Guide to Selling on eBay and Online Effectively How Photograph & Sell Your Coins Collection

Guide to Selling on eBay and Online Effectively

Guide to Selling on eBay and Online Effectively

Mr. Ilya Zlobin, world-renowned expert numismatist, enthusiast, author and dealer in authentic ancient Greek, ancient Roman, ancient Byzantine, world coins & more.

by Ilya Zlobin
an Ancient and World Coin Expert Enthusiast, Author and Dealer
15+ Year eBay Professional Seller with over 19000+ Items and 20000+ Positive Feedbacks

 

FIND IT ONLINE HERE:
https://trustedcoins.com/sellingguide
or right click select download it in PDF version on the link below:
https://trustedcoins.com/sellingguidedownload


This work is dedicated to YOU!

For this work to benefit you in an amazing age of wonder and discovery.
You are a hero, a champion, and will get amazing growth should you choose to apply the tools given here!


Table of Contents

USE THE to come back to the Table of Contents from any section


Guide to Selling on eBay and Online Effectively

Introduction – Overview of this Entire Guide (MUST WATCH!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwZSAUCAEiY

 

Introduction

You have come here in order to benefit from my many years of experience in dealing with thousands of customers in a positive manner and to be more effective with the right tools to get the right job done. This is dedicated to my mother and my friends and my current and future patrons. My intention is to benefit everyone that should choose to implement any or all of the techniques discussed in this guide. This guide could benefit both collectors of coins and those that want to sell absolutely anything online, because the techniques are applicable to all. You will find yourself having fun and being effective in selling online effectively.

There are many issues that people are faced with when trying to sell online. Whatever the reason you have, you have come to the right place, if you are willing to learn, I am happy to share my knowledge and expertise in a concise manner. The two most important things you can learn from my guide is to listen to those that have what you want and have been where you are and to apply the knowledge as soon as you possibly can, being a good student. Having an inventory of over 19,000 items in my eBay store, http://www.ebaystores.com/Authentic-Ancient-Greek-Roman-Coins, and over 20,000 positive feedback references, you may have found what who you want to learn from and I am willing to teach.

The benefits of selling online

  • Worldwide marketplace that makes it easy to find a buyer for your item
  • Easier than going to coin and trade shows to try to sell your items
  • Your items are for sale 24/7
  • People can make you offers and you can sell items that you normally would not be able to sell otherwise for a fixed price.
  • Pay commission on item only when you sell, and your listings for any price can be up for 30 day periods for as low as 5 cents.
  • You can do this from home with minimal equipment you have.
  • As coin collector, you can trade up by selling extra items you own to buy the coins you are interested in collecting.

Listing and Presentation

Listing and presentation can be done very simply, from the very easy way of being able to photograph and list with Android / iPhone / iPad or PC, the variety of tools is immense. What I will share in this section are the tools that I use that you can use to benefit yourself. In fact I am using the same tool as I use to list to write this guide.

Designing the Listing Tool I Use and How I Implement It

This tool is called Microsoft FrontPage 2003, which you can find an original disc and license easily on eBay. I like this tool because of the simplicity it has. A great alternative, that is free is Microsoft Expression Web 4.0, you can get ABSOLUTELY FREE directly from the Microsoft site: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36179. Both of these software tools work very similarly. There are books on the subject and online tutorials likely available on YouTube if you search for them.

The entire internet has an underlying code called HTML behind it, put simply as it could be. This code is marked up to create things such as links and format text to be bold and such. Most people don’t see it. However if you want to design listings you may may want to be able to access it easily and quickly. You don’t need to know HTML, but perhaps a book like FrontPage 2003 for dummies might help. In fact I am writing this presentation in the same listing tool . Essentially every listing I create is a standalone HTML file, which the internet still uses.

Figure 1: Overview of FrontPage HTML program

Figure 2 – Accessing the eBay HTML for your Listing to Paste in Your Design

Figure 3 – Pasting the Listing into eBay:

Reasons for Use of this Software

  • It allows you to create a standard listing format that could include things such as an FAQ or other design elements you want to use for all your listings.
  • Have a saved copy of each listing you do that is easy to search later and build upon or re-use for a future similar or same item.
  • It is cheap to get on eBay, or get the free version online. I like this version because it doesn’t have any extra features and that I just don’t need. KEEP IT SIMPLE!
  • It allows you to build up a huge database of listings you can use, re-fine and re-use!
  • These HTML files work in any browser.

