Starting an eBay Business For Dummies E-Book

Marsha Collier

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 511

Beschreibung

The gold standard for eBay users who want to get serious about selling Want to turn your eBay use into a steady revenue stream? Come to where everyone starts, with a copy of the latest edition of Starting an eBay Business For Dummies. EBay superstar author Marsha Collier packs the fourth edition of her mega-selling book with everything you need to know, from how to tap the explosive power of social media for promoting your business to the very latest on eBay?s fees and payment structure, how to maintain your own customer service center, ways to build an audience, and much more. * Shows you how to lay the foundation for a business by setting up a store and reviews legal requirements and restrictions * Helps you price and source your merchandise * Explores how to attract an audience using social media through your own site * Gives you a quick MBA in budgeting, money transactions, customer service, shipping, and more * Offers insight on other sellers who have been successful on eBay and what you can learn from them Kick-start your eBay business and get profitable with this must-have guide from eBay superstar Marsha Collier.

Leseprobe

Starting an eBay Business For Dummies®, 4th Edition

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/startinganebaybusiness to view this book's cheat sheet.

Starting an eBay® Business For Dummies®, 4th Edition

by Marsha Collier

Starting an eBay® Business For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011924114

ISBN: 978-1-118-00467-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Marsha Collier spends a good deal of time online. She loves buying and selling on eBay as well as meeting online denizens from around the world. As a columnist, author of the bestselling Dummies books on eBay, and a radio host, she shares her knowledge of the online world with millions. Her eBay For Dummies was published in special versions for the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, China, France, Spain, and Australia. Currently, she has 30 books in print on her favorite subject — eBay. She also authored the popular book The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide: How to Connect with Your Customers to Sell More!

Before her eBay career took off, Marsha owned and operated her own marketing and advertising firm, a company that won numerous awards and earned her “Small Business of the Year” accolades from several organizations. She got started online during the Internet’s early years and quickly mastered the art of making friends online.

Marsha is one of the foremost eBay experts and educators in the world and the top-selling eBay author. In 1999, Marsha created the first edition of eBay For Dummies, the bestselling book for eBay beginners. Then she followed up the success of the first book with Starting an eBay Business For Dummies, a book targeting individuals interested in making e-commerce their full-time profession. That book became an instant nationwide hit, making several notable bestseller lists. These books are updated regularly to keep up with site and market changes.

Marsha’s books have sold more than 1,000,000 copies (including the special editions in foreign countries.

Along with her writing, Marsha is an experienced e-commerce educator. She was the lead instructor at eBay University (teaching seminars all over the United States), as well as a regular presenter at the eBay Live national convention since its inception. Marsha also hosted “Make Your Fortune Online,” a PBS special on online business that premiered in 2005. The show was the basis for her PBS premium five-DVD set, “Your Online Business Plan.” In 2006, she was invited to address the Innovations Conference in Singapore to present the ideas of e-commerce to a new market.

In 2008, she was dubbed one of 20 influential iCitizens in Kelly Mooney’s The Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web Made World, and was invited to speak at a leading e-commerce conference attended by Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard, Procter & Gamble, Victoria’s Secret, and leading e-commerce leaders.

She hosts Computer & Technology Radio on KTRB 860 AM in San Francisco as well as on the Web at www.computerandtechnologyradio.com. She also makes regular appearances on television, radio, and in print to discuss customer needs and online commerce.

Marsha currently resides in Los Angeles. She can be reached via her Web site, www.marshacollier.com.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the eBay entrepreneurs who have a zest for knowledge and the “stick-to-it-iveness” to follow through on their projects and stare success straight in the eye. It’s dedicated also to those who are convinced that get-rich-quick schemes don’t work and that, in the long run, hard work and loving what you do get the job done and lead to financial achievement and contentment.

Good luck in your endeavors. I know this book will help you get started.

Author’s Acknowledgments

Updating a book like this is a challenge. Lots of people have helped, but the lion’s share of assistance comes from the encouragement that I receive from the eBay community and those I’ve met when “doing it eBay.”

Thank you to the eBay sellers referred to in this book for helping me show how eBay can reach out to the world: Jody Rogers and Asad Bangash (Beachcombers!), Robin Le Vine (Bubblefast), Dan Glasure (Dan’s Train Depot), John Lawson (3rdPowerOutlet), Stephen Kline (GalleryNow), Robert McMahan (McMahanPhoto), Jeff Stannard (Melrose Stamp), and Clarissa Parashar (PerpetualVogue).

Then, of course, I want to thank the upper crust at Wiley. My publisher, Andy Cummings, and my acquisitions editor, Steven Hayes, have tried to reach “out of the box” with some of my crazy ideas.

