Are you looking for ways to bring in extra cash? eBay offers a place where somebody who wants to sell something can meet up with a buyer who’s anxious to have it.

So What are the three most useful tips to have a successful experience making money on eBay?

Getting Started

Before you even consider just what you’re going to sell on eBay, rest assured that eBay takes you by the hand and leads you through the process. After all, it wouldn’t be the successful marketplace that it is if people stumbled around trying to find out the best way to do things. Its organisers have spent time testing various methods that they’ve come across, and their recommended methods are tried and true.

Now, let’s get on to our 3 most useful tips for making money on eBay.

1. Deciding What to Sell

For starters, take a look around your home. Dig into the backs of closets and shelves, high and low. Whenever you find items that are going unused, don’t give them away, don’t throw them away—sell them!

Check every room of the house. Whether the items belong to you, your spouse, or your children, they’re fair game to be sold on eBay if they’re not being used.

Even if you doubt that someone will buy some obscure doohickie, remember that eBay lets you list your first 50 auction and buy-it-now items per month with no upfront fee—you only pay if and when it sells. If you have multiples of similar items—books or DVDs, or maybe several T-shirts—list like items together as one insertion. Let your buyer choose color or size or book title from your descriptions in the listing. In that way you can list more merchandise within your 50 free listings.

Include photos with every item. When someone is scrolling through a list of crystal carousels for sale, they will skip past the items that don’t show a photo.

eBay actually has some pretty cool tools to help you out. Visit pulse.ebay.com to benefit from tracking three various lists. The first list tells you the 10 most popular searches. The second one lists the 10 largest eBay stores; take a look at what they’re selling. The third list, if you scroll down on the page, shows you the 10 most-watched items.

2. Don’t Overprice Your Items

Describe your item accurately. It’s not good practice to describe something as “good condition” if it’s really only fair. You’ll only be harming yourself if you stretch the truth, because your buyers will complain to eBay, and eBay will moderate the complaints to a fair resolution.

Check out the current selling prices of similar items by searching for them using the Advanced feature. On the eBay home page, to the right of the Search button, click on the word Advanced. A window will open and you can type in your item’s name and then below you will see a checkbox to search for Completed Listings only. That feature lets you know what items like yours sold for most recently.

Do, however, remember to allow for your eBay fee, your shipping fee, and the PayPal fee, if applicable. eBay has a tool to help you calculate your shipping costs.

3. Put Social Media to Work

The face of the world has changed for sellers these days considering the presence of tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. If you have a seller’s store, you can most likely let potential buyers connect to it via one of the popular social media options. It’s a great way to spread information about whatever you’re selling, and once you post it it’s easy for interested people to share it with others.

eBay suggests that you create several Facebook handles for yourself. The guidelines state that you must have a fan page separate from your business. When you’re on the Facebook page, click on help and then type in Create a Page. A new window will open that lets you suggest the right type of page for your business.

Facebook recommends that you post a blog entry to the top once a week, where it will stay for the entire week. This keeps interested people going back to your page. You must manually paste in your blog link from your blog. Although eBay says you can import blog posts automatically, Facebook’s new Timeline format no longer supports that. If you’ve posted your business on Facebook, create a page from the business Facebook—don’t use your personal Facebook.

Check Out eBay’s Selling Basics

For more suggestions, visit eBay’s selling basics. You’ll make more money from eBay if you cross you I’s and dot your t’s carefully. On the Internet, mistakes are hard to take back, so move slowly—but keep moving forward. It takes time to build a presence on eBay, or anywhere else on the Internet. Just keep at it!

Check out some of the most popular how to sell on eBay guides here.

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