COIN Photography & Editing for BEGINNERS Anyone CAN DO for FREE HOW TO GUIDE to Using Them in Your eBay LISTING

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8wAg4JleGo

Google gives you free photo service called Google photos. On Android go into your Play Store, and on Apple use the App Store and search google photos and install it. You install it and logging with a gmail account. Create one if you don’t have one at gmail.com, I recommend making your email easy to tell people on the phone so think about it for a minute. Once you launch the app on your phone, you go to settings and have it set up to upload pictures and videos to Google Photos automatically. I find with my iPhone, I need to have the screen open, so you may want to set your screen autolock to several minutes or more with the app open (ask some local kid how to do it if you don’t know how to do it). So basically put, if you look at the guide below, I tell you to photograph your coins with an item number on a tag, or a 2×2 inch piece of paper, where you also write the size and the weight all at once. The idea is that you want to make as much of the same process as possible like on an assembly line. You put your coins down on a tray or on a table. Write an item number on a piece of paper in bold letters maybe with a sharpie. Then take write the size (in millimeters), the weight in grams, the price you paid in the bottom left hand corner and the price you want to list it up for in the bottom right corner, in case you want your family member to help you. If you are the collector, you know your prices much better. So after that step is done photograph it with your cell phone, maybe wearing white cotton gloves at various angles until you get your own stride. Then open your Google Photos app and these photos will upload to your Google photos account, with the photos accessible via www.photos.google.com, you can use the key commands Shift R to Rotate the coin. You open up the latest group of photos you did and use the Free program called LightShot for both Mac and Windows  https://app.prntscr.com/en/index.html available here, then click on the feather icon to open up the menu. Lastly I will show you the slightly more advanced technique of using the photos on eBay and also how to upload them to your own server and put them into your description. You can find Quick Photo Resizer software I used in my above tutorial here: http://www.dzsoft.com/.

 

 

Photography – How to Effectively Photograph and Save Files

THE FOLLOWING SECTION IS A BIT MORE ADVANCED AND INVOLVED, BUT ALL MAY BE WORTHWHILE TO WATCH TO GIVE YOU A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHOTO PROCESS.

This section is of my advanced setup, and is more suitable to those that want to take the time and energy setting it up. That is why after this section, I created a simplified version of what could be done with a cell phone. So you can skip if you like this part without too much loss, but some concepts may be worthwhile to learn here either way.

Best COIN PHOTOGRAPHY Nikon A900 Camera Settings TUTORIAL to Macro Photos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqRHXY_9i0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq4DHzyugZY

Getting a good clear and true to life photograph for people to be able to see your coin or object or item is paramount. I use the Nikon A900 (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=a900) point and shoot camera. A halogen 500 watt work light. An acrylic tank from Petland Discounts which has a white sheet of paper on the bottom and an 8.5 by 11 glass from a picture frame on the top. An LED under-light which is placed atop an old PC computer case and a tripod tied to it with a rope  Mind you, your setup does not have to get this fancy. You can do a lot of photography with just an ordinary iPhone 7. You can get a free account with Dropbox and have the phone automatically upload the pictures to your hard drive over WiFi via their software. You want to upload it to your desktop because you want to crop the photos well and assign an item number to each one.

TIP: photograph the coins with a hand-written number next to it so that when you are cropping the photo to remove extra space, you’ll be able to know identify it. I have a whole video on managing a coin collection with the coin supplies here: How to Manage Store Display and Keep Track of Large Coin Collection & Supplies (Article with Video)

My Coin Photography Setup

 

Steps for photography:

  1. Give each of your coins an item number that can be seen in the photograph as you photograph together with it. Also write down the price you paid in the bottom left corner, and the size and weight in millimeters as in the chart above.
  2. Use an image editing program to remove extra space from around the coin or object photo (THIS IS CALLED CROPPING or to CROP a PHOTO) either with a photo editing program (such as Affinity Photo https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/)
  3. Save each obverse and reverse with the filename being the item number you used followed by ‘o’ or ‘r’ (for obverse or reverse), or if you always have more than two images, follow with a b c etc. (I use both depending on the situation)
  4. When you are listing you can quickly find the cropped photos on your hard drive and upload them to eBay.

