Many eBay sellers find that their items either don't sell or if they do they don't get the price they hoped for. It happens to us all but good eBay sellers don't find themselves in this position very often. So why is that?

To be a successful eBay seller you need to get 3 main things right.

1:- List your item in the right category so that people interested in the type of thing your selling are likely to see it. It amazes me sometimes where people list their items. OK there are some who seem to be deliberately listing in the wrong category usually, 'high traffic' categories I guess in the hope of getting more exposure for their listing but there are the others who appear to have just listed in the wrong category and must be wondering why their listings don't do to well.

2:- Create a powerful title. You only have a few precious letters to play with so don't go wasting them on exclamation marks or similar. Your title is the only thing eBay looks at when someone use the search option so you need to get as many relevant words about your item in to it. For example if your selling a first edition of a book then try to squeeze in to your listing tile the fact that it is a first edition, the title and author. Your objective is to get prospective buyers to find your listing and want to look at your description. The more people that do the more likely you are to realise a good price.

3:- Create a strong accurate description that captures the viewers attention. Now that doesn't mean you go off creating flash graphics or use a rainbow of colours. The reality is you don't have very long to convince the prospective buyer that your description is worth reading so you need to start with some attention grabbing information. Next you want to tell them the details of your item be it size, colour, condition, etc, etc. and be honest, accurate and complete in what you say.

Now you may thinking it can't be as easy as that and in truth it isn't but, get the above 3 things right and your well on your way. So what else can help us make profitable eBay sales?

Use photos - A picture is worth a thousand words but a poor photo won't help to your chances of selling. Taking good photos might take you a little bit of time to perfect but it can make a real difference to your listing success. If you know your way around HTML then you can host your photos on your own web space and lace your listing with them as appropriate whilst keeping your listing costs down.

Research - Now this is where you can really make a difference to your success.

You can have the best title, the most compelling item description and some magic photos but it's not worth a bean if no one is interested in buying what your selling. Sure you might make some sales but the real profits are made when a number of people want what you are selling and bid against each other to get it.

You need to do some research to establish that people are buying what you are considering selling and what the average price being achieved is. You also want to look at the listing where items have sold particularly those where the price has gone beyond your desired sale price to see what category they were selling in, what was compelling about their title and description, what sort of pictures did they use etc. Your not going to copy but you can certainly use the same tactics.

The way I do my research is once I'm logged in to my eBay account I type in one of the keywords that relate to the items I'm going to try and sell. Hopefully this will bring back a load of listings. Now if you look at the left hand side of the screen you can see which categories items with your keyword are being listed in. Now scroll down till you see the 'Search Options' are and click the 'Show Only Completed Listings'.

Now we can start to see what listings are selling and for what price so we can start to make decisions about the viability of our plan. If things look good then its time to start looking at some of the listings to see what works in the title and description and generate ideas of how to compile your own listings.

OK I hope that you have picked up some good pointers to help you with your eBay selling.

If you are interested in reading more about making money on eBay then why not take a look at the free articles and eBooks available at -

http://www.need2knowabout.com/ebay.htm

Good luck

Anne www.need2knowabout.com

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