2009-04-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

Whether you're a novice or a "PowerSeller," here are eleven powerful tips to help boost your eBay profits.

1. Choose Wisely
Anyone who's trolled around on eBay knows that they can find everything from blenders to toilet paper and even used underwear. But peddling mundane household products isn't necessarily a winning strategy. The best eBay businesses sell unusual, hard-to-find items at a discount. By sticking to this approach, you'll cut down on the competition and the ensuing price wars that could eat into your profits.

Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about antiques and collectibles to fulfill the above requirements. One idea is to look for items unique to your region and sell them at a discount. If she lived in Manhattan, for example, she would regularly shop at Century 21, a famous designer discount store, and then resell the hard-to-find name-brand clothing at a mark up on eBay.

2. Keep Your Costs Low
Nothing eats into your profits faster than high overhead expenses. That's why experts agree that you should start off your eBay business by hawking stuff that you already own. Once you've depleted all of the goodies in your basement, move onto your neighbor's. Take out an ad in a local paper and offer to sell other people's possessions on consignment Other than your time, your costs will be virtually zero. And, according to experts, your efforts and expertise are worth anywhere from a 30% to 50% cut of the sale.

Once you're ready to graduate to the next level and start your own eBay home business - even if it's a small one - experts recommends getting a sales tax number or business license (if you live in a state with no sales tax). This will allow you to contact manufacturers directly and buy items at wholesale. Spare some time to make research or getting more advice on setting up a small business.

3. Perfect Your Title
If you do nothing else, make sure the title on your listing gets straight to the point. It's the most important piece of real estate on the website. A common and damaging mistake even experienced users make is thinking that their title should read like a sales pitch and include empty descriptors such as "rare" and "beautiful." Instead, just list the facts, including a brand name or model number. This strategy will help serious buyers find your item more readily since the search engine scrolls through titles when trying to match key words. As for the marketing, leave "one of a kind!" for the description inside your listing. In short, be factual or truthful about your product.

4. Build Trust
Gaining the trust of the eBay community is one of the biggest hurdles new sellers face. It's critical for you to generate a high positive feedback score or else other users won't even touch your auction. The score tells potential bidders that you don't falsely advertise or exaggerate when describing your merchandise and that you ship your items quickly. Your goal is to eventually get at least 100 positive responses from other users.

Even if you've never sold anything on eBay, you can still work toward building up your reputation. Your score is based on the feedback you receive as both a buyer and a seller. So before listing your first item, buy a handful of inexpensive things just to get the feedback. Then, once you start running your own auctions, make sure every person you interact with has a good experience. And finally, be sure you accept PayPal for payments since it offers buyers some purchase protection if a deal goes awry.

5. Grab Eyeballs
eBay is a numbers game. The more people who bid on your item, the higher the price it sells for. That means boosting the number of eyeballs that see your listing is crucial. If you're selling a high-ticket item, you should consider spending an additional $19.95 to "feature" it. This ensures that your listing gets some prime real estate on the first page of a given category. That way you not only catch people searching key words, but also those folks who like to scroll through category pages.

Once someone is looking at one of your listings, you can then promote other [listings]. eBay allows sellers to directly link to 12 of your other listings. Better yet, a serious seller could also direct buyers to his eBay Store, where one can customize a virtual "store front" and list his entire inventory. An eBay store is one of the best ways to develop a loyal customer base since users can bookmark your page and hopefully return often to see what you're selling one week to another.

6. Avoid barriers to sale
Make the sales transaction buyer-friendly. Avoid restrictive payment options, high shipping costs and "no return" policies. Consider selling internationally, too.

The extra hassle of customs paperwork, language barriers and shipping delays are worth enduring if you sell auction items with worldwide appeal. More bidders generally mean higher prices.

7. Suit up your eBay sale
Photos are a must and the more angles the better. Also, make the item's description easy to read.

Bullet points are better than long paragraphs. Avoid fancy fonts and "eye candy", they're more distracting than anything else.

8. Time it well
Some items sell better on certain days. Collectibles and hobby items tend to do slightly better on weekends. Office and business products usually do best during work hours. Talking about non-productive hours during office hours.

How To Boost Your eBay Profits