Absolute beginner

Steer100

Hi, I really really want to start selling on ebay but don't know where to start.
I know that no-one is going to give away their little niche/goldmine but are there any pointers? Even if it is small amounts to start off with and then I will build up from there.
I am quite lucky as I have made about 25 purchases with 100% feedback so this will help buyers recognise me as a good seller from the start!
Appreciate your input

wendym

Buyers can get only positive feedback (Ebay rule) so I'm afraid your 100% tells potential buyers nothing about you as a seller.

I would say don't start by buying to sell (which would mean declaring yourself to HMRC etc). Sell something you know about, and at the moment I'd avoid secondhand clothes, as buyers are being particularly picky.

Get accurate digital scales for calculating postage.

There are many real experts here who are generous with time and energy if you need detailed advice or get stuck.

Obviously_the_best

and I don't think you can sell on eBay without a paypal premier account (someone verify that please, thanks)
start off with smaller things, don't straight away go for the big one!
I found these videos useful when I started selling

Crowqueen

wendym wrote: »

Buyers can get only positive feedback (Ebay rule) so I'm afraid your 100% tells potential buyers nothing about you as a seller.

I would say don't start by buying to sell (which would mean declaring yourself to HMRC etc). Sell something you know about, and at the moment I'd avoid secondhand clothes, as buyers are being particularly picky.

Get accurate digital scales for calculating postage.

There are many real experts here who are generous with time and energy if you need detailed advice or get stuck.

Actually it's still useful as buyers can see that you at least know the system.

Agree with the rest though.

Steer100

Oh thank you guys- I have just had a little look around the HMRC website which may come in handy a little further down the line in my ebay timeline!
Any ideas on things to sell/trusted wholesalers?
Thank you!

Obviously_the_best

DHGate and AliExpress, although treat with caution, there are alot of horror stories! And if you ever get that far remember to check out the distance selling regulations, just google it, it will be a .gov address.

Steer100

Ok then I will check them out but I don't like the sound of horror stories... I guess I need to stop trying to be spoon fed and find some sort of niche/opportunity myself, thanks for your help everyone and I will check out distance selling regulations now!

Pembroke

Your best bet if you want to buy to sell is to start off looking for things you know a bit about either on Ebay in the 'Wholesale & Job Lots' category, or buy stuff at boot fairs, or go to you local general auction house, mine sell a few job lots of old shop stock every month. You need to start off small and experiment with what you are selling as not everything you buy to sell will do so. It's no good ordering 20,000 widgets from China straight off only to find you can't sell even one of them.

If you want to get an insight into selling on Ebay without having to buy first (and go through the register as self employed routine) try selling unwanted household items. Try to avoid areas with lots of competition to start with like clothes, CD's, popular books and Computer Games. Don't look at an item and think 'no that can't possibly sell'. Someone somewhere will want it if you pitch the price right and describe and photograph it properly.

Go to Ebay and download a copy of turbolister, that way you can setup templates rather than having to re-type the same thing every time you sell an item. Get an account on a photo sharing website like photobucket or I use picassa web, and learn how to add photo's via HTML to put in the body of the sales page.

Finally accept that PayPal and Ebay are businesses and they charge for their services. You need to take all your costs into account when you price up an item.

Ask as many questions on this forum as you like, but as you surmised no one will tell you specifically what they sell.

Mistral001

I started to use ebay some time ago when it was almost purely an auction site and have noticed that that there has been a lot of changes over the years.

I now find that relatively few items are put up for auction and most items are priced with a "buy it now" listing.

As others have suggested, start with selling household goods. I always do a search on ebay before listing to see if similar items are selling. It is a good way of ruling out no-hopers. There are often items that you think will sell well, but when you do a search on ebay for it, you find that there are lots of similar items without any bids. I suppose it is called market research.

Unwanted gifts and other items bought recently sell well as they are current.

With older things it tends to be totally hit or miss.

There are trends as well. For example books used to sell OK but are not doing well at the minute.

By the way, making money with ebay as a full-time job is hard as you are competing, I suspect, with the black economy and the moonlighters with low overheads who are doing it for a little extra money to pay for an extra weekend holiday rather than for paying the mortgage.

Steer100

Thanks so much for your help! I'm going to have a rummage around my house and find some stuff that could sell. That way I will be able to get used to the whole system and gain some feedback.
Appreciate your input so much