- Photos, photos, photos!
- Use auctiva.com
I have sold on eBay off and on for several years. I am just about to start in earnest again, but I am so irritated with their greed that I prefer to use CraigsList whenever possible. Especially for larger things like furniture.
With small things or collectible/more valuable things, eBay tends to be better because it reaches a broader market, obviously, so you are certain to get more for them. Plus, it's always nice when there is a bidding war for something. The key to selling things in any online forum is to take lots of photos and try to take them in detail and in good light. I think the more photos, the longer a person has to get attached to an item and decide it must be theirs (if they wanted it to begin with). At least that's my dime-store psychology philosophy.
Don't pay eBay to host your photos. Use AUCTIVA. It is the best free program for eBay sellers. I loved it when I was doing a lot of eBay selling.
Also with Auctiva you can schedule your sales to start (and thus end) at a time when a lot of people will likely be online, rather than the time that is most convenient for you to create the listing. In my case I tended to create listings in the middle of the night, but scheduled them to start/end at around 8 or 9 pm East coast time, so people would be home all over the US. Also start/end on the weekend are great.
eBay charges to schedule your listing time, but Auctiva does all that for free. They also have neat templates you can use to make your listing more festive or specific to your merchandise. Those are free, and eBay would charge you for that also.
Basically, all the things that eBay charges for, Auctiva lets you add for free, so you just pay the basic listing and final value fees to eBay, which are already shamefully greedy!
Go check it out, and if you have any questions just email me, I would be more than happy to help you with them.
