In Search Of Heroes Spreads Good News About Everyday, Real-Life Heroes Who Deserve Recognition For Their Good Works

If you want to start a ebay business then it is vital to keep in mind that it is no different than the responsibilities of embarking on any other type of business. Sure you may be able to work from home, in your underwear, and never leave the couch; but it takes a little more than hopping on your computer to start a ebay business.

In today's article we will go over 5 important tips that you can use to help get you moving to start a ebay business.

1. Create an office space or special room inside of your house or apartment for your ebay business. If you want to start a ebay business and make it successful then you are going to want to be able to focus and concentrate on your ebay goals. There is no better way to do this than to have your own office.

2. Write an ebay business plan. This is an important step when you start a ebay business and is most often overlooked by many new online ebay sellers. It is imperative that you put one together, even if your business plan is created on napkins! You will have to include a mission statement, a vision of your goals, your ebay profit and loss estimates, etc.

3. Create a checklist of what items you will need to set up your ebay campaign. Obviously, when you want to start a ebay business you will need to get your products listed and in view of others. Your checklist will include having a photo taken of your item, resizing and cropping your photo, creating your title and description of the ebay auction, and of course - answering your bidder questions when available.

4. Decide on what you are going to sell on ebay. You cannot start a ebay business without a product. This choice is a personal one. You can find ebay products to sell from a wide range of sources. There are a few books on the subject of finding products to sell when you start a ebay business. One of the most popular items to sell are Antiques

5. Learn to budget your time as efficiently as possible. Start a ebay business with extreme time precision. In other words, if you have 5 hours a day to devote to making money on ebay then do not waste any time browsing through message groups, emailing your friends, or pondering an idea too much. Get out, find your product, and start your ebay campaigns NOW!

Yours in success,

Jason James
Consultant and eBay Power Seller
Founder, Auction Resource Network

Click Here to get photo hosting for your Ebay items for only $6.99 a month.

Jason James is originally from Boston, MA. and has spent time in the U.S. Marine Corps learning some of the discipline that is required for a successful home-based Internet marketing business.

Jason has built a long track record of success mastering eBay and building profitable membership websites.

His first Internet success was selling products on Internet auction site eBay, becoming a power seller then eventually putting together the website www.auctionresourcenetwork.com which detailed the exact steps a person can take to make money on eBay.

Jason's most recent venture is putting together a series of Online videos made by some of today's top Internet marketers to help budding entrepreneurs get trusted information to help their online businesses grow to phenomenal levels.

Jason has kindly allowed us to post one of his articles about how to be successful on E-bay each day for the next couple of months. Thanks Jason.

Posted by ralph at 06:03 PM | Permalink

How do you make more money on eBay with your current and/or future listings? That's the question that is demanding an answer.

Making money on eBay and selling products through auctions is much like owning your own brick and mortar store. For example, when people come to a store, the most important aspect to selling anything is in the way it's presented.

Big companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to have people build presentable displays of products so they sell. It's call merchandising.

That's the answer to making more money on eBay. Merchandising.

Or, in eBay auction terms, writing your product listing. Here's five high profit ways you can write better listings.

1. HTML it!

Take some time to learn some basic HTML, or the language the web uses to display websites.

Using HTML you can easily create a very nice looking "display" of your product and build a brand for yourself. By keeping the same look in all your listings people will feel comfortable with your position as a seller and theirs as the buyer.

HTML allows you the opportunity to make your listing stand out and be more professional. Use the HTML editor on the product listing page to make it much easier, even if you don't know a lot HTML.

2. Don't Scream At People.

One of the biggest mistakes people with their eBay listing is the use of all capital letters in the title. IT'S VERY ANNOYING!

Using capital letters is a means of expressing surprise, anger, sadness, discouragement, and other sorts of unhappy emotions. Not a great way to instill an emotional response to buy.