 

 

Figure 4 – How my coin tray looks like being prepared for photography

ADVANCED TIP:  Resizing Photos Quickly and Easily. You will find sometimes eBay may not like the cropped image saying it is not large enough for their site, which I believe has to be 500 pixels on one end, so you need to resize them. Buy the software called Quick Image Resizer http://www.dzsoft.com/ and resize them quickly and easily. You set the appropriate settings as in the picture below.

Figure 11 – Resizer Settings for the larger photo


eBay Listing Titles that SELL!

Steps for Titles:

  • ALWAYS include your item number at the end of title in alphanumeric, please don’t use i before your number, perhaps your initials then item number, for example AG1000 NP250
  • Use words such as silver gold original antique
  • For world coins, as example a coin of Mexico could have 1840 Mexico Silver Antique Mexican coin, as people search for various things and we can’t expect someone to search for an obscure term
  • Fill out the entire box with of the title
  • FOR EXAMPLES of GOOD TITLES, see mine:  http://www.ebaystores.com/Authentic-Ancient-Greek-Roman-Coins

Benefits of good titles:

  • Your listings will stand out from other listings online that didn’t take the time for this
  • You can use the item number to find the item for shipping or it’s cost should someone make an offer on it.
  • Will keep you organized and make sure you send people the exact item.
  • You can do a lot more coins in a lot less time.
  • You can use the alpha-numeric item number (mixture of letters and numbers to easily find it by search on eBay.com)

ADVANCED TIP: The alpha numerical item number will allow you to have a corresponding EXCEL Spreadsheet or any other list where you can have the data stored with description and pricing stored you can consult for how much you can paid if you are accepting offers.  


Shipping Like a Pro

PACKAGING and SHIPPING Coins Securely and Mailing them Registered Mail and Best Label Maker for it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU23RbOAwKM

 

Always use the Paper Tape linked below to seal envelopes.  Either put it in the yellow padded envelope or yellow padded envelope inside the book-fold box. The reason why you want to use the paper tape on the flap, is that you want it to be temper evident in cases someone opened the package and would have to rip the package to get to what’s on the inside.

Get tracking information for all packages to the US and anything over 250 get signature confirmation. Post office people sometime could leave a package on the front porch for anyone to come and take otherwise. Remember you are liable for any package that is not signed for, or at least has a valid tracking under 250. So ship safely and securely and upload the tracking information to eBay for people to track their things. You can also use merchandise enclosed Safe-T mailers. I personally take a 2.5 inch coin flip and take my 2 inch coin flip coin and scotch tape it to a half page paper as sometimes people don’t understand it otherwise. Good shipping is very important and is valued by customers and I am sure you appreciate yourself when you get such care taken of yourself.

ADVANCED TIP: I provide a print out of the information about the coin for all my customers on a COA and as a coin tag because people appreciate this kind of thing. You don’t know how many times I have seen a disorganized presentation of a coin being sent in a baggy and years later people don’t know what it is and ask for my help. Consider this worthwhile data for your inheritors.

ADVANCED TIP: You can create your own custom font, which replaces numbers 0 to 9 with your own symbols that you can only read, so that you could have it printed on your flip and know exactly the amount you paid without advertising this original price. Then you can have an excel column with this custom font and the prices being automatically converted to it. Dealers have been doing this for years, but this takes it to another level because it goes electronic.

ADVANCED TIP: When people will get a coin from you with the coin tag information printed, they will value the coin more as that is a sign of a professional dealer to have a professional printed coin tag. On the back of it you can have your  website or address if you wish. The goal is to have your work speak for and advertise itself!

