Rachel's Writings & More

I had started selling on Ebay about five years ago and have been able to work conveniently from home ever since. You must first register for an ebay account if you don't have one yet. Then link the ebay account to your Paypal account. Ebay is starting something new lately that requires you to do all your transactions through Paypal. That means no checks or money orders any more. Once you have an item that you think someone would like to see on ebay one day do a completed item list search to see what similar items have sold for in the past few months. (this can only be done if you have sold an item on Ebay before) It is an excellent way to judge what the ending bid will look like. If you think it is worth selling then the next step is to prep the item. Prepping an item for sale is easy you just have to make sure it is clean and presentable for a photo shoot with your digital camera. Need a background/backdrop? No problem, just use a solid white or black sheet or for smaller items I use construction paper. Jewelry is best photographed with a black background and with the camera set to macro. Solid colors work nicely with everything else.

Here is an example of something you might sell;

In this instance we will be selling a pair of baby shoes that have been previously used. Make sure they are clean before you take a picture of them. A great tool to make them look new is Huggies baby wipes. Take care in tying the laces nicely then just take your best shot, you can take more than one picture to show all angles. When you are selling clothes you must wash them beforehand and button them up. I prefer to iron them too but that's up to you.

After picture is out of the way you are ready to write your ad. Some people have trouble with this so this is what I tell them:

You have to write about the item that you are selling as if there isn't a picture available for them to see. Describe the colors to the best of your ability because some cameras give off a different hue. If there is any writing tell what it says and if there are pictures on the clothing say what they are of. It seems like it is not necessary to do this but it does subliminally evoke a feeling of trust between the seller and the customers. It is very important to speak just as if you were talking to a friend on the phone. If there is a story behind the item then tell it, I try to be animated.* Try using a template (that is a background with a theme) there are tons of free ones from Auctiva

* For pricier items or items that you must show multiple angles of create a slideshow with photobucket or a similar service. 
* Lately Ebay is cracking down on the shipping prices you should be able to ship everything through USPS, don't use Fed Ex or UPS unless you have no choice. 
* Try to do a spell check, I believe ebay offers that 
* Place your ad in the correct category, this is important! 
* In my experience start your auctions at $.99 because they will grab more attention throughout the week. 
* List for the entire 7 days and never pay extra for the 10 day auctions 
* Do not put any words that don't apply to the item for sale. These words only take away space that could be used by effective keywords. They give you a limited amount of character space to type in your searchable keywords so use it wisely. 
* It should look like #1, fill every space with good searchable words not #2. 
#1 New Tommy Hilfiger Boys 7 Medium denim blue jeans shorts cargo 
#2 *NWT*Cute pair of bluejean Jean shorts TH Hurry Last 1 (Not many people search for denim shorts without a size or gender)

I really hope these tips help you to feel more comfortable about selling on Ebay. It is easy and fun so don't be intimidated.