Sell Better on eBay
eBay sellers run the gamut, from individuals selling unused items found around the house to small businesses using eBay as a second channel to supplement their brick-and-mortar stores to big overstock and off-lease liquidators. Whatever your size and interest in eBay selling, you'll want to know what you're doing as you launch your eBay selling career. These articles help you to do just that.
- Common Selling Questions (23)
- Holiday Selling on eBay (6)
- Marketing and Promotion (15)
- Mix Online and Offline (2)
- Selling Dos and Don'ts (24)
- Useful eBay Selling Tools (24)
- eBay Selling Tips (9)
Selling on eBay: Quick Tips at a Glance
This is the place to go when you just want the most essential information, quick, simple, and dirty, about how to perform as a seller. Drive sales, create growth, maximize your returns, and get the most from your eBay seller account.
List an Item for Sale, Step-by-Step
This visual guide to the standard eBay selling form shows you how to list an item for sale, step-by-step, and how to complete each part of the listing form along the way to match your needs as a seller.
Visual Guide to Selling Using eBay's iPhone App
Learn to sell an item on eBay using the eBay mobile app on iPhone by following along with this step-by-step visual guide.
Use the Seller Information Center
The eBay Seller Information Center is your one-stop shop for all of the basics of eBay selling, from getting started to the most important tips and tricks to rules and fees.
Auction vs. Fixed-Price: How to Choose a Listing Format
The two most basic ways to sell your item on eBay are by using the venerable auction format to solicit bids or by listing your item at a fixed price at which someone can immediately buy it. Here's which one to choose for your sales, and why.
Troubleshoot Your Listings
Do you have the nagging feeling that your item listings are underperforming, or that other sellers are doing better than you with the same goods? Use this checklist to help you troubleshoot your listings for common mistakes and areas of potential improvement.
Quick Guide to Listing Formats
eBay offers a variety of listing formats to help buyers and sellers connect and transact. This quick guide runs down the basic set of eBay listing formats to help you decide the best way to move your goods.
Quick Guide to Describing Item Conditions
Sometimes it's hard to decide how to describe the condition of an item to potential buyers. You don't want to needlessly underrate your item's condition, but you don't want to face unreasonable buyer expectations, either. This quick guide can help you to decide how to describe your item's condition when you list.
Item Descriptions Made Easy
You've been told to write nice item descriptions rather than lousy ones, but what does a nice item description look like, and how do you go about writing one? This step-by-step guide helps you to generate an item description that will sell your goods.
Win the Battle for the Bid
Buying on eBay is a matter of narrowing down choices. Selling on eBay is a matter of getting buyers to choose your listing rather than the other guy's. Here are eight tips to help you win the battle for the bid.
Understanding Detailed Feedback
Want to say more about a seller in feedback than just "positive," "negative," or "neutral?" eBay's relatively new "detailed seller ratings" tool can help you to express yourself in more detail.
Building Your Feedback Profile
If your plan is to become a successful eBay seller, building a solid feedback profile is the place to start. There's no scientific formula for accomplishing this, but it pays to keep a few things in mind.
Make Best Match Work for You
eBay's new "Best Match" ranking system is the stuff of dreams and nightmares. It's a dream for buyers frustrated by high costs, poor selection, and poor service. It's a nightmare for sellers that find themselves suddenly buried last in search results. If you're such a seller, don't despair; best match can be made to work for you.
How to Choose an eBay Business Model
Everybody talks about "starting an eBay business," but if you're new to the world of eBay it can be difficult to know where and how to begin. What business models are commonly used on eBay, and which are the most successful? This article gives you quick details on six of the most common eBay business models: barriers to entry, success and failure potential, and problems to watch out for.
What should I sell on eBay? Where should I get it?
If you don't already know what to sell on eBay when you start your eBay business, you may be thinking about the question in the wrong way. The answer changes from week to week, sometimes even from day to day.
Supply and Demand on eBay
It's one thing if you just want to hold the eBay version of a garage sale and make some spare cash with items on hand. If you want to turn your eBaying into a profitable business, however, you'll need to think harder than that about your buying and selling choices.
Maximize Bids by Timing Your Listings
How to improve the number of bids your auctions receive and the total sale value that you achieve, simply by adjusting your timing.
Nine Small Business Pitfalls to Avoid
Are you running a small eBay business? Have you taken steps to ensure that you don't turn any of these necessities into a management gaffe or pitfall?
Quick Tips for eBay Photos
Most sellers realize that it's important to include a photo of the sale item in every item listing. Not all photos, however, are created equal. Read on for quick tips about eBay listing photos.
