Tips to a Friend

I haven't posted in awhile so I thought I would just cut and paste a question and response from a friend.

How are you? I know you do ebay...I never win my bid. I am new at this. Help! I tried to sell a really nice coach pink bag, I bought because I thought it was the same one I had,it is huge. I am bidding on a few things now but need need help. Thanks

Oh, that's a few good hours to tell you how to sell things. So many people ask me I started a blog but I haven't really done enough work on it to recommend it yet.
One thing is for sure - people do not buy expensive items that have a lot of fakes from buyers with low feedback (ie designer purses). So if your fdbk is under 100 or even under 500-1000 for Coach, you will either not be able to sell your item or get a much lower bid than an established seller. Plus there is the whole marketing aspect. There are tens of thousands of purses being sold with Coach as possibly the most popular. For buyers to pull up your item when they are searching requires knowledge in online marketing. The key is the title being used specifically for search words. Forget 'pretty, LOOK, and, with' and don't use commas, apostraphes or other punctuation. For a purse you want to use all the words people call them: shouder bag handbag purse and then the type: Tote, Hobo, Clutch. For newer Coach you would include the style # in the title. Use all of the spaces provided. Don't worry if the title doesn't make sense. It does not have to read like a sentance. There are certain words that the abbreviations will pull up the item even when someone searchs uses the full word - like VTG for vintage but only in a vintage category. This helps you squeeze in a few more words.
There are a lot of tips and tricks. There are others things like timing, placement, start prices, shipping costs and that is just to get them to look. Then your description and pictures have to convince them to buy. Check out my Coach bag I have listed as an example of description for that type of item. It is much more detailed then when I am selling a tank top. I have one listed that I really want to keep so it is over priced. If I sell it for that price fine, otherwise I want to keep it. However, you can get some ideas regarding pics, title and description.
You need to start by selling low-priced items that are easy for you to ship. Used clothes are the best to start. Forget children's clothes. It is hard to even get a $1 and you end up paying more in fees when you include the ones that don't sell so you lose money. The best option for children's clothes is to do a lot of all one size and gender. You still won't get much but it controls the fees from selling them individually. You can build up your feedback which increases buyer's trust and also gain the knowledge needed before selling things with a lot of competition, expensive items, items you are not as familiar with compared to other sellers (vintage, antiques, jewelry)and items hard to ship which often leads to under quoting shipping costs and losing money.

As far as buying.. bidding as soon as you see an item is a newbie mistake. You can watch the item. But for me I always forget to go back and place a bid before it closes. If I am buying a book or shipping supplies it is not an issue and I just use the Buy it Now or place the maximum bid I want to pay. However, if I am buying a Coach bag or a pair of $200 jeans, I don't want to get in a bidding war. In these cases, I prefer to use a bidding service that will place my bid just before closing. You can usually use the service a few times for free. Here is one: http://www.auctionsniper.com/

Well, I could go on and on.