My First Listing

By now you’ve probably have been wondering about my first success, or failure, with my eBay selling experience. I know the suspense is probably killing you, so I won’t hold back much longer. But first let me tell you how I got there.

Throughout this great ordeal, I spent many hours each day signing in an out of my eBay account. I didn’t have any experience in merchandise selling and I wanted to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. I did have some selling experience though; as a matter of fact we all do. If you think you don’t, think again. How many times had you purchased something, went to jobs interview, gave advice, called to complaint about a service, received services and so on? In all these and other similar situations, consciously or unconsciously, you did some type of selling.

Think about a time when you were treated unfairly when purchasing something or when calling customer service to report a problem. How did it make you feel? Would you treat a prospective customer the same way? The answer is obvious; which by the way proves my point…we all know something about selling.

At any rate, there was no better way to use what I’ve learned through my life experiences and the books and articles I read, than to put it all to the test. So I decided it was time to place my first listing. I logged into my account and clicked on the “Sell” link located on the upper left hand corner of the webpage and began the process of listing my first item.

To my own surprise, the process was very simple and took just about a minute to complete. Once I was done with the first item, I logged out of my account and made a search for the item I just had listed. Once satisfied with the way it looked, I logged back into the account to list other items.

Here’s a tip: The item description is just as important as the pictures, so make sure it is well written and free of spelling mistakes. Use a word processor to type and edit the description and then copy and paste the information to the item description block when posting your listing.

If you don’t have a word processor on your PC, then get one. You can use one of the many free office suite or standalone word processors available online. Here are a few suggestions: IBM Symphony; OpenOffice; FlySuite, AbiWord, Zoho.

Another thing, know about shipping and handling charges before hand. The Post Office has some excellent tools for his purpose. You can also search eBay and see what other sellers are charging for similar items. But whatever you decide to charge for shipping and handling, make sure it’s fair, for you and the customer.

Before I leave, I want you to know that I did get some good offers and sold a few of my items. How did that go? I’ll tell you the next time we meet. Until then, happy computing to all!!