First Time Seller

[pottyteethfacehands]

So, I have a lot of things I no longer use and thought selling them on Ebay would be better than just throwing them away (eg textbooks that have never been used because I ordered the wrong ones from Amazon; school jumpers that I ordered in the wrong size) etc.

I put them on Ebay and I'm guessing because I'm brand new, people don't trust me? The auction came and went with 0 bids.

Any tips to help me get started would be gratefully received!

As a buyer I don't pay attention to how much someone's sold so I wouldn't let that worry you too much. Sometimes things just take a while to sell in my experience. Things like school jumpers and textbooks are more likely to sell in the summer as that's when people are looking for them. Take clear pictures, don't make the description too long but don't leave it blank either. Don't mark postage up too much either. I've had items not sell for what seems like ages then suddenly there's a lot of interest and they end up going for a lot more than I would've thought. I'm by no means an expert, these are just things I've noticed with my far too frequent use of eBay.

End your auctions at a time when people who have time to browse eBay, etc too. Sunday afternoon/evening is apparently the best time. You can schedule auctions so that you get your listing together at a time to suit you then schedule it to start automatically to end at the best time.

We are getting to the slower part of the year for us anyway which may be part of the reason for slow sales.

Have you checked how many other sellers are selling the same items as you and are your prices competitive. You can select on advanced options sold items which gives you a good idea on how many and for what price items are likely to sell for.

For textbooks people really only want the latest editions. Put this in your title and year of publication. Do the titles of the books actually say what the book is about. If not add this to your title. State whether hardback or paperback. Include as many photographs as you can. Photographing the contents page for example and to show it is good condition. State what level the textbook is aimed at eg. GCSE. You may be better off doing buy it now listings for textbooks (exception is 11 plus textbooks which we did amazingly well on at auction considering they had been used and had writing on).

Consider offering free postage (make sure your starting price accounts for this though) especially the textbooks as some can weigh over 2 kg and be expensive to send.

I imagine the school clothes will do better at the start of the Summer Holidays. perhaps you could bundle to make more attractive to buyers. And if they have genuinely never been worn make this clear in the title and condition descriptions as this will stand you out amongst the second hand sellers. For clothes give brands, colour, sizes etc in the title. Basically if you were searching for the item what would you type in.

And on ebay sales create sales. So once you get a bid or a sale on one item you are likely to go up the listings and be more viewable to buyers.