EBay for Dummies by Marsha Collier

Author:Marsha Collier [Collier, Marsha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Electronic Commerce, Computers, General, E-Commerce, Internet auctions, Auctions - Computer network resources, Internet, Business & Economics, EBay (Firm)
ISBN: 9780470497418
Publisher: For Dummies
Published: 2009-06-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Time to Sell: Completing the Cyber Paperwork

In This Chapter

Getting ready to set up your listing

Choosing your item category

Writing your item description

Deciding on your options

Making changes after your auction has started

It’s time to make some money? Are you ready? Yes? (Call it an inspired guess.) You’re on the threshold of adding your items to the hundreds of thousands that go up for sale on eBay every day (and perhaps also shedding from your home some of the valuable things you haven’t touched in years). Some listings are so hot that the sellers quadruple their investments. Other items, unfortunately, are so stone cold that they may not even register a single bid.

In this chapter, I explain all the facets of the Sell an Item page — the page you fill out to get your auction going on eBay. You get some advice that can increase your odds of making money, and you find out the best way to position your item so buyers can see it and bid on it. I also show you how to modify, relist, or end your auction whenever you need to.

A caveat here: To keep the marketplace vibrant, eBay’s programmers are constantly working to improve the site, and improvement means change. The listing form (as I describe in this chapter) can change from time to time, but the basic decisions you need to make will not. The selling philosophy laid out in this chapter should help you ride the waves of change on eBay — whatever they may be.

Getting Ready to List Your Item

After you decide what you want to sell, find out as much as you can about it and conduct a little market research. Then you should have a good idea of the item’s popularity and value. To get this info, check out Chapter 9.

Before you list your item, make sure that you have these bases covered:

The specific category under which you want the item listed: Ask your friends or family where they’d look for such an item and remember the categories you saw most frequently when you conducted your market research with the eBay search function.

To find out which category will pay off best for your item, run a search and then check Completed Listings. See how many of this type of item are selling now (and if people are actually bidding on it). Scroll down to the left of the page and click the Show Only Completed Listings box. Then sort your results by highest prices first and look over the sales to see which categories they’re listed in. For more information on how to get ahead of the crowd through eBay’s search, visit Chapter 5.

What you want to say in your item description: Jot down your ideas. Take a good look at your item and make a list of keywords that describe your item. Keywords are single descriptive words that can include the following (this is hardly a complete list):

• Brand name

• Size of the

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