I know about eBay, I know people who use eBay, I’ve idly browsed a few times on eBay, but I’ve never used eBay.
I don’t want to buy just yet, I want to see if I can sell some of my artwork. I’ve had a few people pushing me to try so I’m going to cave.
I haven’t the first clue as to how to go about doing this, though. I mean, setting up an account is pretty cut-and-dried I reckon, but where do I go from there? The site looks incredibly complex, and I don’t know where to start. Any eBay veterans here that could help me so I don’t screw up?
I only sold one thing there ever, so I won’t give any advice about that. I will say that, if you intend to use one of their bimonthly ‘listings for 10c/free/whatever’ offers, note that the times they use for expiry are EST, not the timezone you’re in.
It’s really not that hard. You go to the sell button, put your item in the appropriate category, and it walks you through step by step. The instructions they provide as you go through the process are better than anything anyone here will be able to give you.
Heck, buy a $5 item just to get some experience in the process. It won’t bite.
I had a look at some of your stuff on your website; IMO your pieces are very good examples of their type, however, it’s difficult to say whether you’ll find your market on ebay without actually trying it out - it may (or may not) be the case that there simply aren’t enough people looking for items of this particular type on ebay at any given moment.
-Start off listing just one or two items that you feel are of the broadest appeal
-Make sure the photographs are very good and don’t just use the ebay photo option; host some closeup pictures of the item on your own webspace and embed them into the item description (you can use standard HTML when describing the item)
-Underestimating the shipping cost is a common ebay newb problem - do not estimate this element; weigh the item and calculate/list it accurately
-Try to accept the broadest range of payment options you can; PayPal charges sometimes hurt, but not selling the item hurts more.
Proper advice on eBay would take a thread that ran into the 100s of posts. Your best source of info would be the community forums that ebay themselves run. They have one for new ebayers that’s full of advice and experiences (good & bad).
Get your feet wet buying and selling some trivial stuff like CDs or books. It will teach you how the site works, how things are paid for and sent to people. It will also give you some feedback for your profile, which is important.