online auctions

11 Easy Ways to Earn More on eBay

Andrea Cannon — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 10:30:32 +0000

Selling unwanted items on eBay is a great way to clear away clutter and make some extra money on the side. Use these tips, and you'll start making even more.

1. Take Clear Pictures

Clear, sharp, and well-lit pictures are important. This is the first thing buyers will notice when looking at whatever it is you're selling. While it's a good idea to include the manufacturer's photo of the item, you'll also want to include some of your own so that bidders will know exactly what they're purchasing. They will also be looking at the background in the photos, so make sure to take them in a clean, well-lighted space.

2. Write a Good Description

Write an accurate, thorough description. Make sure to specify the brand, type, size, color, material, and other important keywords for the item you're selling. You will also want to clearly specify the condition of the item. In the description field, highlight the benefits of the product and what makes it different from another seller's listing. Check for misspellings in your description, which can throw off your keywords and make your item more difficult to find.

3. Determine Your Pricing

To set a price, first do some market research to see what identical items in similar condition are selling for, and how it compares to the original asking price. Be sure to also factor in the cost of shipping, packing supplies, and calculate any fees.

4. Timing Is Everything

You can set the time that your listing will begin and expire on eBay. It's important to take into account that you may have bidders on both the East and West Coast, so you want to set your listing to end at a time that is convenient for both timezones.

According to eBay, buyers are most active between 5 p.m. PST and 10 p.m. PST. In most cases, it's wise to end your listing between 6 p.m. PST and 9 p.m. PST. This allows bidders to place their final bid once they are home from work, but before they go to sleep, regardless of which coast they are on. Sunday is generally the best day of the week to end your sale. Weekends see the most traffic on eBay, and Sunday evening is the most active.

5. Set Unsuccessful Listings to Resell

eBay will allow you to relist items that didn't sell up to three times at no extra charge. If you set each listing to seven days and choose the option to resell unsuccessful listings, your item will be up for a total of 21 days at no fee.

6. Bundle Items Together

Whenever possible, bundle items together. This makes it seem like buyers are getting a better deal, and can help make your listing stand out. Best of all, it can save you time and money on shipping. This is especially effective around the holidays when shoppers are looking for gifts.

7. Have Positive Feedback

Bidders will look at your feedback, so it's important that you have some positive reviews. If you haven't sold anything or don't have any reviews yet, consider selling some smaller items first so that you can build up some positive feedback. This will allow buyers to be more confident in you when considering a high priced item.

8. Offer Free Shipping

According to eBay, most buyers are looking for items that offer free shipping. It allows buyers to see the total price easily rather than having to factor in an additional cost. If you don't want to offer free shipping, then offer cheaper shipping.

Make sure to ship through your eBay dashboard. This will make it more convenient for you, and results in shipping discounts of up to 24% on Priority Mail and up to 37% on FedEx shipments. It also allows the buyer to automatically track the shipment and can charge your PayPal account for the shipping fees.

9. Ship Items Quickly

By shipping your items quickly, you can get more positive feedback, which is important to future sales. International shipping can be expensive and time-consuming, so you may want to turn international shipping options off when selling your item.

10. Answer Buyers' Questions

If a potential buyer asks a question about your product, it's important that you respond quickly and accurately. If you take your time answering, the buyer may have moved on to another seller and you'll lose out on a sale.

11. Offer Good Customer Service

If you are frequently selling items, issues are certain to happen from time to time. As the seller, you have the responsibility to make an effort to provide customer satisfaction. This may mean accepting a return even when you feel you were accurate in your description, or providing a partial refund to satisfy a complaint. Do your best to remain respectful and calm, even if you feel the buyer is being unreasonable.

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This article is from Andrea Cannon of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

10 Things You Should Always Buy and Sell on eBay

Paul Michael — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 11:00:20 +0000

There's no doubt that eBay has become a go-to place for anyone looking for a deal. But whether using traditional auctions, or the more popular Buy It Now option, what should you be going to eBay for first? And, what should you be selling on eBay to ensure you get the most money for your items?

