What NOT to sell

Thinking of starting an eBay business? There are some products that are simply not easy to make money with before you dive in the deep end have a think about these little traps for the unwary:

Popular Products: Yes there are lots of sellers offering dvds and lipods because there is a huge market for them so you might well think of those types of products as a good choice but the chances are you would be making a mistake. The sellers who make money with these products are usually well established sellers often with known and trusted brands who can buy their goods in enormous quantities. Those big wholesale orders allow them to buy their products at deeply discounted prices so its unlikely you could compete.

Large Items: Yes there are folks making great money selling boats but how are you going to handle the shipping of large items? Where are you going to store them while you market them? Generally large items are relatively slow sellers too as there are fewer potential customers and almost certainly no impulse buyers.

Fragile Items: Glassware and ceramics actually sell very well on ebay but are difficult to ship without some breakage. Customers are never happy having their new murano glass vase turn up in pieces so you risk negative feedback if the packaging is not designed to keep fragile items safe in transit.

Low Value Items: Its difficult to make a living if you have to sell lots of low value items and of course the time taken to address them and mail lots of small items can be lengthy. You may also find that postage costs become a substantial part of the customers spend so they will be less likely to buy anyway. If the items can be bundled then it condider whether it is more realistic to sell smal litems in sets rather than individually.

This is obviously not a definitive list but may make you think twice before you dive into your ebay venture!

Systems such as Marketplace Advisor which help sellers with listings and inventory management and of course upsells are to be phased out within the next 12 months. All vendors will be required to use ebays own checkout.

So far there seems no danger of the unpopular ‘paypal only’ payment requirement being adapted outside Australia. Aussie sellers are still fighting for the right to retain bank transfers as a payment option and angry sellers have even got the national consumer watchdog involved. The change has been delayed a further month.

• Do the research. You need to study how others have listed their items to work out what it is that catches your eye and makes you stop on some. Is it the keywords? How are products similar to yours described? What information is given? What questions are asked? What are the common factors on the listings with the highest bids? Find out what the market wants then give it!
• Write a good title by giving as much relevant info as possible here. What keywords are your customers likely to use? Are they searching by brand, model, size etc? If so make sure you use the likely keywords to make a good descriptive title for your listing.
• Give as much useful information as you can about your item in your description. Try to imagine the things a buyer might ask then give them the info upfront, it make you look like you know what you’re doing. Give the dimensions – if its clothing you’re selling give the actual measurements not a size number (they vary from brand to brand anyway). You’ll still get some folks asking questions sometimes even about stuff you have in your listing. Be polite and quick to respond and you’ll encourage those folk to do business.
• Use decent photos. Try to take photos of the whole item against a plain background and get some close-ups where its appropriate. Remember the point about researching other listings above? I’ll bet its the photos that catch your eye in a lot of cases!
• Be clear about your terms and conditions. Make sure you state your return policy accepted payment methods, whether pick up is possible etc to avoid a flood of emails asking these sort of questions
• Don’t try to load your shipping costs to make a profit. As tempting as it is to load shipping fees the fact is it puts many potential buyers off making bids in the first place and can lead to negative feedback. Make sure that shipping costs are clearly stated so the winner does not get a nasty surprise at payment time.

Those are the basics to writing good listings after you have them mastered you won’t really think about them anymore. Other than good listings you need to market yourself for success a topic we’ll look at in another post. Good Luck.

Check out my Squidoo Lens on this for more on making money on eBay

Is the product something not easily and cheaply purchased in a local store? The more commonplace the item the less your chances of selling yours at a good profit margin. Some of the best selling items on eBay are collectibles and antiques for this very reason.

Is your product in demand enough to start at a low price and allow competition between bidders to rise the eventual selling price for you? There is a lot of evidence that low starting prices attract more interest and therefore higher winning bids.

Is the likely profit margin enough to allow for the occasional poor auction result? You don’t want to sweat on the results of every auction. The cheaper you source your items the greater your chance of profits. Source collectibles and antiques at deceased estate sales and even garage sales for next to nothing and make excellent returns on eBay.

Is it easy to handle and ship the goods to the auction winner? The more time and effort you have to put into this element the less time and motivation you’ll have for repeating the success of the first sale. Try to stick to easily handled items that you can use pre-paid mailing for if possible.

Check out my Squidoo Lens on this for more on making money on eBay

Bid Rigging or Shielding – in this scam, either two bidders work together, or one bidder using two accounts, rigs the outcome of an auction. One bids low on your item then soon after the other bids unrealistically high say two or three times the value of the item. The high bid prevents anyone else from making a competitive bid but of course that bidder backs out before payment time. You’re now left with just the low bid to sell to! This is one of the reasons why using a reserve is a good idea.

Damaged Goods – In this one the scammer starts with a damaged item which you happen to sell, then when he gets the new one you’ve just sold him he contacts you to say he has had his arrived damaged so he demands a refund or replacement. Under threat of negative feedback on your eBay account you agree to refund or send a second item.

Fake Escrow – If you sell high value items beware of offers to pay via escrow sites. While there are several legitimate escrow sites others are set up by scammers to look legit. You’ll even be able to confirm that your payment has been ‘received’ before you dispatch the goods only to find out later that the escrow company has suddenly vanished.

Probably an obvious one but the old bouncing cheque is still out there. I’m sure you know the drill, cheque arrives as payment, you dispatch the goods, cheque then fails to clear at the bank. This costs you in bank fees as well as in lost goods. As a seller of goods never part with your goods until the payment is safely cleared into your account.

Phishing has become a widespread scam that affects eBay merchants frequently. In this scam you receive an email which looks like its a genuine message from eBay saying there is some problem or update of information needed and inviting you to click a link to login to your account. Don’t go there! Invariably these links are to fake sites whose only purpose is to get your login details so they can clean you out later.

These are just a few of the eBay scams you may come across as a seller, there are of course several more and others aimed at ripping off the buyer. As always be careful to watch out for these scams in your business efforts, please don’t be a victim.