51 Secrets to eBay Success Want to know how to sell like a pro, even if you're just starting out? eBay experts and PowerSellers share their top tips for super sales.

Whether you're about to start a business on eBay or are ready to take your existing business to the next level, we've put together 51 tips for successful selling on eBay from a panel of experts:

• Marsha Collier (eBay User ID: marsha_c), PowerSeller, eBay University instructor and author of eBay for Dummies, now in its fourth edition

• David Early (eBay User ID: 66cvette), PowerSeller and creator of MarketPlacePro, software that enables individuals to sell products and manage their businesses online

• Jim "Griff" Griffith, dean of eBay Education, author of The Official eBay Bible and host of eBay Radio

• Steve Lindhorst (eBay User ID: listingrover), instructor at eBay University, owner of a small business on eBay, and dealer assistant who helps car dealerships list inventory on eBay

• Christopher Spencer (eBay User ID: borntodeal), Gold Power-Seller and president of The Spencer Company, which has listed more than 80,000 items on eBay

Here are their secrets to eBay sales success.

Do Your Homework

1. Set aside a day to browse the entire ebay site. Use the eBay Navigation Bar as your anchor--it's located on the top of every eBay page. Make a note of the pages you'll need in the future, such as the "Services" page, which contains a treasure trove of tools and services. -J.G.

2. Get step-by-step guidance. Visit www.ebay.com/education. It teaches everything you need to know to sell on eBay and offers interactive audio tours that show you exactly how to create a listing. -C.S.

What to Sell?

3. Sell what you know first. If you're into fashion, sell that; if you're into golf, sell golf equipment, and so on. -M.C.

4. Be observant. Watch for opportunities to obtain items (in quantity if possible) at a low price for resale. Often, they're right under your nose, such as merchandise your local retailer would liquidate. Make an offer to clear out the retailer's old or damaged stock. -S.L.

5. Don't start out with just one product or product line. An effective way to build a customer base on eBay is to offer at least two separate types of items, between which you can cross promote and drive customers from one to the other. -J.G.

6. Spend time on eBay browsing outside your normal categories. Find out what's hot at www.ebay.com/sellercentral. -S.L.

7. Become a Trading Assistant and sell other people's items for a commission. As a Trading Assistant, you won't have the expense of building inventory, and you can build your business on eBay very quickly without having to spend a lot of capital. -C.S.

8. Take some calculated risks. Being too careful can cost you. Do a little research on eBay, and trust your gut when you find potentially salable items. -S.L.

9. If you're not familiar with the product you're trying to sell, educate yourself before you write the description. If you describe the item incorrectly, buyers may be leery of bidding. Even worse, buyers could decide not to bid on any of your future items if they're under the impression that you don't know what you're selling. The more correct information you have and use, the more credible you'll become in the buyers' eyes. -D.E.

Getting Set Up

10. Become a verified member of ebay through their ID verification process. Getting verified will help get you past a lot of the restrictions placed on new sellers. -C.S.

11. Choose your ebay user ID wisely. Pick a name that's descriptive, easy to remember and instantly identifiable with your niche. Your user ID will become your business identification--the name that people in the eBay universe will learn to search for when they want to buy your products. -D.E.

12. Create a second user ID for your eBay business. As long as each user ID you create is sent to a separate e-mail address, you can create as many user IDs as you want. So if you decide to start selling car accessories in addition to Hummel figurines, you might choose another user ID that would be more pertinent to your new product line, such as "Mustangsrock" or "Supeduphotrods." -D.E.

13. Organize. If you're selling from home, set up a dedicated space with areas for inventory storage, packing materials, photographing and, of course, a desk for your computer and printer. The best businesses are orderly and organized. -J.G.

14. Set up a designated area within your business location used only for photography. You can use household lighting and inexpensive cloth or paper backdrops. -J.G.

15. When taking pictures of the items you're selling, choose a camera with good macro-lens and auto-focus features, and make sure it easily interfaces with your computer. Get great lighting tips from eBay community boards. -C.S.

Tips 16 to 31

Create Your Listing

16. Listings formatted with html look more professional thanplain, unformatted text. Use the HTML editor built in to botheBay's "Sell Your Item" form and eBay's freeTurbo Lister. With the HTML editor, you can format description textquickly and easily. -J.G.

