How to Become an EBay Trading Assistant

eBay is a very lucrative market. You can make massive amounts of money by selling your own belongings on eBay. However, when you go into business on eBay, finding merchandise to sell can be difficult. Also, finding a place to store all that merchandise can become cumbersome and expensive. If your sales are slow, merchandise can really pile up, and profits will be small at best. I must be honest with you; the grand majority of the money I have made on eBay was made as a Trading Assistant selling for others.

Becoming a Trading Assistant is a great way to make money fast on eBay. There is an incredible demand for Trading Assistant services on eBay, since many people don't have the expertise, skill, equipment or time to sell their own items. However, becoming an eBay Trading Assistant requires some advance preparation.

You don't need to be listed in the eBay Trading Assistant directory to sell for others on eBay. However, I do not recommend that you start out selling for others. When you start selling on eBay, you will make mistakes. You may sell items for too little money at auction, or you may become the victim of a fraudulent or unscrupulous buyer. It's painful enough when this happens when you're selling your own stuff. It's disastrous if you're selling for somebody else.

When I started selling on consignment a year and a half ago, I had only been selling on eBay for a few months. I started out selling books for a gentleman I had met while perusing his garage sale for paperbacks. The sales went very well, and after I had earned his trust selling smaller items, he permitted me to sell his very large and valuable coin collection.

I put my listing in the Trading Assistant directory while I was doing this sale. However, eBay changed their criteria for qualifying for being a Registered Trading Assistant in the midst of my sale. At first you were required to have a feedback rating of 50, and then they increased that to a feedback rating of 100. I had just barely achieved the 90s range. My loss of Trading Assistant status irked me a great deal, since I was so close to the mark. I purchased a few small items online to get my feedback rating over the hump.