Well, if you are a regular eBay user, (if you are reading this post, I’m guessing you are!) – whether as a buyer or a seller, it’s likely someone who’s new to eBay has asked you for advice in getting started. It’s also a question we’ve been asking our expert eBay marketers in our AuctionCUT interviews.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong answer and the answers vary enormously, here are what some of our experts say.

Robert Frechette: eBay is one of the biggest opportunities right now. If you want to start a business, you can start today. I’m not in any way affiliated with eBay, so I don’t have a bias reason to say that. Once you start selling, you’ll have more ideas than you will time to implement. But, those ideas won’t come until you get started.

Brian McGregor:

• Always invite email communication before a sale is made. Be very polite and professional – this is your opportunity to influence a potential buyer.

• Use multiple item sales, not single items.

• Consider opening an eBay store, particularly if you’re selling information products.

• Keep promoting your eBay auctions or eBay store, for example always include either in your email signature.

• Be professional and try not to let emotions overtake you. For example, it rarely pays to leave negative feedback first – no matter how awkward the customer. If you do give a negative, bear in mind that you will probably attract a negative. You can circumvent unhappy buyers via your “thanks for buying/delivery instructions email”. Always request your buyer to contact you if they are not completely satisfied with their purchase, before they leave feedback.

Jason James: Remember to do your research! Looking at what sold in the past, is so powerful. Be able to leverage that data to optimize your eBay auctions is so powerful. So do your research!

Bob Hamilton: It all starts with moving forward. There are many, many people who want to try selling on eBay. Every single successful seller made the decision to step up and actually start learning and making sales.

Once you have started stick with it. Always keep an eye out for new trends and great buys on merchandise. We have found the grandkids/nieces/nephews are a great source of information regarding what is up and coming.

Locating and purchasing the right products for resale on eBay is critical. Invest the time to find the right products at the right price. They are out there – it just takes time and effort to locate them.

Avril Harper: Just do it! If you regard eBay as a numbers game and accept that some things you do will be profitable and others will lose you money you will never go far wrong. The only important thing to do is to expand on the things that do work and learn from whatever you do that doesn’t work. Keep on listing the profitable products, remove those that don’t work. Then keep on doing that and you really can’t fail.

Lee McIntyre: The biggest piece of advice I can give is to use eBay as a marketing tool. If you develop an effective marketing funnel, and then use eBay to drive traffic into that funnel, you’re going to dramatically increase your profits.

I’d also advise people to automate everything they possibly can. I’m one of the only people in my niche to use digital delivery and this gives me an incredible competitive advantage. While the competition are sending products manually via email, I am creating new products to take my business forward.

Skip McGrath: I am a big fan of niche marketing. I think too many sellers want to sell the latest or hottest product. The problem is that the hottest products have lots of competitors that drive the price down and you can’t source them at really good prices unless you buy in very large volumes.

Finding a specialized niche that doesn’t attract the big boys is the way to make higher and more reliable profits. Also people like to buy from sellers who specialize. Lastly when looking for a niche look for something that interests you and that you enjoy. Getting paid to do something you like is far more rewarding than constantly bouncing around selling anything you can make money on.

People are often sitting on a great niche and don’t know it. A gentleman called me one day and said “Skip, I am going crazy. I just don’t know what to sell.” I asked him what his hobbies and interests were. He said he had been involved with Amateur (Ham) Radio for years. I asked if he realized that vintage Ham Radio equipment was a huge seller on eBay. He said he didn’t realize it and that he had tons of old radio stuff in his garage and had lots of friends who did also. He emailed me about a month or so later and said that in just 3 weeks he had sold over $7000 worth of Ham Radio gear and in addition to selling vintage equipment he was now talking to distributors who could supply new gear.

Now, opening the question to you, If you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s new to eBay what would it be?