Danai's Guide to Running a Successful eBay Business

Welcome to my guide to selling successfully on eBay. This is my first guide here, so feedback is fully welcome

Step 1: Find a source for your goods

This could be from your local auctioneer or maybe even a car boot sale. Try your luck haggling, you never know, you could be a natural! If you have a wholesaler near you, you can get good deals there but it is likely that you will have to register yourself as a business, not just on eBay, but with the government. This will probably mean sending accounts each year to the government each year but is a good source if you have the time and patience.

Step 2: Know your items

Don't just go out and buy a load of odds and ends when you don't have a clue what they are and what they'll go for. Always search on the internet and target what you want to buy.

Step 3: Test what you are buying (electronics and mechanics only)

This is particularly important if you are at an auction. A lot of the stuff will be returned and therefore might be faulty. Ask if you can test the item. If you can't, don't buy.

Step 4: Price all your items

This can be very time-consuming but is the key to making profits. When you are pricing you need to take the following factors into consideration:

Price the item(s) is/are going for on eBay
eBay taxes (which will normally be 40p listing charge + 10% of final selling price)
PayPal charges ONLY IF YOU ARE USING PAYPAL! (this will be 20p + 3.4% of final selling price)
Price that you bought the item(s) for.

Step 5: Put your items on eBay

Make it catchy. People are less likely to buy your product if you write three lines of boring text in size 8 arial black. Add some pictures from the internet.
Make sure you ACCURATELY describe the product or you could be in for some nasty negative feedback!
Think about what YOU would want to know if you were the buyer.

Step 6: Postage

Never overcharge for your postage. It may seem a good way to avoid eBay taxes at first, but buyers will rate you low and before you know it, you will be losing money. If you are using Royal Mail use their postage estimator first.

Step 7: Contacting your buyer

So, you've sold an item, contact your buyer to say thanks for buying, your payment has been received and we are posting your item now etc etc.

Step 8: Support your buyer

Keep in touch with your buyer. Make sure (s)he knows what is happening to their product.

Step 9: Leave positive feedback

Create a template or just leave something different each time like "Swift transaction, would sell and buy from you in future, A++++++" or something like that.


I hope this helps your eBay business strive,
Danai

 

Decent guide man. I am a big seller of FIFA Ultimate Team coins here on sythe. They are a virtual item. I thought about selling them on Ebay but seeing as they are a virtual item I would not be entitled to sellers protection insurance. It is also against Ebay Policy to sell virtual items on Ebay lucky I checked this out if I had sold on Ebay they could of gotten Paypal to limit my account and hold all the cash for 180 days. Maybe you could include this?

 

I could definitely. Thanks!