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How to Make Big Money on eBay
The guy who literally wrote the book on eBay power selling -- Jim ''Griff'' Griffith, author of The Official eBay Bible -- shares nine insider tips for aspiring online retailers.
Posted 3/ 23 11 at 2:30 PM | Business Trends, Advertising & Marketing, Sales, Leadership, Starting a Business, Home-based Business, International Business, Online Business, Consumer Products & Services, Retail
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While you might dream about sowing the seeds of a prosperous new business by selling all the junk in your attic on eBay, you might want to first take some advice from the guy who literally wrote the book about how to sell on the popular auction site.Jim "Griff" Griffith joined eBay in 1996 as the company's first customer support representative. In the years since, he has helped hire and train new customer support representatives and employees while also authoring the The Official eBay Bible. Now, as dean of eBay Education, Griffith spends his days as a roving ambassador, spokesman and seller advocate, with a goal of teaching others how to use eBay effectively, safely and profitably.
Griffith, who encourages any eBay user to e-mail him at griff@ebay.com, offers the following tips on how to get your new eBay-based company off on the right track:
1. The first thing I would advise any seller is to start off slowly. Write a business plan with the idea that you're not going to jump into things all at once. There is always a learning curve when it comes to selling on eBay, even if you already have an established business.
2. I'm surprised by the number of sellers that haven't used the site much as a buyer. That means they don't understand the transaction model from the buyer's perspective. You can learn a lot about what your customers might be looking for by finding and initiating your own transactions. For example, every eBay business needs supplies, like bubble wrap or paper. Why not buy some of that as a way to research what the eBay buying experience is like?
3. The worst mistake I see existing businesses make is putting up a ton of listings all at once. While that strategy can work, you can have hundreds or even thousands of listings go online without any of them optimized for visibility by your customers. It usually results in confusing your customers, because you haven't examined what the current supplies and pricing is like out in the market.
4. New sellers are also prone to inadvertently making errors or violating policies -- problems that can be exacerbated when you post too many listings upfront. For example, you might not know that you can't link to your company website in the description of an item. Or, you might not have the keywords in your description related directly to the item you're trying to sell, or you're trying to sell an item that is prohibited. If you made this mistake on every listing you put up, though, and you put a lot of them up, it's going to be that much more painful. That's why it's important to start slowly with small volumes and to make sure you review the pages we have online that detail the seller policies.
5. Make your listing look professional -- it will instill a lot of confidence in your buyers, especially if you are a new seller. If you are new, you won't yet have a reputation score. But that doesn't mean people won't buy from you. The onus is on you to instill that sense of trust in the way you present your item and in how you deliver customer service. You should plan on bending over backward for your first customers, to ensure you begin building a positive reputation among buyers.
6. When I say professional, choosing a fancy format can be well and good. But what you say is more important than how you say it. There are third-party templates that are available, but they can sometimes be too busy and distract buyers from the item itself. A bad design doesn't serve you well. After doing this for 14 years, I've found that less is more. I'd advise you to focus less on formatting and more on using as much text as possible to describe the item and the service you're offering.
7. It's critical to nail down the description and title on your listings. You should especially be selective in the words you choose for your title. It should contain all the relevant keywords related to your item as well as any common terms people would use in a keyword search. Since you have only 55 characters, though, you should avoid using words like "rare" and "wonderful," because they are a waste of space. We have done studies and show that using words like those do not impress buyers because no one searches on them. But people still make the mistake. If you do a search on eBay for items containing the keyword "wow," you get 129,741 items. You get 107,000 items using the term "l@@k." You're just wasting premium space when you do this, and those three or four characters could be the difference between a buyer finding your item or not.
8. The closer you get to offering free shipping, the better chance you'll have of grabbing buyers. There has been a shift in expectations where buyers don't want to pay for shipping anymore. That's why eBay promotes the idea of free shipping, but we don't require it. If you do have to charge for shipping, make sure it's never more than the actual cost. Don't think about shipping and handling as an extra revenue stream. My advice is to find other ways to cover those costs. The psychology shows that buyers would rather buy an item that has free shipping, even if they know the cost of shipping has been built into the price.