What to Buy on eBay

For all this stuff, eBay is the place to shop.

1. Personalized Items

Back in the day, a personalized item (whether for yourself, or as a gift for a friend or loved one) was something that cost quite a bit of money. Nowadays, thanks to eBay and international sellers, you can get some truly awesome items for a fraction of what you would expect. I recently used eBay to find a Ghostbusters nametag for my Halloween outfit this year, finding someone willing to custom embroider my last name, in the exact font and colors used in the movie, for $10 including shipping. I was astonished — it was great quality, too. I've ordered nameplates, shirts, hats, monogrammed pens, and so many other items for almost the same cost as it would be without the personalization.

2. Anything Vintage, Rare, or Hard to Find

If you can think of it, you'll probably find it on eBay. If you're into Star Trek comics from the '80s, or souvenirs from Alcatraz, there will be someone out there on eBay selling it — it's why I always go to eBay first when I'm looking for something nostalgic. I've found old TV shows that regular stores won't carry, original Xbox games, action figures from my childhood, and crazy shirts and suits from the 1960s. The best thing about eBay is that you can shop for all of these items in one place, add them to your cart, and do one checkout. Your payment will be sent to the multiple sellers separately.

3. Used and Refurbished Tools

Great tools can be very expensive. Of course, cheap tools may save you money in the short term, but they will break, or worse, cause an injury. But, you don't have to go to the hardware stores and pay top dollar for top tools. The selection you'll find on eBay will stagger you, and will always come in cheaper than those you'll find in stores near you. From power drills and sanders, to wrenches and garden tools, eBay has everything you want — most of the time with free shipping. Just don't wait until the last minute to order something.

4. Jewelry

Provided you know your size (and many places online will let you download a sizing chart for free anyway), you can get some insane deals on all kinds of jewelry, from high-end valuables, to $10 rings and necklaces. The selection available on eBay will dwarf anything at a brick-and-mortar jeweler, and you can benefit from eBay's buyer guarantees. I have a bunch of very large, intricate skull rings that I found on eBay for between $10 and $20 apiece. They all came with free shipping, and are made of surgical steel. Would I have liked silver? Maybe, but they look exactly the same and cost 10 times less. I get comments on them all the time, and when people ask which store I got them from, I always say eBay. Most people seem surprised.

5. Automotive Parts

Make no mistake, if you are looking for parts to replace the broken ones in your car or truck, the last place you want to get them is the dealership or specialist supply store. In every case (unless someone would like to prove otherwise), you are going to be paying significant markups, as these places have to support a large staff, building costs, and all the other overhead. When you shop on eBay, you have access to hundreds and thousands of parts from both licensed sellers, hobbyists, and people who find parts at wrecking yards. As always, you'll be protected by a guarantee from eBay, so if the part is not exactly as described, you can get your money back. Just remember, if it's a used part, you want to inspect it very carefully before having it installed.

What to Sell on eBay

For the most part, if you want to be rid of it, someone else wants to buy it.

6. Your Good Quality Shoes and Clothing

When the time comes to clear out the closet in spring or fall, most of us take those clothes and shoes to the local thrift stores. Not so fast. Take a look through your pile and see what you have.

Any high-end name brand clothing and footwear in good condition can earn you a significant amount of money on eBay. An old track jacket that you don't like, or have outgrown, can earn almost all of its money back. Sometimes, you can make more than you paid for it, if the item was a limited edition, or was worn by someone famous in a show or movie. A case in point…the Black Sabbath T-shirt that Tony Stark wore in The Avengers. Before the movie came out, it was a $5 tee. After, people were paying big money for it, until the stores caught on and issued a reprint. So, next time you clean out the closet, make two piles — one for thrift, the other for eBay.

