The Shipping Calculator does the distance calculation for you, so you don’t have to guess at a flat shipping and handling charge.

The lesson here? When it comes to shipping and handling charges, don’t guess! Or if you absolutely, positively have to guess, guess high. The best answer, though, is to figure out the weight ahead of time, and then use the eBay Shipping Calculator.

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