Reasons People Fail on eBay and How to Avoid It
By Ron Chubb
This article is about eBay and how to profit more on auction marketplaces. eBay has
become a huge way to make money over the past 11 or so years. The problem is lots of
people start selling items on eBay looking to make a lot of money right from the start.
This couldn't be further from what will surely happen to you at first. Everyone does
crappy when they just start out with NO feedback rating and NO reputation. You need to
develop a reputation and good feedback rating in order for anyone to buy from you. Once
you develop some sure-fire ways to get a good reputation as a seller, you will then be on
your way to making the big money.
People tend to trust sellers that have a lot of sales and a good feedback rating (95
percent or better). Your feedback rating doesn't have to be perfect, but it doesn't
hurt if it is perfect either. Don't stride to always have a perfect feedback rating.
Believe me, after a few thousand transactions you will have at least 1 or 2 negative
pieces of feedback, it happens. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try your best to
make everyone happy. I know, it's not fair that most people won't trust a new seller,
but that's the way it is....
First things first; make sure you are nice to EVERYONE! Even people just asking a
stupid question, be nice. Even if the answer to your question is already in your auction,
be nice. Most people, for some reason, tend not to read the whole auction listing anyway.
Answer each question seriously and professionally. Terrible customer service is the one
key reason most people fail on eBay. Learn this and adjust to it if you think you may have
terrible customer service. Just be nice! This will start you on your road to a good
reputation and feedback on eBay.
After you learn some customer service you are ready to learn the most common problems
known to eBay and reason why people fail. Top five on the list is poor grammar / miss-spelling
/ mistakes or over / under capitalization. That's right, as simple as this sounds,
it's very true. Most potential buyers will not buy from an auction like this. They figure
if you can't spell or speak properly; who's to say you can make the transaction go
smoothly or not?
I have even seen the titles of auctions miss-spelled. This is a huge no-no. Your
auction title is the most important part, as most people search for items by name. If you
miss-spell the product in your auction title people won't find your auction listing. Use
spell-check! It's free and well worth using. A double check never hurts and usually
catches the mistakes as well.
Another common way people fail on eBay is; listing in the wrong category. Make sure you
are listing the item in the right category. Some people look for items by category. If
your product isn't there then people looking for a product by category won't find your
product. Thus, another reason why people won't look at or buy your product. And you will
be on your road to help contribute to you failing on eBay.
You can fix this by searching for the same product by name. Then, since some items can
be listed in more than one category; look at a few of those items and get a majority vote
of what category will be best for your product to be listed in. You can also list your
item in two of the most used categories you found for that product in your research. It
costs a small listing fee and can help your auction get found a lot more! Just be aware
that some items cannot be listed in more than one category.
Setting a reserve price is another reason people fail on eBay. There is no need to set
a reserve price. Just start your starting bid off at the price you want for it and still
make profit. Anything else is just more money in your pocket. Reserve prices just scare
away potential buyers. They can't see what the reserve price is set for, so they get
discouraged and go to someone else auction, without a reserve price. Don't use reserve
prices if you are looking to run a business on eBay.
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