eBay selling tips
eBay is a fantastic online market, a website where you can buy and sell just about anything to do with coins. Follow the tips below to increase your sales success.
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Include a good photograph
This is the most important rule of all, potential buyers will want to see what your item looks like. Make sure that the picture is in focus and is an accurate representation. Good digital cameras are very cheap and easy to get hold of these days, you do not need an expensive camera. See our tips on coin photography.
Sell the benefits not the features
When people are deciding whether or not to buy something they make the decision with their emotions and then justify it to themselves afterwards. You need to bear this in mind when writing your item descriptions. Instead of just listing all the different features that your item has tell the buy how it will benefit them. Maybe it will save them time, give them hours of entertainment, save them money etc. Think of all the benefits and put them in your sales pitch, be honest though and do not make false claims.
Buyers often bid on items near the end of the auction
Do not worry if your item does not seem to be attracting any bids. You will find that people will often only bid on your item on the last day and probably within the last few hours or minutes. Some bidders also practice 'sniping', waiting until the last possible second before bidding.
Schedule your auction to end at a good time
Some people say that ending your item at anti-social times like 3am will make people bid early and prevent sniping. Personally I think it is best to schedule your auction to end at a time when the most people can bid. A Sunday afternoon seems to be the best time. Ending your auction at 3am will not stop sniping, if people want to do it they will. An anti-social ending time will reduce the number of people entering into the last minute bidding war though.
Payment methods
If you're serious about selling, you have to offer Paypal as a payment method. There's no getting away from it, and it's essential for receiving payments from buyers overseas. The protection and convenience it offers buyers means you really need to offer it as your main form of payment. Just accept Paypal, cheques and postal orders, to fulfil most buyers' expectations. Here's my tip: Periodically double check your Paypal account, just in case a payment is sitting there but your eBay screen shows your payment as not received. It does happen occasionally.
Listing period
Many potential buys only check eBay irregularly, often only at the weekend when they have some spare time. Posting your listing for 10 days will give bidders plenty of time to find your item and watch it until they want to bid.
Do your eBay research.
When selling on eBay, before you list a particular product, spend some time researching other similar products on eBay and following the bidding process. This will help you gauge the interest for your product and help you determine how much your product might be worth. There is a well developed category on coins.
Choose your title carefully
Unless people explicitly tick a box to search through item descriptions eBay only searches through each item's title. It is therefore important that you write your item titles carefully. Think about what words you would search on when looking for your coins and make sure you get them into your title.
Consider using Buy It Now
If you know how much you want for an item and are confident you will get it then consider listing the item using 'Buy It Now'. People will often check eBay for items that are hard to get elsewhere and like Buy It Now items because they do not have to wait for the auction to end and do not have to risk being out bid.
Are you a member of the eBay community yet? If not,