Ebay - Selling
Overview
Ebay is the famous auction site. I'm going to assume you have an Ebay buyers account, and know how to locate items for sale.
You can sell pretty much anything on Ebay, but some items are more appropriate than others.
Items that are small, easy to ship, expensive, and easy to describe and photograph are going to be the best.
For example: a digital camera, a game, an expensive law book, an expensive car part, a rare gold coin, these are all easy to sell on Ebay. For most of these things, you just tell people the brand and model and they will have a pretty good idea what you are selling. Suppose I tell you I have a Canon SX210 camera and it's in like new condition. It's going to be pretty easy for you to understand what I'm selling. A few good pictures and you should be able to figure out what I am selling and what it is worth.
In the past I have bought the following items on Ebay
Things that are big and heavy, hard to value, or not well known, are hard to sell on Ebay.
For example, rare Russian books are difficult because the values are not well known and not many people buy and sell this kind of thing on Ebay so you may find that nobody is interested in bidding on your item even if the prices is really cheap.
Firewood would be a hard thing to sell on Ebay, because it's big and heavy and hard to ship. I suppose you could sell it, but it would be hard and you would have to provide local delivery. It sounds like a problem.
Pens would be hard to sell on Ebay, because the value is too small.
Old paperback books are hard to sell, because the value is too small.
An original letter signed by William Shakespeare would be valuable and easy to ship, but not many people are looking for this kind of thing on Ebay so it would be a bad place to sell.
Selling on Ebay requires a separate "Seller" account. You will have to set this up and log in separately even if you already have a buyers account. Ebay will want to verify youridentification more carefully than for a buyer account. They want to make sure that you aren't some scammer selling a bunch of imaginary products to rob their customers. So be prepared to give a credit card number to Ebay if you want to start selling things.
When we looked at buying items on Ebay we always look carefully at the seller's rating.
A new seller starts out with zero positive ratings and no feedback. In the beginning you are going to have to write really good ads to give people confidence to buy your products. This means take extra good pictures and really make the condition of your item very clear and visible. People will view your ad with skepticism.
As time goes on, you can accumulate ratings, but make sure they are all good ratings! I currently have 100% positive feedback, which means, I get better prices when I sell things. You should try to do the same.
Paypal is the best way for people to pay you for their purchases. Paypal also offers a waranty on the product you are selling. For example, if it gets destroyed in shipping, Paypal will refund that money to the purchaser. This is worth money to you too. And if you take Paypal, then people can pay you with their credit cards, or whatever, and you just get the money at the end. Paypal is very conveneient for both seller and buyer. Nearly everyone uses it.
I really recommend against accepting credit cards or checks for Ebay purchases. There are just too many ways that people could get into trouble or cheat you, better to let Paypal worry about handling the money.
In order to accept Paypal, you will have to create an account.
A general history and description of Paypal can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal
The Paypal website is http://www.paypal.com
How do we create a listing?
Writing good ad copy
Taking good pictures
Every ad should have a picture of the items for sale. You may want
How much is my item worth?
Should I have an auction or a set price?
Cheating - Should I bid on my own items?
The auction is over - now what?