What Should I sell on eBay? Nintendo Products!

Everyone is always looking for something new to sell on eBay. Well, have you considered used electronics or video games. There is a good market out there for used video games for systems like the Nintendo SNES, Nintendo 64 and others. Today I am going to focus on buying and selling Nintendo 64 related products.

The best way to know what to buy and to sell is to do some research. I recommend looking at the finished auctions. Here is the search that I use to find the highest selling used Nintendo 64 games.

You will see that these are some games you should pick up right away if you see them:

• Banjo Tooie
• Conker's Bad Fur Day
• Harvest Moon
• Killer Instinct Gold
• Mario Kart
• Mario Party
• Mario Party II
• Mario Party III
• Mario Tennis
• Mystical Ninja
• Paper Mario
• Super Mario 64
• Super Smash Brothers

These games all resell for at least $15.00 a piece. Some up to $30.00, and they can commonly be purchased at garage sales for as little as $2-$5. This is a good way to pad your income.

If you want to go more in depth with the Nintendo 64 venture, I recommend you compile a list of all of the Nintendo 64 games selling on eBay, and look them up on Hammertap. They have a free trial, and you can see the average selling price, and sell through ratio for any item on eBay. It is a great tool to research what sells on eBay.

After you have a list of what sells and how much, you can stop depending on chance to find the random mario game at a garage sale, and start looking to other sources. If you know what sells, and for how much, you can make informed buying decisions. Look at craigslist.com to see if anyone is selling a Nintendo 64 bundle in your area. The 64 and controllers themselves sell for about $30.00 Add a couple of good games, and it could be a profitable venture.

Also, if you are feeling really on top of your game, you can buy bundles of Systems and games on eBay. Every day someone is cleaning out their kids closet and selling bundles of games and systems on eBay, when they could make a much larger profit selling the items individually. This is where you come in. Buy the complete package, and split it up, and resell each item to make some good money. There are quite a few sellers who do this, sharkkisser, ryleys, datsunfamily, to name three.

To see how these sellers get their products to resell, look at the feedback they receive as buyers. They all buy Used Nintendo 64 lots and resell them at a profit. Some of them have become Power Sellers just buying packages and splitting them up to resell on eBay.

You can do this! It is not that difficult, it just takes some homework, and a little bit of start up capital. I can't emphasize enough how helpful Hammertap is for the important research you need to do about these market trends!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I will be here to tell you how to sell more niche products soon!

How to Increase eBay Store Sales with Markdown Manager

If you have an eBay Store, or are thinking about getting one, it is time to consider one of eBay's most effective marketing tools. The markdown manager! This is a great free tool that has increased my eBay Store Sales.

Everybody loves a sale, and markdown manager lets you offer a sale of up to 75% off for a maximum of 45 days. Though, I do not recommend that you use the 75% off sale unless you really need to clear out some inventory.

As noted above, these sales would be great to clear out unwanted inventory. They are also great for seasonal promotions. You could have a back to school sale, day after thanksgiving sale, labor day sale, etc... Check your news paper, listen to the radio, these mediums are time tested for presenting sales to the public. If some big box store is having an event sale, you could certainly have one too.

To get the full effect out of the markdown manager, I can recommend some tips and tricks to really get your store sales up.

1. If you are running all store items, put up some regular auctions of similar items to draw customers to your store. If they do not get to your store, they will never be enticed by the sale.
2. To make sure more bidders see that you have a sale running it is good to add this "sale " link to the right. To add this link to all of your listing takes a couple of steps, but it is worth it to draw attention to your items. Go to: My Ebay --> Marketing Tools --> Listing Frame --> Then check the 'Link to "Items On Sale" box. To see what this looks like in the listings you can check out my store, as I am currently running a sale.
3. Also, be sure that your add copy at the very least commands your bidders to look at your other items, and ideally, tells them to check out your hot sale
4. The next trick is to entice buyers with a sale, but to also make the amount of money you want. A good way to do this is to increase the prices of your store items by about the same amount as the percentage you are going to take off for the sale. For example, let's imagine we are selling a widget, and we want $12.00 for it. What you need to do is raise the price to $15.00 and then have a 20% off sale. This would bring the item back down to the price you want for it, but also make it look like the bidder is saving a whopping $3.00.
   

