Selling on Ebay?

Does anyone have any tips on how to increase sales on ebay? I am listing 3 items and have no rep as of yet so i may have trouble shifting them. Two of them have bids though.

I just wondered if there are any good tips!

[maxtoralias]

We all start with a zero rep and my only recommendation would be that you descibe the goods for sale honestly and accurately, don't over charge for the postage and packing (as some e-bayers do to inflate their prices) promptly respond to queries on the items you sell and finally send the items out promptly when the sale completes.

I also use paypal for taking payments as at least the monies are guaranteed, although you do pay a percentage for the privilledge.

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

my advice would be to sell one and get a rep and then sell the next and so on.

Yes you pay for using paypal. I think you pay a % if you withdraw less than £50 from paypal to your bank in one transaction, + the credit card company will take a slice.

Some people ask the buyer to add something like 4% to cover the paypal charges

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Damien

Does anyone have any tips on how to increase sales on ebay? I am listing 3 items and have no rep as of yet so i may have trouble shifting them. Two of them have bids though.

What are you selling? Put a link to it and it would be easier for us to comment, but generally the best thing is make sure that you've got plenty of appropriate keywords in the item title and description to enable potential buyers to *find* the thing in the first place!

Secondly remember that most bidding happens within the last few hours (or even few minutes), so don't be disillusioned if it's got four days to run and only one bid.

I dont think i can link, spamming en all.

I am also wondering if amazon.co.uk market place is better. Although they charge a bit as well. ebay take 5%, theres the insertion fees and then paypal take 3.75% and 40p

Amazon charge 0.86p insertion and then 17.5% closing.

[Tricky]

Some sellers will regisiter multiple accounts and sell fake goods to themselves in order to bump up their ratings or have friends do this for them.

I believe it is harder to do this now as Ebay request additional detials when you register.

[Halcyon]

Ok a few tips for you from what I've learned over my time on ebay:

1. Research your item you are selling. You can do a search to see if your item has sold in the past and for how much.
Helps you to set an appropriate kick off price.
Also check out the competition and do a search to see if the same item isnt already listed for cheaper than your kick off price.

2. Think ahead. You dont want your auction ending in the middle of the night. Pick a time during the day, preferably at the weekend when people will have more time to browse your item.

3. Include a photo. Helps to sell an item over any description.
However, dont forget the description. You need a photo AND a description.
And make sure its a good quality photo.

4. Keep it simple and use some formatting to make it clear for people to read your listing. You can use normal html tags.

5. Get the category right. And check your spelling. No use listing it if people cant find it because of some little typo you made.

6. State additional information and postage and packaging information. Accept to ship all over the world to open up to a larger audience.

7. Encourage buyers to ask a question if they need any more info.

8. Don't stick any clashing colours, moving backgrounds, or music.
People want to read the info straight away so keep it tidy.

9. Avoid your auction ending friday mornings between 8-11am as that is ebays down time for maintenance.

10. If you know its something popular, you could post links to it on specialist collector forums with a link to your item.

11. Accept several different methods of payment.

12. If you want to be really cheeky, Fill your listing with additional words so they come up in more searches.

Two hours left and only one bid, Oh well. Maybe I will set last minute bidders but i have 0 rep. How how rep do you need to reach before you are trusted? If there a rule?

[Flubflow]

One way to make the listing cheaper yet have loads of photos etc is to include a link on the auction page to your personal webspace where you can host as many large detailed photos, sound files, video files etc as you like in order to better show/demonstrate the product you are selling.
I did this on several occasions and it really did help.

[Chris W]

There isn't a rule- but the more the better generally. Your first "star" is award when you have 10 rep.

Personally, i avoid people who have massive feedback ratings because i have found that they are large companies, and the service is often better from an individual who sells from time to time.

All of the advice that has been given so far is good, how have you structured your pricing? Have you gone for £1 no reserve, set the starting price as what you expect to receive, or set it lower with a reserve/ buy it now option?

If you tell us the type of goods then I can tell you which technique in my experience gives the best results. Remember, if items do not sell you can relist them for free.

Originally Posted by Flubflow

One way to make the listing cheaper yet have loads of photos etc is to include a link on the auction page to your personal webspace where you can host as many large detailed photos, sound files, video files etc as you like in order to better show/demonstrate the product you are selling.
I did this on several occasions and it really did help.

cool idea. I included pics as that also helps with people trusting you. I am just hoping for last minute bids now.
__________________

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

There isn't a rule- but the more the better generally. Your first "star" is award when you have 10 rep.

Personally, i avoid people who have massive feedback ratings because i have found that they are large companies, and the service is often better from an individual who sells from time to time.

All of the advice that has been given so far is good, how have you structured your pricing? Have you gone for £1 no reserve, set the starting price as what you expect to receive, or set it lower with a reserve/ buy it now option?

If you tell us the type of goods then I can tell you which technique in my experience gives the best results. Remember, if items do not sell you can relist them for free.

Star wars boxset. I set it at 14.99 because I was worried about a lack of bid so if i only got one bidder then i wanted to sell it at a reasonable price. I also have a signed album ending in a couple of days which already has a bid
__________________

Yes! A second bid! Come on! lets see a bidding war!

[Flubflow]

Here's some more advice. Don't ever try and make profit on the postage & packing.
I recently bought an item for a relative and the item itself was only 99p and the postage was £2 but overall the price was OK. When I actually received it, it was stuffed in an ordinary envelope by 1st class post @ 30p. It is irrelavent that my relative thought the overall price was OK and I resent the fact that at the end of the day the seller lied about the actual cost of postage/packing. That seller is going to get either neutral or a negative feedback from me.

Originally Posted by Flubflow

Here's some more advice. Don't ever try and make profit on the postage & packing.
I recently bought an item for a relative and the item itself was only 99p and the postage was £2 but overall the price was OK. When I actually received it, it was stuffed in an ordinary envelope by 1st class post @ 30p. It is irrelavent that my relative thought the overall price was OK and I resent the fact that at the end of the day the seller about the actual cost of postage/packing. That seller is going to get either neutral or a negative feedback from me.

I did £4 because i didnt want to get burnt. The Packaging is £1. So first class registered for a big item?
__________________

Cool, just had a mini bidding war

[Flubflow]

Originally Posted by Damien

I did £4 because i didnt want to get burnt. The Packaging is £1. So first class registered for a big item?

Use www.royalmail.com to get your postage prices.
You really need to have some digital kitchen scales (dead cheap) so you can work out the exact postage costs for the auction. It is less attractive to bidders when the exact P&P cost is not stated until after the auction end.
I never resent a reasonable amount added to cover the cost of bubble-Wrap, jiffy bags etc especially if it is only a small fraction of the relatively large cost of the item itself but, although I don't generally moan about it and don't think sellers should ever lose out, I don't like it when I'm charged well over the odds for obvious 2nd/3rd/4th-hand used packaging which has not cost the seller a penny but have still stuck another few quid on for it.
Some sellers say, "well, it took me 15 minutes to wrap, 20mins to walk to the post office and I had to stand in a que for 30mins". That's just tough and one should build that into the bid price if its that important.

[rovert]

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

my advice would be to sell one and get a rep and then sell the next and so on.

Yes you pay for using paypal. I think you pay a % if you withdraw less than £50 from paypal to your bank in one transaction, + the credit card company will take a slice.

Some people ask the buyer to add something like 4% to cover the paypal charges

Surcharges to cover Paypal fees etc are no longer allowed under ebay rules.