After much build up of late, finally, we can unwrap the first of our series on eBay selling…
To do this eBay special feature justice, yours truly has been engaged in some hands-on selling. Over the next few weeks, we will discover:
• what makes eBay tick,
• how small to micro-sized companies can benefit from this new channel to market,
• and how to sell profitably.
First, though, let’s look at why small to micro-sized businesses would want to use eBay.
Put simply, eBay is a massive international market-place where individuals and small companies trade millions of items each day on a local, national and global basis. The stats make impressive reading.
For instance, eBay operates in 33 countries and has 168 million registered users worldwide. eBay UK is officially the UK's largest online market place and now this country’s number one e-commerce site with three million live listings at any given time.
There are over 10 million UK users, but items listed on eBay UK are searchable across the entire eBay network. It is reported, too, that every third internet user in the UK (11 million plus) visits the ebay.co.uk site at least once a month.
According to web analysts, Nielsen / Netratings, people in the UK spend more time on eBay than on any other web site. Amazingly, eBay UK alone accounts for ten per cent of all the time UK users spend on the internet. And talking of spending, UK punters now shell out more for goods on eBay than they do going to the cinema.
With a reach far greater than any other online site or form of advertising, eBay is now arguably a market-place that business can no longer afford to ignore: a fact that is being increasingly acknowledged by many companies, even the large household names.
Traders can list items in the same way as consumers, or opt for an enhanced profile by opening an eBay shop from as little as £6 per month. Regardless of which option you go for, selling on eBay doesn’t require a huge investment. You can get by with a minimum of a digital camera to take pictures of your items and registering with eBay and a payment service provider such as PayPal or Nochex.com.
But hold on. Like selling anywhere else, you need to do your homework thoroughly in advance, especially if previously yours has only been a fleeting acquaintance with eBay.
Take time to understand how eBay works from the perspective of the buyer. Register for eBay* and spend time getting to know your way around and comprehensively familiarising yourself with its inner workings by clicking on all the links.
Home in on the categories where you would be mostly like to sell and keep a close running monitor on the goods that are for sale there. The easiest way to do this is to navigate to an item’s description and click on the Watch this item link. This places the item into your personal My eBay homepage and updates the item’s bidding history. You’ll want to establish, for example, what the going rate is for a particular item, which starting bid price is most effective at attracting bids and what type of items sell best. In short, immerse yourself in eBay and learn as much as you can.
Also highly recommended are making a few test purchases. This will do two things: give you useful exposure to the bidding, buying and fulfillment end of the process, and help earn a few vital feedback rating points into the bargain.
* Be careful over the choice of user name if you later wish to use this identity to sell as a trader. Appearing to other users as Felix Barcode may not instill much confidence.