In this book, I had an amazing editor: Barry Childs-Helton helped me upgrade this edition to make it even better. As always, thanks to Patti Louise Ruby, my technical editor and dear friend. This is the eighth book of mine that she’s worked on as tech editor; I just can’t think of a smarter person to go to for bouncing off ideas.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Susan Pink

Acquisitions Editor: Steven Hayes

Copy Editor: Barry Childs-Helton

Technical Editor: Patti Louise Ruby

Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Graham

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Katherine Crocker

Layout and Graphics: Andrea Hornberger, Corrie Socolovitch, Christin Swinford

Proofreader: ConText Editorial Services, Inc.

Indexer: BIM Indexing & Proofreading Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

You’re here! You’ve made it! Welcome to the fourth edition of the best-selling book on eBay business: Starting an eBay Business For Dummies. This is the book you need to make that leap from casual seller to online mogul. You’ve probably been on eBay for a while and have seen that there really is a huge opportunity to make a part- or full-time living online. This book will serve as your manual to get organized and get your eBay business launched. Here you’ll find the essential information — from how to handle your selling time more efficiently to stocking your store to the real way to set up your books and daily operations.

I give you all the details about running a successful eBay business. I pass along not only my own experiences from 11 years of selling on eBay and thousands of interactions with eBay sellers but also timesaving and moneysaving tips and lots of eBay secrets. There’s even information on how to use social media to boost your sales!

I’ve made a successful living while working out of my home for what seems like a lifetime (those corporate-newspaper years fade farther into the background as time passes), and I share my personal experiences to show that you too can run a successful home business. I started my own marketing and advertising business so I could be at home and near my daughter. She’s a big-time executive now (don’t start counting the years — it’s not polite), and I devote my time to selling on eBay (I’m a PowerSeller), running my Web sites, and participating on Twitter and Facebook. Through perseverance and dedication, my small homegrown business financed my home and my daughter’s upbringing, private school, and college education. I know that the only limits to my eBay business are time constraints. With the information in this book and some hard work, you too can expand to be an online success.

One thing that I can’t guarantee is how much money you can earn. I’ve discovered — perhaps the hard way — that it takes a good deal of discipline to run a home business. Don’t look for shortcuts — the time you spend and the amount of devotion you give your business will be the measure of your success.

About This Book

Profits await! If you’ve read eBay For Dummies, you have the basics. You’ve probably picked up this book because you’ve heard stories about people making big money online, and you’re interested in getting your piece of the pie.

Do you have a full-time job, but you’d like to sell on eBay part-time? eBay can easily supplement your income for the better things in life.Perhaps you’re looking to make a career change, and jumping into an eBay business with both feet is just what you have in mind. If so, this is the book for you.

I’ve watched eBay change from a homey community of friendly collectors to a Wall Street giant with tens of thousands of categories of items and more than 393 million registered users worldwide. What are you waiting for? There’s no time like the present to get started on your new career. Thousands of people around the world are setting up businesses online, and now is your time to take the leap of faith to begin a profitable enterprise. eBay gives you the tools, the customers, and the venue to market your wares. All you need is a bit of direction.

Starting an eBay Business For Dummies picks up where my eBay For Dummies leaves off. The tips I include here give you the opportunity to improve your eBay moneymaking ability, and can possibly turn an eBay novice into a professional running a booming eBay business. I also show the experienced user the prudent way to turn haphazard selling into an organized business. I’ve combined the fine points of eBay with real business and marketing tools to help you complete the journey from part-time seller to online entrepreneur.

In this book, you find the answers to some important questions as I take you through the following lessons:

Reviewing what you know and introducing some of the finer points of eBay auctions

Sprucing up your auctions to attract more bidders

Dealing with customers and their needs

Setting up your business in a professional manner

Deciding how to handle inventory (and where to find it)

Using social media to build your customer base

Getting your online store up and running

Figuring out what you need to be in an eBay business . . . for real

What You’re Not to Do

If you use this book the way you’d use a cookbook, jumping around from recipe to recipe (or chapter to chapter), you’ll be able to find answers to particular questions. Or read the book from beginning to end if you’d like. Either way, be sure to keep the book handy to answer future questions as they come to you — there’s a concise index.

Foolish Assumptions

Because you’re reading this, I assume you’re getting serious about selling on eBay and want to find out the fine points of just how to do that. Or perhaps you want to know how much time and effort are involved in an eBay business so you can make an informed decision on whether to give it a go.

If I have you figured out, and you’ve decided that it’s time to get serious, here are some other foolish assumptions I’ve made about you:

You have a computer and an Internet connection.

You’ve bought and sold on eBay and are familiar with how it works.

You have an existing small business or you’d like to start one.

You like the idea of not having to work set hours.

You feel that working from home in jeans and a T-shirt is a great idea.

I must stop here and say that it would really help (especially if your transactions on eBay total fewer than 100) if you read my beginning book, eBay For Dummies, 6th Edition or my eBay For Seniors For Dummies (in large print) to get familiar with the basics you need to get started selling successfully.

If you can say yes to my foolish assumptions, you’re off and running! Take a few moments to read the following section to get a feel for how I’ve put this book together.

