Starting up and running an eBay business - #2 How to sell on ebay UK

Although in-depth information is aplenty on the ebay.co.uk site, here are the initial 5 steps required to set yourself up as a seller.

1) Set up a new account.

You will be required to provide credit card and bank account details for verification purposes. You'll also need to decide how you pay your seller fees. There is an initial "insertion fee" of between 15p and £2 depending on the value of your item (or reserve price), and a "final value" fee which depends on the price you sell the product for. This is currently 5.25% of the final bid, but only payable if the item sells.

2) Preparing your item for sale.

This is the essential part of the selling process. As in any supply/demand scenario, you need to find out a) is there a demand for your product and b) what is a typical price for the product. You will then need to cater your supply to the demand on eBay and set the price accordingly. Also check that what you are intending to sell is not prohibited by eBay (refer to their site for details). Examples of prohibited items are plane tickets, alcohol and cigarettes. Other items which could infringe copyright (e.g. albums copied onto CDR) are also disallowed.

3) Listing your item for sale.

Another crucial step - you are effectively creating a sales brochure for your product - complete with description / pictures and presumably some sales patter. You can decide to auction the product or "buy it now". Finally, you choose whether to list your item for 1,3,5,7 or 10 days.

4) Payment and P&P.

As the vendor, you decide which payment types you are willing to accept (e.g. postal order, cheque or PAYPAL). Paypal is an excellent complete payment system owned by ebay which seamlessly deals with the payment between parties and is obviously recommended. Many buyers will only purchase items if your have the Paypal option enabled. You will also need to instruct the buyers how much postage will be per item, including international options (if necessary). Higher value products are best sent via recorded/registered post, so you will need to advertise these costs on the listing page.

5) Closing the deal.

Once the listing has expired (or the buyer has used the "buy it now" option), you need to ensure that payment is received before sending out the product (Again, Paypal is instant and by far the most convenient way to do this). Both buyer and seller should then leave feedback for each other - pretty much always this is "positive"!

You can read more in-depth information on all these steps on the eBay site.

• On to Part 3 - Top 10 eBay Selling Tips