Now, notice I didn't say don't use any caps in your title. Just not all caps. A title is just that... a title. Think of a book title or movie title. Capitalize the first letter of each word.

3. Your eBay listing must be clear.

When presenting a listing for your product you must make it absolutely clear what you are selling. Concise descriptions as well as crystal clear pictures will keep your prospective customer interested in the product. If they are unsure about anything, at any time... you will probably lose them to your competitor.

4. True Powersellers go a step further.

It's not enough to make the product listing very clear, but also your terms and conditions. This means your shipping policy and costs, return policy, any warranties that you, or the company, offer, and any guarantees associated with the product.

This goes the extra mile into creating a comfortable atmosphere where the person reading your listing will be more inclined to buy from you.

5. Follow a listing schedule.

Before you ever place the listing ask yourself a question, "Is this the best time to sell it?" Even the best, most thought out listing, will fail if the time isn't right.

Create a listing schedule that clearly lists the starting and ending dates of your auction. This will ensure that, if you're selling holiday products or seasonal products, the buyer will receive them on time.

Your listing is a part of your business. This is where you begin to build a long lasting relationship, one of comfort and recognition, that continues for long lasting income.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 10:20 AM | Permalink

While you can sell most things on eBay, quite a few things are banned. If you try to sell any of these things then eBay will remove your auction and all bids will be void.

Here is eBay's full list of prohibited or questionable items:

-Academic Software
-Airline and Transit Related Items
-Alcohol (also see Wine)
-Animals and Wildlife Products
-Anti-circumvention Policy
-Artifacts
-Authenticity Disclaimers
-Autographed Items
-Batteries
-Beta Software
-Bootleg Recordings
-Brand Name Misuse
-Catalog Sales
-Catalytic Converters and Test Pipes
-Celebrity Material
-Charity or Fundraising Listings
-Comparison Policy
-Compilation and Informational Media
-Contracts and Tickets
-Counterfeit Currency and Stamps
-Counterfeit Items
-Credit Cards
-Downloadable Media
-Drugs & Drug Paraphernalia
-Electronics Equipment
-Embargoed Goods and Prohibited Countries
-Encouraging Infringement Policy
-Faces, Names and Signatures
-Firearms, Ammunition, Replicas, and Militaria
-Fireworks
-Food
-Freon and Other Refrigerants
-Gift Cards
-Government IDs and Licenses
-Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Items
-Human Parts and Remains
-Importation of Goods into the United States
-International Trading - Buyers
-International Trading - Sellers
-Lockpicking Devices
-Lottery Tickets
-Mailing Lists and Personal Information
-Manufacturers' Coupons
-Mature Audiences
-Medical Devices
-Misleading Titles
-Mod Chips, Game Enhancers, and Boot Discs
-Movie Prints
-Multi-level Marketing, Pyramid and Matrix Programs
-OEM Software
-Offensive Material
-Pesticides
-Plants and Seeds
-Police-Related Items
-Political Memorabilia
-Postage Meters
-Pre-Sale Listings
-Prescription Drugs and Devices
-Promotional Items
-Real Estate
-Recalled Items
-Recordable Media
-Replica and Counterfeit Items
-Satellite and Cable TV Descramblers
-Slot Machines
-Stocks and Other Securities
-Stolen Property
-Surveillance Equipment
-Tobacco
-Travel
-Unauthorized Copies
-Used Clothing
-Warranties
-Weapons & Knives
-Wine (also see Alcohol)

Most of this is very obvious - of course you can't sell illegal things like drugs, pyramid schemes or stolen goods. Almost everything that is on the list is there because there is law against selling it. Some of the reasons, though, are a little strange.

The 'autographed items' entry, for example, doesn't mean that you can't sell anything that's been autographed - it just means that you can only sell it if it comes with a certificate of authenticity. The 'artifacts' entry prohibits you from selling Native American graves; 'celebrity material' means you can't sell unauthorised pictures of celebrities; 'embargoed goods' means that you can't sell anything that comes from Cuba… on and on it goes, and most of it you never need to know.

If your chosen kind of item seems to be on the list, though, and you're concerned that you might not be able to sell it, then check the full list at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/items-ov.html to see whether the item is banned entirely or there are just a few restrictions.

eBay says it will remove any items that it believes violate copyright law, but in reality they don't have that many people to monitor the site. You will generally only find that your auction gets removed if someone decides to report you - and even then, they might not get around to it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 03:49 PM | Permalink

Because ebay is such a busy place of merchandise sales with many various ebay stores and markets selling thousands of items, there must be a few rules that are set in place to insure that everyone is playing fair. Ebay auctions are a gift for us to make easy money without having the overhead or the stress of running other types of businesses so it is ideal that we all adhere to their policies.

Very few other issues will get ebay sellers arguing about the rules no more than the rules on linking to and from your ebay auctions. Ebay has some very firm rules when it comes to liking and it would be wise of you to follow them to insure that your ebay auctions stay online and profitable.

Below are the following links that you may use in your ebay auction description:

1. On your ebay auction, you may have one link to an additional web page for information. This web page is to be used exclusively for further information about whatever ebay item that you are selling from you ebay auction.

2. Your ebay auction may have links to more photo images of the merchandise that you are selling on ebay.

3. If you want your customer to click on a link from your ebay auction that opens up to separate window to send you an email, then that is ok. In fact this little ebay auction email window may increase inquiries of your ebay selling item.

4. Ebay auction links that connects to your other ebay auctions or any of your other ebay auctions stores is also permissible.

5. You may have one link that links to your ebay About Me page. This is in addition to the link next to your user ID that ebay provides for your ebay auction.

6. Ebay authorizes you to have links to your vendors' websites that help you with your auctions. Ebay considers any type of listing services, payment providers, and software programs to be 3rd party vendors.

In addition to the above Ebay linking rules that are authorized for your Ebay auctions there are also links that are not allowed with ebay.

1. You cannot have any links that link to other websites that offers to sell, trade, or purchase merchandise outside of Ebay. This should be obvious but many new sellers to Ebay auctions break this rule.

2. Links to any other websites that encourages ebay bidders to place their bids outside of ebay are not authorized in your ebay auctions

3. Your ebay auction cannot have links that link to outside websites that offers to sell merchandise that is considered illegal at ebay. 4. Links that connect to websites that solicit ebay user Ids and passwords is also unauthorized to have within your ebay auction.

When it comes to linking from your About Me page the ebay rules are pretty much the same overall with your ebay auction. Because ebay gives you this page to self promote your business, then linking to your website from it is allowed.

On the other hand, you need to be sure that the link does connect to other trading sites or to website businesses that sell the same product or merchandise at the same price or lower price than what is advertised on ebay.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 05:56 PM | Permalink

Did you know that you can earn a full time income selling on Ebay without making any initial investment at all? You don't need to pay for your inventory and you don't even need to pay ebay fees until the end of each billing period.

In fact, you can sell on ebay and avoid spending any money at all until you have already made profit from dozens of sales.

One method you can use to do this is dropshipping. Simply find a dropshipper online, such as http://www.megagoods.com/ and sign up for their dropshipping program.

Most dropshippers will allow you to join for free. Some will have better prices than others, so you should browse a number of sites before making your selection. Once you choose a dropshipper and create an account, look for items you could potentially sell on ebay.

After you have selected items from your dropshipper, match the dropshipper's prices against the prevailing market prices on ebay.

For instance, let's say you decide to sell 40GB ipods on ebay. You search ebay and find that the prevailing market price for a 40GB ipod is $329. Your dropshipper offers to sell you a 40GB ipod for $280.

If you calculate that you can sell at the prevailing market price and still earn a significant profit after fees, you should stick with that dropshipper. If not, you should select another item or another dropshipper that will give you a higher profit margin.

Credit is another easy--and more obvious--way to make money on ebay without spending. You can use a credit card or paypal buyer credit to purchase items at a discount from less-trafficked auction sites, such as bidz.com or bid4assets.com.

Simply purchase an item on credit, resell it on ebay, and then use the profits to purchase another item, which you will resell again, restarting the cycle. By the time your credit card statement arrives, you will have far surpassed your initial investment. Not only will you be able to pay off the debt, but you will have enough money to purchase more merchandise without using credit.

You can also purchase items wholesale in small batches online using this same method. If you go to http://www.wholesaledir.com/, you will find a number of wholesale dealers.

Purchase your first batch from an online wholesaler using credit. Break the batch down into smaller groups or into individual items; and resell them at a reasonable markup. By the end of your billing statement, you should have enough money to pay off your bills and purchase a new batch.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:41 PM | Permalink

Of course you got into EBay to have fun, right? Of course you did, but business is still business and if you want to stay in the EBay business then you are going to have to tighten up ship a little bit. I'm not talking about taking the fun out of your EBay business but rather treat it a little more customer friendly.

I don't care what an EBay business is selling, in order for it to become successful then it takes repetitive quality customer service combined with merchandise that people want to buy.

Ok, so you've got the product part down pat, but you are probably thinking "How can I provide fantastic customer service over the computer?" Well that is what we are going to talk about in today's article - conveying the image of success in your EBay business through your email, your ads, and your auctions.

Believe it or not your entire EBay business image rests in the way you communicate through your emails and your ads. It's the only thing that your prospective customers have to go on. That information tells your customers whether the EBay business is legitimate or if it is trying to hustle them. It tells them whether you have an EBay business that is trying to sneak away with hidden fees or if you are honest.

So what if you do not have the most outstanding products to sell. Why? Because good, clean, honest customer service conveyed through your auctions is what counts in the end. Sure you have to have the product they are looking for but what is going to separate your EBay business from the rest is the way you connect with the people whom are viewing your ads.

The first thing that you have to consider with your EBay business is that most everyone who is shopping and bidding on EBay views all sellers as individual people as opposed to a 'business'. Yes I realize that there are indeed many businesses that sell on EBay but even still, that is the psychological perception of the shopper.

So what does this have to do with you and your EBay business? Well taking this information into account should tell you that you need to play off of the "home seller" image as much as possible with your EBay business. People like to support other people whom are trying to make a living. Even though your EBay business is actually a business, do not display that image. Rather, come off as an individual working hard trying to make a living on his or her own with a small EBay business.

I have a question for you; what is the very first thing that the buyer sees after clicking on the title of your auction?

They scroll down through the description! That my friend, is where your EBay business either fails or succeeds. And below I'm going to share with you a few nifty trade secrets that will explode your EBay business sales into new horizons when you implement them into writing your EBay business auction.

1. For starters make sure that your description is not full of pointless dribble. Nobody likes to finally find a title of a product they want, click on the EBay business link, and then get slammed in the face with page after page after page of verbiage that puts them to sleep. Keep it short but concise! Your EBay business is counting on it.

2. Write a true description. Do not fluff it with unnecessary wordage and sentences. List down everything you know about your item, all of the facts, every valuable point. Try to imagine any questions that your customer might have and answer them in the description. People want to know everything they can before contacting your EBay business. So take care of them!

3. Be nice. Yes, be nice, be friendly, be easygoing in your auction description. Shoppers want to feel relaxed and trusting of your auction style. Write your information as if you were exchanging a conversation with your prospects. Let your EBay business show that you can communicate with literally anyone.

4. Take advantage of the "My EBay page". Every EBay business has the chance to put friendly personality to their profile to show their customers that they are people too who care about them. Shine through by keeping this page updated. Your EBay business will thank you for it in the long run.

5. Who likes too many rules? You know what I mean! Do you like it when you see an EBay business list down a ton of rules and regulations in their auction? I certainly don't and in fact it turns me off to any EBay business that seems so uptight. Of course you have to have rules but keep it light. Don't come off so firm.

6. Last but not least keep your typeface size to an average size. There are many different people viewing your EBay business and some people may still be looking from an 800x600 display so be careful not to design your auctions higher like 1024x768 or else you just might be causing someone to click off of your EBay business auction due to the need to scroll and scroll to find the details.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:00 PM | Permalink

We have all seen the headlines about some grandmother selling her beanie baby collection for tens of thousands of dollars or the formerly unemployed couple who are now running their own business and seem to be living on easy street: and all of it is thanks to that miraculous Ebay business machine! But the question we all have to wonder is whether these are just lucky people or if anyone can indeed make money using Ebay.

The truth is this: yes, anyone can make money on Ebay! The grandmother and thousands like her are using Ebay auctions to sell their collectibles and other items to the highest bidder in a global marketplace. The unemployed couple might be a pair of drop shippers taking advantage of the high traffic on Ebay to boost their sales. But how do any of us get from where we are now to one of those success stories in the headlines?

Begin Your Ebay Adventure

Before you start counting those imaginary profits in your head it is important to remember that every great idea starts small and slowly builds momentum. Whether you are interested in drop shipping or online auctions, the very first step that needs to be taken in order to make money on Ebay is to register your business.

Now you may be thinking that you don't have a business so what is there to register?! The truly great thing about the Ebay business miracle is that you don't need a lot of capital or an existing business to get started. What you do need, however, is to register your business. For that, you will need an original name, a checking account number, and a credit card. It would probably be a good idea to set up a Paypal account as well so you can receive credit card payments from people without having a merchant credit card account.

Use Ebay Auctions to Build Confidence

In all honesty, Ebay offers people a wide range of options for making money using their site and high traffic. Ebay auctions are just one component of this fascinating company but it is a good starting point for people begin from for a couple of reasons.

First, who among us doesn't have some things around the house that we really have no use for any longer? By rounding up these items you already have an existing inventory that you need to sell and therefore a starting point.

Secondly, by listing your merchandise and going through the auction process (including setting a starting price and determining what auction options you wish to use), you are familiarizing yourself with the Ebay business and how it operates. If you choose to expand into a dedicated Trading Assistant or even into drop shipping-well, that is up to you but at least you have your feet wet and some money to keep things rolling!

Now there is no question that you can make money on Ebay but do not allow yourself to be tempted into thinking success and fortunes are built overnight. By starting out slowly and getting to know how the Ebay business machine works by selling some old items around the house and making a little money, you are laying a foundation of knowledge that you can build future success upon.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:12 PM | Permalink

Home-based business is fast becoming a popular trend in the market today. All you need is a computer and a good internet connection and poof! You're all set for a new business. There are many sites that help budding entrepreneurs start their own businesses. One of which is eBay.

eBay is a very familiar name to people who always surf the net, but what about those who doesn't know much about eBay?

To start with, eBay is a place where most people shop. In short eBay is a virtual shopping center stuck on your computer. It is also one of the biggest shopping sites in the internet with almost 50 million products and services and it's till counting. And of course if there are goods, there are entrepreneurs.

How does one become an eBay entrepreneur?

First thing to do is get to know about the site. Know about how an eBay business shop works. There are help pages available for eBay visitors. For starters there are online guided tours that could best help you navigate and to learn more about the site.

Think of what you can sell. Then make your mind up on the item or service. Many people on eBay sell almost anything they could find in their house. As long as it's still in good shape, someone will be interested.

If you don't have anything to sell, start with something you have a background with. It is advisable that you have an experience with the product.

There are things to consider in starting a business whether online or in the real world. Things like cost, shipping, storage, product life cycle and the season are always to be considered.

Cost is different from price. Cost is the total expenses that go with the product. This will include the actual price of the items if you're buying them in order to have stocks of it, the shipping if it will be delivered to you and to your client, the rent of the storage room and other things.

Shipping is the delivery of the goods. You have to know how much it will cost you to deliver the items to your client. And of course how much will you charge your client of the labor and shipping fees. The condition of your item is also to be thought of. This concerns the physical component of the product. Is it fragile or too heavy?

Storage is the place where you place your goods while waiting for the clients to buy it. You must have a sufficient and safe place to store the goods.

The life cycle of the product means the demand time of the product. You should mull over on how long the product will be able to attract potential buyers.

Season is also a consideration. Items sold on the wrong season might just get a negative response from the shoppers.

Putting a photo of your product is a plus! This will hold the interest of your potential buyer. The first photo you put up is of no charge but the next ones are charged.

Setting up an eBay shop is very easy. Since it has no start up costs, and no time restrictions, eBay is the best place where you could market your goods!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:39 PM | Permalink

Most people can make one sale on ebay, but very few people know how to make consistent, repeat sales--and even less know how to make those sales using mechanisms other than ebay.

The most important part of making these "repeat sales" is building a base of interested customers. This process starts with selling on ebay, but most people who sell on ebay don't know how to do it.

Once you complete a sale on ebay, you should always contact your customer to thank her for purchasing from you and to give her any follow up details she will need to complete the transaction. In addition to this, you should also ask your customer whether or not she is interested in receiving emails from you when your business is offering special deals, item lotteries, or product coupons.

This is where "building a base of interested customers" comes in. If you effectively pitch your email list idea to a customer (who has already purchased from you and therefore has a high probability of being interested), you have a decent chance of getting a positive response. If your customer says yes, add her to a database on excel, along with her name, email address, and what she purchased from you.

You will also want to save the email as a record of her response. As unsolicited bulk email is against the law, it is always crucial that you have evidence to prove that everyone you are mailing with offers has specifically asked to be added to your list.

You should continue to do this--make sales and record names and information.

Periodically, you should make special offers on your ebay store inventory. For instance, you could offer 20% off on certain items for one week. Or you could offer 25% off on all lightbulb sales in the future, provided they purchase a lamp within the next two weeks. Or perhaps you could excite your list by raffling of an expensive item from your ebay business, like a plasma TV.

Whatever offer you use to lure them in, just keep your goal in mind--and that is to drive repeat sales by directing them to your ebay inventory on a regular basis.

As I mentioned previously, unsolicited bulk email is against the law. So, along with each notification you send them, you should include a written explanation of how they can "opt out" of your mailing list.

One trick you can use to make this method particularly effective is selling low and then reselling high. This simply means that you sell inventory on ebay for low prices, so customers have a low resistance to purchasing it. If they see something interesting for a dollar, they might just grab it because it is inexpensive. You complete that dollar sale--and then use it to get an interested buyer who could potentially purchase something far more substantial in the future.

In addition to using different tricks to maximize your profits with this technique, there are also more effective methods you can use to collect large amounts of personal information and to conduct email correspondence campaigns. Autoresponders, websites, and name capture pages are a few of these tools. Once you become proficient in the simple tactics I explained above, you should spend some time researching the tools I just mentioned.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 08:26 AM | Permalink

Many of us dream of owning our own business and taking control of our financial destiny but precious few of us ever dare to take that chance. Of those that do risk everything for the chance to control our destiny by opening up our own company, the majority fail and are forced to rejoin the workforce again in shame. An Internet auction business may be the best chance most of us have to actually realize that dream of independence.

Auction selling via the Internet offers people a chance to start a company with very little money or resources. A lack of start up capital is the primary obstacle preventing most people from being able to own a company of their very own and stop working for other people.

Because you can enter into the world of online auctions on a part-time basis and make some extra money while still hanging onto your job until things take off, the risk of losing assets such as cars or homes is nonexistent. You will be making money from the start if done properly and you won't need to take out a second mortgage to finance the start up costs.