Please leave a comment and let me know how markdown manager has effected your sales.

How to Cheaply and Safely Ship Clothing.

When I first started shipping clothing on eBay I waisted a lot of money on shipping products. I did this because I was unaware that the USPS was just giving envelopes, labels, and stickers away for free.

I would buy tyvek bags for about .45 cents a bag, at the local office depot. This was a big mistake. Office depot is expensive! Now I do all of my shopping at USPS.com in the Priority section. The items are free and they ship them to your door. The items that make shipping for eBay a lot easier are: both of the flat rate boxes, flat rate envelopes, rolls of priority mail stickers, and tyvek envelopes.

I can ship a very large pair of jeans in one flat rate envelope, and sometimes two pairs of dress pants! This is great because it only costs 4.60 to ship. Cutting shipping costs will make your eBay experience a lot better. It could either make it so you can charge a bit for handling and not gouge your bidders. This way you can make a little bit extra per eBay transaction, and also have more interest in your auctions because of your reasonable shipping costs.

Here is my technique for safely packaging a pair of jeans into a flat rate envelope:

1. Fold the jeans into quarters or fifths, but make sure it is small enough so that when you put them in the tyvek envelope, that the envelope can double over on itself. The tyvek envelope is to protect from tearing that cardboard can not withstand. Also they are slightly weatherproof. Some sellers put their pants in plastic baggies as well as tyvek to further protect them from the elements (I do not).
2. Put your label on the cardboard flat rate envelope now, if you wait for later it will look very ugly.
   
3. After you have a nice little tyvek package, maneuver it into the cardboard flat rate envelope. This can sometimes be tricky, watch out for paper cuts.
4. Make sure the pants are in the very bottom of the cardboard envelope and then attempt close the envelope. It is easiest to close the envelope on a table, not in your lap.
5. Once the envelope is closed, put USPS priority mail stickers over the corners to make sure they do not catch on anything.
6. Put a piece of packaging tape over the seal, to make sure your package does not rip open. Maybe also put another piece of packaging tape over the addresses so that they are protected from the elements and do not watch off.
7. Rinse and repeat.

If you get anything from this post let it be: Get as much free stuff from the USPS as you can possibly use. Instead of waisting money on envelopes, maybe buy some tissue paper to make your items look fancy. Or cut the costs completely and watch your profits from ebay grow!

Good luck out there.

The Importance of Good Feedback

When buying and selling on a community like Ebay Good Feedback is crucial! If the first thing you do on Ebay is start selling, you will make far less money until you get your feedback rating up. This is because Ebay is synonymous with scams. There is no way to prove that the Apple Ipod you are selling is real, or you just used stock photos, other than to see how satisfied other people have been with your transactions. Good feedback creates trust in the community, and the higher your feedback, the better your auctions will sell.

The place where the lack of feedback is not such a big problem is when you are selling low cost items, or when you are bidding on other peoples auctions. Few sellers will turn away bids on their auctions because they want a bidding war, and you can't have a bidding war with only one bidder.

So, the best way to get good feedback is to start buying on Ebay. Buying on Ebay will also help you familiarize yourself with how auctions work, and how other sellers act. If you do buy to build up your feedback, try to buy from Power Sellers, or people with a lot of feedback ratings. Then you can not only get good feedback, but you can also learn to see what they do as far as customer service goes.

When buying, make sure to be very prompt with your payment, as this is the goal and the only real thing sellers care about (besides customer complaints). And the faster you are, the better your feedback should be.

Also, do not hesitate to ask for feedback in your emails. As a seller I do not give good feedback until I receive it, so if you are pleased with your item, give the seller feedback, and then ask for some in return.

Another way to get good feedback, and make a little money at the same time is to sell low cost items. Items where there is little chance or reason you would try to scam someone. Though you will not sell as many items at first, and your final bids might not bring you as much money as you would like, this is still a good way to start getting feedback.

