eBay: how to sell 3

Perfecting your sales pitch is as important on eBay as anywhere else buyers and customers interact. Getting it right first time and being easy to do business with are crucial if your new sales channel on the auction web site is to be a success.

For most small to micro-sized businesses venturing onto eBay is virgin territory. So what can we do to maximise our chances?

As obvious as it may sound, do your homework thoroughly first. What are you going to sell? How much do you need to make on each item to make it worthwhile? How much is the postage and packaging for each kind of item? Do you need to include insurance? Do you restrict sales to the UK or sell further afield? What kind of payments are you prepared to take? Are you geared up for processing eBay sales and getting the goods out the door?

These are all Square One questions that need to be answered and worked out beforehand.

Assuming satisfactory resolution of all the issues above, it’s time to get out that digital camera.

An auction item accompanied by a good image that’s sharp and well-lit sells infinitely better than an identical listing with a poor image or none at all. Take a fair amount of care when setting up and framing your shot. With a large number of different items, it’s useful to have an area set aside for the task. Find somewhere with natural light and no strong shadows. Create a ‘set’ that’s uncluttered with a plain non-reflective background. Work at a comfortable height somewhere unobstructed so you can concentrate on taking your image without having to dodge around chairs, cables and other office equipment.

Up close

Get in close to your subject. Most digital cameras nowadays have a macro-setting for close up work. The downside is that this usually requires flash to properly illuminate the image. Being so close to the subject however, the flash tends to be a shade brutal. To knock the harshness off your flash, here’s a good tip. Sellotape a small piece of white tissue paper or even A4 printer paper over the flash; you’ll be amazed at the difference. The paper tones down the flash intensity, cutting the hard light effect normally experienced at close range.

Next, download the images onto your computer in the usual way. Before you upload an image onto the web, open it in a graphics programme first. For our eBay selling purposes, we don’t want to waste pixels on anything extraneous. Crop the image tight, getting rid of everything that’s not essentially to the plot. As far as possible, you want your item to occupy the entire frame top to bottom and side to side. (It’s amazing, though, to see the number of auction items that are lumbered with images where the sale item is drowned in a superfluous background and so small as to be barely recognisable.)

You may also wish to fiddle about with the other on-board enhancement tools such as contrast, brightness, levels and sharpness too. When happy, save these changes. The image, most likely, is still ginormous where the web is concerned, so look for the resize option from the menu. Ideally, a web image should be saved at 72 dpi and have a file size of no more than 50k. For eBay, from what I’ve gleaned, the optimum size is an image height of 400 pixels.

Some software has a Save for the web option under File, use this or look for an optimization control that will do much the same thing. Do not be tempted to manually resize an image simply by clicking and dragging on a handle, this distorts perspective and could make the item look decidedly odd.

David Bailey stuff out of the way, the item descriptions should be next on the agenda.

Make item descriptions as clear as possible, leaving little margin for any possible confusion over what is for sale. Strive for accuracy, describing the item’s condition, function and other relevant information to help potential buyer’s make up their minds.

Record straightening

If an item has a slight dent that’s barely noticeable, be sure to mention this upfront to save grief later on. Be honest and as straight-forward as possible in item descriptions, misleading text will be negatively reflected in the feedback you receive from buyers. In situations where you know there are common confusions with a particular good be sure to highlight this to get the record straight and head off unnecessary email questions from site visitors.

Bland sales pitch, too, is unlikely to inspire bids, so get in some context. Explain how, where and when the item is used in order to illustrate why people need your goods. By way of example, here are a couple of descriptions I penned for ultimately successful auctions. (See eBay selling #2 for enlightenment on my selling experiment)

“You are bidding on a Hella spotlight warning light. I haven't been able to test this item as the spots were removed when I bought the car. Having said that, there doesn't appear to be too much to go wrong, just a bulb and two terminals at the back. Could make an interesting period feature for your classic Saab 900's dashboard.” …

“Fill that gaping hole in your classic Saab 900 dashboard with this replacement cigarette lighter. As you can see, the graphic is starting to break up. (However, it's probably quite feasible to touch it up if you're a complete anorak.) The business end of the lighter is in good condition, with no rust other than at the very centre.
“Bring your dash back to original spec with this push in lighter for those times when you're not charging your moby or plugging in other battery-draining devices.” …

“You are bidding on two small but essential pieces of plastic – the inserts on the leading edge of a classic Saab 900 bonnet.
“Missing or broken inserts cause the bonnet to bulge at the side of the wings. Symptoms usually include the bonnet being difficult to close and/or suddenly springing open onto the safety catch.
“The inserts are located on the underside adjacent the bonnet rear guide pin and roller. You can just about make them out in a picture in the bodywork and fittings chapter of the Saab 90, 99, 900 Haynes manual. These inserts are used but still in serviceable condition.”

A bit of patter and colour goes a long way…

Next time: eBay admin, uploading your listing and more top selling tips