Software for Shipping

SHIPWORKS – (I have basic plan for about $30 monthly) –  https://www.shipworks.com/ecommerce-pricing-plans/ – CALL SUPPORT to help you get started 1-800-952-7784 (for shipworks and ask them about the Stamps.com offer)
a Shipworks account gives you a www.Stamps.com account FREE as it is one company. I use these two alternately. – or STAMPS support hotline: 1 (855) 889-7867

Supplies for Shipping

DYMO 1755120 LabelWriter 4XL Thermal Label Printer – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002M1LGJ4/

LABELS to GET for this label printer (GET the ) – https://customer.stamps.com/Store/catalog/product4.jsp?id=dymo-compatible-4.125-x-6.25-label-rolls

PAPER – Acid Free High-Quality for Long-term Archival Safety: https://www.staples.com/Hammermill-Premium-Inkjet-Paper-8-1-2-x-11-24lb-2-500-Case-166140/product_923542

PAPER TAPE – https://www.staples.com/Intertape-Carton-Master-Reinforced-Tape-3-x-450-Kraft-10-Case-T907KR663/product_504315

MAILING SUPPLIES – (Amazon maybe better in some cases, but both options are given):

PRINTER HL-3170CDW   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/  &  COMPATIBLE CARTRIDGE (saves a ton of money) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BNLKVTZ/

BONUS THINGS YOU MAY WANT:

MY 32" Inch Screens I have three of, the OMEN by HP 32-inch QHD Gaming Monitor: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/
Elgato Stream Deck – Programmable LCD buttons on my desk to open up websites and speed workflow: https://www.amazon.com/Elgato-Stream-Deck-Controller-customizable/dp/B06XKNZT1P/


eBay Online Reputation

Reputation is most important especially online and you should guard it with your life. If a coin gets lost in the mail, issue people a refund. I personally have 30 day money back guarantee that people can return for no reason at all. It is more important to accept a return than have an unhappy customer. A happy patron with deal with you for a lifetime because they know they will be treated fairly, and that is more important than a single sale. If you receive a negative you can offer to give a full refund or partial refund  to the customer if they change their feedback to a positive by requesting an eBay feedback revision. As you build up a good reputation it will make you stand out, and as you know that word of mouth is super important. People deal with people they know and trust.

ADVANCED TIP: Include your business card. I include my business card with my photo with all my packages with my phone number and email so that a person can contact me quickly and easily and know whom they are dealing with. When you do things right, almost nobody will ever call you with any complaints, but only reach out to you with praises of how happy they are. I use the folded business card from GotPrint.com – https://www.gotprint.com/products/folded-business-cards/order.html as it allows more room for presentation. I include a professional headshot of myself on it, when someone takes several hundred, anyone can get the best one for their online marketing. You can search for professional headshots on www.groupon.com and without buying there, contact the service provider directly and ask for a similar price or maybe even discount because groupon charges I think maybe even a 30-50 percent commission. You can either upload your own template or use their online designer tool.

Figure 8 – The settings I use on my Gotprint site.

 


Social Media and Online Presence

Back in the day, if you remember, how you found a repairman or other service was by searching the yellow pages for one. Nowadays the yellow pages have been replaced with a tool called Google My Business GMB. It is easy to set up. Create a GMAIL account for this purpose at gmail.com. Then search online for google my business and press register, type in the info about it (make your business name very elaborate that would include many of the keywords you can use online) I made mine being rare coin dealer with online coin shop, HERE IS MINE. The benefit of this is that you can have your website there. I recommend registering to your PO Box, but write the PO Box number as street address of post office with Suite# POBOXNUMBER. Then you get a postcard with verification from google and your are off to the races. If you have a physical shop, you are even better off as people often call or search for coin shops to bring you their coins. For phone number, I recommend getting a google voice https://voice.google.com  number that re-routes to your cell phone, or another phone, that you can always re-route to a different number.

Regarding social media, I personally use it to promote my items only. If you have an eBay store, you can get an RSS feed for it. What it means is that it is a special link that you can plug in online to trigger to post to social media accounts automatically. You can get a basic DLVR.IT account and have your eBay items posted to places such as Facebook and Twitter automatically. The benefit of this is that it increases SEO or search engine optimization when search engines like google see links to your items in more places. You can have also an easy twitter feed that you can share  with others, maybe on facebook too. Another free option you can connect RSS to is IFTTT.com, search online for tutorials. The goal is that the items you are listing are going to be promoted online automatically without any extra work from you other than listing it professionally on eBay.

