Want to learn to sell on eBay?

The absolute best way to become a successful eBay seller is to become a successful eBay BUYER first!

Think about it. By experiencing the auction process as a buyer, you’ll…

Learn a lot about how to make YOUR buyers happy when you start selling

Start building a positive feedback rating and your credibility as an eBayer by buying small items on eBay — ideally from potential future competitors

Scope see how your top competitors create and manage their auctions… so you can improve on their sales process to get more sales for YOU!

Of course, learning how to make money selling on eBay by buying on eBay is a bit different than shopping for a new camera. So here’s how to buy on eBay with the goal of learning to sell on eBay…

Step 1: Set up an eBay seller’s account, if you haven’t already.

Use this account to buy your items. Go to www.eBay.com/sell to sign up.

Step 2: Pay attention to the details of your shopping experience.

To start learning the ropes, pick an item you’d like to purchase (it doesn’t have to be expensive).

While you’re shopping, ask yourself the following questions:

What do you find appealing about certain auctions?

What draws your eye to a listing?

What elements of an auction persuade you to make a bid?

What information are sellers NOT including that you want to know as a buyer?

Record your impressions in a journal or computer document. Then when you’re ready to start selling in earnest, you can refer back to them — and steal all the goodies!

Step 3: Pay attention to the checkout process

Once you’ve spent some time browsing around eBay, and have found some items that you wouldn’t mind purchasing, it’s time to make a few bids. Pay attention to how the seller completes the transaction after you win the first auction. What steps does the seller take to complete the transaction?

Step 4: Leave feedback

Once you receive your item, you can leave sellers an overall positive, neutral, or negative rating, as well as anonymous Detailed Seller Ratings (or DSRs) in four areas related to a transaction.

DSRs will be crucially important for you when you start selling on eBay because they help determine how high your items get listed in the search results. They also determine whether you achieve or maintain PowerSeller status.

Consider these four DSR areas when you analyze your eBay buying experience:

Did the item meet your expectations and was it as described in the auction listing?

Did the seller email you after the auction, or did you have to contact them? What was their general communication with you like?

How long did it take for your item to arrive?

Were the shipping and handling charges fair? How did you react to the way the item was packed for shipping?

Were you pleased with the overall level of customer service?

Again, record these impressions in your notes or journal. If you were really pleased with the buying process you experienced with one particular seller, write down what they did and try to do it yourself when you start running your own auctions.

That’s it. As you can see, buying on eBay to learn to sell on eBay is a bit different than browsing as a shopper. So pay attention and use what you learned as a springboard to your selling success!

Remember, maintaining a good Detailed Seller Rating will be crucial to how well you make money selling on ebay… so it pays to learn to sell on eBay from the best.

As a buyer, you expect prompt, polite, and honest communication from any seller — so as a seller, you’ll need to develop the habits and skills that let you provide those benefits to your buyers.

Todays difficult economy has generated some changes in the formula to make money selling on eBay. In some cases eBay sellers are finding it more challenging to successfully make the sale. In other cases sellers are seeing sales growth in-spite of economy. But what are the secrets? How can some sellers achieve success on eBay while others fail? In this article I present 3 tips to make money selling on eBay by buying right.

1) Make money selling on eBay by first recognizing how informed your target buyers have become. As a group eBay buyers have always been pretty well informed. They know a great deal about the products they seek. In fact, they often know much more than the sellers. They also know the right price to pay; at least the right price for them to pay.

2) Your challenge as a seller is to conduct thorough market research before you attempt to sell. While there was a time when almost anything could be sold, that is not the case in todays marketplace. You must thoroughly research not only the market niche, but also the products youd like to sell. Fortunately the eBay site offers a wide assortment of tools to make that search much less challenging and difficult, even for the newest of sellers.

3) To make money selling on eBay requires buying the products you sell at the lowest possible prices. Many of the most successful sellers knew this fact from early in their selling careers. They invested the time and effort to locate wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors offering extremely low pricing during the better economic times. In todays marketplace you must join them. You can no longer count on luck as a way to offset bad buying. You too must do the work to locate those special suppliers offering products for pennies on the dollar.

If your plan is to make money selling on eBay in todays market environment, focus on locating quality suppliers who will reliably provide the products you seek at low, low prices. Only then are you positioned to generate huge volumes of profitable sales. Only then will you be able to say you make money selling on eBay.

To your eBay success!

There are a few basic things that you need or need to do before you can start buying and selling on eBay or any auction.

1. Credit Card

You will need to have a Credit Card to open an account with Pay Pal which is the most acceptable, proven and safe means for payment.

Your Credit Card number will not be revealed during payment.

2. Pay Pal Account

Pay Pal is the safer and easier way to make payment without exposing your credit card or bank account number.

PayPal can be used to buy items on the Internet too and not limited to transactions on eBay. It is widely accepted globally for electronic transactions on the Internet.

For more information and opening an account, you can go to https://www.paypal.com/

3. eBay Account

You can opened an account in your our country as eBay has a few sites like eBay France, eBay Germany, eBay Australia, eBay Singapore, eBay India, eBay Malaysia, eBay Philippines, and so on.

Just fill up the form shown on your PC screen and provide the relevant details required.

For more information and registration, you can go to http://www.ebay.com/

4. Digital Camera (Optional but Recommended)

You should take good photos of items that you are selling as this will enable the Buyers to see what they are buying.

You will have some advantage over those Sellers that do not have photos of similar items on sale.

It is very simple to upload digital photos or images but please remember to re-size them as you do not need a big or very high resolution image for Web.

An entry-level digital camera should be able to get you reasonable digital images required.

5. Items to Sell

Finally, you just need to look around your home for used items that are no longer used but occupying storage space.

As the item has to be sent by post, it has to be of reasonable size and not items like an old chair or 14 portable TV otherwise the delivery cost would be very high.

I would like to suggest that before you post any items for sale, it would be wise to look at similar items that are being auctioned and see how the Sellers do their postings; e.g. how photos are taken from different angles, how an item is thoroughly described.

In fact, you should look for a cheap item that cost only a few dollars and you should have a go at bidding for it. This is to give you a feel of the whole transaction from bidding to settlement to receipt of the item. This experience will benefit you when you start selling your items.

So what are you waiting for?

Go and buy your first item and then make your first sale!