E-Bay Pros - how easy is it?

Im thinking about setting up an EBay account but would like a little more advice from experienced users first.

Anything I should know before I begin?

Set up a Paypal account so you can accept electronic payments. http://www.paypal.com

Once thats set up... and you have your ebay account set up... your ready to start selling. Just make sure you give good descriptions for your items... and make sure your subject for your auction is specific. Pics always help too! And in your auction... say you accept paypal and link your paypal ID to your ebay account.

If you have any questions... feel free to FM me!

make sure you have good pictures - and clear detailed descriptions - the more you can say about something the better -
i dont know why but it seems if i spend 5 mins describing something it always sells for more

Listing is really easy but more time consuming then I thought. Take good pictures and have them uploaded to your computer before you start.

I saved my payment & shipping terms in a word file so I can copy & paste it from there instead of retyping each time.

Caluclate your shipping expenses carefully, it's not just postage. Take the supplies & your time in consideration but don't go over board either - that is a deterrent to buyers. Go to the post office or UPS site for estimates - I just weigh the items on my bathroom scale and guess what the packaging may add.

I try to use/charge for priority shipping since you can get the boxes & envelopes for free at the post office. When I do this, I charge actual shipping charges. Plus if you print the mailing label from www.usps.com you can get free delivery confirmation whichis good incase the buyer claims non-receipt.

I would suggest starting out with listing just a handful of items to get started. I made the mistake of listing tons of stuff at once and was a little overwhelmed with shipping everything.

'They' say you want your auctions to end on the weekend, but I think evenings are good enough so west coast people can catch the listing at the end of theday.

With paypal, you have to upgrade your account to a business type account to accept credit card payments. This will incur a fee for every payment you receive. If you don't want to do this, state that you only accept bank transfer payments through paypal, no credit cards.

FYI - they are having a sale on gallery pictures (which helps to sell an item since buyes see a thumbnail in the list of items) and designer listings (backrounds, etc.) It's one cent for any of these upgrades.

Sorry for rambling, but I hope this helps