How to Have Links to Your Items Posted Online Automatically

Your items could be posted on social media sites automatically as soon as you list them to be easily found online and maybe even shared on your sites. You won’t have to do anything past creating and plugging them in. People would be able to find you on places such as facebook and twitter. The idea is that you create it once and this automatically creates what are called links back to your item for SEO optimization. It’s a set it and forget it situation.

Steps to Social Account Domination

  1. Get an account either free or the paid unlimited version at https://dlvrit.com/
  2. Register on each site or plug in your accounts you have registered into the above site
  3. Copy and paste this link into that site and replace with your userid:

    https://www.ebay.com/sch/REPLACEWITHYOUREBAYUSERID/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=10&_rdc=1&_rss=1
     

Example of What is Possible with the Dlvr.it Site

My Social Accounts

ADVANCED TIP: There is a site called www.IFTTT.com where you can do a lot more stuff via similar process with the link I gave above. You would need to further look up term IFTTT on youtube. I don’t recommend creating accounts yourself as it is time consuming, but get an affordable professional to do it: https://sites.google.com/view/webautomator email him for questions  mtzmrk0827@gmail.com. Give him pictures and website addreses you would want him to plug into the social accounts along with the above link for the posted items.


MUST DO: FRONTPAGE Setup One Time Settings to Set Up for Code Optimization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veBYywLgTLM

Every listing I do I optimize the code for eBay. What this optimization does is that it makes it one block of text which eBay likes as it otherwise sometimes leaves spaces in places they shouldn’t be.

If without the K55 or K95 Keyboard with this key set to Key G1:

Under menu

Tools – Page Options

ALT T H to bring this menu up once and set the settings and in the future have your keyboard programmed to it as the G1  key if you use my setup. I recommend the macro keyboard because it is annoying to press ALT T H all the time as I did it for a long time before learning of the K55 and then getting the K95.

 

MUST DO: Macro Keyboard Setup Settings – Simplify Your Work

There is a lot of copying and pasting work you and file saving work that you will be doing and the best macro keyboard that I have found is the
K55 – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M4LIKLI/
K95 Platinum RGB – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N5IISXY/
INSTALL the CORSAIR iCUE from here: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/downloads

And then setup the keyboard with the keys I took months in developing and that has saved me tons of work, energy. There are certain repetitive commands you would be using and that can be done with one keystroke.

Setup of the keyboard are available in this PDF: Macro Keyboard Setup Guide Screenshots COPY and FOLLOW

EXACT KEYS to ENTER PROGRAMMING THE KEYBOARD, see the above guide for easy explanation

KEY G1: ALT T H ENTER
Optimizes HTML (Please see the above initial setup to see which checkboxes should be done the first time and will be defaults with this key combo)

KEY G2: ALT F A
This opens up Save As Screen to save your file

KEY G3: ALT I L
This key inserts the horizontal line as you can see in this guide.

KEY G4: ALT I S
This opens up CHARACTER MAP where you can input Non-English symbols, I often use for Greek or other non-standard letters.

KEY G5: (spacebar)target="_blank"
This key I use for inserting an open new window setting on links I use to link within my store to comply with eBay

KEY G5 (Alternate): CTRL A (pressed together then released) CTRL V
This is the select all command and paste together. Which you can use in Sell Similar on eBay listing

KEY G6: CTRL A CTRL C
This selects all text in the box you clicked in (which should be the one containing the HTML) and copies it to clipboard. And if you selected the alternate G5 to select all and copy you would press that with the HTML you copied with this key.


Advanced – Removing Formatting and Links Text You Pasted from Online to Comply with eBay

The benefit of removing old styles from text you copied and pasted in your description is that it looks more professional and you often want to remove old links. Also eBay does not allow links to places outside of eBay, but for a few select sites.

