9/27/07

How to Make Money Selling on Ebay



make money ebay
wondering how to make money selling on eBay? This Ebay start up guide provides free advice on how to make money on ebay, tips to sell on eBay, tricks and resources to help those starting out. 


Here you can learn how to make money selling on Ebay! Discover how you can open your FREE eBay account, and be earning profits by tomorrow! 

How to Find Cheap Merchandise to Sell. How to buy wholesale merchandise and sell it for a profit. How To Create a Great eBay Listings and much more.

There are millions of buyers and sellers on Ebay these days. If you're new to the world of Ebay, and you don’t know how to make money selling on Ebay, don't worry. It's easy to open an account and begin buying and selling!

There are thousands of people making good money off of ebay and you can too. Click here to read The Amazing Money-Making Secret Of A 28-year-old Convicted Felon Who Earns More Money Per Year Than The CEOs Of FedEx, eBay(R), Amazon, Time Warner, Apple Computer, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, Yahoo, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, And Goodyear Combined!

When you first register with Ebay, you'll need to enter some basic information such as your name, address, email address, and username. Give some thought to choosing your username. If you are planning on selling specific items, choose a name that reflects your business. Like, if you're going to sell books, you could choose a username like 'bestbookseller.' Choose a name that is professional and easy for buyers to remember.

To open a seller account, you'll need to enter a credit card. This is to verify your income and helps keep Ebay members safe from fraud.

Ebay does charge small listing fees, auction upgrade fees and final value fees. These are small fees and can be paid via credit card or PayPal.

An important part of buying and selling on Ebay is your feedback rating. If you have good feedback, buyers are more likely to buy from you. It's a good idea to build your feedback by buying items on Ebay, paying promptly and leaving feedback for good sellers, who will leave good feedback for you. Then, you can move on to selling with some good feedback under your belt.

I'll bet you already know all the basics of how to make money selling on Ebay. If you need more information about buying and selling on Ebay, check out the treasure trove of information.


How to Find Cheap Merchandise to Sell on Ebay?


how to make money selling on ebay In this part, we're going to talk about ways to find merchandise at a great bargain right on Ebay!
There are some sellers that really understand what makes a great listing. They sell items at the busiest times, write attention-grabbing titles, great descriptions, include lots of clear photos, and are usually quite successful.

Then, there are other sellers who either don't know how to create a good listing or don't care. These sellers can be like gold for you!

These auctions often feature misspelled words. Think about it - if the item is misspelled in the title, it's likely not as many bidders will see it. As a result, you can swoop in and snatch the item up with little or no competition.

Then, when you get the item, simply re-list it the right way, with the right spelling and all the elements that make a good auction (which we'll talk about shortly.) It's highly likely that you'll sell the item for a higher price than what you paid for it.
Another way to find items on Ebay that may not bring in bidders is to look for auctions ending at times when most people aren't shopping on Ebay, like the middle of the day or the middle of the night. Also, auctions without pictures are also less likely to get bids. If you come across an auction without a picture that you're interested in, email the seller and ask them if they can email you a photo. Many times, they will!


How to Make Money Selling on Ebay Off of Other People's Auctions


Did you know how to make money selling on Ebay from other people's auctions without selling anything yourself? Well, you can - and people do it every day!

The first thing to do is get an account at Commission Junction and sign up for Ebay's affiliate program. It helps to have a simple website or newsletter, even though it's not always necessary.

After that, start looking for high priced items up for auction. Why high priced? So you'll make more money, of course! Great high priced auction items that are good to promote are diamonds, real estate, motor, cars, car parts, electronics, antiques, airline tickets and designer handbags.

After you've figured out what you want to promote, write down your PID number which you will find at Commission Junction. Then, head on over to Ebay's Flexible Destination Tool you will need to enter your PID number and the link to the Ebay page you want to promote. Enter custom text that you want to display, and Ebay will create your own special link.

You'll notice it's very long. If you want to make it shorter, go to Tinyurl.com and you can, free!

