Tips for Selling on eBay

If you are looking to make some extra money on the side, selling on eBay is a great way to bring in extra cash. While anyone can sell items on eBay, there are lots of things that you can do to make a bigger profit and get more sales.

We wrote a whole series on eBay a while ago that shows you what to buy, how to set up your auctions, and things to do to make you a good seller. In this post, we want to share with you some more tips that will help you be successful selling on eBay.

Check out our previous eBay series posts:

Beginner’s Guide to Start Selling on eBay

How to Start Selling Items on eBay

eBay Selling Tips: How to Sell Your Items

eBay Selling Tips: Customer Service & Shipping

Disclosure: this post may contain affiliate links. This just means that we make a little money if you buy something through one of our links. It does not cost you any more to purchase an item through our links. It just helps support this blog so we can continue to bring you more content like this.

Tip #1 — Look for Special eBay Discounts

eBay offers different discounts to encourage people to list things. They offer “free listings” on a regular basis. Although listing fees are not really expensive, it adds up when you list a lot of items.

Another discount that eBay offers is 25% off final value fees. This offer doesn’t happen as often as the free listings one. It is good to use the 25% off offer if you have an item that will bring a lot of money or has a higher shipping price. Since eBay takes 10% off your final selling price plus 10% of your shipping price, 25% off final value fees is helpful.

Some items like books have even higher final value fees.

Tip #2 — Quoted eBay Prices Aren’t Always Helpful

At a resale store recently, there were printed out eBay auction papers by some of the items showing what the items sold for one time. Then the store had their price a little lower than the eBay price. They did this hoping that you would buy the item.

Don’t rely on information like this when deciding to buy an item especially if you plan on reselling it.

There are a lot of factors that go into items that sell on eBay. It depends on what time of year it is. A lot of items bring more money around Christmas. Also, sometimes there might be 50 of an item on eBay but only one sells because someone just happened to want that item. It might not really be something that sells on a regular basis.

Sometimes a certain item does sell (like a board game) if all the pieces are there. I recently looked up the game Masterpiece on eBay. It did not look like very many of the games listed were getting bids. When I started looking at each individual auction, I noticed that most of them were missing pieces. Also, if you start the price too high, people will not bid on the item.

Tip #3 — Photos & Set Up of Items Can Make or Break a Sale

I notice that sometimes the pictures that people take of their items are too dark or blurry. Make sure your pictures are clear and bright. If you have an item with pieces (like a game) show a picture of the box and the pieces. If you are taking pictures of a play set like the Fisher Price Little People sets or Playmobil, set the pieces up where they would go if you were playing with them.

I once had a Playmobil fairy tale set. It came with multiple cardboard backdrops, so I set up the pieces in different positions with the different backdrops to show what you could do with the set. I think this helped to get a really good price for the item.

You don’t have to have a fancy camera in order to take quality pictures of your items. Any smartphone or simple digital camera can take pictures that are clear and bright. Natural light can really help give you bright pictures. Using the flash on your camera can be okay, but sometimes it can cause glares on certain items.

Tip #4 — Consider “Repairing” an Item to Get a Higher Selling Price

Don’t buy a damaged item or an item missing pieces unless you are able to repair it (unless you are just selling the parts to something).

Some people will buy old dolls and make them look really nice. I have tried to re-root a doll’s hair. It is not easy, and mine didn’t look that great.

I try not to buy games that are missing pieces or other things that need to be fixed.

There are some exceptions though. I bought a Cariboo game that was missing two cards that cover the doors of the game. The game needs the cards to cover the doors, but they don’t have to match exactly. I printed the missing cards from my computer. They were pretty close to the originals but not exact. I explained this in my auction. I believe that I got a higher price than if I had sold the game with two missing cards.

Sometimes, when selling an item, you can substitute a different piece for the one missing. An example of this would be to substitute a Fisher Price dollhouse table if you are missing your Little Tikes dollhouse table. The pieces are similar and fit the same size dolls. Most people would rather have a different table for their dollhouse than to not have one at all.

Tip #5 — Shipping Can Help Your Item Sell or NOT Sell

Sometimes items won’t sell because of the shipping cost.

You can’t help how much it costs to ship an item across the country. What you can do is to make it as cheap as possible.

If you don’t have a box that fits your item, it is better to cut a big box so that it fits your item closely with a little room for packing materials. This is true for items like games that are an unusual shape. You can also sometimes cut and combine two boxes together to create a bigger box. Having a box that fits around your item will save on shipping.

Another thing is to list the cheapest method of shipping first when writing up your auction. The method listed first is the one that appears on the auction listing page.

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