How This Book Is Organized

This book has five parts. Each part stands on its own, which means you can read Chapter 12 after reading Chapter 8 and maybe skip Chapter 13 altogether (but I know you won’t because that’s where I discuss the money!).

Part I: Getting Serious about eBay

Reviewing what you know is always a great place to start. Considering the way eBay constantly changes, you’ll probably find a little review worthwhile. So in Part I, I delve into the finer points of eBay. Perhaps you’ll discover a thing or two you didn’t know — or had forgotten.

Setting up your eBay Store is important; in this part, I show you, step by step, the best way to do it — and give you tips to figure out when the timing is right for you to open your store.

Part II: Setting Up Shop

You need to decide what type of business you plan to run and what type of inventory you’ll sell. Here’s where I discuss how to find merchandise and the best way to sell it. I also give you the lowdown on some other places you can sell.

You’ll also find out how to research items — before you buy them to sell — so you’ll know for how much (or whether) they’ll sell on eBay.

I also discuss the importance of having your own Web site and using social media for online sales.

Part III: Business Is Business — Time to Get Serious

In Part III, I discuss exactly how to use available online and offline tools, implement auction-management software, jazz up your auctions, and handle shipping efficiently and effectively. Because working with customers and collecting payments are important, too, you’ll find that information here as well.

Most importantly, you also find out how to get free shipping material for your business delivered to your door, get your postal carrier to pick up your boxes at no charge, and insure your packages without standing in line at the post office.

Part IV: Your eBay Back Office

Setting up your eBay business as a real business entity involves some moderately nasty paperwork hassles and red tape — but this part will help you get through the maze. I fill in the essential blanks in Part IV and show you how to set up your bookkeeping. This is the place where you’ll find a checklist of the items you’ll need to run your online business.

You also need to know how to set up your home business space and how to store your stuff. I cover that here — plus bunches more!

Part V: The Part of Tens

You can’t write a For Dummies book without including the traditional Part of Tens. So, in an untraditional manner, here are ten real-life stories of successful (and happy) people selling on eBay. You also find out about ten places to move your merchandise (if you want to sell elsewhere).

Appendices

I include a not-quite-random collection of terms in Appendix A, the glossary. You’re probably already familiar with many of these words from having seen them pop up on eBay, but others will be new to you. Refer to the glossary often as you peruse other parts of the book. Appendix B shows you how to set up a network at home.

Icons Used in This Book

All For Dummies books have cute little icons. I certainly wouldn’t want to ruin your reading experience and leave them out. So I selected a few and use them sparingly throughout the book. Be sure to take heed when you see them.

Here I share some of the interesting stories I’ve picked up from eBay sellers over the years. Because I believe that knowledge is enhanced through learning from the successes and mistakes of others, I include these little auction factoids for the insight they offer. After all, if someone else has learned from a unique trick, you can benefit by taking heed.

If there’s something I need to interject — okay, something I’m jumping up and down to tell you but it won’t fit directly into the text — I indicate it by placing this Tip icon in front of the paragraph. You’ll know the tip to follow will be right on target!

Do you really know people who tie string around their fingers to remember something? Me neither; but this icon gives me the opportunity to give you a brief reminder. Kinda like a sticky yellow Post-it note.

I like this picture of the bomb device that Wile E. Coyote slam-dunks in the cartoons. In that vein, if you don’t heed the warning indicated by the small petard (hey, Shakespeare knew about old-fashioned bombs), you may end up “hoist by your own petard,” or made a victim of your own foolishness.

Where to Go from Here

Time to hunker down and delve into the book. If you have time, just turn the page and start from the beginning. If you’re anxious and already have some questions you want answered, check out the handy index at the end of the book and research your query.

Take this information and study it. Success on eBay awaits you. I can’t wait to hear your success stories if I meet you at an eBay event or at a book signing in your town.

My goal is to help you reach your goals. Feel free to visit my Web site: www.coolebaytools.com. That way you can stay up to date.

For more about me (and to contact me), visit www.marshacollier.com. To contact me with a brief note, you can find me on Twitter (@MarshaCollier) almost every day. Join me on Facebook, too, at www.facebook.com/MarshaCollierFanPage, where I share even more (perhaps I overshare?). I respond there, too.

Please send me suggestions, additions, and comments. I want to hear from you and hope to update this book with your words of wisdom. (Humorous war stories are also gratefully accepted!). Please know that I read every e-mail I get, but I just can’t answer every one. Know that your comments are truly appreciated and mean a lot to me.

Please note that some special symbols used in this eBook may not display properly on all eReader devices. If you have trouble determining any symbol, please call Wiley Product Technical Support at 800-762-2974. Outside of the United States, please call 317-572-3993. You can also contact Wiley Product Technical Support at www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Part I

Getting Serious about eBay

In this part . . .

When we’ve been doing something for a while (such as selling on eBay), often we forget some of the basics. eBay continually makes improvements, and some of its features are like hidden gems in a diamond mine. In this first part, I delve into the finer points of eBay with you. Perhaps you’ll discover a thing or two you didn’t know or had forgotten.

