| Simple Selling on eBay (cont'd) | |
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All of the preliminaries are now done; it's time to get into the real meat of the selling process where you tell buyers all about your item, how much it's going to cost them, how you'd like them to pay you, and how you plan to deliver it to them once they've paid.
Step 4: Describe Your Item in Detail
The most important step in selling your item comes now. Use the big text box on the simple selling form to describe your item in the greatest detail possible. Things like manufacturer, model, size, blemishes, age, the reason you're selling it, things that the buyer might need to do or buy before they can make use of the item-anything that will help a buyer to decide whether or not this is the purchase that they want to make.
Also to be entered here are any extra terms and conditions that you want to impose on the sale. For example, if you want to sell the item AS-IS, you should probably use this space to inform buyers that there will be no refunds or exchanges on the sale.
Notice that the text box has a row of buttons across its top. These allow it to work more or less like a little word processing or text editing program, not unlike Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer. You can change your font and font size or do things like make text bold, italic, or underlined. You can also change the color of text that you enter. Use these buttons just as you would in a word processing document to emphasize things that you think are important or that you want potential buyers to notice first.
Step 5: Set Your Price and Shipping Policy
With your item described, it's time to "talk turkey" as they say-to determine the absolute minimum price at which you want your item to sell and enter it into the minimum starting bid box (A). Remember that eBay is an auction site-potential buyers will bid on your item against one another and may drive the price higher, so it's a bad idea to set this number too high to begin with, since too high a starting price may drive potential bidders away or lead to an item that nobody wants to buy at all. On the other hand, once the auction listing closes, you'll be legally obligated to sell the item to the highest bidder, so don't set this "starting bid" number lower than you're willing to go for the item.
Once you've decided on a minimum starting bid, use the duration drop-down list (B) to choose the duration of your auction. This is the number of days during which bidders will be able to raise the item's price by placing increasingly higher bids. When time is up, you'll be obligated to sell to the highest bidder and they'll be obligated to pay you for the item.
Now select a shipping area and shipping method using the provided drop-down lists (C). This tells buyers where you're willing to ship the item and what method you're planning to use to ship it. Next, enter the price (D) of shipping for the region and method you've selected.
If you're willing to ship to other regions or using other shipping methods, you can add additional shipping options to the list by clicking on the "Add other shipping destinations or services" button (E) just below.
Step 6: Enter Payment and Allowed Buyer Details
If you have a PayPal account, you should enter your PayPal ID (usually the email address that you used to register with PayPal) in the text box (A) labeled "Accept payment with PayPal." If you don't yet have a PayPal account, simply enter your email address in this box and eBay will help you to create a PayPal account once your item has sold.
Finally, if you would like to block potentially troublesome bidders, check the box (B) that instructs eBay to do this for you. Such bidders include those who have a history of not paying for auctions that they've won or who are very new to eBay and may be too inexperienced to carry out a smooth transaction. If you're brand new to eBay or are making your first sale, it's probably a good idea to check this box.
Step 7: Submit Your Listing
At this point you're basically done with your listing! There is one step left and that is to tell eBay that you've filled out the form correctly and want to list the item. This is done using the little yellow area at the bottom of the selling form.
First, review all of the information you've entered and the fees that eBay will charge you to list the item (A). If you're unsure about whether you want to continue and would prefer to save this listing as a draft that you can return to later-rather than actually putting the item up for sale immediately-click on the link (B) labeled "Save as a draft." Otherwise, click the "Save and preview" button (C) to save the information you've entered. eBay will open a separate page to show you how your item listing will look, along with a button labeled "List your item" (not shown above). If you don't like the preview that eBay shows you, use your browser's back button to return to the listing form and make changes. When the listing looks like you want it to look, click on the "List your item" button to actually put your item up for sale on eBay.
As a final note, if you're an experienced seller and decide after going through the simplified listing form outlined here that you'd really rather use the more traditional, detailed listing form for the particular item you're selling, click on the link (D) that takes you to the traditional, much more lengthy and flexible, item listing form.
That's it! All done!
Congratulations! That's basically all there is to it. Your item has now been listed for sale on eBay. Check your My eBay page often to monitor the auction's progress and the bids of interested parties, and check your email often as well-since eBay will email you once the auction has finished to help you to complete the actual transaction.
Next page > Start Your Item Listing > Page 1, 2
