Sorry I took so long to reply.
Another question: The instructions tell me that I can submit an item for auction a second time if I don’t get any bids, and that if I don’t get any bids that second time, they keep the submission fee. If that happens, is there a penalty beyond that?
Also, who pays the shipping: me, or the buyer?
Rilchiam That is the only “penalty” it is mostly to avoid having someone list something at such a price that it never will sell over and over.(I mention price because practically ANYTHING will sell at Ebay if listed properly…I have seen people put up a plain piece of cardboard and someone actually bought it).
If it doesn’t sell the first time reword your description, lower opening bid, or wait awhile to put it up again until whatever your selling is being sold by other people. It might be a good idea also to check out auctions of similiar items of auctions that have bids on them to give you an idea of how to do it.
And “who pays the shipping fee?” whoever you want to pay it. Just remember to put those details in your description…few things upset buyers more than winning an auction and having the seller inflate the shipping to cover a low winning bid. They are still legally bound to buy it but they may express themselves in your feedback rather colorfully.
If for instance you are selling something fragile and don’t feel comfortable sending it without insurance TELL them in your description so they can decide if they want to bid given your conditions(whatever they may be). Also personally I never charge more than $2 over ACTUAL shipping costs…most times much less.
One last thing…if you allow bids from other countries be aware that for many countries insurance is NOT available at the cheapest rates(England costs around $15 IF you insure a small item)…sometimes not at all. Try to clear up these things BEFORE they bid by having them contact you ahead of time.
I have
on my favorite list so I can check the best way to send depending on whatever I am selling and to where I am sending it.
The best way to put together a listing really is to put EVERYTHING YOU would want to know into the description if YOU were the one buying the item and you should be OK.
I have both bought and sold items on eBay.
The most important thing is the pictures. I will not bid on something that doesn’t have a picture, period. I figure that with the ready access of digital cameras, scanners, Kinko’s, Kodak photo CD’s, etc., someone who doesn’t include a picture is either hiding something or lazy, both which can be bad for me as the buyer. I’m sure that’s not always the case, but it’s good enough criterion for me.
Depending on what you’re selling, the description will be the next most important thing. Of course you need to give a detailed description of the item to include any flaws. But “marketing” may also be important. In my case, though, it usually hasn’t been - I haven’t needed to convince the person that they need to buy my items. Since my items have mostly been motorcycle parts, I’ve just put “this is a headlight for such-and-such bike - excellent condition, no damage”, included some pictures, and it’s sold. not much to it since if the person’s looking for the item, they must need it for their bike. But with antiques it may be different since the person does not necessarily need to buy it, so there is more marketing involved.
As far as shipping, I estimate the shipping costs up front, trying to aim for a high estimate. If my estimate is more than the actual cost, I’ll refund some of the money (usually just a few bucks, I throw it in the box and let them know). one of my buyers put this in my feedback, so now everybody knows I’ll do it, which is good for business.
Good luck, I’ve found it’s remarkably simple to sell things this way.
I hit a bump in the road.
I figured out the opening bids for each item, and the product descriptions. Mr. Rilch took photos of each item, put them on a DVD-ROM, and uploaded them to the hard drive.
Then we hit the bump. We can’t open them in preview. I keep getting a message that says my security is too high. And every time I try to reset it, it changes itself back to “medium”.
There’s still the possibility of using someone else’s computer, though. I’ll let you know.
I don’t understand why your husband is putting your pictures on a dvd-rom.
If he has a digital camera can’t he just connect the camera to your computer via the USB and put them into your computer that way?
Anyway once in your computer however you do it doesn’t your camera have it’s own software to process your pictures?
He says we don’t have the necessary cable to connect the camera to the computer. There is a possibility of borrowing one, however.
We got the pictures uploaded on someone else’s computer. Mr. Rilch has some comics to sell, as well, so he’ll do that on my account.
Right now, I’m only selling the Lladro and the doll. I was all set to sell the necklace as well, but a funny thing happened while I was writing the description. I was trying to make a point about its versatility, and was going to say “…or wrap it twice for a choker effect!” I tried doing that on myself, to be sure it could be done, and found that those chunky stones, which look crude and battered when hanging loose, have a vastly different effect when circling my neck! Mr. Rilch likes it that was too…a lot. So in accordance with my principle of never selling anything that I’d miss, I’m keeping it.
Hmmm…without selling a thing you have already made out better than most sellers on Ebay
Congratulations 
Pictures have to be posted on your server because your computer would take too long to upload them. Almost all servers provide you with 10 megs or more of free space. You will have to download a File Transfer Protocal program (FTP) which you can get free from links on eBay.
This is a little intimidating for the first time user so I would recommend you find a seller and have them walk you through it. It will save you a couple a days of anguish. It’s not really hard once you’ve done it but there is a learning curve.
Oops.
**
Okay!
Another option is to find a free picture hosting service…a good one I use is Photoisland
Another good thing to have is a auction submitter to automatically submit your auctions once you got them just the way you want them…there is a relatively good one in Auctionsubmit
The good thing about an auction submitter is you can put as many pictures you like on your auction using the picture host without Ebay charging you more for the extra pictures…if you end up doing alot of auctions it really adds up
Buyers love pictures…just don’t go nuts though…TOO many pictures and the page takes forever to load
Oh I forgot but Photoisland has an uploader that is simplicity itself to put your pictures on their site
Man I must be tired…I keep thinking of stuff to tell you one millisecond after I press submit
Anyway the reason I recommended the auction submitter I did is it works for Yahoo…Ebay…Shoporium and Amazon
So once you are used to it you can use it on those places too if you like without having to learn a whole new program
Now if I think of something to add or not I am done for the night
I can hear your sigh of relief from here
Unless ebay.com works substantially different fron ebay.com.au (I’m Australian), the pictures are actually uploaded from YOUR PC to the EBAY site when you list your item for sale. For the period of time that the auction remains on the ebay books, the picture is hosted on the ebay site itself.
You should NOT need your own web host to serve the pictures for you.
This assumes that ebay.com allows 1 picture for free which is what ebay.com.au does.
The only possible time that you may wish to host pictures on your own web server would be if you were including mutiple pictures and you wanted to host them yourself.
Ebay will host multiple pictures (pretty sure 1st one free) for a small fee.
Maybe I’m confused and maybe I’m not, but I would be pretty sure that Rilchiam will NOT need a web server and should be able to load 1 picture per auction free of charge to the ebay server as part of the listing.
Depending on what you are selling one picture might be enough…the fees Ebay charge might seem like little but they add up fast
Recently I’ve taken to stitching my pics together to make just one pic but I don’t think she is ready for that yet…auction page loads faster and there’s not that much loss in quality of the pictures
I admit if she’s just gonna do a couple auctions at a time just using the services Ebay offers might be a good way to get her feet wet