Once upon a time I was very happy making a little cash on the side with everybody’s love to hate auction site Ebay. I had no idea what I was doing, but still repeatedly made good choices. It left me thinking how I accomplished this. So, today I’m going to jot down a little summary of my steps.

First of all, I had an easy time because I was selling something people were already looking for. It’s much harder to market a no-name or start up product yourself, because nobody knows about it! You might have to use keywords or smart marketing with similar items. For example, I was thinking about Google Adword’s display network. You can choose which sites you wish to be displayed on. If you have the right product, and you know a site whose readership you think would be interested this could be a good deal!

When you’re selling something people already want on ebay the best keywords are obviously your product’s name. The most important words people would be interested in were the ones I chose. These words depend on your target audience, but here’s a few examples.

If you were selling collectibles in addition to the product type you might list the brand, color, and condition.

Green Lionel Train Mint Condition

If you were selling clothing you would probably include the size, condition, or style.

Abercrombie juniors jeans size 10 new

I was actually doing pretty good marketing research, and didn’t know it. Since I was selling a mass marketed brand item it was easy for me to explore completed listings, and figure out the best way to list my item for optimum exposure and price. I took two factors into consideration for this.

* Items that finished with the highest price

*Items that had the most views

You’d think that they would go hand in hand, but they didn’t! Different factors like starting price, starting day, and key words used effected these two elements. So, I would mash up the results and draw my conclusions. Taking the best copy for my own auction. It worked, very well.

Upon exploring other items more recently I found it much, much harder to find a price point. I was selling a similar item, but not exactly the same. Would the customer perceive this item to be as valuable as the alternative? Was I making a fair assumption as to my auction’s standards?

I had a good product in a popular niche that I stumbled on to accidentally really. Almost every item I listed sold for a profit, and most of the ones that didn’t sell were re-listed.

My problems? These included supply, and funding. I started with about $200 which was for all my fees for Paypal, and buying product. Most of my product was cheap, and sold for a 50-75% profit margin though.

I’ve tried similar ventures, and found myself struggling because I forgot what I didn’t know then if that makes any sense. Sometimes it seems like the more you learn the more ignorant you are to the simple facts of business. Buy for less; sell for more. Repeat.

Originally posted 2010-08-08 05:46:08. Republished by Blog Post Promoter