any tips for a beginning ebay seller?

my advice would be to run as far away and as fast as you can away from greedbay and look inter other venues. Loudfrog, ecrater are excellent alternatives. Go to ebays answer center and read the horror stories that people have to offer. I am being serious.. greedbay doesn't give a d@mn about its sellers. All they care about is $$$. I stopped selling there in Feb because of all the ridiculous changes that were made.. and it just keeps getting worse.. so run far and fast and look into other venues JMO

I've been doing ebay off and on for about three years, and it's fun but getting harder to make a profit since the fees keep going up! I usually just list things now that I am pretty sure will fetch a decent price. As the first poster notes, always deal honestly and fairly with your customers. Don't gouge on shipping like so many sellers do. Offer a reasonable return policy. I've heard a lot of horror stories about bad buyers and sellers but have never had any real problems in that area. What goes around comes around, treat people right and they usually do the same for you in return. You should describe your item as if you had no pictures, and take pictures as if you had no description. Give your buyers a clear picture of what they're bidding on. Describe any defects, even tiny ones, that your item may have. Make your return policies and payment methods clear in the description, too, so there are no questions. Wait to give feedback until you know your buyer has received the item and is happy with it. Pack your items carefully for shipping. If you are sending something that could be damaged if it gets wet, like books, wrap them in plastic before packing them. Cushion fragile items with bubble wrap, and if the item is particularly valuable, require that the buyer purchase shipping insurance, or at least insure it yourself for your own peace of mind.

Always be honest with your descriptions, if you are not sure of something to do with the item say so, if it has any flaws say so....if you are 100% honest then it will save you a lot of hassles and some people will still buy things with flaws or chips...

I've been on Ebay for over eight years, and was a power seller.It's not near as good as in the "early years" and since all the changes to Ebay Australia thimgs are slowing,with a lot of sellers going to other sites.

Here is a link that shows you some (not all) alternative sites to greedbay. http://www.powersellersunite.com/auctionsitewatch.php

As far as tips for a beginning eBay seller, one of the first things that you need to do is to build up your feedback rating. If you want to sell, people need to know whather or not they will be able to trust you to deliver their goods - safely, as others have described above. While the care that you take in your listing description may give potential buyers some assurance (I pack my items carefully, with bubble wrap or whatever, and label my packages with safe handling notices, etc.), the feedback rating is the really big clue that people look for to see whether or not you can be trusted. And, you are able to build up that feedback rating in one of two ways: buying or selling. You have to buy on eBay in order to sell? Well... that's one possibiiity. As a buyer, you can demonstrate that you are able to responsibly carry out transactions and hold up your end of the bargain. You are prompt with your payments. And then, if a seller is pleased with how you have conducted yourself, they may leave you a positive feedback rating. The other way to build up your positive feedback on eBay is through selling. Now, this may seem like a vicious circle - if people typically only buy from those who already have ratings under their belt. If the price is right on an item that people want, they may still be willing to take a chance on a seller - even if that seller doesn't have a high rating yet. (For the right price, they may be willing to give a newbie a break, at least considering the fact that the newbie does not have negative feedback stacked against him!) In my experience, there seem to be various feedback rating threshholds at which customers begin to feel comfortable buying from a seller. Sales, in my experience, started to trickle in after 10 positive ratings. Then again, 10 positive ratings as a seller opened up a new window for buyers to view how I conducted myself as a seller - which was another boost to customer confidence. And then, as the ratings numbers increased, customers seemed to become more and more confident with me as a seller. Whether eBay is still as popular as it once was, I think others have answered that question above. Is it still a good way to make money? I think that if you can master eBay's rules and learn to work within its system, it is a good launching point and provides an opportunity for one stream of online cashflow. Thanks for the discussion thread!

Do a lot of reading in the help section, because ebay itself is very descriptive as to what is and isn't acceptable. I have been selling and buying for a while now and sometimes I sell with no problem and other times I can't sell anything. But always remember to be very descriptive about what your selling and also be 100% honest about the items you are listing because customer satisfaction plays a huge role in your rating. When you have a bad score or negatives, people tend to not buy from you, so it is best to have great communication with your buyers and potential buyers.