I would not consider selling anything that was worth more than $24.99 until I had a good 10 or 15 positive feedbacks. And make sure they are good ones, not mediocre saying things like "item arrived, and is nice," but something like "A++ Ebay Superhero, Best Seller Ever! I want to buy more!" That might be too many characters, but you get the idea.

After you get about 100 positive feedback people tend to stop reading them before they bid, and you will notice an increase in percentage of sales as well as an increase in the final bid.

Remember that when you are selling, not just while you are starting out but through the duration of your Ebay career, you should strive to be as accommodating as possible. The customer is always right, and if you want your feedback to stay positive you should try to do as much as you can for them. Quickly respond to questions, ship with care, refund when necessary.

If you buy something from me, I will give you great feedback! Check out the top right of the sidebar, for what I am selling now!

Tips to Save Money Listing Your Ebay Auctions

When you start to post several ebay auctions a day, your fees begin to mount. However, there are some things you can do to save some of your money from FeEbay.
The best thing you can do is to start your auction for .99 cents or less with no reserve. The reasoning behind this is that not only does it only cost .20 cents to list each auction below $1.00, but also the lower the price is the more tempting it is to buyers. Ebay sellers everywhere seem to agree that you make more money starting your bids low.

However, this way of saving money should be further looked into.
Let's imagine that you create 10 Ebay auctions a day, and you start them at .99 cents.
The Ebay fee structure works so that items starting .99 cents or below cost only .20 cents to post.
Thus your 10 auctions a day cost $2.00 a day to post, and $60.00 a month. You can see how Ebay fees add up.

Now, if you start your auction for $1.00, instead of .99, as many people do this will cost you an extra .20 cents an auction. That is an extra $60.00 a month you are just throwing away. That idea kind of makes me want to vomit. It is no wonder how Ebay makes so much money.

Here is a breakdown of how each extra cent will save you money.
.01-.99 = .20 to list -->
1.00 - 9.99 = .40 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of .20
10.00 - 24.99 = .60 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of .20
25.00 - 49.99 = 1.20 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of .60
50.00 - 199.99 = 2.40 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of 1.20
200.00 - 499.99 = 3.60 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of 1.20
500.00+ = 4.80 to list --> .01 extra is a waste of 1.20

The thing that blows my mind, and I hope you become aware of, is that even though it is a difference of .01, people are still posting things for $50.00 If you started 10 auctions a day for a month at this price you would be literally throwing away $360.00 a month.

This is not just a mistake made by beginners either, Powersellers are doing this too! It hurts me to look at them. But you need to learn from their mistakes! Look at this Auction house, for example: clarsauction.
This was just a random sample that I found, but it illustrates my point so well. Clarsauction is starting all of their bids at $10, $20, $25, $50, $100, $200... increments. And at this moment clarsauction has 1082 auctions running.

Here is the breakdown:
10 auctions starting at $10.00 --> loss of $2.00
148 auctions starting at $25.00 --> loss of $88.80
215 auctions starting at $50.00 --> loss of $177.60
67 auctions starting at $200 --> loss of $80.40
26 auctions starting at $500 --> loss of 31.20
Total auctions starting at a bad price = 466 (43% of total auctions)
Total amount of money thrown away in 10 days = $380.00

That is right, this auction house is throwing away $380.00 just to have their auctions start at a round number. Sure, as a brick and mortar auction house, they are making tons of money, 20% commission for up to $70,000, but the amount of money they throw away could pay for the person that posts their auctions. I would fire them! This is 466 10 day auctions. These people are throwing away more money in 10 days than most Ebay sellers make in a month.

I hope that I made it painfully obvious how this one little tip can help you save money on listing all of your Ebay auctions.

Please let me know of any other horror stories like this.

How to Write an Ebay Auction Description that Sells

Writing A Title
Nobody will look at your auction description if they can not find it. The first thing you have to do is write a good title. I wrote pretty extensively about this on a previous post, it is called Writing Good Auction Titles. The basics are:

• Be as descriptive as you can
  
• Lead with Brand Name first, then other specifics. Many people just type "Women's Jeans 8" and the Brand name first will set it apart from the other titles. Also, I like to CAPS the brand name, "GAP Women's Denim Jeans Size 8 NWT"
  
• Don't spam keywords that are similar to your item, and don't use "L@@K," this is a waste of precious space, and nobody searches for "L@@K." If they do, you do not want their bids!

