Anticipate the next selling season.
If you can shop ahead, buying skis, musical instruments, and Christmas items during the summer, you'll have less competition buying, so you can get more bargains. If you can hold off selling these items, until their season comes around, you should be able to get more for them on eBay. Knowing when to list these items is the real trick. If you start too early, you may not get enough for them. If you wait to long, you'll be competing with all the other sellers who have also been holding back. We do best by listing these items a week or two early, so we catch the anxious buyers, while there aren't many of the item available.
Watch and wait.
Get your items all ready to list, with pictures and blurbs, then search for your items on eBay. If the auctions are flooded with your merchandise, hold off for a week and check again. You might have to wait several weeks, until the tide turns, then jump in when the time seems right.
Make friends with local businesses.
Since you're selling online, you aren't in direct competition with local stores. We got acquainted with a local bike shop. We buy parts and tools from them. They save their boxes for us. Occasionally, we have them package a bike, which they do for $15. Everybody wins. We also made friends with an antiques dealer. When our antiques don't get bids on eBay, we take them to our dealer friend and swap them for other merchandise. This helps rotate her stock and ours. Again, everybody wins.
Beware of hidden shipping costs.
When your buyer pays by credit card, the total sale includes shipping charges. PayPal charges you a percentage of the total sale, so you're being charged somewhere around 3% on all shipping for credit card sales. This can really add up on heavy, low-priced items. Here's a simple example: You pay $10.00 for a gizmo You list the gizmo for $24.99 (to avoid the listing fee increase at $25.00) Your gizmo sells for $50.00 Actual shipping is $50.00 Your customer pays you $100.00 through PayPal. PayPal charges you 2.9% of $100, not just on the $50 you sold the item for. That means you paid $2.90 to PayPal. If you break that down, you paid $1.45 fee on the item, which is fine-you made a $40 profit. You also paid $1.45 fee on the shipping, which means you lost money on that part of the deal. In the above example, you still come out okay, but, it's important to understand this concept. If you buy inexpensive, heavy items, that don't sell for very much, and require special handling-like ceramics-you could work yourself to death and still lose money.
Continued in eBay Advanced Selling Hints (Part III of III).
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