Know Your Market

The most effective way to get the most money for your product is to know your market. Before you list your item, perform a quick, title search on eBay for items similar to yours. Then, click on Completed items (under the Display heading). Keep in mind that any item on eBay is worth only what others are willing to pay for it, so ignore any listings that never received bids. Scrutinize the most successful sales and see how the sellers have described and promoted their items in order to earn top dollar. Then list your item using what you learned.

Great Photos of Small Items Using Your Scanner

When you're selling a small item on eBay and you need a plain, close-up photo, you can avoid flash washout or unwanted reflections using a scanner instead of a digital camera: Cell phones, MP3 players, discs, books pretty much anything small item with a basic dimension can be scanned on your home scanner. This is a PERFECT way to get a blank background in a photo with no setup required! Simple....and more profit in your pocket because, as you know, a great picture brings in a higher bid for your item.

Fake eBay Emails~How to Deal With Scammers

Scammers begin to stalk all eBay sellers routinely. You will receive scam emails that look very authentic telling you of fictitious problems or posing as buyers with a question. Scam emails often look so authentic that it is scary! Treat any emails you receive from eBay with caution. If you click on a link in an email and it asks you for your username and password, close the browser. Instead, open a brand new browser window and sign into your account. We repeat, Never, never, never sign into your eBay account from an email. Always, always, always go to your browser and type in http://www.ebay.com/ then sign into your account. If the email message is legitimate, it will be in your messages. Answer it there. Any problems will be highlighted in the "My eBay" section.

eBay Tip~Use Lots of Good Pictures

People need to see what it is they’re buying to feel confident about buying it. They don’t want to make a mistake and not get what they are looking for so if they can’t see good pictures they won’t bid. Take as many pictures from different angles as possible so your potential buyers are not left wondering if there’s something hidden they can’t see. With some items, it can become costly to add lots of pictures since each photo costs 15 cents to list. eBay allows you to use links in your listing provided the link is to offer the buyer the opportunity to view more photos, not to provide an offer to buy outside of eBay. If you have a website where you sell your items outside of eBay, you can provide a link to view more photos of the item but be careful to list the link as exactly that ~ a link to VIEW MORE PHOTOS. This allows you to provide great photos of your item for free. If you do not have a website, then offer a few great photos taken from different angles of your item. Photos that offers an opportunity for the buyer to actually feel they can become familiar with the item will bring in a higher final value. This spells more money for you.

Seller Update from eBay

All sellers on eBay received this email from eBay regarding new policies and procedures. Of interest, a seller will no longer be able to leave negative feedback for a buyer. This is the only new policy we are having some difficulty with as eBay sellers. There ARE buyers that, while they make their timely payments, still are looking to receive a free item or looking to do some casual shopping. There are only a handful, but they are out there. eBay deals are final, and not for the casual shopper who likes to return their purchases or has buyers remorse. They will be able to leave negative feedback for a seller, but a seller will have no forum to leave their thoughts on the transaction. We will still be able to reply to the feedback, but will not be able to have any impact on the buyers ability to be unfair. Internet selling, particularly on eBay, is an anonymous interaction between the buyer and the seller. This can bring out the best and worse in people since there is no face to face and their real names are anonymous. While the seller wants to, needs to, please their customers, there are always incidents where the buyer will simply demand a refund despite your explicit return policies or how great your product really is. Now a seller will have to decide between giving away their merchandise on these occassions, or taking negative feedback. There will be no leveridge for a mutual agreement to be reached. We feel eBay should rethink this policy. The following is a copy of the new policies and procedures:

