If you are serious about promoting your products on eBay and getting the buyers attention a little knowledge can help you avoid some of the common mistakes that sellers seem to make. Review these must know tips that you cannot afford to ignore if you want your business to bring in profit.
Email address: Buyers will often contact the seller before deciding to bid or they may contact you after winning a bid to get more information on shipping as well as to discuss a problem with the item you purchased. Sign up to eBay with an email address that you check daily, this way you will not miss any important correspondence from buyers. Ideally, if a buyer contacts you, you want to respond within a 24-hour period.
Photo manipulation: The photos that accompany the desription of an item you are trying to sell on eBay have to be accurate. Enhancing a photo and tweaking it too hide flaws will only get you in trouble when the seller realizes the quality of the item you sold them does not match the quality of your photo. Focus your photos, take in natural light and provide multiple shots for larger more expensive items. Be sure to include photos that show the products flaws.
Violating eBay rules: The eBay user agreement lists the rules of the site that most be followed by buyers and sellers. Violators of the terms may get their account suspended. Acts such as bidding on your own items or getting those you know to bid on them for you are a violation of the site terms. eBay provides a list of items that cannot be sold on the site and you should take care not to list any of these items. For example, drugs and used cosmetics cannot be sold on the site, while adult materials and firearms may be allowed to be sold under certain restrictions. Sellers should also carefully examine these requirements if attempting to sell items outside their country of origin. International and federal laws prohibit the transportation of certain items.
Knowing the market: Though eBay offers a level of convenience and personalization you cannot find at a traditional brick and motor shop, the concept of running a business is pretty much the same. If you plan to become an entrepreneur on eBay then you still have to put in some hard work and research the competition, as well as understand what products are most successful on the site. Spend some time looking around the site, reading product descriptions and looking at photos, this will give you some feedback to understanding the amount of effort required to become an eBay success and can help you decide the type of products that you might want to sell.
Be a buyer first: A good seller understands the buyers experience on eBay. By buying a few lost cost items, you will gain an understanding of how the process works. You can also use this time to build up your buyer rating, then when you transition into selling, buyers will be able to review your history and know you can be trusted.
When customers visit your eBay store what do they see? Is your information clearly organized? Do product descriptions match the pictures included? Have you even taken the time to add pictures to your site? If the answers to any of these questions is "no" you need a style makeover fast. Even if your eBay store still attracts customers think about how many customers and sales have slipped through your fingers, because your sight design did not inspire confidence.
Selling to customers is about their convenience, not yours. Often the first impression of a business lets a customer know if they want to do business with you. Though you may not want to take the time needed to write detailed descriptions and add photos, customers are looking for this information. The photo you use should be well lit so detail about the item being sold is visible. A seller offering a collectors item, increases their chances of getting a great price for the item by taking a picture that is in focus. The picture included with a product description should actually match the product in question.
Research products before listing them for sale on eBay can help focus product descriptions to include information on why your product is a better buy than a similar item offered by the competition. Keep product descriptions at a reasonable length to hold on to short attention spans, remember eBay is used by a wide variety of individuals making up different cultures and ages, use language that anyone can understand. Use your headline to make buyers take a second look at what you are offering.
Good ratings are essential for sellers on eBay, if customers are displeased with your service, your ratings will go down and buyers will not trust you to honor a sale. A business should always be professional, if a buyer pays you for a product and you don't deliver the product or don't deliver the product in the condition you described don't be surprised if negative feedback keeps you from being able to gain the attention you want.
The more ways you can get paid the better! Do a little research on eBay and explore all the payment options, though PayPal is the most frequently used method, its not the only method available, by offering other payment options buyers who don't want to open up a PayPal account can still purchase from you.
As a seller, you are well aware of how eBay's protection plan benefits buyers. However, your buyer may be a little lazy. Newly registered members and those who joined the site at an earlier stage but are just deciding to place a bid for the first time may not be aware of the benefits of PayPal. Of course, accepting credit cards and money orders could increase the chanced that you get scammed; consider the benefits of each option carefully before deciding if they should be accepted.
A satisfied customer is a repeat customer, be professional in all correspondence with the buyer. If a buyer emails you to ask additional questions respond in a timely manner, if you wait until a week has passed, don't be surprised that their interest in buying from you has now passed as well.
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