As long as you’re at least 18 years old, you can be a student, the CEO of eBay (yes, Meg Whitman is reported to have sold her college textbooks on Half.com), or a trash collector

- you can still sell on eBay. You don’t need any experience in business. You just need to follow the rules, gather good feedback by being honest and responsive, and sell items that people want

- the kinds of things that merchants have depended on throughout the ages. First, you need to start by registering as an auction seller. eBay makes you register as a seller even if you are already a registered eBay buyer. You can use the same username and password; the main purpose is to put your credit card on file so eBay can charge it if necessary. The following steps give you a miniature version of the process described in detail in subsequent articles so you can begin the process of selling on eBay.

Decide What to Sell Sometimes, it seems like you can sell anything on eBay. Some people certainly try to sell oddball, weird, tasteless, or even illegal materials. eBay quickly removes the most offensive things. (See Article 8 for descriptions of items that eBay considers offensive or illegal.) But if you are trying, as this article assumes, to develop an ongoing eBay sales effort, you need to identify materials that eBay customers are actually going to bid on and buy on a consistent basis. Based on what I’ve learned and been told by longtime sellers, you need to choose items that:

- You like to sell Choose things that you know and love, and that you know well enough that you can come up with reasonable reserve and Buy It Now prices. You’ll be working with these items for years at a time; don’t sell clothing if you are really interested in sports equipment and collectibles, for instance.

- People actually want Shop around on eBay and see which items get bids and which don’t. Don’t waste your time buying, and then reselling, merchandise that just isn’t desirable to begin with.

- Are easy to ship Keep in mind that you’ll not only be buying merchandise and hauling it home, but that you’ll need to photograph it, pack it up, and probably haul it to a shipper (unless you pay extra for pickup; see Article 10).

- You have room to store Sellers who deal on eBay on a regular basis soon need to buy merchandise on a regular basis, too. The question of where and how to store that stuff can become a problem. Sellers have given up their basements, garages, and eventually rented warehouse space just to store the merchandise they’re planning to sell in the future. In my experience, the items that sell best on eBay are ones that are offbeat and that appeal to specialists or collectors. Items also are more likely to sell if you include more than one good-quality photo and if you write honest descriptions.

Choose One or More Categories What you sell also involves decisions about where to sell

- which one of eBay’s hundreds of auction categories is right for your particular item. If you decide to specialize in a particular type of item, you might find that certain categories become places that you frequent on a regular basis. Getting to know the category in which you’re going to deal is a good idea

- get to know who the big players are in a category, and study what they sell and how they describe what they have. Don’t try to copy what they do

- rather, pick items that are slightly different and put your own personal spin on your descriptions so you can attract your own customers.

Enlist the Help of Friends and Relatives What to sell, and how many items to sell, also depends on whether you are going to do the work yourself or whether you’re going to develop a team of assistants. Selling on eBay is ideal for two or more people

- two spouses, two domestic partners, two friends, or two relatives. You’re sure to have some nieces, nephews, or cousins around who can help you with packing and shipping

- or photographing or doing other computer work with which you’re uncomfortable. Collecting and then selling dolls, action figures, cards, or other goodies can be a great family activity. Your kids can keep you company and help you shop for the most desirable collectibles and keep you informed about the latest trends. They can help look up addresses, affix labels, and relieve some of the burden of shipping things out.

Set the Price You don’t always need to worry about setting a price at all on eBay. It depends on how you decide to sell. I go into more detail on starting bids and reserve prices in Article 3, but here’s a quick rundown of the kinds of prices you might need to consider:

- Starting Bid This is the price at which bidding starts.

- Reserve Price This is the lowest price at which you will commit to sell something. If bids don’t reach the reserve price, you don’t have to sell. Usually, the reserve price is secret, but some sellers do reveal the reserve price of an item right in its description.

- Buy It Now Price If you want to sell something at a fixed price, you can specify it, either in addition to placing the item at auction, or as an alternative to an auction.

- eBay Stores price If you have enough positive feedback, you can set up an eBay store: a page where you list items on eBay for a reduced, fixed price for 30 days. It’s a great place to unload items that didn’t sell the first time or to find another way to sell stock from your store if you have one. Find out more at http://www.stores.ebay.com. Many auction sellers don’t worry about reserve prices at all. They simply put a starting bid of $1 or so on an item and let the marketplace determine the price. The risk, of course, if that you might lose money on what you sell without a reserve

- you could conceivably pay $10 for a lamp and sell it on eBay for a high bid of $6 if you don’t put a reserve of, say, $15 on the item. On the other hand, items that are advertised as having no reserve price do tend to attract more attention than those with a reserve, because bidders are attracted by the certainty that the item will sell and the possibility that it will sell at a bargain price. If the seller loses a few dollars on one particular item, he or she will probably make it up on others that are sold without reserve and that attract lots of bids.

