Tango34's Guide for new traders on eBay........

Tango34uk · 21-05-2008, 12:47 PM

Tango34’s Guide for new traders on eBay…….

We tend to get a lot of new traders on this forum, all looking at eBay and they keep asking the same questions, tend to want to sell the same items, and don’t understand where their money went when they sent £1000 to China for Ipods at only £50.00 each J

So I have decided to list here, some hints to get you started, along with some links that may or may not help!

Now I am not going to give away all my Trade contacts, but I will point you towards some of the places I used to trade with, before I started to move onwards and upwards, because we all have to start somewhere.

First let’s start at the start, with what you need to do:-

1. Open an eBay account (Business Account)
2. Open a PayPal Account (Business Account) – Now I understand that PayPal is not liked, but they are a business like any other and have to make their %, and they do this via fees. You have to remember that PayPal is trusted by 99% of your buyers on eBay, so to not accept it would be a very silly thing to do!
3. Now you have your new account, you need to be trading for a month, and get as much feedback as possible. – Again eBay is all about FEEDBACK, good FB means that you are trusted. Remember you can’t keep all the people happy all the time, so you will receive at some point bad FB, don’t worry that is life.
4. Look round your house, find 20 – 30 items that you can sell, get rid of them at VERY good prices, and start to build your FB ratings on eBay.

So you now have an eBay account, it has good FB and its time to push your business, and I would suggest you now look at the market place, and what you have knowledge about, because if you understand the product, then it’s going to be a lot easier to sell that product.

Wholesale Suppliers

I make good money on eBay, and I have never purchased from China! That’s not to say I won’t in the future, but at this time all my suppliers are based in Europe, this means that yes I pay a little bit more per item, but I get them quicker, don’t have to spend as much, and for me its less risk! If you want to deal with China / HK then go for it, but you need to do lots of reading and checking up……

Right so you have an idea, now look at other companies selling the same items, find out how much they sell for, as this will give you a good idea, about what you could make, but be careful – just because another seller sells X at £20.00 doesn’t mean that they are either making a profit, or you could make a profit, a lot of sellers sell items on eBay at a slight loss, because it’s a good way of getting rid of old stock, and driving more sales towards there profitable items.

So you need to find a good supplier, well there are lots of ways to do this, but as I’m sure 99% of the other traders of here will agree with me, it takes time, you have to find the good suppliers and over time build a good rep with them, but we all have to start somewhere, so fire up eBay and look at other sellers, look at their pictures and see if there are any giveaways? As in trade marks or company names. Fire up Google do a search, send off emails, write letters, sign up with as many suppliers in your area as possible, ask questions, trade suppliers with other eBay sellers, purchase Pete’s wholesale list if you must, but above all – this is your area, I am not going to help you find a good supplier (well at the end of this article – I will give you some good hints).

eBay Fees and start prices (eBay Auctions)
When I’m working out if I can afford to sell an item on eBay I do the following:-
Item price + VAT + £1.00 + 15% and use that as my COST PRICE unless this new price is either under or very close to what other sellers happen to be selling these items for on eBay, then I stop trying to sell this item on eBay, and instead add a further % and sell it via my shop.

The other way to look at it, is to take an average of say 10 other sellers of the product you want to sell, and see if you can sell at 10% less then the average and still make a good profit?

Added Value
What is your selling point that makes you different from the rest? To give you an idea, if you happen to be selling Wii’s maybe you could point all your customers towards the following link once they have purchased the Wii from you…… http://www.orb.com/ this will then allow your customers to use their Wii as a Media Centre linked from their PC? It is an extra service that other sellers don’t even think about. You could even market the Wii, or 360 or PS3 as a media centre its not a route that other sellers use.

You may decide to offer FREE post to all customers, just remember to put your prices up by say 10% and offer free post worldwide, now you may loose on US sales, but you will gain on UK sales.

You could offer amazing Customer Service and support, with a fixed Telephone Number, how do you do this…. Well have a look at http://www.tesco.com/internetphone/ they allow you to have a VOIP phone number that is linked to a normal phone number, this you can have voice mail on, and when it’s phoned you can either answer or pick up the calls later.

You could offer all sales a 10% voucher off future sales, from say your mail order price list (included with all sales) or webshop?

Remember you are a business so you have to have a return policy, but this information in your eBay advert, others don’t and this alone can give you the edge?

Online Shops and more
So you have your eBay account running, you are making sales, but you want more – what do you do? Well you need to get people back to your site, how? Well I have put some ideas below:-

eBay Shop – go for the basic version, and list all your items, and remember to put a link in your auction listings to your eBay shop, and back again.

Webpage – get a web name, in your company name – get a basic one page company information webpage on the web, that points customers towards your eBay auctions and shop, but allow allows them to sign up for your mailing list! – More customers, more information = more sales in the future.

Web Shop – Read up on the net about different free webshops and go for it, it isn’t that hard (I will leave this for another guide).

Some links for you…….

Trade suppliers in the UK:-

http://www.thatchreed.co.uk/
http://www.highlander1.com/
http://www.arktisltd.co.uk/

Well that’s it for today, I understand this has told you all you need, and some other users might not agree with all (or any) of my methods, but they work for me, so id they also work for you well done………..