How to get higher prices when you're selling with online auctions....

Hi Mary!

> I've never sold on ebay, so this might be
> kind of elementary. Nevertheless . . .

> If I have an item to sell, and a buyer who
> wants it, how is the transaction handled? Do
> they pay first, then you ship?

> Who handles the money, Ebay?

Ebay does have a method now of handling it all, I think it's called Billpoint. However, I like to use Paypal ( www.paypal.com ). It can be very handy to have a Paypal account if you sell ANYTHING online - and it's free to join too. You can arrange it so that Paypal can pay the funds directly into your bank account. (No worrying about checks lost in the mail.)

I always get paid first before I ship, and I personally keep in close touch with the buyer. So when I receive their payment after the auction closes, I send them an email confirming it, and when I ship I also send them an email at the same time letting them know that it's on its way. The reason why is that I figure that many people can be a quite hesitant about sending strange people their money online, so I do my best to make their fears go away. I also like to ship as fast as possible....

Mary, you should try it. Just try selling one thing around the house if you like, for experience, or go out and buy something inexpensive, just for the experience of selling it.

I usually sell with a no reserve auction, starting the price at the very LEAST I'm willing to accept for it. I also find out shipping charges before-hand, and include the shipping as a separate charge, which I mention in the auction listing. If you look at some of the auctions on ebay, you will see what I mean.

If you want to know how to "design" your auction, here's a very easy method which works.

For example, let's say you wanted to sell a second hand sweater. (People DO buy second-hand clothing on ebay.)

The first thing I would do is search through the auctions, finding items similar to the ones I wanted to sell. I would search through the CLOSED auctions - you can do this on ebay by first doing a regular search, then click on "Show Completed Items". Then you can see which items are selling well, and which are not. I'd try to find an auction where they are selling something similar to yours, where they got several bids and seemed to get a good price for it. I would ignore anything which got no bids, or which only sold for a lousy price.

Then, I'd use one of the successful auctions as a model for the layout of my auction. It's the essence of using a successful model to base your auction upon.

This method does work.... Human nature tends to (more or less) stay the same, so a particular auction layout which worked well a couple weeks ago will probably still work now.

So, in essence, find good examples of success, then model your activities on what's already PROVEN to work. It's a shortcut to having a successful online auction, and while you can't eliminate trial-and-error completely, you can reduce it so you can become successful as fast as possible. :)

I tend to think of ebay as mostly a large online flea market.... But it's evolving beyond that. If you search around, you will see that as well as usual flea-market type items, people are also selling luxury cars, houses, and even privately-owned islands on ebay!!!

I hope that helps.... If you have any other questions, please let me know. :)

- Dien