17. When you write your title, don't use all capitalletters. Uppercase and lowercase letters are easier to read andwill help people quickly see what you're selling.-M.C.

18. When creating your listings, provide a complete andspecific item description with as many clear, detailed photos aspossible. You cannot over-describe or overrepresent your item.Not sure what information to include along with your itemdescription? See the next tip. -J.G.

19. Clearly list your terms and conditions, as well asshipping, returns, warranty and guarantee policies. You can usean existing template to help separate the terms and conditions intosections and highlight them with bullet points, so people can readthem easily. -C.S.

20. Develop a listing schedule. Before you place alisting, consider the best times for starting and ending an auctionfor your particular product. For example, if you had American flagsto sell, you would probably want the listing to end several daysbefore the Fourth of July, rather than just after it--thus allowingyou enough time to ship your product to your buyers in time for theholiday. If you're working in a niche area, pay attention tothe days and times your items do the best, and start keeping alisting schedule. Then stick to it. Your clientele will learn whenyou list items, and you will get much better results from yourlistings. -D.E.

21. For advanced users, use seller's assistant pro.It will help you put your listings together offline, then load themonto the site using its bulk-loading feature. There's a freetrial, then the service costs $24.99 per month. -C.S.

While You're Selling

22. Feed the frenzy. You can feed a bidding frenzy onyour item by using a low opening bid price and no Reserve, whichshould attract more bidders at the outset. The more people biddingon your listing, the more likely that two or more of them will getdrawn into a personal bidding war. At that point, winning the itembecomes almost as important as the product they want to buy, andthese bidders might eventually pay more than they intended to payto beat out the competition. This can lead to you getting much morefor your product than you expected. -D.E.

23. Don't get stuck in a rut. If an item isn'tselling as well as it once did, take a look at your photos, titleand description to see if they can be freshened up.-S.L.

24. Just because you're moving merchandise on ebaydoesn't mean you're making a profit. If you can'tsell an item with enough of a profit margin, it's probably notworth your time and effort to sell that item. -M.C.

25. Once you are notified of a sold item, you should promptlyrespond using the eBay check-out system. Give buyers an invoicewith their total including shipping (which you can calculate usingeBay's shipping rate calculator). -C.S.

Ship It

26. Once the buyer has paid, arrange for shipping as soon aspossible. Make sure you pack the item securely. For more tipson packing and shipping, check out eBay's packing and shippingcommunity help board. -C.S.

27. Be reasonable with shipping and handling costs. Thesecosts often make the difference for buyers choosing between yourlisting and the competition's. One sure way to get buyers tomove on to another listing is to bait them with a low price andthen spring high shipping and handling costs on them.-S.L.

28. Have a regular shipping day or days. State thosedates in your listings so people know when to expect theirpackages. -S.L.

29. Use the built-in postage service from PayPal, theeBay company that allows you to accept online payments from creditcards or bank accounts. The service allows you to purchase postageand print labels from both UPS and the USPS using your PayPalaccount; it's a big time-saver. -C.S.

30. Schedule courier pickups through the USPS website--it's free, and your regular mail carrier will come toget your packages. All you have to do is pay the postage, and youwon't have to wait in long lines at the post office. You caneven insure the packages without having to go through a lot ofhassles. -C.S.

31. Once the item is shipped out, track the package and makesure it has been delivered. Follow up with a quick e-mail tothe buyer, asking for feedback and whether the item wassatisfactory. -C.S.

Tips 32 to 51

Customers First

32. Provide prompt, punctual and courteous responses to anyquestions your customers might have. People will probably wantto do business with you again if they receive a pleasant responsefrom you. -C.S.

33. Never forget that the customer is king. When indoubt, always think like a buyer. If you do, you will be able tobetter anticipate what buyers want and plan your businessaccordingly. -J.G.

34. Treat your customers like you would treat guests in yourhome. Be kind and understanding. Be willing to help them whenthere are problems. -S.L.

