This article is written from my experiences of selling on
ebay. I have a personal account and a business account with
an Ebay store. I started selling on Ebay about 4 Years ago
and was a power seller for about 3 Years. So this article
is based on my experiences of selling on Ebay, not based on
some ebook that I have purchased. (I have never purchased
one on how to sell on Ebay - Maybe I should! - lol).
In many ways Ebay is the perfect marketplace in theory,
because the laws of supply and demand largely determine the
price. The greater the demand for an item and the lower the
supply the more expensive the price will be. This is pure
economics theory at work here.
There are exceptions to this, such as you only need two
people to bid on an item to push the price way up and this
is not reflective of the marketplace. I quite often sell
the same items time and time again and the price can vary
wildly. Some people get a bargain and some people less so.
How do you know what to sell?
There are two ways to find good products to sell: -
1.List a variety of products and see what sells. However
this can be costly as you want to start your auctions at a
low price, to encourage interest and if there is not enough
demand, then you will not sell your product and end up with
loads of fees and no income, or even worse you will sell
your product for less than you paid for it and still end up
with the Ebay fees and Paypal fees to pay.
2.Look at what other people are selling and how much for
and then pick items that you can earn a good margin from.
But beware other people can use this method to see what you
are selling also.
How can you tell what somebody else has sold?
Feedback is how you tell whether or not to trust a seller
on Ebay, but you can also use it to see what somebody has
sold. If you type in any keyword you will get a list of
items for sale. Click on any of the items and it will show
you the details of the listing. On the listings page the
seller's information will be included. Next to the sellers
name is their feedback number. If you click on this number
it will take you through to the feedback profile page for
the seller. As you scroll down on this page it will show
you what they have sold and on each item there is a link to
view the item. This link will take you to the original
listing and will allow you to see exactly what sold, how
much for and how much bidding took place on the item. The
more bidding the better, as it is an indication of a higher
demand for an item, which is what you are looking for.
Ebay is too transparent!
One of the biggest problems with Ebay is that you can spend
considerable time, effort and money finding good products
to sell. At which point you think that Ebay is great
because it works really well. However two things can
happen: -
1.You list more of the same product thus increasing the
supply when the demand has remained static and the price
has to therefore fall.
2.Other people look at your feedback, see what you have
sold and what they can also sell and earn a good margin on,
so they also start to sell the same product. Thus
increasing the supply with the demand remaining static.
No comparison to the High Street!
What I mean here is two things
Firstly when you go shopping in the high street there may
be hundreds or thousands of shoppers and only a handful of
shops that sell what you are looking for. (In my case
Jewellery - Most towns only have a few Jewellers.) In this
instance there is a large demand (shoppers) and small
supply (shops). Comparativley on Ebay you are only on one
computer so are an isolated shopper but there are hundreds
of shops selling jewellery - low demand and high supply
Secondly if you want to sell a second hand piece of
jewellery you cannot just rent a shop or stand in the High
Street and sell your item. However you can just open an
Ebay account and list you item. The competition from second
hand pieces is much greater than it is on the high street.
Ebay encourages second hand items!
Most people will buy on Ebay for one of two reasons.
1.Because they think the item will be cheaper
2.Because they cannot find what they are looking for
elsewhere.
Because so many people use Ebay to try and grab a bargain
and it is so easy for people to list second hand items, it
pushes the price of second hand items up and lowers the
price for new items.
In the high street if a second hand item were slightly
cheaper than a new item, then the new item would sell every
time. But on Ebay it's quite often the second hand item
that sells.
This is fine if you sell second hand items but most
businesses sell new items. In the jewellery trade this is
particularly true. A lot of the gold jewellery is sold by
pawnbrokers and is unredeemed pledges that they have. When
you consider that they only give scrap value for the gold
it is pretty impossible to compete if you are selling new
items. Have a look at the second part of this article to
find some tips for selling on ebay based upon my personal
experience.
----------------------------------------------------
Amazing Secrets of The $1.2M Recruiting System
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Mike goodchild has been earning money online for over 7
years and has also written a beginners guide to network
marketing
http://hubpages.com/_traffic/hub/Beginners-Guide-To-Network-
Marketing
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