Recently we took our own advice and cleared our closets of some old electronics gadgets and gizmos. After some thought, we decided to post the items on Ebay instead of Amazon or Craigslist. While Ebay may be the largest marketplace on the planet, we know some readers may still be unfamiliar or hesitant toward listing their goods on Ebay.

So here is our primer on selling on Ebay, the best advice to make sure you get the best prices. Before we start, we should note that selling on Ebay is not inexpensive. In fact, if you factor in the Paypal fee along with Ebay fees, you’re likely looking at 13% of the final sale price as the fee to sell on Ebay. So why do we do it? Well, for one, if the gadget is just sitting on the closet shelf, its worth is exactly $0. So even know we pay the fees, at least we get some useful currency out of it. Two, Ebay has the most buyers, so just like you won’t go to an empty mall, you probably won’t want to list it where there are less buyers.

The other big misconception people have is that listing an item for a really low price will likely hurt your profit margin for an auction. When in fact, this is only true for unpopular items that have few buyers. However, for most items, their popularity automatically creates the supply and demand balance that exist in large markets. In fact, if you follow similar auctions for the item you would like to sell, you would likely notice that most similar items sell for about the same range of prices after the auction closes. So if your item is popular, don’t worry if list it at a low price. The final auction price will likely be the same as what people would have paid anyhow. In fact, you’re more likely to draw in more watchers if you list the item for a low initial price.

Finally, it’s best to list your item on Sunday night using the free 7 day auction format or list it on Thursdays using the 10 day auction format. Why? Because more people shop on weekends. So if you list the item so that the auction will close on a weekend, you’re more likely to capture more buyers and interested parties.