Expert: Marvinator - 4/27/2004

Question
Hello there Marvinator:  After spending a few bucks buying on Ebay.ca I thought it was time I understood how to buy, sell and perhaps make a business of it since I will be staying home to care for my special needs daughter and can no longer work outside of our home.  Would you be so kind to recommend one or two books I should consider purchasing to learn about ebay?
Thank you for offering your time and knowledge and saving me the few pennies I have with your free service!
Darlene

Answer
Of all the questions I answer for people on the Ebay experience, this is the one I answer over and over again. "How do I get started?"  The best piece of advice I can offer a new seller is to prepare yourself properly.  This means a lot of homework, research and preparation before you click that "Sell" icon.  

First and foremost, learn the system.  Read all the seller information (available from the Site Map, Left hand Column near the bottom) and make yourself aware of the ways in which things are done.  How do you handle a non-paying bidder?  What are the rules about selling YOUR item (if any)?  Learn how to list.  Click on things and read the forms.  If something doesn't make sense, get answers.  You want to know beforehand what will happen when you sell, and how to handle things when they do.  Learn the Fee Schedule and know ahead of time what you are paying for.  

Second.  Product.  You can't just go out and find product.   The one thing I tell new sellers is that you will do best if you stick to what you know.  If you are a collector of Widgets, then this is an area where you may do well.  But if you know nothing about Widgets, then another area may be better.  In addition, you may know a lot about an item, but finding and keeping product in stock to sell may be more difficult than you realize.  Some companies will not sell to Ebay sellers.  Others will not sell to you unless you buy huge lots.  Take the time to find the product and make sure you can find a large amount of it as you need for selling.  Make sure that this product can be shipped easily and learn how to pack it well.  (For the record, a single sheet of newspaper will not protect a collector's plate even if it is only going across town.  Always pack items as if they were going to be handled by those apes in the American Tourister Commercial!)

If you're selling only a few items each week, then your selling won't take up too much time.  But if you want to sell a lot of items at a time, then listing and tracking your auctions becomes a full time endeavor. Most full time sellers admit that the 8 hour day quickly becomes 10-12 and 5 days becomes 6 or even 7! Take the time to learn how to write up your auctions ahead of time, and possibly learn about Turbo Lister (a free program from Ebay which allows you to compose auctions off line and upload all with a single click!)  Learn HTML to spruce up your auctions and make them lay out better. (Stay AWAY from music, animations, flashing banners, and bright fonts.  Anything that makes the Auction Page load slower or harder to read will only chase bidders away!)  I will also at this time suggest you stay way from the extras.  Bold Title, Featured Listing, Gift Icon, Ebay Templates - these only add to the price you pay to list and at first are more expenses than you need to incur.  

Money Matters: what happens after the sale?  How will you accept payment?  Check with your bank to see if there is a limit as to the number of items you may deposit in a given month (some banks have this!) and also check with Paypal if you plan to use it a lot.  The more business you do with Paypal, the more you may be forced to get a Premier Account (which charges you for every payment you receive!)  Learn how to handle checks (or how to prevent getting them by setting this in your auction).

With all the different auctions and people you will be dealing with, you may want to find a way to track your auctions.  I know one lady that uses pencil and paper.  She refuses to use such things as Quicken, or Access to track her sales.  Ebay offers a program (charges for a program) that will track your auctions and fees, but paying for a full program this early in the game may not be the best idea.  Keep things simple at first, and grow them as your business grows on Ebay.

Lastly, anytime you have more questions, don't hesitate to come here and ask again!