I was looking at Ebay completed listings, 90%+ did not sell. How do people run an ebay business?

[Josh]

I want to start an Ebay business but it's very discouraging seeing how much stuff fails to sell. I know people do it, but how?
Great answer. But the type of business I'm going for I have to build each and every item separately. I will never have 500 items to sell, much less 5,000. Also I would need to sell atleast 75% of the items I have to make a profit. Is Ebay still viable for me?

[Special Ed]

I believe key part are to sell many thing. See if you have list 5000 thing, and you can selling 100 a day, and making fair profit of each item, then that are steady business. Remember adding tax or fee to price, because that will biting chunk of profit.

Also some basic. Have good price, know competition and try to beat them price. Having good description with all info about item, people like good description. Having buy now, some people like to buy now and not waiting long time for auction. You can relist for free (I think) if nobody buying. Do research see what good product, something that sell well. Always trying to increase number of items listed, more item more chance to sell. Start small, buy more product with profit. Make free postage and adding it to item price, if people compared, they see you slightly higher price than competition, but free postage, so it work out cheaper for them anyway, but mostly psychological.

Depend on the demand for item, cost, time, price. You maybe have to testing it out and seeing if they sell. For marketing maybe make blog, website and contributing to related forum and have links to ebay shop / website / blog in forum signature, show all items on website or blog, talk about related subject, what you create, inspiration. Maybe posting photos of your created item on websites like Flickr, DeviantArt, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, the more place the better with link to ebay shop, and blog/website if you make them. These thing can help people, new customers seeing your items.