Chapter 1

Launching Your Business on eBay

In This Chapter

Getting serious about your business

Making decisions about what to sell

Having what it takes to make a living online

Running your business efficiently

So you’ve decided to step up to the plate and start that eBay business. You should first decide how much time you have to devote. I suggest that you don’t quit your day job (yet). Instead, start expanding your sales in baby steps. You can sell part-time and still be a business — and have a nice chunk of extra income. A large portion of sellers, even eBay PowerSellers (those who gross more than $1,000 a month in sales), work on eBay only part-time.

eBay sellers come from all walks of life. A good number of stay-at-home moms are selling on eBay. And so many retirees find eBay a great place to supplement their income that I wouldn’t be surprised if AARP creates a special eBay arm. If you’re pulled out of your normal work routine and faced with a new lifestyle, you can easily make the transition to selling on eBay.

In this chapter, I talk about planning just how much time you’ll be able to devote to your eBay business — and how to budget that time. I also talk about figuring out what to sell. Your eBay business won’t grow overnight, but with dedication and persistence, you may just form your own online empire.

I recently received an e-mail from someone who read my book eBay For Dummies, and with a head full of enthusiasm, listed more than 100 items for sale. Unfortunately, she failed miserably — so much so that she immediately gave up on the idea of making money on eBay. I know you may get excited to start, but use baby steps. Even with all the advice in this book, you may make mistakes. Baby steps are the way to long-term success.

Getting Down to Bidness (Er, Business)

Before launching any business, including an eBay business, you need to set your priorities. And to be successful at that business, you must apply some clear level of discipline.

I won’t bore you with the now-legendary story of how Pierre Omidyar started eBay to help fulfill his girlfriend’s Pez dispenser habit, blah, blah, blah. I will tell you that he started AuctionWeb.com (the original eBay Web site) with a laptop, a regular Internet service provider (ISP), and an old school desk. He and his buddy Jeff Skoll (a Stanford MBA) ran AuctionWeb 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all by themselves. When I began using the service, I had a lot of questions — and I always got prompt, friendly answers to my e-mails. When the site started attracting more traffic, Pierre’s ISP began to complain about all the traffic and raised his monthly fees. To cover the higher costs, Pierre and Jeff began charging 25 cents to list an auction. Pierre was so busy running the site that the envelopes full of checks began to pile up — he didn’t even have time to open the mail.

When Pierre incorporated eBay AuctionWeb in 1997 with his partner Jeff, they were each drawing a salary of $25,000. Their first office consisted of one room, and they had one part-time employee to handle the payments. They started small and grew. Now eBay is a respected, worldwide corporation, employing thousands of people and trading on the NASDAQ Exchange.

Budgeting your time: eBay as a part-time moneymaker

A part-time eBay business can be very profitable. One thing I stress in this book, however, is that the more time and energy you spend on your eBay business, the more money you can make. That said, let’s examine the lowest possible level of time you should devote to your business.

Maybe you enjoy finding miscellaneous items to sell on eBay. You can find these items randomly in your day-to-day life. So let’s suppose that you could spend at least a few hours (maybe two to three) a day on eBay. Now you must include the time it takes to write up your auctions. If you’re selling only one type of item, allow about ten minutes to write your auction, photograph the item (or scan it), and upload it to eBay or a photo-hosting site.

The amount of time required to perform these tasks varies from person to person, and will improve according to your level of expertise. Regardless, every task in your eBay auction business takes time — and you must budget for that time. See the sidebar “Some handy eBay timesaving tips” for pointers.

Some handy eBay timesaving tips

Crunched for time? The following are some eBay features you’re sure to find handy:

HTML templates: In Chapter 11, I give you some basic HTML templates for attractive auctions (and show you how to find more). These HTML templates cut your auction design time to a few minutes. Most experienced eBay sellers use preset templates to speed up the task of listing auctions, and this should be your goal.

The Turbo Lister program (free): When you want to list a bunch of auctions at once, I recommend using the eBay Turbo Lister program. I estimate that Turbo Lister enables you to put together and upload 10 auctions in just 15 minutes. In Chapter 9, I run down the details on how to use this very cool tool.

The Selling Manager (free) and Selling Manager Pro (free with Premium or Anchor Stores or $15.99 per month) programs: These eBay subscription programs can help you speed up the nuts and bolts of an ongoing eBay business when you’re selling many items a week (more on the Selling Manager program in Chapter 9).

Relisting (or Sell Similar) feature: When you sell the same item time after time, you can use Turbo Lister (it archives your listings so you can repeat them) or the handy eBay relisting or Sell Similar feature. When your listing ends on eBay, links pop up offering to relist your listing or to Sell Similar. If you want to sell a different item with a similar HTML format to the one that just ended, simply select the Sell Similar option, and cut and paste the new title and description into the Sell Your Item page of your new listing. Use the Relist feature only when an item hasn’t sold the first time, so it will qualify for a listing fee credit when it sells. Use Sell Similar to relist the same item after it fails to sell a second time.

