One of the greatest things to ever be made is eBay. A fast and reliable way to get rid of stuff you don’t have room for anymore or just stuff that you cant use anymore. I first just started using eBay as a way to get rid of stuff that hadn’t used much that was taking up space in my apartment. But then I looked into it and realized that I could make a living off of just selling things that people want. There are a couple of keys that you need to remember when your trying to get started on eBay make sure you selling something someone wants, make detailed descriptions of your products, and last make sure that you ship the items in a mannerly fashion.

The first key is to make sure that your selling items that people want to buy. To make sure what people want I would suggest to go onto eBay search and see what the most people are looking for. Also check to see what is selling well and what is not selling well. When your doing your research make sure that when your done that you have a list of everything that you believe would be a good seller and then make sure that you take your list and do some test runs with the items that you thought would sell well.

Another key to being able to make a living off of eBay is to make sure that when you are posting an item makes sure that you go into full detail on the items. The reason to this is because the consumer always wants to know in detail what they are getting. Most of the time if there is not a good description of items consumer will not buy them. Also if you make sure that you give a good description of the item then it is less likely that the consumer is going to try to return or realize that they did not want it in the first place.

The next key to making a living off of eBay is to make sure that you ship the items to the consumer in a mannerly fashion. The reason for this is because consumers do not want to sit around and wait for what they have already paid for. When people pay for stuff they tend to want their products within their hands as soon as possible. If you tend to be late shipping then you are likely going to see that your sales will slip. Once you start shipping late then customers are going to leave bad feed back then other will not want to purchase from you shop.

So those are the keys to running your own shop on eBay and trying to make a living off it. If you stick to the three keys then no doubt you will be rolling in the cash flow.

Caffeinated Content

Unlike ‘Boxes’ I discovered the highest prices for combs went to USA listings. ‘Combs’ in collectible terms usually means hair ornaments used as decorate the hair or keep elaborate hair styles in place or prevent long hair being blown by the wind.

The Victorians tended to emulate ladies in stage shows and operas which, like films and television today, had a major impact on designs of clothing and accessories. Combs developed popularity from Bizet’s opera, Carmen, wherein featured ladies wearing tortoiseshell combs that influenced fashion and paved the way for elaborate Art Deco designs of the 1920s and 1930s that are amongst the top selling items on eBay today. Some of those earliest designs, from the late 1800s to around the 1930s, can fetch thousands of pounds today, especially made from carved horn, mother of pearl, tortoiseshell or jet and created by iconic artists like Lalique (famous for glass ornaments), and Faberge (famous for many different intricate designs and almost always certain high price sellers on eBay).

Recent highest eBay prices include:

* ‘Antique 1800s Stunning Celluloid Green Jewels Hair Comb’ that fetched the equivalent of £24.59

* ‘Antique Silver Hair COMB, 1800′s’ fetched the equivalent of £24.23

You’ll see two areas of wasted space here, namely the word ‘stunning’ is superfluous and the comma in 1800′s need not be there. Arguably the word ‘Antique’ is also wasting space in both listings; the term describes items aged 100 years plus, which both items clearly are. I’m not sure if ‘Antique’ is a word frequently used to search for collectable combs, I’d need to do an Advanced Search to be sure.

If ‘antique’ is a frequent search term it is rightly placed in those listings, if not it’s wasting space that could have mentioned the maker, material or colour of the comb, among other things. Anyone selling combs should check completed listings via eBay’s Advance Search facility, especially for a potentially valuable item.

Do it like this: Hit ‘Advanced Search’ to the right of eBay’s normal search box mid-way down the page, next page key words in the search box to describe your item, tick the ‘Completed Auctions Only’ box, hit the ‘Search’ button. Next page, right side, at ‘Price: Sort By’, choose ‘Highest Price’. Now look at all the listings showing green coloured prices, compared to red; green showing items that did sell, red indicating a non-sale.

Check out the highest sellers, see what words they used, study their pictures, learn from their pricing policies and descriptions.

Following from those earlier sales:

* A ‘Ladies Silver Deco cased comb’ fetched £21.60

* A ‘Pretty Victorian Carved Horn Hair Comb’ fetched £20.42

I particularly chose combs as one of the entries for this article due to a really wonderful selection of guides I found authored by an eBay seller specialising in vintage combs.

The thing I really like about combs is that about one hundred years ago virtually every female, not just women of means, had several combs, usually ornate and sometimes studded with gemstones and diamonds or hand painted and tipped with gold.

So many combs existing then, means a great many remaining now, and combs are amongst the most prolific exhibits at flea markets, collectors’ fairs, offline auctions. They often appear in bulk, usually because the original owner has died or they’ve been handed down through the family until someone decides to sell them. And most people sell all in one go at auction or to local traders at flea markets and collector’s fairs.

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