eBay: A Beginners Guide & How to Unlock it's Potential | Part 1

eBay is an online auction site (via your web browser or the eBay app) where literally anyone can sell pretty much anything. Think of it as a furniture auction, but online and not limited to furniture, covering all sorts of items. This can be a very effective tool for you and your business, especially if you have bought products from Discount Wholesale.

Selling on eBay can be extremely profitable and rewarding. Conversely, it can be frustrating and time consuming. So here are few tips to eBay selling to help guide you through if you are new to online selling.

Be Honest

Be as honest as possible in the product description. People appreciate the honesty. If the product falls short of your description, then you will receive negative feedback. Negative feedback makes it harder to sell further down the line as most buyers will only buy from someone with a good seller rating. So while it may seem easier to sell an item at first if you massage the truth regarding specifications, hide imperfections or fail to highlight an important feature, ultimately it will only damage your chances of being successful further down the line.

There are 2 main ways on eBay that you can sell your items. Below is a quick run through of your options and which will be best for you.

A Bid Listing

The more traditional eBay listing type. You set how long the listing is for and then people place bids on the item until the end time. Very straight forward. You could end up making more than you expect. However, you could also not reach the price that you were expecting. We would recommend that you actually try a few products as a bid listing first of all. You can then use this as a price gauge for future listings that you post as Buy It Now. A bid listing can be more useful for a single item listing.

Buy It Now

This is a fixed price listing. You simply set the price you deem reasonable, the quantity you have for sale and away you go. There is no bidding on price. The advantage is you reduce the risk involved in price bidding, whereby you could lose out and make a loss. However, the disadvantage of a Buy it Now listing is missing the opportunity to make more money as people get into a crazed bidding frenzy, which can often happen. Buy It Now listings are commonly used when there are quantities of the same item available.

Reserves

You can set a reserve price for your items on eBay. If the reserve price isn’t met, then the item is not sold. However, this is only really useful if you were selling a very large, expensive item e.g. a car. For anything less, while it reduces the risk involved, having a reserve is actually a turn off to potential bidders.

For all your Pound Lines, Toys, Gardening, Christmas, Halloween and general discount store wholesale items, please visit the full range at www.discount-wholesale.co.uk. Discount Wholesale is part of the Poundworld Retail Group Ltd. This article can also be found on our Advice Centre.