Item Specifics
Make sure you provide Item Specifics, many people use the sidebar to help narrow down their searches, and these are narrowed down by the "Item Specifics." You can add these above the "Description" box in the Sell your item page. For clothing Item Specifics would be things such as Style, Size Type, Size, Color, Condition. Try to fill in as many of these as possible, if you can not figure them out, look to auctions similar to yours and see what they write.

Item Description
This is probably the most important part! It is important to write as thorough of a description as you possibly can. Try to imagine what the bidders might ask you, and write it down! This will save you a lot of time in not having to answer questions, and also make you look more trustworthy. Add as much information to your auction description as you can, this is the internet, there is no space limitation! When selling pants I provide something like this:

• Brand: Gap
  
• Style: Boot Cut Jeans
• Material: Denim/100%Cotton
• Color: Dark Indigo
• Size: 8
• Waist: "32
• Inseam: "30
• Rise: "8
• Condition: New With Tags

Actually, this is the basic format I provide on my clothing auction descriptions as well. Whatever you sell though, you should note anything any of the tags say, things like Model Numbers and such, as well as the dimensions. Describe it to the best of your ability. This is why we are supposed to research the things we sell, so that we can learn from others success.

After you have all of your specific information about the product it is helpful to sell your item a little more. Don't hype it up too much, but it would be fine to say something like, "These pants are so comfortable, and fit great. I am sure you will be pleased with them." It is a good thing to write your description as if you are talking to your bidder in an informal type of way. Also, saying things like "I am sure you will be pleased" inspires confidence in the bidder.

When writing your auction description it is a good idea to say something like, "You are bidding on a..." implying that they are already committing to a transaction. It is also important to tell the bidder to "BID NOW" or something to that extent. "If you don't bid, you will never understand how comfortable these pants are!" Ask them to bid, tell them to bid, get the idea of bidding into their heads.

Another good idea is to say something like "the high bidder will own this item at the end of the auction," this is functional because it implies that once you bid you already kind of own this item. This kind of mentality induces bidding wars; if a bidder already thinks they own an item, they will not be so happy when someone "steals" it from them by bidding higher.

Ebay sellers thrive on their bidders passion!

Also, as a seller, it is your goal to not only sell the item that you are currently writing the description for, but to sell all of your items. If they are similar, there is a good chance one bidder would want to buy something else from you. You have to sell yourself. Tell bidders to check out your other auctions, tell them to look at your About Me page, tell them to add you to their favorite sellers list. Provide buttons and links for all of these in your description.

Another good way to get the same bidder to buy multiple things from you is to offer a discount on shipping multiple items. Reward your bidders for their patronage, they will appreciate it, and sometimes bid on more of your auctions!

Adding Photographs.
This demands an entire post for itself, and one is coming, but we can get you started for now. First of all, you have a description, and that is great, but if you want to make any money selling on Ebay, you will need a photo. A photo is worth a thousand bids, (well maybe several) and listings with photos end with considerably higher prices than those without. Photos enhance you description like nothing else you can do, and even if you are selling an Ebook, or something that does not exist in real life, a picture will still make it sell better.

If you are doing this as a business, you need to not rely on Ebay's photo hosting service. It is crap! It does not allow you to have a photo of any decent size, and the photo that is on your page is at the bottom of your auction's description. Also, you have to pay more for multiple photos. This is a huge waste of money, and really adds up if you do a lot of auctions a week.

Hosting your own photos is easy, the service that I am currently using is Photobucket.com It is simple to use and has a multiple upload feature which is quite easy. It also provides you with the code to add pictures to your descriptions in a very easy way. If you only do one thing this article suggest, HOST YOUR OWN PHOTOS!

Special Policies
when writing an Auction Description it is also important to specifically spell out your selling policies. What kind of payments you accept, shipping, returns, everything.