Auction management software: See the “Software you can use” section in this chapter and also see Chapter 9, where I detail various programs to integrate into your eBay business.

Okay, even if you can take great photos and write brilliant descriptions, cashmere sweaters won’t sell for as much in the heat of summer as they do in winter. Doing your research can take up a good deal of time when you’re selling a varied group of items. Only you can decide how much time you can afford to spend researching going rates for items on eBay.

You also have to consider how much time it takes to shop for your merchandise. You may have to travel to dealers, go to auctions, or spend time online discovering new ways to find your auction merchandise. Many sellers set aside a full day each week for this undertaking. Your merchandise is what makes you money, so don’t skimp on the time you spend identifying products.

Here’s a list of various tasks you must perform when doing business on eBay:

Photograph the item.

Upload the images to eBay when you list — or before listing to your ISP or third-party hosting service.

Pack and weigh the item to determine the shipping cost.

Choose a listing title with popular keywords.

Write a concise and creative description.

List the item for sale on eBay.

Answer bidder questions.

Send an end-of-listing e-mail (you can automate this task through Selling Manager Pro).

Carry out bookkeeping and banking.

Address the label and affix postage.

Ship the item safely and securely.

Time yourself to see how long it takes to accomplish each of these tasks. The time varies when you list multiple items, so think of the figures that you come up with as your baseline, a minimum amount of time that you must set aside. This information can help you decide how many hours per week or month you need to devote to running your part-time eBay business.

Jumping in with both feet: Making eBay a full-time job

As you can see in the list in the preceding section, the tasks required for your eBay business can be time-consuming. But careful planning and scheduling can turn your business into an online empire.

The best way to go full time on eBay is to first run your business part time for a few months to iron out the wrinkles. After you become comfortable with eBay as a business (and decide that you enjoy both selling and customer relations), you’re ready to make the transition to full-time seller. The minimum gross monthly sales for a Bronze-level PowerSeller total $1,000. If you plan your time efficiently, you can easily attain this goal. Head to Chapter 3 for more information on the PowerSeller program.

Running a full-time business on eBay is the perfect option for working parents who prefer staying at home with their children, retirees looking for a way to supplement their income, or those who’d just rather do something else than work for a boss. Read some real-life profiles of happy full-time sellers in Chapter 18.

See Figure 1-1 for an example of the eBay home page, the first stop for most visitors to eBay. Note how eBay makes an effort to reflect its members’ sales promotions to help market the items it puts up for sale, as well as assure them of buyer protection.

Figure 1-1: The eBay home page, where it all starts!

Deciding What to Sell

What should I sell? That is the million-dollar question! In your quest for merchandise, you’re bound to hear about soft goods and hard goods. Soft, or nondurable, goods are generally textile products, such as clothing, fabrics, and bedding. Hard goods are computer equipment, housewares, and anything else that’s basically nondisposable.

Following are just a few points to consider when you’re deciding what to sell:

Shipping costs: Some differences exist between shipping hard and soft goods. Soft goods can fold up and be packed in standard box sizes, available from the United States Postal Service (USPS), or (better yet) in bubble or Tyvek envelopes for much lower shipping costs. Most hard goods come in their own boxes, which may or may not be individually shippable. You’ll also need to use Styrofoam peanuts or bubble cushioning (or double-package the item) if it’s in an odd-size box. See Chapter 17 for the lowdown on shipping and packing.

Other shipping considerations: Do you want to handle large boxes and deal with the hassles of shipping them?

Do you enjoy dealing with your products? I would have been out of the eBay game years ago if I were forced to sell auto parts — no matter how big the profits. Enjoying what you sell makes you an expert and a top-drawer seller.

Possible storage problems: Do you have the room to store enough merchandise to keep you going? Soft goods can take up considerably less space than hard goods.

You don’t always have to buy your items in bulk to make money on eBay. The first things you sell might be items you find in your garage or attic. To find out about some other fun ways to acquire goods to sell, check out the next section.

Turning your hobby into a business

C’mon, you have a hobby; everyone does! Did you collect stamps or coins as a kid? Play with Barbie dolls? Maybe your hobby is cars? Did you inherit a bunch of antiques? Been collecting Hummel figurines for a few years? eBay has a market for almost anything.

You can’t possibly be an expert on everything (but you knew that). You do need to keep up to date on the market for your items. Following more than four or five basic item groups may divert your attention from selling.

Selling within a particular category or two can be a good idea for repeat business. Should you decide to major in miscellany and sell anything and everything, you may not realize the highest possible prices for your items unless you thoroughly research them. This can be okay if you have the time to do the homework — and a source that permits you to buy items at dirt-cheap prices.

Collectibles: Big business on eBay

Pierre Omidyar started eBay with the idea to trade collectible Pez dispensers. eBay now lists more than 40 main categories of collectibles (see Figure 1-2), and those categories are divided into thousands of categories, subcategories, and sub-subcategories. Almost anything that you’d want to collect is here, from advertising memorabilia to Girl Scout pins to Zippo lighters!

