| Internet Auctions Essay, Research Paper
How to make money selling items through internet auctions.
Buying and selling things is not new. As a matter of fact, people have been buying and selling things in one form or another ever since time began. It is part of life. We all need or want things that we can not provide for ourselves, so we have to find someone who can supply us with the items, and we pay them to provide us with these items we need or want. Ebay is an online auction service that helps people sell their items to people across the country, or even the globe, for a good profit. So if someone has been trying to sell something through the classifieds in their local newspaper and the item has not been selling, they could advertise it on eBay, and someone could buy it from another state. I want to explain how to sell, make profit, and have many return customers from listing items on eBay.Deciding what to sell is not as easy as it looks. There are two main types of items that can be sold. The first and most obvious are those items that are lying around the house that need to ridden of, like of those CD s that are not listened to anymore, that old toy gotten as a kid, things like that. These items are great to sell to make some extra money, but they are a one time sale item, meaning once they are sold, they are gone and so is the chance at a recurring income. The second category of items that can be sold is a set of products that I create or buy in order to sell them. These can be a great source of income, things as simple as my mother s recipe for chocolate chip cookies, an information disk, or book about Beanie Babies. These types of items are things I can sell over and over again. They may not bring in as much money per item as other items, but I can sell them in a great quantity. I want to give a detailed description of the item types that I have just talked about.First, I will take the one of a kind items. These are the items that are taking up space in my closet, the things that I have bought and do not have a use for anymore, or the things I have gotten as presents that have never been taken out of the box. These items can put some fast cash in my pocket, as well as open up some much-needed space in our closets! There is really no limit to the type of things that we currently own that we can auction off. Just by taking a look at an auction web site, or classified ad net page, we can see people selling everything from toys, computer equipment, photo equipment, books, clothing, and even automobiles or homes. My choices for what I can actually sell are unlimited. Now, I want to take a look at the other type of items. These are the items that we can sell in quantity. These can be things that we purchase in quantity in order to sell. There are a lot of collectibles that are widely available in certain areas that are not available worldwide. These can be sports figures, dolls, trading cards etc. Anything that we can buy and sell at a descent profit is fair game, remember people on eBay demand low prices. So it is better to sell four items for $300 than two for $200.
How do I decide what types of items that I want to sell? Well, there are a few different ways to do this. The first thing I would do is make up a list of the items that I am considering for sale. I would look at the items carefully, and write down information such as a description of the item, what I paid for it, the condition it is in, etc. Being very specific here will help me greatly if I decided to list any of these items for auction. Sometimes the smallest details can mean much greater prices, and much greater profits for me. Now, I would take my list, sit down at my computer and search eBay for the types of items that I have come up with. This may not be effective for that one of a kind Babe Ruth autograph. For about 85% of the things I want to sell, however, it should give me a pretty good idea of the market value of the item, as well as consumer interest. In the search box, type a relevant term. If we want to know what Rage Against the Machines greatest hits CD is worth type “Rage Against the Machine” in the title. If I was looking into selling my VCR, I would simply type VCR into the search categories at eBay.As we can see, with searching for the proper words, it is very simple to see if the types of items I want to sell are already being sold at auctions. When I find the listings, I can learn a few very important things. The first is, I can get a good idea on what the retail price is. By seeing what other people have sold similar items for, I can decide whether or not I want to sell the item, as well as what I should expect to get for the item when it sells. When I search, I can look at auctions that have recently been completed, as well as current ones, to see how much money items similar to mine are bringing in for other people. After I find out all of this good information, I can now set out with an idea of what I should bring in for selling my items.The other object I can learn by searching the web site for other similar products is the amount of people that want the type of item that we are selling. The auction web site lists the amount of bids along with all of its items. This will tell us how many people are bidding on those items. Obviously, if I have fifty different people bidding on an item, it is a lot more likely to bring in more money than an item that is being bid on by only one or two people. This is not an iron-clad rule though, since I only need one bidder to make money on my item.The best way to get started in the market of buying and selling is to decide how much money I can afford to invest right off the bat. I would recommend starting with at least two hundred dollars or so to begin an empire. It is a small investment, and I should be able to double my money pretty quickly. Then I need to decide exactly what I want to buy and sell. My choices here are almost unlimited, because I have already seen what others have made off of their products.Here is a good way to begin. If I have a hobby, or an expertise that gives me an edge in particular field, I should use it to my advantage. If I know car audio, I might want to buy and sell car audio equipment. Remember, if I have an edge over 90% of the other people at the auction site, I will probably be able to spot the bargains that I can buy and then re-sell at a profit.One of the things that I like to do is search the auction web site for items that are extremely hot at that particular time. Name brand car audio such as Rockford Fosgate etc. is the best example, but there are many, many others. I found out that some things that I would have never considered very highly sellable are bringing in a decent price at auction.Keep in mind, people will buy almost anything. That is, as long as I am providing a quality product at a fair price, I can be a huge success in buying and selling. Look for products that people use on a day to day basis. Look for a unique idea that is in demand, or take an existing idea and make it better. One of the hottest things right now is specialty mail order items. Items like cigars, beer, and groceries are being sold via mail order. Use imagination and think about what kind of a service people would like to see and if it is something that can be put together inexpensively, and go for it. Also remember this, if people are happy with products that I have sold, they will become repeat customers.
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