The eBay marketplace is no longer considered a phenomenon. It is now a hobby, a livelihood, and a way of life for millions of sellers and buyers around the world. However, no matter how profitable you sell even the ugliest of gifts you receive from your crazy relatives, chances are you are missing a few opportunities that could capitalize on your bottom line. Here are some guidelines to help you maximize your eBay powers:

Look before you list – Knowing your market is the most effective way to get the most money. Before listing your item, perform a quick, title-only search on eBay for items similar to what you are planning to sell. Click on “Completed Items” and sort the results by price, putting the most expensive first. Then, ignore any listings that never received bids. Examine the most successful sales and look how the sellers described and promoted their items in order to earn the best sale.

Price to sell – When you are ready to list your item, set your Buy-It-Now price in what you expect your item is worth. Raise the price a little for scarce or in-demand objects, while shed off some dollars when you want your item to sell quickly. However, set your starting bid to a much lower price, from a single dollar to no more than half of its value. This will encourage healthy bidding, raising the perceived value and the final price.

Reserve judgment – Do not consider a reserve price for your listings. The reserve price is a secret amount below which you are under no obligation to sell, and it is only useful if you don’t know the value of your item. This scares away bidders, unnecessarily lowering the closing price. Do not even use reserve price alongside buy-it-now price, as bidders easily confuse the two.

Spelling matters – eBay searches are seeded by the word you place in your listing, so include as many relevant words as possible without resorting to nonsense symbols and words such as “:) Amazing! Lookie here!!! @@@” or any other terms that your customers won’t be searching. Don’t forget to spell the words correctly, but you can also insert some misspelled words for the benefit of the spelling-challenged searchers.

Dress for success – Make your auction not only inviting, but professional-looking as well by emphasizing more important details in the auction description. Among the most vital are the payment and shipping details, which unfortunately are buried beneath the photos of eBay’s new auction page design. The clearer, simpler, and easier to find your items are, the less likely you are to be hassled by confused customers or deadbeat bidders.

Easy payment plan – The easier you make payment for your customers, the more likely they’ll give you their business. The most popular method of payment these days is PayPal, which lets members pay money to anyone through an e-mail address. Although PayPal tries it best to safeguard its members, you should take a few extra measures to protect yourself. As a seller, do not accept any payments from buyers who do not provide confirmed addresses. As a buyer, always fund your payments with a credit card for extra layer of protection from your credit card company’s charge-dispute disagreement.

Worth a thousand bids – Nothing sells your auction better than a good photo, and you can improve that photo taking skills by pulling off a few tricks. Shoot an item at an angle to exaggerate its depth and make it look like it’s about to jump out of the screen. Light you item from two sources—including the camera’s flash—to diminish shadow and highlight its detail. Finally, make sure that the camera is in focus. Move farther away from the item in order to shoot the whole item, and crop out excess background later.

Open communication – Overly aggressive spam filters are probably the biggest cause of negative feedback on eBay, since sellers’ payment instructions often do not reach their customers’ inboxes while bidders frequently retract bids after receiving no replies to questions sent to sellers. Start by disabling any spam-blocking devices that you or your ISP may be using and replacing them with a more passive spam scanner, which usually marks suspected spam so that your e-mail could just trash the message—but only after you’ve had a chance to inspect them.