Figure 1-2: The eBay Collectibles hub page with links to hundreds of categories.

If you have a collection of your own, eBay is a great way to find rare items. Because your collection is something dear to your heart, and you’ve studied it on and off for years, you could probably call yourself an expert. Bingo — you’re an expert at something! I recommend that you hone your skills to find things in your area of expertise at discount prices (you’re liking this more and more, aren’t you?) and then sell them on eBay for a profit. Start small and start with something you know.

If there’s one thing you know, it’s fashion!

Are you one of those people who just knows how to put together a great outfit? Do you find bargains at Goodwill, but people think you’ve spent hundreds on your garb? Do you know where to get in-season closeouts before anyone else does? Looks like you’ve found your market (see Figure 1-3).

Figure 1-3: eBay area for clothing, shoes, and accessories.

Buy as many of those stylish designer wrap dresses (you-know-whose at you-know-where) as you can, and set them up on the mannequin you’ve bought to model your fashions for eBay photos. (For more on setting up fashion photos on eBay, check out Chapter 11.) Within a week, you just may be doubling your money — ’cause sweetie-darling, who knows fashion better than you?

If a ball, a wheel, or competition is involved — it’s for you

I don’t want to preach in generalities, but I think I’m pretty safe in saying that most guys like sports. Guys like to watch sports, play sports, and look good while they’re doing it. I see that as opening up venues for a profitable empire on eBay. I don’t want to leave out all the women who excel and participate in sports. Women may have even more discriminating needs for their sporting endeavors! I know I do. My golf game stinks — but I do make a point to at least look good when I go out there, with respectable equipment and a fabulous outfit.

eBay has an amazing market going on right now for exercise equipment, and I don’t even want to go into how much fishing equipment is selling on eBay. And the last time I looked, golf clubs alone totaled more than 121,000 listings! What a bonanza! New stuff, used stuff — it’s all selling on eBay. It’s enough to put your local pro shop out of business — or perhaps put you in business.

Including the whole family in the business

Sometimes just the idea of a part-time business can throw you into a tizzy. After all, don’t you have enough to do? School, work, soccer, kids glued to the TV — you might sometimes feel as if you have no time left for family. Well, the importance of family time is what brought me to eBay in the first place: I was working long hours in my own business, and at the end of the day, when my daughter Susan wanted to go shopping for some Hello Kitty toy or a Barbie doll, I was just too tired. (Can you relate?)

I’d heard about AuctionWeb (eBay’s original site name) from a friend, and had bought some things online for my own collections. (Okay, you got me; I collected Star Trek stuff — call me a geek with a capital G.) I’d also browsed around the site and found some popular toys selling for reasonable prices. So one evening I introduced Susan to AuctionWeb, and life has never been the same. We’d go to toy stores together, right when they opened on Saturday morning, so we’d get first dibs on shipments of the hottest, newest toys. She’d go to the dolls and I’d go to the action figures. We’d buy several, go home, and post them for sale on eBay. We made money, yes, but the best part was our toy runs. They will always remain a special memory.

Susan has since graduated from college (she majored in business and marketing — must have been inspired by our eBay enterprise), but she still calls home when she finds a hot CD or closeouts of a top-selling item. We still purchase and list items together. The family that eBays together . . . always does.

My short trip down memory lane has a point: A family business can succeed, and everyone can enjoy it. (Take a look at some of the family sellers I profile in Chapter 18.) I was in charge of the financing and the packing while Susan looked up ZIP codes on the Internet and put pins in a four-foot-by-five-foot map showing every city that we bought from or sold to. She learned some excellent lessons in marketing, advertising, and geography, all in one swoop.

Toys, books, and music — oh MY!

Having children in your home brings you closer to the latest trends than you could ever imagine. I remember sitting at a Starbucks a couple of years ago, watching some dads and their sons poring over notebooks full of Pokémon cards. (Actually, the kids were off playing somewhere and the dads were coveting the cards.)

And what about Star Wars? Star Trek? G.I. Joe? Can you say “action figures?” (If guys have them, they’re not dolls — they’re action figures.) If you have access to the latest and greatest toys, buy them up and sell them to those who can’t find them in their neck of the woods.

If your home is like mine, books pile up by the tens! Old educational books that your children have outgrown (even college textbooks) can be turned into a profit. Remember that not every book is a classic that needs to be part of your library forever. Let another family get the pleasure of sharing children’s tales!

If anything piles up faster than books, CDs and DVDs do. Could be somehow that old lambada or macarena music doesn’t hold the magic it once did. Or maybe those Care Bears cartoons don’t mesmerize the kids the way they used to. You can get rid of your own items and find plenty of stock at garage sales. Buy them cheap and make a couple of dollars.

