Starting to sell on ebay.com helpful tips?

[aligolf]

I sell sports memorabilia and am going to start listing on ebay.com. If anyone has an helpful tips would appreciate, cheers

[pierrelebel]

Look at what your competitors do.

If most of the successful competitors offer "free shipping" (shipping charge included in the selling price) domestically, do the same.

If most of the successful competitors offer "one day handling time", do the same.

If most of the successful competitors do not offer "Best Offer", do the same (many buyers in some categories do not like the "best offer" feature as they feel they would overpay if they accept the Buy-it-Now price and they are not interested in bargaining for a lower price, so they hit the back button.  They come on eBay to buy, not bargain like a flea market). Other sellers may have a different opinion on the subject.

Basically, when new to a market, study carefully what your successful competitors do and follow their lead until you know differently.

Take a quick look at some listings, I suggest you make special efforts to be specific.  Do not write "LOOK AT MY OTHER AUCTIONS" when your listings are fixed price (buy-it-now), not auctions. Stay away from all CAPS.

Good Luck selling in US$ on eBay.com

[cumos55]

On eBay.com

Domestic shipping is shipping to the US.

Shipping to Canada will be international shipping.

You will have to use ... flat rate shipping .... The same cost for shipping to all Canadian buyers, or to all US buyers,

You can use Canada Post... but you will not be able to specify Canada Post  when shipping is quoted in a listing.

However you can describe shipping .....in your description

[esclyons]

if your target market is the usa, then i would stay on ebay.ca  and offer free shipping. their dollar is strong, and your items will look like a bargain.  maybe  try a few items on ebay.com first and see how it works..

[reallynicestamps]

Shipping is the hardest part of selling online

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

Bookmark this and use it every time you make a new listing.

If your item is too bulky for LetterPost/Light Packet, list it on dotCA where you can use Calculated Shipping.

Otherwise list on dotCOM and consider using Free Shipping/ Flat Rate shipping.

Free Shipping is NOT free.

It means you add the cost of shipping to your asking price.

And 85% of transactions on eBay are Fixed Price not auctions.

This ties in with what pierrelebel said about a dislike of bargaining.

[aligolf]

stay away from all caps

would that be for title and description? Do you have any stats on that, have always wondered about Caps vs non caps, thanks

[cumos55]

CAPS are considered ... YELLING... in a listing......Also very hard to read.

Use short paragraphs... a sentence or two .... spacing ... a line between paragraphs

Present information in a third person sense.

Do not say... I did this

Say ... This was done...... much less confrontational... Do not come across as belligerent

Keep your terms of sale simple......  Description is very important.

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Use a standard format  for similar items.

For your sports cards  you may want to set up a format  easy to read such as 

Player

Sport

Team

Description of contents  such as years played, special awards, other teams    and rookie card ( in a few key words)

Year published....... indicating if it is a special collection)

Printed by 

Condition  (Grade if you have it)

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Make it easy to read...just my few thoughts of what I might do.....

[cumos55]

Abbreviations  may confuse some buyers when they read your description

Just looked at a couple of your listings.....