How to Sell Your Crafts on eBay

Artists, craftspeople and photographers are successfully selling their wares everyday on the online auction site, eBay. According to a recent analysis of eBay sales, a crafts-related item is sold every nine seconds, a scrapbook item is sold every minute, and 40 cross-stitch items sell in an hour on eBay. Sales of craft items on eBay have grown almost 60 percent in the past year, according TheBidFloor.com.

But at the same time, many would be sellers of their pieces for sale at auctions and getting no bids, concluding that eBay just does not work.

Here are some tips from James Dillehay, craft artist, eBay seller and author of the new book, "Sell Your Crafts on eBay" (Warm Snow Publishers), on how to benefit from selling your products online:

1. A word is spelling consequences an issue of profitability. For example, handmade floor ',' spelled as one word, was part of 2,233 auction titles with an average closing price of $ 16.29. However, auction titles that included 'hand made' as two words were found in 1,358 listings, but with an average auction closing price higher at $ 27.81 or $ 11.52 more profit per item.

2. Go to eBay.com and find the search box. Write the word or phrase that describes your art or craft item. Then scroll down the links on the left side and click on the link for "completed items." Here you will see that demand for such products. Do search for your products every two to three weeks to identify buying patterns.

3. Find out how much people are willing to pay for your goods. Click on the "highest price." This will give you a list of completed auctions from highest priced items to them cheapest. You want to know what people are willing to pay for products like yours. If you can not make and sell your product for a profit, eBay may not be your marketplace.

4. Determine how much money you make on your product. To determine your profitability, use your cost of materials plus the cost of your labor plus the price of your selling price should be the minimum price to recover your expenses. If it takes you eight hours to make an ornament, and the highest price of similar item sells on eBay for $ 26, you will not earn a profit.

5. Look at the elements of successful sellers of products similar to yours. Examine their winning auction titles. Observe how much detail they use to describe their post. See if the seller used any of eBay's special features such as gallery photos or a bold, featured listing. Evaluate initial price, the first day of week and duration of winning auctions.

For more tips on how to sell your craft items on eBay, consult a resource book like "Sell Your Crafts on eBay," by James Dillehay. It offers-more than 200 easy-to-learn tactics and tips that help sell art, craft and theme-related topics for a profit on eBay and other online auction sites.