How to win at eBay

[Chuckle]

Winning at eBay

 

In this guide I will be teaching how to turn over £12k+/18k$ per month.
Proggys can be found at the bottom 
 
This is not a easy task and does take a little time and effort to complete, but I will break it up into easy bite size chunks. 
 
Part 1 Getting started

Starting Requirements

Equipment 

A lot of this equipment is not 100% necessary when starting off,
but it will make you much more efficient. making it much easier to expand and get bigger.

• Brother QL-720NW (label printer)
• Brother HL-L2340LW (Wifi mono printer)
• Large roll of bubble wrap (large)
• Large roll of bubble wrap (small)
• 1000 large postal bags (these are expensive if you don't buy 1000+ at a time, at 1000 they are £0.04/0.07$)
• Brown parcel tape
• clear office tape & dispenser 
• 1000+ return address labels (*)
• a good scissors
• Lots or large letter stamps (UK only)

I strongly suggest stocking up on postage and packaging supplies,
If you ever run out and are unable to do your post for even a few days it could ruin your seller rating and have a very bad effect on your eBay business 
 
I will update this with pricing and quotes to make it easy to see the start up costs. Although most of these items can be bought as the business grows
 

Others

These things can be built up over time, but you will need a basic one to get you started

• Auctiva account for auto listing on ebay
• eBay account with raised selling limits (ill explain this in day to day section)
• Verified business paypal account with unlimited/lifted receive limits.
• A VIP (wholesale) account on DHGate
• myhermes & yodel accounts (UK)

 
Part 2 Day to Day running. (not finished yet, will update tonight)

Finding your products

Finding your products is a very difficult process of trail and error. 
In the early stages you should be looking for some pretty cheap solid items that will get you alot of good feedback to build up your ebay
once you are getting solid Feedback's in you can try more risky high profit items. 
 
Some brilliant starting items are listed below

• SD Cards (genuine)
• USB sticks (genuine)
• PowerBanks (2600 & 5200 mah are the best starters)
• phone covers
• phone accessories 
• phone parts

These items are low profit you will only make 1-5$ on each sale, but it is very important to have a solid base to keep your rating above 98% 
 
my SD pile

 
Some key things to take into consideration. 

• Check postage prices in your local area
• Avoid counterfeit products 
• Build up stock
• Check your local eBay for other ebayers selling the items, and make sure they have 10+ bids on some of them (this proves a demand)

The two main places to get products are DHgate.com & Alibaba... personally I have found a lot of scammers and fakes on Alibaba so I stick to DHgate, its much safer and way better...
 
at the start you will be stuck paying the displayed prices. but once you start ordering large amounts you can knock about 40% off the display prices. increasing your profits massively. 

Dealing with customers 

 

This is a massive part of running a successful eBay shop, It is possibily the most important thing if you want to run a shop for a long period of time.

 

 

As i stated before, if you fall below 5% seller rating and enter the Below Standard Section, eBay will put massive limits on your account, so you will only be able to sell like 10 items per month.

 

In this section i will cover a few ways to keep your buyers happy. 90% of this is common sense but I thought i would cover it just in case.

 

 

95% of all your sales will go smoothly, with no issues at all.

 

But You will get a few awkward customers.

 

At the start i found my self arguing with them when items where delivered late, or if they had a slight issue or problem with quality.

but that was a very bad mistake and led to a few negative feedback.

 

The best thing to do is always side with the customer, They are always right. 

Even if they are dumb idiots or scammers treat them as if they are right.

You should take away a small % of your profits to make a fund to deal with problems so if they do have a problem you can instantly refund them

 

 

Even if you hate a customer, give them there money back (you pay the postage if its a return) and block them in the eBay seller account section so you do not have to deal with them again. 

 

I wont go into all the other obvious things when dealing with customers but here is a list just to help

 

• The customer is ALWAYS right.
• Be polite 
• Be Patient 
• Do not Argue
• Answer questions quickly and honestly (if you do not know something, just tell them that)
• Always format your reply professional (use regards at the bottom etc...)
• Process returns quickly and message the seller when you receive them.

 

 

Hints and tips

Download the eBay APP on your phone and edit notifications to only display when messages are received

This will allow you to reply to customers much faster than checking at your PC/Laptop

 

You can often offer a buyer a refund or a small cash payment to remove a negative, its worked a few times for me and is always worth a try

 

Postage & returns

 
Postage is a massive part of eBay, Investigate into cheapest postage methods available in your area, sizes  & weights are very important and should have a big affect on the items you choose to sell..
 
