New sellers, take eBay's 'suggestions' with a grain of salt.

EBAY's stupid advice on listing, pricing, shipping. Don't take their suggestions at all is better advice. I don't know why they are included in the listing form at all. People who are new look at the stuff and think "oh, eBay must know how to do this I should follow their advice. WRONG! For example, listing. I run everything on auction for 7 days just in case there is a chance an item is worth more than I thought. (do research on eBay, check what you item is SELLING for, not what people LIST it for) After the 7 day auction, (if the item does not flip meaning sell in those first 7 days) I relist everything at a percentage higher price with "make an offer" enabled. When I relist at fixed price I get a warning from eBay "WE THINK YOU HAVE A MUCH BETTER CHANCE TO SELL THIS AT AUCTION". This is total nonsense. I made "top rated power seller" in 6 months. You can't do this if you don't know what you are doing on eBay. The very large majority of my sales are things listed as "fixed price make an offer". Buyers almost always low ball and you, I find if I come back with a reasonable discount, they buy. It's so simple. Then there is eBays suggested pricing. "We suggest you start your auction at .99 to attract more buyers". Do this if you want .99 for your item. Unless you got something really hot (which usually means the buyer is re selling the item, or you wildly underpriced it" this will not work and like the rest of the eBay's great advice starting auctions at .99 is a sure fire way to lose money. Lastly, eBays advice on how you should ship. "Offer free shipping." You can, but you'd better budget into your price how much it'll cost to ship that item to CA (or the point in the continental US farthest away form your location) and trust me, it's not cheap. There goes the profit! Shipping is by far the hardest thing to figure out for new sellers and taking eBays advice is a quick way to go out of business. Then, to add insult to injury eBay will estimate how much your product weighs and base recommended shipping on this. The suggested weight is total nonsense about 90% of the time and you'll end up losing money on shipping. Get a scale. Weigh the item and until you learn how to estimate, weigh the item packed in the box you'll use for shipping with peanuts or newspaper or whatever you need to make sure the item will arrive safely. YOU are responsible for that item until the customer gets it. It's not rocket science most of what I ship is very fragile and easily breakable and I have very little damage in shipping. If you use Priority Mail USPS you get free $50 insurance and the package will get to the buyer Fast. You also get a little discount from eBay. I recommend Priority mail for items under 6 lbs. or so. I use it almost 100% of the time unless the item is inexpensive AND heavy. Then I ship Parcel Select USPS (ground) Bottom line, eBay is great once you learn the ropes a little. Just watch a few videos on the internet and you can learn all you need to know but don't take eBays suggestions. Look up "picking profits" or "scraperella" on youtube and watch their videos on how to do eBay for some great free advice. That's how I got started.