Assisted Trading on eBay
Trading assistants are independent agents that sell items on eBay for other individuals for a small fee. Whether you're interested in finding and using a trading assistant to sell an item on eBay or interested in becoming an eBay trading assistant yourself, this is the place to begin.
Drop Shipping Tips for eBay Sellers
Drop shipping is one of the classic direct marketing models, and it has done very well for a large number of entrepreneurs. Be aware, however, that drop shipping on eBay can present special challenges—challenges that you'll need to surmount if you plan to succeed.
Do Your eBay Selling in Less Time
Many small and part-time sellers feel as though their eBay sales success is constrained more by a lack of time than anything else. If this is you,...
Five Ways to Lower Seller Risk
Despite the reams and reams of advice to sellers about selling on eBay, there are five simple things you can do to lower your exposure to risk.
Selling Internationally on eBay
Selling internationally on eBay can be both fun and profitable. Here's how to do it, along with a few things to keep in mind so that your experience and your buyers' experiences are good ones.
Ten Tips for Cross-Border Trade
Making a few of your auctions available to international buyers is one thing, but if you plan to incorporate cross-border trade into your business model in a serious way, you're up against a more serious set of issues. Here are ten tips to help you thrive as an international seller.
eBay HTML Survival Guide
Improve your auction listing performance by using HTML to make your auctions more presentable and easier to understand.
All About PowerSellers
You've seen the logo and the word around eBay, but how does one become a PowerSeller and what benefits does this program offer to eBay buyers and sellers? Find out here.
Canceling Bids and Listings
What to do when you decide that you don't want to sell after all, or that you want to sell now rather than later.
Online Auction Alternatives to eBay
eBay has changed a lot over the last several years, and these changes have caused many smaller sellers, especially those who prefer auction format selling, to search for alternatives. Here are some of the most popular.
eBay vs. Amazon.com for Sellers
In recent years Amazon.com has been mentioned again and again as eBay's chief competitor as a popular selling platform. Which is better for you? This head-to-head comparison in several major areas may help you to decide.
Tips for Summer and Vacation Buying and Selling
When the summer fun and travel season is on the horizon, it's time to think about using eBay to turn old gear into cash or to equip a new vacation season on the cheap
eBay Sellers and Tax Changes
The IRS has announced a new Form 1099-K for the reporting of gross receipts using electronic payment systems, including PayPal and credit card merchant accounts. Starting in 2011, you'll have to account for the online payments you've received.
From eBay: Selling—Overivew
eBay's own overview of the selling process, covering the various formats for selling on eBay and and how to create a listing.
Tips from a Power Buyer
This free-form list of tips from a power buyer gives a lot of great but often overlooked details about what buyers look for when choosing between your auction and a competitor's auction.
Thirty Ways to Source for eBay Selling
You already know you're not one of the big-name retailers that eBay has been courting in recent years, but you still want to make a eBay selling a sideline. What are some ways to get something to sell?
Seven Metrics Goals for eBay Sellers
The dollars and cents of your balance sheet tell you how you're doing as a seller today, but how do you know how well you'll do tomorrow in the maze of eBay standards and metrics? Here are seven goals for measurable eBay performance to keep you on the eBay straight and narrow.
Use Listing Upgrades to Tweak Your Selling
The once dizzying array of eBay listing upgrades has in recent years been reduced to a few tried-and-true modifications and promotions that really do impact bids and sales.
Become a Business, Not Just a Seller
Lots of new eBayers just want to "become" eBay sellers, but when you're serious about eBay success, what you also need to do is "become" a real, bona-fide business. Here are some essential steps to help you get there.
Eight Fundamental Seller's Tools
As a seller just starting out on eBay, it can often seem as though there are a bewildering array of resources, services, and tools of various kinds available to you. But which of these do you really need? Here are tools that other sellers have found to be essential.
Eight Steps to eBay Success
Every eBay business is different, but the most successful eBay businesses founded by individuals tend to have a few things in common that most anyone can replicate, given time and dedication. Here are eight steps to eBay success.
Understanding the Spring 2012 Seller Update
The Spring 2012 seller update brings changes to the feedback system, detailed seller ratings, top-rated seller program, and listing properties that ought to make many sellers happy.
Tweak Your eBay Preferences
Thinking of suggesting a configuration option or change to eBay to make your selling life easier? Have you checked to see whether you can already make or accomplish the change you're looking for in your eBay account preferences?
What are the basics for pro eBay sellers?
So you're ready to start an eBay business and you're trying to get the basics down. What are the basics that most sellers have in place in terms of subscriptions, relationships, and resources? What, in other words, are the basics of an eBay business?