Before You List

     

Remember that before you can list an item for sale, you have to be a registered eBay user . So if you haven't registered yet, turn back to Chapter 10, "Step Eight: Establish Your eBay Presence," and follow the instructions there.

Even after you've registered, there's a bunch of other stuff you need to do before you actually create your item listing. We'll cover them all over the course of the chapter, but for now you can see what's ahead by taking a look at the following checklist.

Before You List Checklist

Make sure the item exists and is ready for sale. (The exception is if youre arranging drop-shipping for this item, as described in Chapter 8, "Step Six: Find and Manage Your Inventory.")

Take a picture or a scan of the item and prepare a JPG-format file for uploading. (See Chapter 19, "Working with Photographs," to learn more.)

Determine what you think the final selling price will be, and then choose an appropriate minimum bid price.

Determine what listing options you might want to purchase ”such as boldfacing the title or placing the item in the Gallery.

Think up a catchy yet descriptive headline for the item.

Write out a detailed description of the item.

Determine what payment options youll accept. (If you haven't yet signed up with PayPal, now is the time.)

Determine how you want to ship the item.

Weigh the item, and then try to determine the actual shipping costs. Use that information to set an upfront shipping/handling charge, if you want.

If you havent yet registered as an eBay user and entered your credit card information, do that now.

Determine what day of the week ”and what time of the day ”you want your auction to end. (If youre not sure about this, check out the tips in Chapter 18, "Making Your Auctions More Effective.")

Determine whether you want to use eBays Checkout feature ”and if so, change your selling preferences to activate Checkout. (See the following section for details.)

We'll cover the most important of these little pre-listing details next . But if you want a more detailed introduction to eBay selling, I suggest you pick up a copy of my companion book, Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay ”it goes over this entire process in much more depth.