9. If you face a lot of competition in what you sell, a key differentiator can be attaining top-rated seller status. As you develop a history and a volume of transactions over time, and if your customer ratings are consistently high, you can achieve this status -- which brings rewards like a 20 percent discount on fees and a boost in rankings on search results. That's how we promote our best-performing sellers and help make sure that the purpose of their business is more than just selling something. In the end, the key to selling on eBay is to make the commitment early on that your business is focused entirely on your customers and nothing less.
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Comments (Page 2 of 3)
I was ripped off on ebay of thousands of dollars do to a fake ebay site. When the local police tried to contact erippoff they wouldnt even respond. They didnt investigate didnt do crap. So Iam out all my money and wouldnt buy nothing off these crooks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I bought an item on Ebay but the seller never sent it. Instead he put it up for sell again after I had paid for it through Paypal. It took a while but Ebay did get the seller to refund my money. You know it like any other business, so sellers are good and so are not. I found they were supportive I the buyer.
What was once a friendly online community with many trusted sellers has become "America's rip-off." As Ebay set rule after rule and fee after fee (let's see: listing fees, monthly final value fees, Paypal fees (both of the latter two now take the FVF from the total of the sale, which includes the shipping cost, further eroding any profit margin), monthly store fees; eliminating the seller's ability to leave negative feedback for buyers and thereby putting sellers at greater risk from bad buyers; the ever-rising fees and restrictions;
If you can make a profit in that environment, then you are a Chinese seller of crappy goods. Ebay's reputation is shot. Now when you mention Ebay to people, they say they'd never shop there because everything is "junk".
Griff is a paid employee of Ebay who has been saying this line of bull for over a decade. He should be ashamed of himself.
Yep, eBay has forgotten how they reached the top of the ladder. All the little guys down here that just wanted to make a few extra bucks and clean out the basement are not worth their time anymore. They got what they wanted from us, a "NAME" in the news. The payback and thanks for it? Rip-off every dime they could on listing fees, delayed listing fees, extra fees for more pictures, higher fees for items listed in higher grossing catagories. And then they buyout PayPal and FORCE you to use only their system of payment.
Back in the day those were call "Monopoly's" and the government shut them down...well I guess we know where some of those fees are going now, don't we? For the right price in the hand of the right person, you can get anything you want in this country.
Just look up the history of the George Bush family fortune, the right money in the right hands bought them not 1, but 2 trips to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.! Heck, the Kennedy money only bought one visit to the Oval Office.
The new seller fees on the FINAL VALUE charge is outrageous, I particularly sell quite a bit over seas and shipping fees are VERY HIGH and pay pal already takes a FULL FEE on the Total Value including shipping, now Ebay is going to do the same, well, that's going to be a big mistake because now my profits are even less.
I can sell an item for $25, and it costs $19 to ship to Australia . . I can't help that, WTF!
Let's see . . Insertion Fee + Ebay Final Value Fee + Pay Pal Final Value Fee = No Real Profit
I understand why they are forcing the new FEES on us, but it's not fair for the sellers who are charging a fair shipping fee. Ebay should charge the sellers who are inflating shipping charges the extra fees . . . PERIOD!
I had this happen to me as well. They told me it was because my address on my bank account, didnt line up with my credit report address. In which I asked wtf are you doing running my credit? For selling a 35 dollar item and then retaining the money for 30 days? Until the buyer leaves feedback or they know for sure the buyer received their item...BULL---T.
Pay Pal notified me that they would be holding any funds I recieve through Pay Pal for 28 days before it would be released to me. When I called Pay Pal, (an Ebay company), they could not gve me any explanation as to the 'why' of such nonsense. Ebay and Pay Pal are over. Find yourself another venue to sell and buy from.
I have been a seller/buyer on eBay since 1998. And now after their announcement to charge fees on shipping, I am transferring all my auctions to other sites..... first to eBid.net.. eBay served me well during all these years but now it is time to transition. Please support other auction sites so eBay will have a TRUE competitor to bring them into fairer practices. Thank you for letting me vent my frustrations.
I agree, and disagree, with the criticisms of eBay and PayPal. I've been buying and selling since '98 and have watched it grow from a handful of categories to the monstrosity it is now. If nothing else, eBay taught me more about human nature in a few months of buying and selling than anything else in my whole life. First, the vast majority of people are honest and fair; second, the rest can make life miserable. You have to take great pains to prepare and arm yourself against the latter. The fees are ridiculous, especially when you add PayPal, which you MUST use (monopoly?). But there's no other venue where I can make as much money selling used designer clothing and vintage items, even with all the fees. If I were to open a shop in an area where I could get as much exposure as on eBay, the rent would be outrageously high, as well as labor costs, insurance, etc., so I'm still getting a bargain. Also, I don't have to deal with shoplifters or look at the scammers face to face. There's definitely a trade off, but for now, eBay is still the best for the junk I'm pushin'!