All that's left to do now is bring visitors to your customized link. One place to do this is at craigslist.com. Let's say you place an ad on Craigslist advertising cheap diamonds. Once the emails start coming in from interested people, simply email them back with your customized affiliate link that you created with Ebay's Flexible Destination Tool. You can even use an autoresponder to email them for you!

There are lots of different ways to promote other people's auctions. You can use email marketing, your website traffic promotion, or newsletter. And that's all there is to it!


Sell Other People's Stuff for Big Profits


Ebay offers the Trading Assistant Program, which lets you make money by selling things for other people. There are many reasons why people might hire a Trading Assistant:
  • They may not have a computer
  • They may not have a credit card to open a seller account
  • They may not have the time to create their own auctions
  • They may desire the services of an experienced professional to sell their items for them.
A Trading Assistant lists and ships the items for their clients, then charges a fee for their service. Sometimes, Trading Assistants charge a flat fee for their services, other times they charge a percentage of the final selling price. It's also customary for the client to pay for the Ebay listing and final value fees, whether the item sells or not.

If you are able to find clients with expensive items, or find lots of clients, you can see how big profits could be made selling on Ebay. Some Trading Assistants even have physical locations where clients drop off their merchandise, others do not. If you're interested in becoming a Trading Assistant, there is some basic criteria you must meet first:
  • You must have sold four or more items per month for the past three months
  • You must have a feedback score of 100 or higher
  • You must have 97% positive feedback or higher
  • Your Ebay account must be in good standing
If you meet these requirements, you can sign up to be a Trading Assistant. Next, you can list yourself in the Ebay Trading Assistant's Directory.

There are other ways to find clients as well. Try placing an ad in your local classifieds, pennysavers, and Yellow Pages. If you have the budget, television and radio are highly effective. Also, try handing out business cards to anyone you can and posting flayers on community bulletin boards. Check with antique stores and consignment shops to see if they might be interested in your services.

Ebay offers a variety of marketing tools for their Trading Assistants to use, free - so take advantage of them!


Tips for Selling Informational Products


I have read that a person can make a fortune selling informational products on Ebay. While I'm not sure if that's true, I think there is some money to be made this way.

To find out, I ran an Advanced Search in the Informational Products category. I discovered that lots of auctions ended without any bids of all. Others ended up selling for small amounts like .99. However, there were a few informational products that seemed to do well. I am going to list them below for your convenience.
  • New In Dash 9" DVD Player / MP3 Car Stereo Wholesale List (Sold for $29.95)
  • Secrets of Refining Gold from Electronic Scrap (Sold for $24.99)
  • Name Brand Wholesale Shoe List (Sold for $30.00)
  • Toolbox Chest Wholesale List (One Day Auction, Sold for $81 with 7 Bids)
  • New 50 Inch Plasma HD TV Wholesale List! (This is from the same seller as the last item, a 1 Day Auction, and it ended up selling for $20.99)
  • Flat Panel Computer Monitor Wholesale List (Sold for $59.95)
There are lots more examples you can find by going to the books category and running an Advanced Search for Completed Listings. You will find that the majority of the informational products that sold for the most were wholesale lists for particular in-demand products.


The Truth About Dropshipping


You've probably heard about dropshipping. Dropshipping is where you sell merchandise that you don't stock yourself. The dropshipper stocks the merchandise, and you sell it at a higher price than what they charge. When your customer buys the item from you, you use the money they pay you to place the order with the dropshipper. The dropshipper then ships the item to your customer in a plain package with no company information so that they think it came straight from you.

You may have seen ads for dropship lists. These ads promise to hook you up with great dropshippers for a one-time or monthly fee. Are these lists any good? I couldn't tell you, because I've never bought one. And I'll tell you why?

While dropshipping is good in theory, the reality is not so good. Because each dropship item is sold one at a time, you won't find prices as low as you would if you bought wholesale in bulk. The dropshipper has to make a profit, and so do you. By the time you mark up the price to give yourself a little profit, you'll find you're not able to offer very competitive prices. And Ebay is all about competitive pricing!