 
Helpful tips for uk sellers

Small items under 100 grams and no wider than 2.5CM can be sent with a large letter stamp (£0.93) if you buy these in bulk of ebay you can get them for £0.80, this is a brilliant postage method for lots of small items, 
phone screens, cases, hard drives, SD cards, USB's etc....
you can even buy large item boxes
 
international standard large letters (£1.52) can also go 100 Grams 2.5CM, this allows you to sell small items to most of the world for pretty cheap
 
Downside, 1/20 will get lost and you will have to pay for a replacement to be sent out via sign delivery or recorded delivery
 
So always charge a tiny bit extra on postage especially to international buyers to cover this expense.
 

myHermes

is the best system for eBay currently available, you can import all your sales and it automatically sends the tracking to the buyer and updates your eBay to "marked as shipped" 
it saves hours and i would HIGHLY recommend it.
It is only £2.78 to post a item tracked up to 1KG and it the cheapest method up to 10KG's then yodel is better
 
The only downside to myHermes is they are pretty wreck-less and careless with items so a lot of bubble wrap and strong packaging is a must.

 
Returns 

This is a bad part of the business and does feel bad when you are losing money rather than gaining it...
 
but It is very important that you offer all buyers a 14 day return policy. 
if they are not happy with there product let them send it back for a full refund
 
this makes happier buyers and gets some extra sales, but the main reason why any eBayer will do this it to keep your seller rating high and to avoid bad feedback.
The customer is always right, no matter how wrong and dumb they are... and believe me there are some idiots around. 
 
unless all of your items are brilliant you will have a few returns. and its vital that they are dealt with fast and with a good friendly manor so they will still leave positive feedback. 

I will add more details on this later.
 

Paying low amounts of TAX (UK ONLY)

will update tonight

Helpful hints and tips

Here are some common mistakes i have made. or other people often make when starting off..
 
1.1
When i started I didn't have a label printer,
when i was selling 5-10 items a day this was not a problem writing addresses would take me 10-30 mins per day.
But as it grew i started spending 2-3 hours per day just writing out addresses and doing the post
 
a label printer cuts this process to almost 30 seconds per sale, if you want to run a big eBay shop this is a MUST
 
(extra tip for UK sellers)
MyHermes is a amazing cheap delivery method for items above 2.5CM (explained in day to day),
however the Brother GL-720NW is not big enough to do there labels, i think its 6CM and there lowest myhermes label is 6.8CM 
so i would recommend a bigger wifi label printer 
 
1.2
Seller rating
this is based on faults/returns/negative feedback and bad seller ratings for postage time or item quality
 
<2% and you get eBay top rated status. This gives you massive benitis in search results and 15% off all ebay fee's 
 
2-5% gets eBay above standard rating, this is basically a safe zone, 
 
5%+ gets you below standard rating, the amount of items you sell per month will be limited to 100 OR LESS
 
Being top rated is key to making massive profits on eBay
I had a really bad month with posting some supplies to my home address in Ireland and dropped over the 2%
PIC

This had a massive impact on the amount of views my auctions got and had a negative affect on my sales
If possible STAY in top rated
 
more coming soon....

FAQ
 

 
1:1
iJoris: "How do you deal with people not leaving feedback?"
Hey
I use ebay seller manager pro, it costs £5/month or is free if you get a ebay shop... The basic one is £17/month subscription
it will send a reminder to the buyer after 7 days and then again after 30 days
 
but even with that only about 50% of sales leave feedback

 
Proggys

29/04/2015

 

Totals

I have only been selling for a few months, but have had the account for a long time for buying stuff

 

 

 
 
I will update this further later today when i have some spare time
 
If you liked this guide and would like to see more like it, Tap that like button ->

Edited May 15, 2015 by chuckle00

[TheRealSwaps]

Looks really good.

[Chuckle]

formatted it and color coded it with positive and negative to make it easier and quicker to get the key points in.... 

 

I have to go do work but ill finish it later when i get some time 

[Epsilon]

nice, makin' hot dollar

[MB360]

Those proggies are insane. Can't wait till you finish writing this guide. So far everything is very informative. Thanks!

[ManyDied]

chuckle message me here i cant add on skype.

[Varc]

Awesome stuff dude!

[Chuckle]

chuckle message me here i cant add on skype.

hey

why cant you add?

pm me your skype ill add you.

[ManyDied]

hey

why cant you add?

pm me your skype ill add you.

ok messaged you

[Chuckle]

Added FAQ for PM's i got and any questions and am editing it today and trying to get it finished 

 

;)

[Chuckle]

Updated

 

added finding your products section. 

Still needs alot more info but will update it over the next few days

[Dynasty]

I've been looking at products but it seems that the wholesale company's are doing the same so how do we beat them ?

[Chuckle]

I've been looking at products but it seems that the wholesale company's are doing the same so how do we beat them ?

People do not like waiting the 20 days for the product to come from china, Most products will sell for a better price if you are local

[Swindle]

Some useful information contained ITT. I've always felt that the most difficult part is knowing what to sell, though. The competition on eBay is very fierce, especially for wholesale/china products.

 

E: Eagerly awaiting the UK tax section, should be interesting.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Swindle

[Chuckle]

Woop just got new selling limits