Ebay Howto

Part 1 Evaluation

Just because an item appears to have value it may not. The purpose of evaluation of items is to determine if it indeed has value and should be sold via EBAY. The general rule of thumb is if you cna make at least $25.00 after shipping it might be worth listing on EBAY. (you must do this step logged in as seller)

EBAY

1. To see prices of items already sold;
   • Search for the item
   • In search options choose "Completed items"
   • Login (results given to registered users only)
   • Note number of bids. Sometimes ZERO bid items show here.
   • Look for alternate spellings of items.
   • Study the winning bids for information (Links) for more info.

General questions you should ask after determining value are:

1. Does the gizmo work?
2. Is it too heavy to ship? (anything above 50lbs should probably not be sold via EBAY)
3. If it doesn't work can it be repaired easily?

These Items are identified as easy sellers:

1. Cisco (All except 675 routers)
2. 3Com (All 100Mbs Network cards)
3. Intel (All 100Mbs Network cards)
4. PC100 and 133 Memory above 128MB

HOW TO

EBAY HOW TO Before posting any item you need to know the weight and dimensions of the product.

Once you have that information (which is going to be important for answering questions about shipping and handling fees) then you proceed to edit the web page (which is a template) with the information related to the product.

The distribution of the page goes like this:the first block (next to the Free Geek logo) is were you put the title, e.g. "HP LaserJet 4000 in Excellent Condition, Super Low Page Count: 1500!!!" After that in the next block you put the information provided by the manufacturer (or a third party that has real documentation), this part you need to put whatever you consider the most relevant information about the product, e.g. "Pages per minute, 24 pages per minute, Memory, comes with 12 MB, expandable up to 256 MB" and so forth. Right at the end of this block you can put the specific information about this particular item, e.g. " Number of pages printed, 1500. Total memory installed: 128 MB, etc." The last block is where you put the link to the information that you found (this for legal purposes) also the availability of software and wether there is a warranty of any sort or if the product is being sold as is; also you can include here if the item was tested and what software did you use (when applicable). As a note, is a good idea if you create a folder with the name of the item e.g. "HP_LaserJet_4000" and save the html file there with the same name as well, that way you can have that information available in the future in case you have to post another product so the changes that you have to make will be minimum.

NOTE: The Free Geek logo is located at http://www.freegeek.org/images/FG_Ball2logo.gif, this is a slight adjustment that needs to be done before posting.

Once this process is done, the next step is either taking pictures of the product or simply finding a picture on the net, in this case you may disclose that the picture is not a picture from the actual item.

Once you have all of this the next step is to loggin on Ebay and start the process of posting the item (you can post it as Online Auction, Fixed Price or Real Estate, we will use the Online Auction option, in order to start you click on Sell (once you are logged in) and click on "Sell Your Item".

The next page will take you the the "Category" you need to look up an item similar to the one you are selling on ebay and get the category off of the address, e.g. "http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=16188&item=6740464999&rd=1" you will copy the NUMBER that is next to "...&category=" in this case "16188", then you scroll down the page where you are posting all the way down until you find "Main category #" in that space you paste the category NUMBER, after that you click on "Continue".

In the page that follows you have to put the Title and Description of the item, in the "Item Title" in here is really important that you come up with a good description, this will atract possible buyers, you can also use the subtitle in order to atract more attention of consumers. Then you copy the HTML source from the template that you created for this item and paste it into the "Item description", after that click on "Continue".

In the page that follows you are going to put the Pictures and Details, in the "Starting price" you can put the price you want the item to start selling for (NOTE: that price IS NOT the final price), you can start with $1.00 unless is an item with NO RESERVE in which case you have to put the minimum amount of money you want for the item, you can also use the "Buy it Now price", this is good for people that buy on impulse, in here you can put a price that you desire for instance if you were to sell the HP LaserJet 4000 printer from the example inmediately you could set a "Buy it Now price" of $300.00, then the "Reserve price" in this case could be $275.00, in which case if there is nobody that gets to the reserved price then the item is not sold, if is met then the printer will go for the highest bid. The next is the duration which usually is not changed from 7 days, and last is the picture, which you have to have ready by now, then you scroll down all the way to the end and select the page counter usually between "Andale Style" and "Green LED", this can be chosen as you desire, after this click on "Continue".

In the coming page which is Payment methods YOU HAVE TO CHECK the option that says "PayPal payment notification will go to: IT HAS TO SAY ebay@freegeek.org (this is because some payments have being going to ebaysales@freegeek.org WHICH IS NOT CORRECT), the you scroll down to "Ship-to locations" in here you will check that Americas and Canada are listed, if you feel like sending anything to the rest of the world and you know how to feel free to list the countries you are willing to ship to. Then you scroll down to "Shipping costs" in here you are going to put the weight of the item (remember to include the weight of packaging as well, this for calculation purposes). In order to have no "Domestic Shipping services listed so you can use other services you select the option "Select a shipping service in both (or all) options. After this you get to the "Return policy" you can change to fit in our example is 7 Days and the refund will be given as Money Back, the Return Policy Details should read: "Money will be refunded if item is returned in same conditions as when shipped. We are not liable for damaged caused by misuse or inadaquate use and we Buyer pays for all shipping and handling costs." Under the "Payment instructions" you should type something like: "Buyer pays for all shipping and handling fees" making it clear that whoever is buying has to pay for and not us. After this you click on "Continue"

The last page is for you to review any possible mistake you made so you can correct them, once you have checked that everything is in order you can click in "Submit Listing", that way the process will be finished.

This Mini-How-To Ebay was elaborated by Geiner Vindas