  • Many styles can be stripped in Frontpage in design view by selecting it and pressing the the buttons CTRL+SHIFT+Z. That is already for work you already pasted in.
  • You can paste in text without styles by using ALT+E+S (in Menu select  ‘Normal Paragraphs with line breaks’) and press okay or ENTER button.
    The ALT+E+S (down arrow)(down arrow)ENTER  – Should you want to program this key instead of one of the ones I use


     

How to Comply with eBay NO OUTSIDE LINKS Policy

eBay doesn’t allow links to off eBay sites unless it’s a place like Fedex or UPS to check shipping rates and such or a link to eBay or your eBay store. Sometimes you may run into text with links that you want to leave the formatting from but remove the links. And sometimes you can’t figure out where such a link is hidden.

If you want to remove old hyperlinks from a block of text, and including the styles because eBay

HTML STYLE STRIPPER

Copy and paste the allowed tags line by selecting it below and pressing CTRL A then CTRL C and pasting inside appropriate boxes on the sit by selecting the old text and pressing CTRL+V

http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/htmlstripper/

ALLOWED TAGS:

<p><sub><sup><br><b><strong><i><em><u><ul><ol><li><pre><hr><img><th><h1><h3><h2><blockquote>

ALLOWED ATTRIBUTES

src,target,rel,align

 

ALTERNATIVE TO ABOVE – THE SITE Didn’t WORK ONCE,
so I CREATED AN ALTERNATIVE WITH ANOTHER SITE, which has checkboxes instead:

ALTERNATE HTML STRIPPER

https://html-cleaner.com/

CHECK OFF:

Check b ox Remove classes and Id’s
Remove success &nbsp;s
Remove tags with one &nbsp
Remove span tags
Encode special characters

 Lightshot screenshot


Formatting with BOLD, ITALICS, STYLES and Hyperlinks

I recommend ignoring the part that says times New Roman but selecting the drop-down on the left side and selecting headings 1 to 3 fro most, and clicking the bold italics and underline buttons.

However the keys I usually presss are:

  • CTRL B for Bolding a line of text I seecled
  • CTRL I for Italics of selected text
  • CTRL K to insert a link for selected text (LINKING ONLY TO MY OTHER EBAY ITEMS or EBAY SEARCH TERM or PAGE WITHIN MY eBay STORE)
     

 


 

eBay COIN LISTING TUTORIAL Best Practices w Software & PRODUCTIVITY Tools HOW TO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I20OOY5yJhg

 

Resources:

Macro Keyboard Setup Guide Screenshots COPY and FOLLOW

MANAGING YOUR INVENTORY

If you followed my advice to at least have a written number, on the coin as you photographed and keeping in numerical order, you can also have a corresponding excel file. What is cool is that you can proportion it to fit exactly the 2×2 inch standard coin flip parameters and paste the description in there. Since your coins are stored numerically, as you sell you can compact the boxes and put more inventory in them over time, and it will make finding the exact item for shipping easier.


 

DATABASE for Coin Collection and MAKING TAGS HOW TO Tutorial in EXCEL  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qDvAywwKNw

The step by step done in the above video were the following settings:

A. 1.86
ROW HEIGHT 126
B. 18.57
C. 3.43
D. 2.43
E. 6
F. 7.14

COLUMN B TIMES NEW ROMAN 5

Column A

 





Click the link below to see the article to the video which includes links to the supplies mentioned in the video:

How to Manage Store Display and Keep Track of Large Coin Collection & Supplies  

Guide to staying Organized, getting Maximum Pleasure and even Showing Your Collection to Others

NEWEST 2019 UPDATED VERSION OF VIDEO:

Managing and Displaying BIG Coin Collection HOW To Collecting Guide Tips & Tricks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwOMfrkh1s

SEE ALSO MY ORIGINAL VIDEO:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UBgiNLjjoc

CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE WITH LINKS


Starting Your Own Site to Host Your Listing’s Pictures and Other Benefits

If you have your own site, you have a place to post links to all the things you sell and host the pictures to be displayed on your listings. The great hosts are called Bluehost and Inmotionhosting. Get a domain name that is easy for people to easily hear on the phone and type in where everyone knows the spelling. For me I chose TrustedCoins.com. You can use the program called CuteFTP which I use to upload the pictures to your web host above. The benefits of hosting your pictures on your site is that you can put the picture into your description to make your presentation more professional looking, but is not 100% necessary for everyone, just a good idea to explore. There is a free website tool called WordPress that you can install for free on any of these hosts and basically point and click design with no experience. By the way any information you want to tutorials on you can find quickly and easily by searching on YouTube.

