Last month, I finally took the plunge into eBay selling and listed an item for sale. It wasn’t a huge item – I listed a spare digital pocket camcorder I had in the office. The process of listing my item on eBay was simple enough. I used the eBay mobile app on my iPad to fill in some details, take a picture and list the camcorder. I then sat back and waited.
After a few days, I began to worry since my item hadn’t received any bids. But, I decided that I had nothing to lose and would just relist it with some changes if it didn’t sell. The eBay team informed us that most items don’t see any bids until the last day anyway, so that calmed my concerns.
Sure enough, the last night my listing was live, it received a few bids and sold for almost $4 over the listing price! Even though it was a small transaction, it was pretty exciting to see my item sold. My daughter now wants to see if she can sell something and even my husband has joined the bandwagon and has pointed out a couple of items in our house we can try selling.
Lessons Learned from Selling on eBay
Through my first experience selling on eBay I learned a few things:
- Don’t hesitate. Go ahead and list an item you no longer need and see how it does. You really have nothing to lose since you pay no eBay fees if it doesn’t sell.
- Be patient. Many people wait until the last day (or even last few hours) of a listing to place their bid. This is mainly to avoid being outbid.
- Small items sell too! My digital camcorder that sold was a generic brand, not very expensive, and without many features. And yet, it sold!
- Be prompt. After my item sold, I went to the post office the next day to weigh it so I could have an accurate shipping cost. Once my buyer paid, I shipped out the item the next day as well.
Of course, there are many tricks and tips for selling on eBay out there and more experienced sellers have a lot more advice. But, these are just a few quick lessons I learned after selling my first item.
Look around your house. What do you have that you can sell on eBay? List it today!
Disclosure: ModernMami.com is a member of the eBay Parent Panel, a compensated program.
Photo: Nelson de Witt
Congrats! Also it’s good to get your item weight before you list, then you will probably get more bids as people sometimes are afraid to bid when they don’t know the final fees up front. If you sell a lot, you can buy a postal scale off of ebay for not too much and then print out your postage at home, awesome!