10 Common Mistakes eBay Sellers Make

While running an eBay business can be a great way to make some extra cash or even to make a living, there are a lot of mistakes that eBayers make. While some of these mistakes are commonly made by novices, I see experienced Powersellers making some of them too. So here are the top 10 mistakes eBay sellers make – keep them in mind so you don’t have to learn them the hard way.
1. Paying Unnecessary Listing Fees
When listing an item for sale, a lot of people will set the minimum price they will accept, and frequently they don’t even think about it and end up paying a listing fee twice as high as they would have to otherwise. For example, currently when you start an item at $24.99 you’ll pay $.60 to list the auction, but if you were to list that same item for $25, you’d pay $1.20 to list that auction. While $.59 may not seem like much, if you’re running a lot of auctions, that can add up over the long run and cut into your profit margin.
2. Not including pictures
These days with the low cost of digital cameras (use a real camera, not your cell phone), there’s not excuse not to include pictures in your auction. If you’re really in a pinch and you’re selling brand new items, then at least include one of the stock pictures the manufacturer provides of the item, but if you don’t have pictures of your items, you’re missing out on higher bids.
3. Writing one sentence descriptions or none at all.
I just don’t get it, but I guess you should never underestimate how lazy some people can be. Even if you think everyone who is going to look at your item knows what it is and how it works, don’t assume that. There may be a person who was just browsing and doesn’t know everything about the item. If you describe it in detail while another sell just lists it for sale with no description, you’re far more likely to get the bid, and every bid is valuable.
4. Not accepting Paypal
This problem isn’t nearly as common as it used to be but I still run across people who hold a grudge against Paypal, don’t like paying the transaction fee, or they have their own merchant account and prefer to use that. Paypal is so well integrated into eBay now, and it’s so easy for a buyer to use, that you had better be accepting Paypal on all your auctions.
5. Misspelling titles
There are products out there that help people take advantage of sellers who were in such a hurry they didn’t take the two seconds it would have taken to make sure the title of their auction was spelled correctly. Why do these products exists? Simple. Most people get their items on eBay by searching, and when a product name is misspelled then far less people will find it, and the selling price will likely be dramatically lower. As a seller, you don’t want that, you want the highest price you can get. Make sure that you’re spelling the title of your auction correctly.
6. Getting desperate for products to sell and overpaying for inventory
Some sellers have such trouble finding good deals on products that they can sell that they get desperate and just to keep their sales volume high, they’ll buy products that they can’t make any money on or worse, products they lose money on just so they have products to sell. Don’t do this. If you can’t find products you can sell profitably, don’t buy them. (If you’re advanced and are doing a loss leader to get backend sales, that’s fine, but that’s a little beyond the scope of this post)
7. Not answering questions
Some sellers are great about answering questions, but other sellers never reply to the questions people ask. These people are asking for a reason – they probably want to buy the product. Answer your questions and you’ll find that you get a lot more bids than if you don’t.
8. Setting reserves
I always used to hate bidding on auctions that had reserve prices because I wanted to know if I was wasting my time in bidding on the auction, and I’m not the only one who feels that way. In fact, many people won’t bid on an auction with a reserve price, myself included. If you have a minimum price you want for an item, then save yourself paying the extra reserve price fee and just set the starting bid at that price instead. That way everyone knows how much they’ll need to bid in order to be successful and won’t feel like they’re wasting their time trying to figure out how much you want for the product.
9. Trying to act like big corporations
One of the great things about eBay is how you can get personal one on one service from a seller instead of dealing with a big company. However, instead of embracing the personal small business model of eBay, many sellers want to act like they’re a big company. Stick with the personal approach, be informal, inject a little personality into your auctions. You’ll get better results if people know you’re a real person than if you try to pretend you’re some big faceless company.
10. Playing the low price game
This final mistake will prevent you from ever making great money on eBay and will likely put you out of business in a hurry. Everyone seems to make the mistake of thinking that everyone on eBay only cares about getting the lowest price on eBay. That’s just not true. Cater to the buyers who want great service, quality products, and who are willing to pay extra to make sure they have a pleasant buying experience. If the only way you can think to compete with other eBay sellers is to sell your items at lower prices, then you shouldn’t be in that business.