by Haley Gray

Created on: January 12, 2010

Ebay is a great way to supplement your income and it requires just a few basics to get started. First, you need some inventory. Whether you've accumulated stuff around the house that you wish to sell, or are looking to find items, the entire process is fairly simple and can start bringing in cash beginning with your very first listing.

First, open a Paypal account. This is the fastest and most widely recognized form of payment on paypal and will make your transactions go much more quickly and efficiently. Next, do some research on your item. Try to find it online (ebay included) and see what it is selling for. If you have a pretty good idea about the price you'd like to fetch, it's always good to do an auction with a "Buy It Now" feature. It costs a little extra, yes, ebay does charge for the listings as well as a small fee once they sell, so keep that in mind when figuring out your potential profit.

In order to list your item, you will need to take some photos. Items with photos are much more likely to sell than those that don't. If at all possible, take your own photos and download them. People much prefer these to "stock" photos that you've found online.

Once your item is listed, you can monitor it through the ebay site. When it sells, send the buyer an invoice and as soon as you've received notification of payment, pack the item up as professionally as possible and ship it. Shipping the item in a timely manner is one of the keys to becoming a successful ebay salesperson.  If you are going to be doing this often or as part of a supplemental income or even as a regular job, keep yourself supplied with packing materials and be prepared to go to the post office every day. Don't forget that you will be paying for shipping so if you offer free shipping (which is something buyers seek out) make sure that you will still be making a profit on the item. If you do not offer free shipping, there are a number of sites where you can go to figure out approximate shipping costs.  Some sellers, who sell their items by autcion only will mark up their shipping costs in order to  make up for the low sales price that the item may receive.

Ebay is a great resource for extra cash or even as a full-time job.  I know people who scour the used clothing stores for name brands and then sell them.  This is all they do, and they make great money doing it. But it takes dedication and lots of motivation if you want this to work.  Honesty and integrity are the key to successful ebaying because it earns you positive feedback and the more positive feedback you have, the more likely people are to trust you and to want to buy from you.  Likewise, when you've finished a transaction, be sure to leave feedback for the buyer as well.

These are just a few of the main points to help get you started selling on ebay.  You don't need to pay for one of those "Get Rich Quick Selling on Ebay" courses or involve yourself in selling someone else's products, which you will have to pay for and then try to unload, usually in bulk (and sometimes fairly worthless). Ebay is very self-esplanatory and has excellent self-help resources to talk you through the whole process.

Good luck and happy selling!

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