If a bidder can find someone offering the same item as you at a lower price, who do you think they're going to buy from?

I've personally tried to use a few dropshippers in the past with Ebay, and I didn't do very well. I rarely was able to sell the items for the price I wanted, and I ended up racking up Ebay fees. Most of the time, I had fees to pay and no profits.

Here's another problem - what if the dropshipper doesn't fulfill their obligation? If the merchandise never gets to the customer, or arrives damaged, you are held liable by the customer. That will lead to negative feedback, which is the worst thing to have if you're an Ebay seller.

Not only that, but every time you order from a dropshipper, that dropshipper gets another potential customer to sell to. Do you really want another company that sells merchandise for less than you do having your customer list?

I'm not saying that dropshipping is always a bad thing. You may find great success using dropshippers. But because I feel it's just not the best way to make Ebay profits, you won't find dropshippers.


How To Create a Great eBay Listings That Draw Customers


To sell your products on ebay you need to create listings. Creating great listings is easier than you might think. The first thing you'll want to do is write a title that grabs attention yet describes your item well.

The most important thing about writing a title is to describe your item well. Suppose you are selling a television set. A good title might be something like:

Magnavox 40" LCD Screen TV - Brand New – NR

This lets the buyer know several crucial pieces of information. It tells them who makes the item, how big it is, what kind of TV it is, whether it's new or used, and the fact there is No Reserve.

In the Help section of Ebay, you can find all the abbreviations that people use in their auction titles and what they mean.

Next, it's time to move on to your description. Make sure to describe your item well and include as many details as you can possibly think of. Ebay offers a text editor where you can make text bold, change the font, make it smaller or bigger, underline text, and so on. If you know HTML, you can create your own designer listings.

One thing I've seen some sellers do is use text in all caps, or text that's all bold. Or, text in one long paragraph without breaks. This is hard to read.

Be sure to put shipping and payment details in your item description as well. While there is a place to specify them later, it's still a good practice to include them there. That way, there will be no questions because the terms are clearly spelled out.

Ebay also allows you to put inserts in your listing description. Two of the best inserts are 'Add Me to Your Favorite Sellers List' and 'Be Sure to Check Out My Other Items.'

After you've written your description, it's time to enter pricing details. Keep your starting price low to encourage more bidders. If you're selling an expensive item, set a Reserve Price yet keep the starting bid price very low to attract lots of people to your auction. If the Reserve is not met, you are under no obligation to sell your item.

If you're unsure of how much you should ask for your item, do an Advanced Search on Ebay for items like yours. Check the 'Completed Listings' box on the search form. This will show you the ending price that the items sold for.

Another part of creating a great listing is including good pictures. If you know HTML or use a template, you can insert your own photos rather than paying Ebay to host them for you.

Yet another way to attract more buyers is to offer International Shipping. Some sellers don't do this because they think it's a pain in the neck, but it's not so bad. At the USPS website you can calculate international shipping rates to quote to your buyers. At the post office, you simply need to fill out a form to ship internationally, and that's it!


Putting It All Together


In this article, you've been introduced to many different ways on how to make money selling on Ebay. You can Make Your Dollar Stretch By Buying Wholesale, or you can buy cheap items, and resell them for profit. You can promote other people's auctions and make a percentage of their sales. You can become a Trading Assistant and sell items that belong to others. You can create informational products and sell those as well!

I recommend first deciding what you want to sell, then doing as much research as you can on Ebay for similar items. Simply by seeing others' auctions, how much they started and ended at, as well as the listing itself can teach you a lot about what sells and what does not.

First, go to the category in which the item you want to sell belongs. Then, go to Advanced Search. You may or may not want to put in a particular keyword to narrow your search. Be sure to click the Completed Listings box. Then just hit Search, and you'll see the results. By avoiding mistakes that unsuccessful sellers made and emulating sellers who were successful, you can learn to be a better seller.


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The "Big 3" will do it --> #1) Own #2) Diversify 
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