Hosts that are good, that I have bought:

www.BlueHost.com – You can get with their tech support on the phone 1 (888) 401-4678 and they will help you set up a WordPress site. WordPress is a visual site editor and will allow you to quickly build a professional site without any coding experience.

You also want to set up your site for FTP access, and get the tech support to help you connect to your FTP server to upload your pictures if you want to host them there like I do with my website for my listings. The FTP transfer program I use to upload the photos is called CuteFTP and you can get it here: https://www.globalscape.com/cuteftp

I discuss more of the functionality and show you how it works in about the second half of the section entitled: Photography (BEGINNER) Anyone Can Do With iPhone and Free Software.


Conclusions

I hope you found this guide useful and beneficial, my eBay store is http://www.ebaystores.com/Authentic-Ancient-Greek-Roman-Coins and website is www.TrustedCoins.com. I make other articles like this one you can sign up to free at, www.LIST.Trustedcoins.com, which will give you a lot more interesting info about coin collecting often in fascinating video format.

I didn’t want to make it too long either, so that is why I just gave you a bird’s eye view of what is available, and just letting you know that you can do it and you don’t need it all to get started, but once you do it’s a snowball effect to success doing the right things long enough consistently.

Here is to your success and happiness!

Mr. Ilya Zlobin


Write your success stories to me applying what you learned:
 
trustedancientcoins@gmail.com

(I may create a success story section in the future to add here to motivate others, maybe even make a youtube video with your cell phone telling your story, I may choose to include it too!)

 


Resources


Frequently Asked Questions FAQ Section

Should I open an eBay Store and if so which type?

Even the cheapest store is great, it will allow you to  list in the good until cancelled format which is as low as 5 cents per month. Read the benefits for each and see the best one for you.

Best listing method to get noticed.

Buy it now with best offer.  And select the eBay promoted listings

Auction or buy it now?

Answered above

Should I do minimum bids?

Don’t do auctions unless you are happy with selling things for 99cents starting price, and then people will complain that your shipping is too much, so I don’t think it’s a good idea. Essentially a fixed price item with best offer is a great way to insure a minimum. Also auctions require two bidders in order for you to sell the coin for above the starting price which you need to make low in order to attract bidders. I reserve auctions for selling inventory that I don’t care about making money on and want to just clear out at any price.

Fast and Free shipping, is this a good idea?

Yes I have that, people like free shipping and are used to it with Amazon. Build all costs and a little extra for yourself into the price you list.

I have coins to sell for someone else, how much to charge them?

Offer them a set amount on consignment, so let’s say you need to bring back $10 for that item, and anything above that is yours.

What are the best times to list item for an Auction to have it end?

Likely evenings on the east and west coasts of the US. However as I mentioned above having a fixed price with best offer. Likely it is a good idea to avoid three A.M. on a Monday morning.

eBay Store BUY IT NOW vs. eBay Auctions Which One is Better?

I would recommend to get at least the cheapest eBay store because you can list items with Buy It Now tip BEST OFFER feature which allow people to make offers to you (things maybe have changed, but eBay has charts and tables for the benefits of one you may want to refer to). I have the anchor store, which gives me perks such as 5 cent a month listings (which maybe others have too) and a bunch of listings free every month. The reason I don’t recommend auctions is that you often don’t get the best prices on them and you need to re-list them because items may not sell the first time if you have certain minimums. With eBay store listings you can do a Good Until Cancelled listing (meaning it will relist until sold or you end it) which will list for as low as 5 cents (NO MATTER THE PRICE of the item you list) every thirty days. There is an eBay commission on the sale, but you only pay that if and when it sells.
 

If you have questions of your own email them to me: trustedancientcoins@gmail.com and if I get a preponderance of a similar question I may include it here to help others in the future.