7. Fabrics, Curtains, and Sheets

Mark this one down as another category that most of us think is worthless. Or, at least not worth the hassle of selling. Actually, you'd be surprised. In particular, old curtains that may not suit your current décor could be highly prized by someone theming out their apartment or office, particularly if they have a very distinctive or "dated" pattern. What is out of style to some is very chic to others.

The same goes for sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases, and all those fabric remnants that you have left over from craft projects. You can even sell fabric and upholstery scraps, and I mean the smallest off-cuts. Right now, a pound of leather scraps can sell for $20 including shipping; that's $20 you were about to throw in the trash.

8. Legos

It doesn't matter if you have a complete set, a set missing a few pieces, or a random bucket of assorted Lego bricks — they will all sell quickly on eBay. And, you may be surprised at how much money you can get. I recently found a Lego Star Wars Imperial Destroyer at my local thrift store for $10. It was still in the box, but was clearly not all there. After doing a count, over 30 pieces were missing. I figured I'd throw it on eBay to see what happened, and it sold for over $100. Some of the figures from these sets can sell for $5–$10 each!

What you have to remember with Lego is that the pieces you have may complete sets other people desperately want to build, and they will pay for it. Lego is also expensive to buy new, and that will never change. So, grab your Lego pieces and bag them up. You can sell them by the pound.

9. Anything Collectible

Whether it's rare baseball cards, signed hockey jerseys, vintage vinyl, or a prototype of an Apple computer from Steve Wozniak's garage, these items will fare way better from the auction-style listings on eBay than a fixed priced listing on Craigslist, or even a garage sale. You also have the chance to reach a worldwide audience, which makes the bidding war international. Something you may have gotten $50–$100 for may get you ten times that amount on eBay, if you find the right buyer at the right time.

A prime example of this is the vintage Denver Nuggets jersey I recently sold on eBay. I was planning to list it for $25 on Craigslist, but instead I started it at $15 on eBay. It was a risk, since I could have gotten $10 less than I wanted. In the end, I got $162 for that jersey. Even after eBay takes their percentage, it's still a much better deal.

10. Cell Phones, Tablets, and Other Tech

When you replace your cell phone, you may be tempted to do a trade-in deal. Don't do it. You will get a rock bottom price for it from the store, because they plan to sell it for a profit. Instead, gather all of the accessories, the charger, and hopefully the original box, and sell it on eBay. The thing that attracts people to used smartphones is that they are not tied to a contract. With a little digging, you may also be able to unlock your phone first, making it suitable for any carrier. A phone you may have gotten $50 for from a store could sell for over $200 on eBay, and it's as simple as taking a few photos and creating a listing.

The same thing applies to tablets, smart watches, laptops, and other technology. Even old, broken, and irreparable technology will sell, as it can be dismantled for parts. Do not simply throw these things out until you have first searched eBay for current prices.

What items have you bought or sold on eBay?

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This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Guerrilla Thrift Shopping: The 9 Laws of Profit

Kentin Waits — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:00:06 +0000

Thrift shopping for profit isn't dead. Online auction sites built a cottage industry for many of us and then promptly created competition so stiff that we sometimes wonder if it's all worth it. Thrift stores operate like Rodeo Drive boutiques, now, and online buyers have seemingly limitless choices. But with laser-like focus and a broader base of knowledge, I assert that money can still be made from thrift shopping. Here are my nine laws for profitable thrift shopping in a tight market.

1. Know your suppliers

Understanding the local thrift market in your area is key to scoring the best items. What days do folks typically have yard sales in your town? Unsold items tend to be donated to local charities the next day. Learning what days and times your favorite thrift store restocks can help keep you one step ahead of the competition. (See also: Things You Might Not Know About Your Local Thrift Store)

2. Develop a primary and secondary shopping strategy

Realize that you are not alone in your quest to turn a buck from thrift shopping. If you live in an area of any significant size, there are dozens of folks you can reasonably call your competition. Beating them to the punch is the secret to success. Consider your shopping strategy. Do you browse casually or do you dive right in and hit the high-profit potential items first? Over time, I've started doing a quick turn around the store, immediately. This is what I call primary shopping. I hit the item categories that have the highest resale value first — before they can be cleaned out by other shoppers. This approach saves time, increases good finds, and helps me chill out for the next shopping phase. Secondary shopping is digging deeper into each item category — taking my time and shopping for profit as well as for personal items.

