DON'T DAWDLE. Jim "Griff" Griffith, author of The eBay Bible and dean of eBay Education, says many new sellers feel overwhelmed at first. "A lot of new sellers spend too much time studying the site, and that's a mistake, as you can easily get hung up on 'paralysis by analysis,'" he says. Griff advises you to start small and slow, research the market on eBay, and then put one item up to get started. "If you do it methodically and slowly, you can list your first item in an hour or so and be up and running."
For more ideas on where to find product sources, go to www.entrepreneur.com/ebay/productsources.
Step 3: Manage the Auction Process
There are several types of eBay auctions. In a basic auction, you post your item with a starting price and wait for bidders to drive the price up until a closing time, which can be three, five, seven or lo days later, when the auction ends. You are then obligated to sell to the highest bidder.
You can also set a reserve price, which is a hidden minimum price that is the lowest amount you're willing to accept. Buyers are not shown the reserve price, and if it is not met, you are not obligated to sell the item.
If you have two or more identical items for sale, you can post them in the same auction by using a Dutch (or Multiple Item) Auction.
If you don't like auctions, eBay also has a "Buy It Now" feature that gives bidders the option to buy your item immediately for a set price. Or you can choose a fixed-price listing, which simply puts the item up for sale at a set price, with no bidding allowed.
To sell on eBay, you'll pay a listing fee to post your merchandise and a final value fee (a small percentage of the sale price) when the item sells. These fees change from time to time, so be sure to check the eBay site to make sure you can pay all the fees and still make a profit.
A number of books offer advice on reducing the amount of time and effort necessary to create eBay auction pages, such as Marsha Collier's eBay Timesaving Techniques For Dummies, Janelle Elms' eBay Your Business and Joseph T. Sinclair's eBay Business the Smart Way. Entrepreneur magazine's Startup Guide #1824, How to Start a Business on eBay, is available at www.smallbizbooks.com.
Software can also help you streamline the auction management process. Listing programs, such as Turbo-Lister (available for free from eBay) and Zdrop (www.ztradingpost.com), enable you to create multiple auction pages on your PC and upload them as a "batch" to eBay. Full-service auction-management programs like AuctionHelper (www.auctionhelper.com) and Zoovy (www.zoovy.com) handle almost everything, from inventory management to label printing.
Step 4: Provide Great Customer Service
Buyers will ask you questions about your merchandise, and if you don't respond promptly, they won't bid. Top-notch service also means shipping your goods to the winning buyer within two to three days after the auction closes, or as soon as you receive payment.
When an eBay auction is completed, the goods shipped and payment made, you and your buyer can comment on each other in eBay's Feedback Forum. Buyers rely on the Feedback Forum to determine how reliable a seller is. But watch out: If buyers aren't happy with your customer service or your merchandise, they will post negative or neutral feedback. Many buyers will not deal with a seller who has less than a specified number of positive feedback postings in the forum, or a seller who has too many negative feedback postings.
Unfortunately, some customers will threaten to leave negative feedback if you don't do what they want, even if they are being unreasonable. Most of the time, you're best advised to meet their demands because "the customer is always right," and because you want to avoid negative feedback on eBay at all costs.
In cases where a buyer posts negative feedback that is inaccurate or unfair, eBay affords you a limited opportunity to respond to the negative posting and tell buyers your side of the story. In extreme cases, eBay's SquareTrade service helps mediate disputes between eBay buyers and sellers.
Step 5: Build a Brand on eBay On eBay, sellers are offered a number of tools to help establish their brand identities, including:
* ABOUT ME: A free page that enables you to describe your business and any relevant information that would make buyers feel more comfortable buying from you.
* EBAY STORES: A virtual storefront that puts all of your current auctions together in one place, so buyers can see everything you're selling at a glance. You'll pay a monthly fee based on the level of store services you want, plus additional fees for items listed and sold.
* CUSTOMIZING TOOLS; A number of features (accessible from your "My eBay" page) that enable you to make your pages stand out from others offering similar merchandise.
Like any marketplace, eBay is constantly changing. "A lot of people get set in a comfort zone, especially if they have an initial rush of success," says Griff. "If you get to the point that you really feel comfortable you know what you're doing on eBay, I guarantee you there's a brick flying at the side of your head at 80 miles an hour that you're not seeing because you're not looking in that direction."
You can expect pricing and demand on eBay to change over time. As more and more people start operating on eBay, competition will increase and prices may decline slightly. Still, keep in mind that eBay has reached only a small fraction of its potential worldwide market. And it will continue to grow even faster as internet access becomes more readily available worldwide. "EBay is the leader in internet auctions," says Morphy. "It has such a strong hold on the market and such a huge following, you can't beat it."
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: For more information on starting a business on eBay, log on to our eBay Business Center at www.entrepreneur.com/ebay. If you're new to doing business online, we've got you covered. Check out our free downloadable PDF, "The Entrepreneur's Guide to Doing Business Online" by Rieva Lesonsky, at www. entrepreneur.com/ebay/paypalguide. It discusses marketing, customer service, shipping charges, payment methods, helpful resources and more.
BECOME AN EBAY EDUCATION SPECIALIST
For those of you who already know all about eBay and are looking for a new way to make money with it, eBay University offers an Education Specialist program that will train you to teach eBay's "Selling Basics" course to others. Upon completing the $149 online training program, you'll be able to advertise your own training events in eBay's Education Specialist directory, have access to official student-training materials from ebay, be able to use the "Education Specialist--Trained by ebay" logo on your business cards and more. For details, log on to http://pages.ebay.com/university/specialist.
CLIFF ENNICO (www.cliffennico.com), best known as co-host of the PBS TV series Money Hunt, is author of Small Business Survival Guide and a faculty member of eBay University (www.ebay.com/university/), where he teaches the legal and tax aspects of starting an eBay business.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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