Important Reminders for Ebay Success

I have been selling on Ebay for about over a year, and I have found some great tips through experience (and have not read these on the web) concerning what to sell, how to sell it, and how to make sure you get return business.

1. Don't spend extra time customizing your Ebay seller page, adding graphics, etc.
I see a lot of sellers with customized graphics trying to give the idea that their Ebay site is an actual store, or pretending it's special or something. Buyers don't really care. All buyers look at is 1) the item that you are selling that they are interested in, and 2) your feedback. When I see other sellers with tons of graphics about "Ami's Store -- supporting my 5 kids through selling on Ebay!" it reeks of desperation and probably hurts their profits. Ebay buyers REALLY don't want to know about you, why you are selling. Just show the product and have good feedback.

2. When sending items through the mail, ALWAYS include the last four digits of the zip code: Yes, this will take an extra 3 minutes to go to the www.usps.com site and type in the address to get the zip code, but this step is SOOO neccesary. It takes about 5 minutes and gets the package there to your customer oftentimes a week earlier than normal. Most of my good feedback has been about quick shipping -- this definitely adds to the quickness of thigns being shipped quickly.

3. SHIP AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. Okay, this tip is sooo important. When someone buys something from you and have paid, you should RACE as fast as you can to get it wrapped and in place to be shipped (your car, a box you take to the post office, whatever). Even if it isn't going to be taken physically to the post office until the morning, you need to wrap the package. if you do not do it immediately, you will have the tendency to say like "oh, i can do it tomorrow -- i'm too tired now'. suprisingly, a large number of people procrastinate wrapping the item, which lengthens the time in which the buyer will receive the item. get into the habit of as soon as you receive the money in your paypal, RACE to wrap the packge.

4. Always wrap professionally. Never hand-write your return address or the address of the person to whom you are sending it.

5. Never try to make money off of shipping. If anything, reduce your shipping costs to slightly less than you would usually charge and increase the starting bid to offset any loss. People hate paying a lot for shipping and if your shipping seems too high, people will ignore your listing.

Okay, that's it for now. Tell me what you think and be sure to add tips in the comments section. I may do other blogs talking about how I've made thousands selling VERY random yet profitable things!!! LOL