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With literally millions of auctions taking place on ebay.com all the time, you can probably already guess what the number 1 essential you need in order to succeed on ebay. You need a 'USP'. What is a USP? Simple - a Unique Selling Proposition. Something that sets your auction apart from all the other similar auctions that are no doubt happening at the same time. There's nothing new about the concept of USP - every successful corporation tries to differentiate both itself and its products from rivals efforts, for obvious reason.

Ebay tend to encourage the 'lazy seller' - numbnuts who all cut'n'paste the same description, picture and even title into their auctions. Case in point - try searching for 'apple mac'. Once one of these 'lazy sellers' starts using an image, they all do! Hardly an encouragement to buy from one particular seller, is it? In fact, you could argue that the amount of effort you put into your ebay auctions will determine the amount of return you get back!

Lazy Sellers seem to think that 'stealing' a stock photo or description somehow makes them seem more 'professional'. In reality, the opposite is the case. Today's surfers are sufficiently switched on to know that online auctions, even the mighty Ebay, need to be treated with caution - scammers and fraudsters abound.

So how do you go about getting a USP for your Ebay auction? THINK about it! Check out the auction titles for similar items and make sure you don't simply copy someone else's. Put on model and make numbers, for example, or the color. In terms of a description, ALWAYS write it yourself. Sure, you can start with a standard description, but the more you tweak it, the more potential customers will think you stand out from the crowd. Just be careful to leave the essential info in there!

When it comes to images, if you don't have a digital camera, you are basically stuck with using stock images. Think about leaning how to manipulate images to make a subtle change - perhaps crop the image, change the contrast, and so on. Whatever you do, make sure it is SMALL - nothing scares potential customers away faster than slow loading pages. Gifs are usuall best, then Jpegs. Try not to use pngs or tiffs.

With these simple tips, you can ensure the success of your ebay auction whatever the size of the competition!