Selling children’s clothes

When I recently checked eBay for the number of listings of baby and toddler clothes up for sale, I found more than 253,000 in the Boys: Clothing (Newborn-5T) category — and the bidding was hot and heavy. For stay-at-home parents, selling infant and children’s clothing is a super way to pick up extra income.

If you’ve had a baby, you know all too well that friends and relatives shower new moms with lots of cute outfits. If you’re lucky, your baby gets to wear one or two of them (maybe only for a special picture) before outgrowing them. These adorable portrait outfits can earn you a profit on eBay. Many parents, with children a few steps behind yours, are looking for bargain clothing on eBay — a profitable hand-me-down community. As your children grow up (and out of their old clothes), earn some money while helping out another parent.

Bringing your existing business to eBay

Do you already have an existing business? eBay isn’t only a marketplace where you’re able to unload slow or out-of-season merchandise. You can also set up your store right on eBay (see Figure 1-4). An eBay Store allows you to list a fixed-price item at a reduced fee and keep the item online until it’s sold. When you run your regular auctions for special items, they will have a link to your store, thereby drawing in new shoppers to see your store merchandise.

Here are a few ways you can expand your current business with eBay:

Open a second store on eBay: How many people run stores that sell every item, every time? If you’re a brick-and-mortar retailer, you’ve probably made a buying mistake or two. Many times the item that isn’t selling in your store is selling like hotcakes in similar stores elsewhere in the country. eBay gives you the venue to sell those extra items to make room for more of what sells at your home base.

Perhaps you just need to raise some cash quickly. eBay has tens of thousands of categories in which you can liquidate regular stock or specialty items. (For a caveat on what’s verboten, check out Chapter 4.)

Sell by mail order: If you’ve been selling by mail order, what’s been holding you back from selling on eBay? It costs you far less to list your item on eBay than to run an ad in any publication. Plus, on eBay, you get built-in buyers from every walk of life and all over the world. If you can sell your item legally through the mail, it will sell through eBay.

Sell property: Licensed real estate agents, take note: Plenty of land, homes, and condos are selling on eBay right now. List your properties online so that you can draw from a nationwide audience. When you offer listings on the Web, you’re bound to get more action. Give it a whirl and read more about selling real estate on eBay in Chapter 2.

You won’t find a cheaper landlord than eBay. Jump over to Chapter 5 if you really can’t wait for more information about how to set up your eBay Store.

Figure 1-4: eBay Stores central.

Getting What It Takes to Sell

I’ve heard many sellers-to-be say they want to start a business on eBay so they can relax. Since when is running any business a way to relax? Granted, you don’t need a whole lot of money to get started on eBay and you won’t have a boss breathing down your neck. But to run a successful eBay business, you need drive, determination, and your conscience to guide you, as well as a few solid tools, such as a computer and an Internet connection. In this section, I give you the lowdown on these things and more.

Computer hardware

First, you’re gonna need a computer. In my basic assumptions about you (see the book’s introduction), I figure that you have one and know how to use it. Your computer doesn’t have to be the latest, fastest, and best available. It does help if your computer has a good deal of memory to process your Web browsing and image touchups. One of my eBay listing computers is an antique notebook that runs on Windows XP, an absolute turtle next to my new 4.3-GHz model. But combined with a high-speed Internet connection, my little machine enables me to manage many eBay listings easily.

Having a computer that will read all sorts of camera data cards is a timesaver. Instead of having to hardwire your camera and download images, you can just zip in the memory card and copy the pictures to your hard drive.

One thing to keep in mind is that hard drives are getting cheaper by the minute. The bigger your hard drive, the more space you’ll have to store images for your auctions. (Individual pictures shouldn’t take up much space because each should be 100K max.) Make sure that you set up a sensible filing system by using folders and subfolders.

Check out Chapter 11, where I talk more about the other stuff you might need, such as a scanner and a digital camera.

Connecting to the Internet

If you’ve been on eBay for any length of time, you know that your Internet connection turns into an appendage of your body. If your connection is down or you can’t log on due to a power outage, you can’t function; maybe, instead, you flounder around babbling to yourself. I understand because I’ve been there. If you’re selling in earnest, I recommend pulling the plug on your dial-up connection and shelling out for a speedier option unless you have no choice.

Before investing in any broadband connection, visit www.broadbandreports.com (see Figure 1-5) and read the reviews of Internet service providers (ISPs) in your area. Users post their experiences with the many providers across the country, so you can get a good idea of what’s in store in your neighborhood in the connection arena. The site also has more testing tools than you can imagine — and will test the speed of your (or your friend’s) Internet connection at no charge.

Figure 1-5: The results of the free speed test of my cable connection.

Dial-up connections

If you absolutely must use a dial-up connection, avail yourself of the many free trials that different ISPs offer to see which one gives your computer the fastest connection. After you find the fastest, be sure that it’s reliable and has at least a 99 percent uptime rate.