3. Stay one step ahead of the store

In the halcyon of the "B.E.E." (or Before eBay Era) thrift stores were wonderfully naïve about the potential value of the items they carried. Now, stores research item values prior to sale and when in doubt, err on the side of "enthusiastic" pricing. This limits what you can reasonably profit from and limits the amount of profit. However, the stores' main business is selling high volumes of used items and they can't possibly stay ahead of every collectibles trend. Researching hot items and trending antiques is essential in discovering little gold mines of profit before the stores (and your competitors) catch on.

4. Become a generalist

It's wonderful to have a deep and keen knowledge of vintage bicycles from the 1980s, but then you are at the mercy of the vintage bicycles from the 1980s market. Become a generalist to broaden your base of potentially profitable items. I sell vintage musical instruments, Italian pottery from the 1950s and '60s, clothes, tools, shoes, rare Starbucks coffee mugs, and dozens of other items that I've come to learn about over the years. Use eBay to research the final sale price of specific items and create a mental list of what to look out for.

5. Check for quality

No great mystery here — always check for missing buttons, stains, tears, and defects of any sort. It's easy to be blinded by the adrenaline of a good find. Remember, buyers typically want as close to perfection as possible.

6. Think like a business owner

Hardcore and longtime thrifters have a tendency to want to save items from the landfill or to reclaim and restore an item's use or value. This tendency is admirable on a personal level, but investment of too much time and energy on a single item reduces your profit. Begin to think like a small business owner — each hour devoted to the purchase, listing, and sale of item impacts your bottom line. Replacing a zipper on that vintage wool coat may give you a sense of personal satisfaction, but it could completely erase your profit.

7. Understand the changing market of collectibles and antiques

Like any market, the antiques and collectibles world is fickle. Tastes change, trends fade, and whole new aesthetics seem to blossom overnight. Mid-century modern furniture used to be set on the curb 10 years ago; now, it's one of the hottest categories in resale. Understand what demographic has the largest amount of discretionary income now — these are the folks to tailor your sales to.

8. Capitalize on trends

A recent eBay search under the key words "Mad Men" resulted in 2657 items for sale — in vintage clothing. The Mad Men TV series phenomenon is just one example of a hot trend you can profit from. People are going crazy for vintage wingtips and classic hats à la Don Draper. Expand the search to include house wares and there are even more items — whiskey glasses, decanters, office accessories — all with the signature look reminiscent of the '60s style. Though it may mean being a little more plugged into pop culture than you'd like, embrace trends and stay ahead of the curve to increase profits. Don would agree.

9. Resist the urge to collect

Thrift shopping is in my blood. My mom got me hooked at the ripe age of seven and I've been an avid devotee ever since. I've built collections and sold collections, I've stumbled on treasures I swore I'd never part with only to sell them six months later. In the current rarefied atmosphere of thin profits and high competition, I've decided that collecting is just a distraction that bleeds time and muddies the waters. I do, of course, keep an eye out for items that I need personally (just picked up a great Chemex coffee maker the other day for $6.00). For the most part though, I thrift shop to make money while doing something I love. Resist the urge to collect (or collect temporarily), enjoy the items, and then liquidate at a profit and begin again.

Whether you're thrifting to supplement your day job or add another source of income to ease the budget a bit, don't forget to have fun. After all, thrifting is a way to make some cash while avoiding the cube farm and those painful Monday morning meetings. Grab a cup of coffee, hit the streets, and thrift on!

This article is from Kentin Waits of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: