Thinking of selling stuff on Ebay, what do I need?

I've been buying stuff on eBay for a while, but I've never sold anything. I'm wondering if anybody on here has, and what I'll need to go about it.

-Should I have the boxes bought already for the items I'm going to sell? (Mostly CDs and video games).
-Where should I buy the boxes for these things from? (ideas? Cheap places?)
-How can I maximize profit on different items? (longer auctions? shorter? etc).

I'm looking to hear back from some experienced members on this and hope some people can help out. I'd like to start selling things right away, but I want to be prepared first.

For CDs, you should be able to send those okay in a medium-size bubble wrap envelope, if you do it individually. You'll be able to find large quantities of those rather cheap in Wal-Mart, 99 cent store, or 5 and 10 store. That's what I did when I sold some things on Etsy.com, though granted, I sent fabric things, not CDs.

This can go in the Help Forum.

You should send any CD's in a flat rate box with bubble wrap. Be sure to have the case it came in or a case of your own. The flat rate box should not be much bigger than the actual CD. This will prevent it from breaking in half. I did this without the bubble wrap one time, and the person who received it told me the CD was in pieces. So chyeah. For video games, you can also put those in a flat rate box that's a little bigger, but you may not need the bubble wrap since most game covers are pretty thick enough to protect it. Flat rate boxes can be found at the post office usually. You can also can get these types of packing boxes at Staples store usually. As for your other questions, I have never used Ebay to sell things before, so I'm not the person to ask for that sort of thing.

I have another quick question about Ebay if anybody knows.

When somebody buys your item, the money goes directly to your paypal account, right? Do you have to have a paypal debit card in order to access that money? Or can you transfer money from paypal to your bank account?