Seller Update: Fees, Rewards & Standards eBay buyers want value and selection from sellers they can trust--and good sellers deserve rewards for delivering great customer service. That's why we're making a number of important changes that may affect you:
Reduced Listing FeesYou asked, we listened. We're reducing Insertion Fees and adjusting Final Value Fees to lower your up-front cost to sell on eBay. You wanted free Gallery, now you've got it--plus more feature discounts.
Lower Insertion Fees
Making Gallery free
Lower fees for Gallery Plus, Picture Pack, and Feature Plus
Rewards for great sellersThere will be discounts and incentives for those who satisfy customers best. Who decides who gets rewarded? Customers do, by giving sellers high Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs).
More search exposure through Best Match
Fee discounts for PowerSellers
Increased protection for PowerSellers
Feedback ChangesSignificant changes coming soon will increase buyer confidence and showcase good sellers.
Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
Positive repeat customer Feedback will count and Feedback more than 12 months old won't.
Negative and neutral Feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) or if the member is suspended.

eBay Selling Tip~Selling on eBay using Bar Codes

Selling on eBay is really easy with this great feature that assists you with listing an item with a bar code. You simply follow the directions in the selling feature in eBay and follow the steps that lead you to enter bar code information. Once entered, eBay prefills everything about the item based on the code and also displays the appropriate photo for it. All you have to do now is set the price and terms! How simple is that! Ellabellas recently utilized this method when selling a very popular diet book that we were lucky enough to find a case of at a great price! We were able to pass on a great below retail price to our buyers and all the great selling information about the book was a no-brainer for us!! Perfect.

What Should I Sell on eBay

What should I sell on eBay. This answer to this question is the key to any successful business. What do people want? Research, research, research. Think like a buyer. What would you be looking for? Then research "completed items" to see what has been selling and what has not. Selling in auction can become expensive, so we sell only our hottest sellers auction style and leave the rest in our store for buyers to find. Certain items will sell again and again in an auction because people want them and will bid on them if they are offered at a discounted price. People like to feel they have gotten a deal on eBay and rightfully so. People are shopping on eBay for 2 main reasons ~ to get a deal or to find something they cannot get in a store.

Second Chance Offers

eBay’s Second Chance Offer feature allows more than one item to be sold from a single listing, saving on the listing fee for each additional sale. This is a great feature if you have more than one of the item you are selling and they are identical. For example, if you are have 5 identical Barbie Dolls and several people bid on your doll in auction, you can offer losing bidders that doll at their highest losing bid. If the winning bidder won the doll for $20.00, yet there was a losing bid of $19.50 and another for $18, you can decide to offer those bidders your dolls for $19.50 and $18 respectively. This is to your advantage because the offer means you do not have to list the item again and pay listing fees to sell your remaining dolls. It does not make sense if those bids are below an acceptable price that you are willing to sell for. When using second chance offers, you should be aware that you are making a trade-off between price and sales volume, as second chance offers are inevitably lower than the item’s final price.

Great Photos Sell on eBay

On eBay, a picture is worth a thousand words. Always have an image or two of your item for potential bidders to view. Many people pass on bidding for an item they don't get to see first. This also helps limit the number of items you have returned to you or neutral/negative feedback because you failed to describe them accurately enough to please those tough customers out there. If your item has a defect, be sure to include a photo of that defect. For example, if you are selling a purse that has wear and tear on the strap, take a photo of the strap. Also, an item with an accompanying great image just naturally gets more looks. If you don't show images, you are losing potential customers. Conversely, it does cost money to include photos on eBay so one or two great photos is all that is needed.

Ellabellas of Cape Cod eBay Store

Visit our eBay store, Ellabellas of Cape Cod, where we offer a sampling of the fine products we offer on our website Ellabellas. We often have sale items in our eBay store so we consider it our "bargain basement"! As well as offering great eBay tips and tricks here in our blog, we will be offering a sneak preview of our great items for sale in our eBay store. Stop by!

This ring is one of our top sellers in our eBay store. This BEAUTIFUL, TRENDY .925 Sterling Silver Cigar Band Dome Ring is keepsake quality. Every woman (or man) needs at least one. Measures 6 mm wide at the back and 18 mm wide at the front. This ring can be sized for you 4-10.