Make Money on eBay by Knowing the System

© by Tony Blacker; all rights reserved

"How do you make money on eBay?" Over the past five years, I've been asked that question a lot. I have two answers, depending on how much time I have at the moment I am asked. The first answer is "work hard, know the system, and get lucky." The second is purely an expansion of this sentiment, but I feel it may help a large number of users out there. It's partly from my own experience on eBay, and partly from the knowledge that others have been kind enough to share with me.....

Okay, we all know about working hard, and the reason most people head to the promised land hoping to make money on eBay is to get away from the hard graft of wage slave jobs. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but to get anywhere in any industry, there is always going to be a good measure of hard work involved.

At least when you make money on eBay, you choose how long, when, and where you put the effort in. Like most things, the hardest bit is the planning, and if you get this right, the rest will be much easier.

In planning your attack on fortress eBay, the very highest item on your priority list must be getting to know the eBay system - work with it and you will chuckle all the way to your bank; work against it (or worse still ignore it) and you will spend a lot of money in eBay fees without getting very much in return.

eBay spends loads and loads of money every month on getting new people to join the ranks of sellers, and once they have you hooked, then try to pounce on your hard earned cash. One way you can make money on eBay is by figuring out what their incentives for new sellers are, and keep using them - over and over and over.

As a prime example, roughly six times a year, eBay will have a free listing day. They only let you know about it 36 hours beforehand, so big sellers don't exploit it. However, now that you know they are going to do this, why not prepare batch listings for all your stock items?

If you use TurboLister, put all of your basic items into a file, and at midnight when the free listing day starts (check you are working on the same clock as eBay to avoid any nasty bills), click "upload". Go to bed, and when you wake up you will have a massive set of listings, and it has cost you zip.

Last time we did this, we got 27,000 listings up. Okay, only 250 of them sold which is normally a rubbish ratio, but the knock on effect with all those people who now know you exist is unbelievable - in one week we had over 150,000 page views - that's 150,000 people who had some kind of interest in our goods and company, which is exposure you cannot buy!

Remember that eBay also likes to cross promote within its sub-companies, so if you accept PayPal, you will find there are also seller incentive days for selling with this payment method. This is another technique you can add to your arsenal to make money on eBay.

Operate within eBay's rules for sellers regarding getting people to visit your website. Although eBay permits you to place a link to your off-eBay website only on your "About Me" page, you can offer auction-related information in your "About Me" to encourage visits to that page from your auction listings; when visitors arrive there, they are likely to also travel to your off-eBay site via your link.

Then on your off-eBay site, you may offer a freebie, sale, or newsletter available to all your site's visitors that they may sign up for using their email address. In this signup, be sure to obtain your visitors' permission to contact them in the future regarding sales or information about your products so you can't be accused of spamming them. A few days later send them a little freebie with a reminder of your site address.

You can also include a link to your off-eBay website in your signature line of the emails you use to communicate with your buyers about their auctions.

All these things are quick, fairly cheap and easy, but will build "consumer loyalty" - why pay eBay around 10% of your sale for a one trip pony - much better to get the customer trading with you direct next time....?

However, do be very careful about your approach and always operate within eBay's seller rules - never directly mention future purchases or buying from your site in case the customer complains to eBay (who WILL throw you off their site for trying to cut them out!).

Our experience was that the largest expenditure on eBay wasn't the listing and completion fees for your sales, but those little listing fee amounts for items that don't sell. Keep a VERY close eye on them before they spiral out of control and out of your reach. You can't make money on eBay if the listing costs of your unsold items exceed the profits from your sales.

Try tweaking your listings and titles to see what turns a failed listing into a succesful one.

Sorry this doesn't cover everything (by a very long way), but I have tried to give an insight into the difference between a costly adventure into online auctions, and a succesful business making money on eBay.

The last ingredient you need is one I cannot prepare you for or advise you on: Luck! The public have unpredictable habits, and the public on eBay are less predictable than most - you will sell things you never expected, while things you thought would fly off the shelves won't get a single bid!

So good luck, and happy eBaying!!

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