Study the Site

An Internet auction is not complicated to initiate or run, but it can be more involved than you would think. Since you are new to the world of auction selling it would probably be your best bet to use a site like Ebay to list your items. With relatively low costs and over 10 million visitors coming to the site every month, Ebay or sites like it are where you want to begin listing items for your online auctions.

One of the biggest mistakes new Internet auction business owners make is to rush head forward into posting their first item and waiting for the bids to roll in. Unfortunately, more often than not, those precious bids never come and people give up before ever really giving the process a chance.

You will want to study the Ebay business website and familiarize yourself with how it works before posting any listing. Go through and find all of the tools offered that you think are relevant to your particular needs. Read the advice offered by Ebay or the hosting site you are using because there is definitely a wealth of information at your fingertips that will help you succeed if you take the time to use it!

Start Small

You are not going to want to list any large ticket items in the beginning. This is because Ebay and sites like it use a feedback rating system to help people determine who is a reputable seller and who is not. Your rating will be zero at first so the chances of someone being willing to take a chance on buying something expensive from you when they have no idea about your business ethics are practically zero.

You are going to want to sell lower priced items at first to both familiarize yourself with the process and build your feedback ratings. In fact, you may even want to buy something through the site first because this will help you safely build your rating while showing you how things look from the buyer's perspective.

After you have built up both your rating and your confidence (while putting some cash into your pockets!), you then will have a much better chance at selling a more expensive item. Building your own Internet auction business will take some time, a lot of patience, and hours of research if you really want to be successful and stop working for other people.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 08:08 AM | Permalink

With so many products in ebay, which of it are ebay's bestsellers? We could take a look of these ebay's bestsellers through each category. Here are some of the ebay's bestsellers in each category:

Books

In terms of books, there are many ebay's bestsellers books in the different genre of books found in ebay. The most popular genre would probably be fiction and some of these ebay bestseller books include the Harry Potter series, Da Vinci Code, and other popular books that became popular for the past months. On the other hand, these ebay's bestsellers could vary in price, depending on how much the auction went.

Some ebay's bestsellers books need not to be the most popular ones rather; these books are sometimes the rare ones. These are books that you wouldn't ordinary see in ordinary bookstores. This could be an old classic or a book previously owned by a famous person. The auction for this kind of ebay's bestsellers is actually much higher than the previous ones simply because it is rare.

Entertainment

Most of the ebay's bestsellers in this category are also the same when it comes to books. Sales for the entertainment part are a combination of both the classic ones and the new ones. The other half of the ebay's bestsellers in this category belongs to the new releases of DVD. These are movies which were shown just 2 months before the release of the DVD.

On the other hand, other ebay's bestsellers of recent DVDs include the DVDs by TV shows which are being sold per season. These DVDs are considered ebay's bestsellers because some people tend to have an extensive collection of that sort of products. The other half of this category belongs to the classics.

Some of the DVDs in this category are very priceless due to the fact that it is hard to find and in some cases, considered as a classic. These movies or TV shows has a much higher price than the recent ones nevertheless it is still considered as one of ebay's bestsellers in terms of the entertainment industry.

Computers

Computers are now considered as a need and not as a luxuries as opposed before. This is the reason why computers are considered as ebay's bestsellers. Things that are related to computers are considered as a good product to sell because almost everyone needs a computer and alongside with this computer are accessories which make it complete.

Headsets, webcams speakers, and other computer-related gadgets are emerging as ebay's bestsellers. These gadgets are successful because many people are actually interested in a quality buy from sellers rather than a cheap price yet low-quality product. The products found in ebay prove that it is a reputable website which also sells reputable items as opposed to some negative views regarding the site.

The items mentioned in the list are considered as best sellers because of the high demand for them in ebay.