35. Eliminate the roadblocks to selling your products. Ifa buyer wants to use PayPal to buy your product and you can'taccept a PayPal payment, that's a problem. It's a roadblockto selling your item, making a profit and moving on to the nextsale. Take down the roadblocks! This is my golden rule of retail:Make sure customers who come in the door have a way to pay, andcustomers who leave have a smile and a full shopping cart. Thepoint is simple--sell your item, collect the money, and ship theproduct. -D.E.

36. Communicate as soon as possible with all buyers whoe-mail you. If you make a mistake and something's not sentwhen it should have been, let the customer know the truth.Don't ignore questions or complaints. -S.L.

37. Schedule time once a week for posting feedback--nomore than 15 minutes. You have to do it to be successful. Create acouple of generic feedback statements, such as "Great buyer,quick payment, great trans," check the spelling, then cut andpaste these generic statements into your feedback submissions.People don't care what you say, as long as it's positive.-D.E.

38. Leave emotion out of feedback. Keep it strictlybusiness. -S.L.

Money Matters

39. Use QuickBooks or other accounting software to help youkeep your books in order for yourself and for your taxspecialist. QuickBooks allows you to input your inventory andgives you reports telling you your average profit per item, as wellas how many items you sell each week. The program also gives youstatistics, your markup and a lot of other helpful data.-M.C.

40. Open a premier or business PayPal account. Manybuyers limit their eBay shopping to those sellers who offer PayPal.Using PayPal makes tracking sales, invoicing and bookkeeping mucheasier. -J.G.

41. Pennies count. Keep track of expenses. The differencein listing fees between starting an item at $9.99 and at $10.00 is25 cents. That adds up to $25 if you're listing 100 items perweek. Also pay attention to hidden costs like shipping supplies andpostage. -S.L.

Competitive Edge

42. Once you've settled on regular inventory, use eBaykeywords, a pay-per-click banner advertising service, to drawpeople into your store. See https://ebay.admarketplace.net/ebay/servlet/ebay.-M.C.

43. Watch your competition. Search them out on eBay.Follow their sales. Determine their best business practices, andadopt them. For example, if your competition is offering goodssimilar to yours at about the same price, consider drivingcustomers to your items by offering free shipping on some or all ofthem. -J.G.

44. Don't be afraid to put some items away and wait foryour competition to sell out. Profits definitely rise whenyou're the only source of a popular item. -S.L.

45. Cultivate your customer database--it's a goldmine. You can use it to market any of your new items directlyto qualified customers. For example, you could send a monthlynewsletter to your database to describe your new products or togive these customers discounts. But before you proceed with anymarketing campaign using your buyers' e-mail addresses, be sureyou understand and comply with the national spam laws.-D.E.

46. Cross-promote with your e-mail signature. It shouldread something like "If you need additional products orservices, please visit my Storefront at storefront.com."-D.E.

Growing Your Business

47. Don't open an eBay store until you've had anumber of transactions on the site and you're comfortablewith the way eBay works. -M.C.

48. When you do open an ebay store, be sure you takeadvantage of eBay's cross-promotion tools. These toolsallow you to choose which merchandise is featured in your store, soyou can choose items that might be of interest to somebody alreadybuying one of your listed items. -M.C.

49. Once you become a powerseller, consider using a servicelike Endicia.com, which allows you to print your ownpostage and delivery confirmations on one label and gives you aseparate expense line for your postage. -M.C.

50. Don't limit yourself to buyers in the UnitedStates. Many brands that are popular and easy to come by in theUnited States are practically impossible to get elsewhere. Forexample, a friend of mine bought some OshKosh B'Gosh babyclothes at a local garage sale and sold them on eBay to an eagermother in Australia for a nice profit. And I bought model airplaneengines that are made in Germany at a local swap meet and wassurprised to find my biggest demand for these engines came frombuyers in Germany. -D.E.

51. Remember this simple rule for non-U.S. buyers:Don't accept foreign currency; specify that you'll acceptU.S. dollars only. If a buyer sends you $20 Canadian and you wereexpecting $20 American, you just lost about $8, depending on thecurrent rate of exchange. Always specify "U.S. fundsonly." And consider the additional shipping charges that mayapply before you agree to ship the product outside of the country.-D.E.