Katie - this page is now complete. I once asked what type of wordprocessor you had, but you replied by telling me your operating system! LOL!

I thought, if I could not send you an attachment that would open successfully at your end, I had better think of another way for you to view this info. I figured the thing you knew best how to do was viewing web pages. It was a bit more difficult to do but it should be easier for you. I learned a lot doing them too - so we have both benefited from it. Like all friendships - we both end up happy!

2.3 SELLING ITEMS

I suggest you try these steps out for real on the 'Sell your Item' page – even if you haven’t got an item to sell. You CANNOT accidentally list an item until you click on the 'Verify' button at the end of the proccess. You will be prompted to accept or abort your advert right at the end so you are safe till we get to that bit. I also suggest you have this guide document open at the same time – as we will be copying and pasting stuff from here onto the eBay selling page.

So, minimize this page then open your 'My eBay' page in the usual way and minimize that also. You can then 'flick' between the two.

Your 'Taskbar' should look like the picture below.

After registering as a seller (see page 2 of this site) – you may be taken straight to the first steps of the ‘Sell your item’ page. If not you can carry out the following steps (in blue) to access it from your ‘My Ebay’ Page. - About ½ way down your 'My eBay'page (under all the Ebay banners stuff) you will see all your account tabs. These are titled ‘Bidding/Watching’ ‘Selling’ ‘Favourites’ ‘Accounts’ Preferences’ ‘All’.

(The ‘Accounts’ tab – we will be dealing with later, but this is where the eBay fees charged to you for listing items will appear. I’ll come back to this tab later).

For now – you need to click on the ‘Selling’ tab.

When the page loads, scroll down the page, past 'Items I'm selling' to the bit that says ‘Selling-Related Links’ / Managing your auctions / Under this list you will find 'Sell your item' Click on this link.

This will now take you to 'Choosing the Selling Format' of the process. When the page loads there are 2 choices 1- ‘Sell at an on-line Auction’ or 2- 'Sell at a Fixed Price. I always use the 1st option – as many buyers avoid fixed price auctions. It depends what you are selling. For now though let's assume you are going for option 1. Check the radio button. (Radio buttons are those that are a tiny circle that when you click in the middle of a circle – it puts a little dot in it to show you have chosen it).

Still on the picture above - You may notice the link to selling fees (on the right hand side under 'New Sellers') – I shall come to selling fees later in section 4 on Marketing. For now though – once you have chosen the ‘Sell at online Auction’ option – hit the continue key.

Now that you have chosen to sell using an online auction you will be taken into 'Step 1 of 5' of the routine. This may seem a little daunting at first, but believe me, after you have done it a few times you will get through the whole process in 10 minutes if you keep it simple like I do.

This next bit may come up on your screen in one of two formats. The following two screenshots show how you may be asked to choose your main category. Either way doesn't really matter. When I was having trouble with listing items I noticed that this first way ALWAYS worked for me, but the second (the 'new enhanced category selector') sometimes kicked me right out of eBay. Dont know why - it may have been that the 'new enhanced category selector' was a new at the time and wasn't working properly.

(This is the first way that you may be asked to choose your main category).

So – if this first screen is there - ignore the link that says ‘Try the enhanced easier category selector.’ It may not always work. Also – ignore the ‘Find suggested categories’ box too (if it is there). You can come back and play with this later! Here I cannot go through the category that I am most familiar with – as it is only available on the UK site. “Antiques and Art / Antiques 20th century / 1960’s” So I will use a category that is common to both sites. The category will be “Pottery and Glass / Glass / Art Glass” So – under the ‘Main Category’ index you need to choose “Pottery and Glass" . As you can see above, there is a long list all the way down the page with a radio-button next to each choice. It may be different on the US site. However, the principle is the same in that you have to select your main category. Once you have checked the radio button for “Pottery and glass” you need to go right to the bottom of the page to ‘continue’. If the US site is different for this bit – don’t panic because the next bit covers the “Alternative” method of selecting that MAY be on your US site.

The screenshot below shows the second way that you may be asked to select your main category. In box number 1 - at the bottom right hand side of the box there is a small black 'Down Arrow' click on this a number of times to scroll the text in the box downward. When you see “Pottery and glass” - click on the words “Pottery and glass”.

There are now a number of white square boxes where you can choose the next bit of the category / “Glass” /. Once you have selected this option, give it a few seconds to load. You will see that the next white box then lists the next stage option. Click on the last part of the category / “Art Glass”. After a few seconds you will see that the other white boxes have gone grey. This signifies there are no further subcategories to choose from. (actually on the UK site there is one further subcategory – but lets not worry about that here).