Payment Instructions: I used to accept only Paypal, as it is fastest, but now I believe that it is worth the wait for a money order, especially if the person who wants to buy with a money order drives the price of the auction up. The more payment options you offer, the more bids you will get. But don't get too wild, dealing with cash is sketchy, and against Ebay policy. Also be sure to provide a time frame for payment. I usually give them a week, but I am thinking about becoming less lenient and requiring payment within three days at the end of the auction unless they contact me asking for more time. Buyers can be lazy, and it is nice to get paid as soon as possible so you can move on to other things.

Shipping: I usually offer two different shipping options. USPS Parcel Post, as it is quite economical, and the low price attracts more bidders, and Priority, because sometimes people want to get their item fast, no matter how little they pay for it. Also, it is important to spell out how often you ship, within 24 hours of payment, in 1 business day, or 2. People depend on these guarantees. To find out which shipping provider is right for you, check out this article: Comparing USPS UPS and FedEX Shipping Fees. Also, make sure you have a tracking number, even if you don't provide it. This can save you from scamers later in the game.

Return Policy:
It is a good idea to have a return policy. It inspires a lot of confidence in your bidders if they can return their item if it is defective. A good disclaimer I like to throw into the description is that they can return their item if it is not as described, though others prefer a policy where they accept all returns no matter what. If you have a lot of similar items, it is a good idea to do a return as an exchange, though if you sell many different things, a return might be better as cash back.

Please let me know if you have any more tips, or if any of these ideas have worked for you.

What to sell on Ebay and Where to Get it

First of all, sell what you have. Go through your house and take items that you think might be valuable and look them up on Ebay. It is more effective to do an advanced search and click the completed listings box, this will allow you to see all of the completed listings for your search criteria in the last 15 days.

After you have made some sort of pile of items you would like to get rid of, and researched them, there is a good chance that some won't be worth selling. But going through this process will give you good practice with Ebay and a basic idea of what actually sells and what does not.

Once you have sold all of the things in your house: used clothing, DVDs, books, electronics, Christmas gifts you never returned, weird glass bottles, skiing equipment, etc… it is time for you to start looking elsewhere for products.

This is the part where you start selling what you know, or what you are interested in. For example, I was lucky enough to befriend an Ebay seller who makes her own all natural home-made soap. Now, she has a great product of which she fully understands the intricacies. She sells bars of soap as a business at farmers markets and on her website, but she also extends her selling potential by creating auctions on Ebay for her oddly shaped and extra bars. Her seller name is Sacred Organics. She sells what she knows and does a fair job of it.

She also introduced me to expanding horizontally by selling several different types of products. For example she also sells used clothing to supplement her business’s income. You can sell anything you put time into learning about, be it related to your other auctions, or not.

There is another important lesson to learn in the selling of used clothing, and that is to sell something with name recognition. For example, while searching through piles of clothing looking for something to sell it would be a good idea to pick a pair of Gap or Old Navy Jeans, because the companies have tons of TV commercials and advertise like crazy to have recognizable name brands. It would not be a good idea to pick a pair of Costco’s Kirkland Jeans, something that nobody really wants to buy second hand, as it is not trendy, or well advertised.

When finding items to sell, make your job easy by selling something that is popular and has name brand recognition.

Now that you have an idea about what you want to sell, and you have researched how this thing sells on the completed listings, you just have to find products. There are a lot of different places to look, and the reason you did your research was so that when you are out in the field scouting for products you know which items are popular and the price you will be able to resell them.

It would be helpful to get a journal to keep ideas of what you want to sell, and prices these things have sold for on Ebay.

Places to start looking:

• Estate Sales – be early!
  
• Garage Sales – be early!
  
• Church and Rummage sales – be early!
  
• Goodwill and other places that sell used goods
  
• Physical Auctions As well as Goodwill Auctions
  
• Craig’s List
  
• Freecycle – upon signing up you will receive a lot of spam in your email, but there is often good stuff to find that you only have to drive to pick up.
  
• Antique Shops
• Wholesalers and Overstock Liquidation - I will go in future posts
  

This should get you started with knowing what to sell and where to find it. But you should also tell your friends and co-workers that you now sell goods on Ebay. I have received boxes of books, and pairs of new J.Crew pants from friends who just wanted to get rid of their stuff but did not have a reason to donate it.

Good luck hunting, there are people out there waiting to buy what you have to sell!