Provide Good Online Photos As much as I would like to think that words are the most persuasive medium around, I have to admit that photos are probably the most important sales feature you can include with your merchandise. Items that are put online without any photos just aren’t going to get as many bids as they could. There’s no excuse not to include photos, either, because the range of options for capturing digital images is growing all the time. Digital cameras and scanners are growing more affordable, too. Don’t be stingy with creating and posting photos of your sales items. Often, bidders will ask you for more photos if you haven’t included enough to begin with. You’ll get to know how many you should include. There’s no rule about how many photos you should include of a particular object; as a general rule, however, two to six photos taken from different angles is a good range. Often, wristwatches need multiple photos in order to show all the different features. See Article 8 for more about capturing digital images of your sales items and putting them online.

Pile On the Information If you run a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll probably be surprised by the important role descriptions play in making sales on eBay. After all, in a store, you place your items in the window or on a shelf and put a tag on them. Perhaps the tag identifies the item and provides some basic information about it, perhaps not. On the Internet, shoppers decide whether or not to buy something based in large measure on how much information you provide about it. Yes, the price matters, and yes, the experience and level of trust the seller inspires is also important. But when several similar items are available on eBay, many placed up for auction by reputable sellers, the ones with more information are more likely to get the most bids. A good description is:

- Concise Good descriptions don’t have to be long. They describe sizes, dates, colors, and other characteristics.

- Upbeat Selling means telling prospective buyers why an item is exceptional and desirable and why they need to have it.

- Complete Along with the good points, be up-front about any cracks or flaws the item has. Also be sure to include model numbers and serial numbers for collectors who are very knowledgeable and are looking for specific items to fill out their collections. The best descriptions engage a bidder’s imagination and get him or her to envision how the merchandise might be used, or (if it’s a used item) how others used it in the past. See Articles 3 and 4 for more about creating good descriptions.

Give Good Customer Service Customer service on eBay is a little different than customer service in either a retail store or an e-commerceWeb site. On eBay, a substantial amount of customer contact takes place before a sale is made, and it mostly takes the form of answering questions by people who have either bid on your items or are considering placing a bid. In addition, you might be answering questions from individuals who don’t turn out to be your actual customers. After all, a single item can have only one high bidder or buyer, but you might receive six, ten, or even (if you’re lucky to get this much interest) twenty questions from bidders before the sale ends. Customer service on eBay, to a large extent, is a matter of checking your e-mail and responding to it in a professional and prompt manner. After a sale, customer service means making sure the merchandise is sent out quickly and that it arrives in good shape, as described in the next section.

Process Those Sales Once a sale is completed, you need to communicate to your high bidders or buyers that you are competent and in charge. Send them an e-mail message to notify them that they are the winner and congratulate them on making such a good purchase. Provide them with shipping information, and ask them to respond as soon as possible. Once you receive payment, you need to pack your items carefully. Many sellers include notes or extra gifts with their items; you don’t have to do this, of course, but it helps build goodwill. It’s more important to include bubble wrap or other materials in the package to protect what you’re sending, and to get it out to the post office or shipper in good time. See Article 10 for more on this important aspect of building an eBay business.

Pay Your eBay Fees Everyone’s got to pay the piper for the services they receive, and eBay is no exception. After you sell something on eBay, it’s time to pay the fees charged not only for selling items but for listing them. eBay calls its listing fees insertion fees, and the fee charged when you actually sell something a final value fee. You have to pay your insertion fee whether you sell your item or not. The fee is based on the higher of two amounts: your starting bid or your reserve price. For instance, if you sell something with a starting bid of $1 and a reserve price of $40, your insertion fee is $1.10; if you have no reserve price and your starting bid is $1, the insertion fee is $0.30. If your item sells, you then have to pay a final value fee; for reserve price and no reserve auctions, the “final value” is the final bid. On a reserve price auction, the final value fee is only charged if the reserve is met. If the final value is, for example, $100, the final value fee is about $3.38. eBay makes it quite easy to pay your fees. You can configure your seller’s account so you pay by check, money order, credit card, or by debiting a checking account. Find out more about configuring your seller’s account at http://pages .ebay.com/help/sell/payfees.html.

Deliver the Goods The final step in becoming an eBay auction expert is shipping out your merchandise quickly and safely. You’ve got to find good shipping boxes, pack your items safely with plenty of packing material if necessary, and get the package to the mailer quickly. You’ve got to provide your customers with different shipping options. You’ll get to know your local postal employees and mailing services well. The professionalism with which you ship has a direct impact on the amount of positive feedback you receive. Shipping is sometimes overlooked by eBay sellers when they start out, and that’s why I’ve devoted a whole article to the subject: see Article 10 for more detailed.

Where to Find It

- eBay User Agreement http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/ user-agreement.html Rules of what you can and can’t do on eBay’s site as far as listing auctions for sale and bidding on them.

- Current eBay Time http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ eBayISAPI.dll?TimeShow A page that verifies the current time in eBay’s home location (in other words, Pacific Standard Time) and other time zones in the U.S.

- eBay’s Help page on Seller’s Fees http://pages.ebay.com/help/ sell/fees.html An overview of the fees eBay charges sellers, including tables to help you calculate them.

- eBay Stores http://www.stores.ebay.com

Home page of a section of eBay’s site where merchants can sell items at a fixed price for 30 days.