Once you have chosen the category and sub-categories – ignore all the other stuff about a second category for now and go to the bottom of the page to hit the continue button.

This will then lead you onto the next step (Step 2 – ‘Title and Description’).

On this page you will see 2 white boxes. One that will take only 45 characters for your Item title and one much bigger box for your description. Under this box you will find a link that says ‘Preview your description’. We will come to this in a moment. For now we are looking at the Item description box. If you just type normal English in here it will appear exactly as you type it. If you use some simple HTML you will be able to view it by using the 'Preview your description’ link later on.

The text below is a copy of the HTML text that you 'Copied and Pasted' to me in an email following the exercise on page 1 of these web pages. (Except that I've had to reverse the "<" at the beginning of each line in order for it to appear on this page as text). If I hadn't have changed the arrows around here - this web page would have seen them as HTML instructions and carried them out by showing the pink background box that appears below.

I will send you the EXACT text in an eMail. You can then save the eMail and 'copy and paste' the text whenever you need it. >TABLE width="95%" bgColor=pink border=4>

>TBODY>

>TR>

>TD>

>Center>

TYPE YOU ITEM DESCRIPTION HERE

>/td>

>/tr>

>/tbody>

>/table>

If the arrows are the correct way round - look at what happens - you get this!

TYPE YOU ITEM DESCRIPTION HERE

And that is exactly what you will get in your Item Description when you sell your item. The box will expand downwards the more you type.

Whenever you want to sell an item all you need to do is 'Copy and Paste' this text into the Item Description box. Then you just delete the words "TYPE YOUR ITEM DESCRIPTION HERE" and type in your own wording.

So - wherever you have saved the eMail that I sent with the text description - go find it and Copy and Paste it into the descrpition box on the eBay selling page. Type in your own wording. Now – if you click on the 'Preview your description’ you will see the fruits of your labour!

Have a practice You can change the background color by changing the instruction in the first line that reads 'bgcolor=pink' - just try colors like 'lightblue' or 'lightgreen'. (make sure its all one word). If it doesnt understand you color, or if you misspelt it, you will get a standard color of the programs choice (usually dark blue) I will send you a list of acceptable HTML colors in the 4th section called Marketing that I will email to you.

You can also visit www.eobcards.com and scroll down till you get the ‘My Tutorials’ white box – click on any of the subjects like “Basic Text color and Size”. This guy encourages you to copy and paste his ideas onto your eBay pages. He is a real nice guy and was very helpful to me in emails a couple of years ago. You can also practice on a free HTML board (like the Preview your description’ thing) on www.practiceboard.com

But lets move onto step 3 of this 'Sell your item' process.

Ignore the links on the right hand side for the moment.

Shop category. - Only applies if you have set up an eBay shop.

Duration. - You can choose 3,5,7 or 10 day auctions. The cost of the auction is determined by the starting price and number of categories you list in. The auction duration does not effect the cost, so you might as well go for the 10 days. It’s the best choice if you have a low number of items (4 or less) to sell in one week. If you had say 12 items to sell – but wanted to have them all sold within a month – the you might list 3 or 4 each week on 7 Day auctions. But remember – 10 day auctions give you TWO weekends coverage if you list from Thursday through Sunday. Please be sure to have read section 4 on Marketing – as auction duration is a very important concept.

Start time. - Choose ‘Start listing when submitted’ for now.

Quantity. - relates to what you bidders are bidding ON. A set of 6 tea-cups is ONE item for the set. If you want them to bid individually and are prepared to sell to six different buyers – you should list SIX different auctions – or use the multiple number type auction which will be generated if you enter a number greater than ONE in this box.

Starting price. - Either choose a price that is realistic, but may loose you many bidders, OR set it as low as you dare like $1.00 – this usually gets many bidders but you run the risk that if only ONE person sees your item 2 minutes before the auction close and puts a bid in for that $1.00 – you are duty bound to sell at that price. I have very often started at £1.00 – and so far that has never happened to me. Please be sure to have read section 4 Marketing, because the starting price is very important.

Reserve Price. - This is one of those features that put many, many bidders off buying. Use sparingly – only on those items you could not bear to part with for anything less. Again – read Section 4 on Marketing, first.

Buy it now.Another feature that tends to put people off bidding or increasing bids on your item. Again, use sparingly – it is useful if you buy things wholesale and have a ‘retail’ price in mind. But for ‘collectables’ it tends to stifle bidding. And anyway – it sets a MAXIMUM price that you can get. No one will ever bid higher than this Buy it now price!!!!