Thirty-five percent of the United States still logs on to the Internet with a dial-up connection, so what can be so wrong about a dial-up connection? Well, this type of connection is painfully slow; a listing with lots of images can take minutes to load. The average eBay users want to browse many listings and won’t wait while your images load; they’ll just go to the next listing.

To make the best use of your time when running your auctions and conducting research, you need to blast through the Internet. You need to answer e-mail, load images, and conduct your business without waiting around for snail’s-pace connections. Although a modem is supposed to link up at 56K, FCC regulations state that it can’t connect any faster than 53K. In practice, the highest-speed connection I’ve ever experienced on dial-up was 44K.

DSL

A confusing bunch of digital subscriber line (DSL) flavors (ADSL, IDSL, SDSL, and more) are available these days, ranging from reasonably priced to out of sight. DSL, when it works as advertised, is fast and reliable.

A DSL line depends on the reliability of your telephone service: Crackling or unreliable phone lines can be a barrier to using DSL.

The main problem with a DSL connection is that your home or office needs to be no farther than 18,000 feet from your local telephone switch. The service runs from as little as $12.95 to as much as $100 a month, and it might cost even more if you get DSL through a booster that boosts the signal to a location farther away than the minimum 18,000-foot distance.

True DSL service can give you a connection as fast as 1.5 MB-per-second download. (IDSL is only 144K.)

I had DSL for about a year and was initially blown away by the speed. Unfortunately, every time it rained (it does rain occasionally in Southern California), my service went out. I had to call time after time to get the line serviced. Sadly, this is a well-known drawback of DSL. Your local telephone company (telco in DSL-speak) owns your home or office phone lines. Because DSL goes over plain old telephone service (POTS), your DSL provider has to negotiate connection problems with the folks at your telephone company. As you might guess, one company often blames the other for your problems.

A friend of mine tried to get around this issue by getting DSL from the local phone company, which sounded great to me. It turned out to be not so great; it seems that the local phone companies tend to form other companies to handle high-speed connections. So even though the two companies are technically the same, the two will still argue about who is responsible for your problems. Broadband with this much difficulty can be too much trouble.

Digital cable

Eureka — I think I’ve found the mother lode of connections: cable. If you can get digital cable television, you can probably get a blazingly fast cable Internet connection. Your cable company is probably replacing old cable lines with newfangled digital fiber-optic lines. These new lines can carry a crisp HD digital TV signal and an Internet connection as well. Fiber-optic lines have plenty of room to carry even more stuff (including telephone service), and I’m sure it won’t be long before cable companies have some hot new services to sell us.

My digital cable Internet connection is generally fast and reliable. I can download 2 megabytes of data in only 8 seconds (compared to almost 7 minutes with a dial-up connection). So far, the service has been very reliable, and I’ve experienced little downtime. For around $40 a month, I consider my cable connection well worth the investment.

As far as the myth about more users on the line degrading the speed, a cable connection is more than capable of a 10 megabit-per-second (Mbps) transfer. That’s already about 10 times faster than DSL. It would take a whole lot of degrading to noticeably slow down your connection.

Choosing your eBay user ID

“What’s in a name?” goes the old quote. On eBay, there’s a whole lot in your name! When you choose your eBay user ID, it becomes your name — your identity — to all those who transact with you online. They don’t know who you are; they know you only by the name they read in the seller’s or bidder’s spot.

Ever wonder why you don’t see many banks named Joe and Fred’s Savings and Loan? Even if Joe is the president and Fred is the chairman of the board, the casual attitude portrayed by their given names doesn’t instill much confidence in the stability of the bank. Joe and Fred might be a better name for a plumbing-supply company — or a great name for guys who sell plumbing tools on eBay! Joe and Fred strike me as the kind of friendly, trustworthy guys who might know something about plumbing.

Does your retail business have a name? If you don’t have your own business (yet), have you always known what you’d call it if you did? Your opportunity to set up your business can start with a good, solid, respectable-sounding business name. If you don’t like respectable (it’s too staid for you), go for trendy. Who knew what a Verizon was? Or a Cingular? Or a Bubblefast, which is one of my favorite eBay shipping suppliers?

Are you selling flamingo-themed items? How about pink_flamingos for your selling identity? Be creative; you know what best describes your product.

Stay away from negative-sounding names. If you really can’t think up a good user ID, using your own name is fine.

You’ve no doubt seen a bunch of lousy user IDs out there — you know, names that scream “unprofessional” or “bad self-image.” Here are a few examples of what not to use: ISellJunk, trashforsale, mystuffisgarbage.

The lowdown on user IDs

When choosing your user ID, keep the following points in mind:

Your ID must contain at least two characters.

It doesn’t matter if you use uppercase; eBay displays your ID in all-lowercase letters.

You may use letters, numbers, and any symbol except @, ’, <, >, and &.

You can’t use an implied or distinct URL or e-mail address as your user ID.

You can’t use the word eBay in your user ID; that privilege is reserved for eBay employees.

Your ID can’t be the letter e followed by numbers (not sure why anyone would want to do that anyway).