Auction 411

Now that you have become a little bit more familar with eBay, you might be wondering if you’ve chosen the right product to sell on eBay. The first thing you should ask yourself is, Is there is a need for this product? Other questions that you might want to consider are:

• Have you gone and researched your eBay competition to see if you can beat their prices and/or provide a better customer experience than them?
• Do you have enough knowledge about the product?
• Would you buy the product yourself?

These are important questions to know the answers to because you want to know if you’ll have a fighting chance against your competition.

eBay is a very price-driven environment and if you don’t have the weapons (low prices/great service/attractive store) to compete with established businesses, then you might be setting yourself up for disappointment. Customer Service is probably one of the most important and overlooked elements when learning how to become a Top Seller. An easy way of making sure you provide good customer service is to be extremely knowledgeable in your products so that you can give quick and informative responses to any questions your customer might ask.

To really begin understanding the ins and outs of eBay, you must first have an account to be able to navigate all the pages within eBay. First of all, we recommend that you keep your personal and business accounts separate. If you have an outstanding personal account, it still doesn’t matter because you don’t need everyone of your customers to know that you just bought the Pink Power Ranger from someone in Canada for $54 dollars plus shipping. Do you get the point? Don’t worry about your feedback ratings because you’re going to provide excellent customer service and the feedback will roll in with ease.

So, what Seller ID are you going to give yourself? We suggest you pick something simple that also describes your business. Names such as “crazy_girlie4506″ or “MikesDaManonCampus69″ just won’t do it because they are honestly impossible names to memorize and indistinguishable from your average eBay customer. If you’re selling Rubber Duckies, something like “BestRubberDuckies” or “RubberDuckies4Sale”would be a good and easy name for people to remember.

Register Your New Account by Clicking Here!

Tip: If you currently have an account with negative feedback, it may be a good idea to start a new account from scratch since feedback can’t be removed.

You do have the option of changing your ID once every month, however, many people do not change their ID often, if at all. Some people think you may have something to hide if you change your “identity.” eBay keeps a public track record of the number of times you’ve changed your ID, and what the past ID names were because of this very reason.

Once you’ve set up your account, the next thing you need to do is truly understand the bidding process from the point of view of a customer. I know that you might already have experience purchasing items from eBay, but do you really know what each step is?

So, let’s take out a piece of paper and grab a pen. Now go find an item that you can bid on, but don’t have to win - my favorite example is bidding $2 for a Red Ferrari since the worst thing that could happen is that you just won yourself a Ferrari for $2! Or if you already have an idea of what you want to sell on ebay, find a competitor and bid on their product. In any case, I want you to begin writing down each step you take. For example:

Step 1: Searched for “Ferrari” in Search Bar.
Step 2: Selected “Red Ferrari in Perfect Condition” Auction because I like how the tagline said it’s in perfect condition.
Step 3: Read the Description and History of the car. I’m going to make a bid because . . .

and so on . . . . The point is you understand what triggers people to make certain decisions. Keep the piece of paper so when we begin to set up your eBay Store, you’ll be able to reference key points in the selling process.

So now that you have really become familar with the selling process from the view of a consumer, you should go to your “About Me” page and write a paragraph or two describing yourself and your business. It doesn’t have to be a biography about your whole life, but it should be enough so that you come off as a regular person who’s got an honest business on ebay. Look at that piece of paper you just wrote and note what key phrases which attracted you which you might want to put in your own description. This will provide a genuine element to your storefront and make people more at ease when purchasing from you.

eBay is the largest ecommerce business in the world today, but the unique aspect of it is that it is driven by the power of the people. With over 86 million registered users on eBay, you’re going to have a great chance at finding a market for your products.

To begin your experience with eBay, we suggest that you take some time to familarize yourself with the site through the ebay Sitemaps section. A good understanding of the site will help you know where your customers are, what products they are looking for and most importantly, how they can get to your ebay page! Remember to check out eBay once in a while since like many other sites, they will update their look and feel to keep up with the trends.