Private Auctions.I have never used this option.

Item location.

Town/City.You only have to type this in on very first item you list. The eBay page will ‘remember’ it on subsequent listings. What you type in here will appear at the top of your auction advertisement under ‘location’

County/Region. - As above.

Country. - As above.

I hope you have read the section on photographs in section 4 Marketing, because we have now reached that part of the process.

Add Pictures.

Click on ↓ “eBay picture services”– the first time you use this – you will be asked

to download either the ‘Basic’ or the ‘Enhanced’ picture service. You might as well go for the Enhanced as they are both free.

( If you had chosen the “Your own Web hosting” option – it is hellishly complicated. Believe me – I know. These webpages rely on webhosting – eBay’s is FAR more reliable and MUCH easier to use).

Downloading either of eBay’s picture services only takes a few seconds and it ‘automates’ your picture loading to a great extent.

A teddy bear symbol denotes that you have got the ‘Enhanced’ version loaded. This will appear to the right hand side of the 6 white blank pictureboxes – like on my selling page pictured above. If you load the ‘Basic’ version – you get a picture of an Elephant (I think) in place of the teddy bear.

Now you can move onto loading your picture – click into the first white box (it says ‘First picture – Free’. Now load your picture as I described in section 4 Marketing.

Picture layout. - choose standard.

Listing Designer. Choose a theme. Choose a layout. - I have never bothered to use these. You may wish to try them in the future – but for your first time - let's keep it simple.

Gallery. I nearly ALWAYS select gallery – it cost me 15p but it is well worth it. It shows a miniature picture on the left hand side of your items title on the category listings / searches. If you DO NOT choose this option – you will just get that little green camera symbol next to your listing. Gallery makes browsing a whole lot easier for the bidder. And people like to see what they are getting.

Gallery Featured. Only use for really expensive items.

Listing Upgrades.For you first item – leave all these options blank.

Gallery.Free Page Counter – Choose Andale Style. This can be a very powerful tool in helping you to make your future listings even better. It’s a sort of market research on how well you write you Ads if you compare it with figures from items listed by other sellers in the same category.

AND THAT IS JUST ABOUT IT! We are nearly there!!!! Click on the continue button to move onto the next stage ‘Payment and Shipping / Postage’.

Seller - accepted payment methods.Tick the boxes that you are willing to accept. Paypal is now becoming very popular with bidders. In fact - some buyers only do searches on Items where they can pay with Paypal. If you have more payment details on your item description - Tick the box that says 'See item description'.

Shipping / Postage costs. Select buyer under most circumstances - unless you are offering free shipping on some smal items - I have done this occasionally and it DOES help to get increased bids. It also shows the buyer you are giving them a good deal.

Also - if you have any more details about shipping cost you wish to make - if you click into 'Yes, specify below' this will give you bax to below to type in this extra or spacial info.

If however the shipping costs are straight forward - enter the cost into the boxes.

Below you can see that I refer the Highest bidder to my item description for further shipping / posting and payment details.

Ship-to /Post-to locations. Select whether you are willing to ship to US only or worldwide or any of the combinations offered. If you do NOT accept Paypal - then you may wish to limit to US only for your first couple of items. If you DO accept Paypal then trading with other English speaking countries is no more difficult that trading at home. And of-course you immediately open up the possibility of far more traffic to view your item. Although international shipping costs are high and puts many bidders off in the final reconning, some people are so desparate to own somethings they are willing to pay anything. If you only trade at home you may be denying someone the chance to appreciate the same stuff that you do. But these options are likely to change with each different item.

Escrow. Escrow is a sort of 'middle-man' service. The buyer sends payment to the middle man. At the same time the seller sends the item to the middleman too. The middleman checks the item is OK then sends payment to the seller and the item to the buyer. I'm no expert at this as I have seen a lot of sellers complain about the service. I have never used it yet but if I have a very expensive item I may think about it. Even if the service runs smoothly - it is bound to add a few extra days onto the completion of the transaction. You can find out more about escrow from the ebay help links.

Now all you need to do is hit the 'continue button to move onto the last stage - 'Review and submit' On this last page - check that you are happy with the details as they appear on the left-hand side. If you need to alter anything - click on the 'Edit....' links on the right-hand side of the page.

DO NOT click on submit if you are on a 'practice run'. Only click on it if you are selling your first item!

Good luck with your selling Katie - I look forward to seeing your first item for sale. I'm sure you will be a VERY successful seller. I think you are one determined lady and are never mediocre at anything. All the best!

Maz.