I buy and sell on ebay and think it's great. I sell mainly clothes my son has outgrown and make enough to buy him ones he can wear. I have only had one problem seller in the 4 years I have been using ebay. I don't think you can really make a ton of money, but enough for extra spending really helps us!
Ebay is fine except when you have a problem - then you can't get ahold of anyone and they don't care. They only care about making money. They were run by the awful Meg Whitman who spent billions trying to be governor. She was outed as a greedy, noncaring woman and lost.
They sure did want to implement the free shipping department and here is why. If you offer free shipping your resale asking price will generally be higher to cover some or all of the cost. They make lots more revenue on a higher priced item with free shipping, rather than an item that was really lowing price with a high shipping price. I think everyone should sell all their stuff for a penny and charge the retail value in shipping costs. See how long it takes em to figure that one out.
And the last time I tried to get customer service from eBay it took 20 mins and I got a representative from India. Another company selling our jobs over seas for corporate greed. I will never use EBay. I would rather support an American company that supports Americans.
"I think everyone should sell all their stuff for a penny and charge the retail value in shipping costs. See how long it takes em to figure that one out."
Hey genius.... they figured that out a while ago, and as of April 1, they will collect final value fees on shipping too.
Any other bright ideas?
Griff blows.
It all right Ebay telling us not to charge for shipping but if you build the price into the item that you are selling the Ebay hits you with Final Selling Fees on the total that you get meaning that you need to charge more again to cover the fees that you are charged on what would have been the Shipping element of the deal. All this bull is for Ebay to make more money out of the mugs who list on there! I now use Ebid the charges are ok and if you pay a lifetime fee upfront there are NO FEES AT ALL ON LISTINGS OF FINAL VALUES! Try it out!
I have been an Ebay member since 1996 and I can tell you that it no longer favors the little guy. All the points made by other posters are valid. Ebay has become a monopoly against small time sellers. Ebay charges fees on sold items and then makes customer pay the same fees on PayPal which it validates as the only method of payment and owns. they also will be charging fees on the shipping on both sites which is ridiculous because the seller cannot recoup the shipping fees which are ever rising in todays economy. They also screw sellers on selling discounts by allowing buyers to rate sellers on absurd categories such as shipping time and shipping costs which are not in a sellers control once it is shipped. All these policies are put into place by individuals to justify their jobs,titles, and probable bonuses while keeping their work visas in order and shipping the dinero back to the homeland.Ebay also favors the foreign selles more even though its an "American" company for now. If you want to sell, establish your own website and work on the SEO parameters to make it visible.
yes, as a seller, i am unahppy the way ebay tries to elicit bad feedback from buyers about sellers. Ebay tries to encourage buyers leaving lowered DSRs so sellers don't qualify for 20% reduction in fees. They even punish sellers by lowering their visibility of their items, if buyers leave bad feedback even once or twice, even if it is unwarranted. Bueyrs hold sellers hostage for refunds, etc. cuz they know sellers cannot leave neg feedback for buyers, and are hostage to buyers. It's a bit of a Nazi-bay these days. EBAY ruined the validity of the feedback system when they removed the seller's ability to leave neg feedback for bad buyers. EBAY policies have done nothing to make the site a safer place. They've simply alienated good sellers, adn forced us to also consider amazon & other e-sites sice EBAY no longer is the best selling marketplace. EBAY management & know it alls like GRiff who are far removed from an actual average seller or buyer on ebay, just add to the mass market confusion and impersonal responses that ebay has become.
BTW, when meg Whitman was running eBAY, i had no complaints. I don't know if she was greedy as in some previous posts, but she didn't screw the sellers as vigorously as the following EBAY management has. The reps that work for ebay are unknowledgeable, and clearly haven't bought or sold on ebay. I believe ebay stopped offering ebay access to customer service since the reps were totally unhelpful and offensive much of the time for those of us sellers that called. Too bad they ruined a good marketplace by adopting policies to routinely screw sellers. Shame on you Ebay
Bull hockey!