Secret Number 1 - Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

I've seen it a million times. Someone has a valuable item for sale but there's not a picture to be seen anywhere in the auction description. That's a BIG problem. People like to see what they're buying and if you don't post any pictures, you're not going to be getting top-dollar for what you're selling.

Whenever you list an item to sell, always include at least one picture. The more pictures you post, the better. There's no such thing as too many pictures. Post as many as you can.

Secret Number 2 - End it on a Monday afternoon. It used to be that ending your auction on a Sunday night was your best bet. However, everyone caught on and now there's so much competition on Sunday night, your item is likely to get lost in the shuffle. End your auction on a Monday afternoon and you're likely to see your bid price soar.

Secret Number 3 - Use the Gallery Option

When listing your item to sell, eBay has a gallery picture option. This means that a thumbnail photo of your item will appear next to your listing description in the website search results. If you want top dollar for your item, use this option.

Secret Number 4 - Encourage Competitive Bidding

If you have a popular item for sale and you know a lot of people will be interested in it (such as the hottest toy of the year around Christmas time) start the bidding out at $1. You can either put it at $1 with no reserve or if you're not comfortable with that, list it at $1 with a reserve price of as low as you're willing to sell the item for.

Secret Number 5 -

Accept payment by credit card. People like convenience and if you want top dollar for your item, you're going to want to accept credit cards. There are a number of payment processing services on the web, like Paypal.com, who will allow you to process payments via credit card.