Have you had any experience selling stuff on EBay?

Question

My wife and I want to sell some antiques on EBay. We have no experience. Can someone tell us, from first-hand experience, a simple, proven, and economical way to approach it so we can cut through all the crap?

Please, nobody has even come close to answering my question. A few of you have some good advice, but no one has really answered anything yet!!!!!
P-L-E-A-S-E H-E-L-P!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

Hi,

You can either get someone with experience to do it for you or learn to sell yourself (recommended if you are willing to learn and have the time).
There are many great resources for learning to sell on eBay.
Antiques is a great niche if you are knowledgable about them; you can make a lot of money.
If you haven't already done so, open an account with eBay, choose a good user name that relates to your business.
You will also need to get a Paypal account so you can accept payments.
First thing you should do before selling is get some feedback. You can do this by buying from others on eBay. This will also give you an idea of how eBay works and how sellers handle their business. You can gain feedback quickly by purchasing ebooks or digital products on eBay. Once you've purchased the item pay quickly in order to receive good feedback. The other reason for gaining fb before selling is to give yourself credibility. A potential bidder is more likely to bid on your auction if you have some feedback. If you have 0 fb your sells will be very low.
When you are ready to sell you will want to take good pictures of your item, this means you really need a digital camera. Take lots of pictures, edit them and then upload to your own web hosting or a free service such as photobucket.com.
When setting up your auction to sell: http://sell.ebay.com/sell
You need to think of a really good title as this is how bidders will find your auction. So, use good keywords that you think others will use to find you.
Write a detailed description of the item, including any flaws. Be completely honest, tell as much as you can about the item. If your antique has a story behind it, tell it! people love this.
Set a reasonable starting price. Don't forget to consider fees:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
If you start something at 99 cents rather than $1.00 you will save 15 cents for example. I see many sellers making this mistake.
If you've done your research and you know your item is a hot seller you can start the bid low and let bidders bring up the price. For antiques set it at a 7 or 10 day auction.
This should get you started, as I said there's a lot of info out there. The best thing to do is just start, you will learn as you gain experience.
EBay can be very rewarding :)

Answer 2

My advice is you need to experiment how the selling works. I won't start out by selling antiques. Try stuff you don't need aruond the house first, just to see how things work. Once you get a hand of it, then you can start selling your expensive stuff. You also need to build up your credit on ebay, no one sane would risk buying expensive stuff from a newbie.

Answer 3

Just make sure to be perfectly clear about what the items are and you shouldn't have any probs. Be really clear on shipping and include pics. You shouldn't have any probs. A yard sale may not get what you want out of it. Just follow the easy steps and dont' accept checks, start a paypal account of you don't already have one. It's sooo easy. I have made alot of $$ using ebay. They give you tips on how to get the most out of your auction.

Answer 4

it has worked for me,i sold my vette and some other stuff. they do charge a small fee per auction,as long as you have credit cards or a band debit card you can set a account up.and after you get 10 + feedback you can do the buy it now

Answer 5

Ebay sucks.
You'd be better off having an old-fashion yard sale.

Answer 6

Wel i gues u need to pay a percentage if ur product sells on ebay. and its all very confusing.

Answer 7

nope

Answer 8

geekangle has the best answer.

I second that.

Answer 9

no