Give Selling a Try
by Kelley
eBay Staff Member

Last month, we suggested that you give selling a try. Perhaps some of you did, and now you have more space in your home, and more money in your pocket!

If you enjoyed your selling experiences, you might want to continue with it. You may have some items that you have had for a while that you are ready to part with, if only you knew what they were worth!

One way to find out is to look at the eBay Advanced Search, checking "Completed Items only". If you can locate an item identical to, or similar to, yours you may get an idea of how much it sold for, and how competitive the bidding was. This will help you to determine a good opening bid amount, or whether or not to use a Reserve price.

Some sellers report that they prefer to use a low opening bid, but set a Reserve price on their better listings. This way, the listing attracts attention in Search results and category browsing, but the Reserve protects the seller against losing the item for a fraction of its worth in the event bidding is slow.

Other sellers believe that it is better to start the listing at the lowest price they are willing to accept, and let the bidders decide the value.

There is something to be said for both points of view, and we conclude that it is the seller's individual choice.

You could also note in your listings that you are willing to combine shipping for multiple wins by one bidder. This may encourage bidders to take a closer look at your other offerings.

When your transactions are completed, you should be sure that you have left appropriate feedback for all of your trading partners. You can do this from My eBay, or from the Feedback Forum. A link to the Feedback Forum link can be found at the bottom of any eBay page.

This is also a good time to take a look at your About Me page, and make sure that it is up to date. You can show your listings on that page, and include some of your recent feedback, as well as tell the Community a little bit about yourself and your interests. As always, be cautious about posting personal information, such as your 'real' name, address, telephone number, email address or photographs of you or your family. Remember that your About Me page, as with all of eBay, can be seen by anyone who has Internet access, whether registered with eBay or not.

Don't forget to look at other About Me pages (just click on the by another User ID), and other listing pages for ideas … just don't copy anyone else's images or text!

You could use the money from your listings to bid on some of the items that you wish you had gotten for the holidays, too!