Another reason why these categories are chosen was because the high selling rates obtained by these categories (books, entertainment, and computers). These items are still in demand even up to now and one of the reasons why these are successful is the way it is presented in the market.

In ebay, one could guarantee that purchasing one product never had this kind of fun.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:31 PM | Permalink

As I'm sure you have heard by now you can sell almost anything and everything under the sun through ebay auctions. The key word here is "almost". Yes that's right, there are some items that are actually forbidden to sell on ebay and could risk you getting a suspended ebay account.

Suspended ebay accounts may be the result of attempting to break ebay's rules by trying to sell products that are immoral, illegal, or just plain distasteful. In order to remain an active ebay buyer or an ebay seller without ever having a suspended ebay account then it would behoove of you to learn the sort of items that you cannot sell.

If you have noticed while listing your item, there is a text link that goes into detail about the things that ebay has prohibited. A suspended ebay account could be the least of your worries because if caught trying to sell stuff from this list you may even face prosecution!

Below are a few examples of items that you cannot sell or else face having a suspended ebay account:

1. You may receive a suspended ebay account for selling fireworks. Because this item is illegal in most states and in other parts of the world, they do not meet the criteria of ebay and are forbidden.

2. You may receive a suspended ebay account for selling guns and firearms. Ebay has forbidden any type of machinery that fires a projectile object. Even if he gun is a collectible it is still not legal to sell on Ebay.

3. You may receive a suspended ebay account for selling drugs or drug paraphernalia. This is very self explanatory.

4. You may receive a suspended ebay account for selling alcohol due to its complex taxation.

5. Last but not least, you may receive a suspended ebay account for selling body parts and human remains. Crazy huh? But in 1999 there was indeed an auction for a human kidney and since then all other human body parts have been forbidden with the exception of skeletons and skulls. These are legal because of the education purposes that they provide.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 06:48 PM | Permalink

Although the world of online auction sites is filled with opportunities for sellers to make decent money, there are a lot of new auctioneers that simply fail to reel in the bids. For those that do manage to get some bids and conclude a transaction or two, they are surprised when they receive negative feedback and then cannot seem to find anyone to bid on their products again. Here are some useful tips to help you make money using online auction sites.

Promote Your Auction

Just because you list an item on an auction site that does not mean that you cannot promote your auction in other venues. If you have your own website, do not hesitate to use it as a marketing tool. Create a link to the auction on your website-you just might be surprised by the result.

If you are a person that sends and receives a lot of e-mail, why not create a link at the bottom of your e-mail so that each and every time you click the "send" button, you are also doing a little advertising in the process. Again, you just might be surprised by the result.

Timing is Everything

Deciding on when to end bidding is actually a lot more critical than people tend to think. The day of the week and the time of day when bidding ends on auction sites are both important factors.

The optimal duration for bidding is ten days and you want to be sure to spread those days over two complete weekends. This way, you have the best chances for exposure because people tend to use the Internet for personal shopping primarily on weekends.

Now, for deciding on precisely when to end the bidding, you must consider who is most likely to buy the item being sold. For instance, if the product is most likely to be purchased by a retiree or stay at home mom, then try ending bidding in the early morning.

If you are selling cd's or things most likely to be purchased by youths or even young adults, then do not end your bidding on a Friday or Saturday night. You are trying to end the bidding on auction sites when the people who are most likely to buy your product will be online.

If you are not sure who is most likely to buy your product, the best time to end bidding is early Sunday evening.

Not only do you have to think about the time of week and the part of the day to end your bidding, you also must consider the time of year as well when auction selling via the Internet. High priced items are best saved for the hot season which comes in winter. Move all of your lower priced goods during the summer months when things are usually pretty slow anyway.

Promoting your auction in places other than the auction sites themselves and making sure to take timing into account will improve your chances for landing bids and ultimately making the most money. Online auctions require a lot of hard work, dedication, and research on the part of sellers if they really want to make any money.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 06:54 PM | Permalink

If you are experiencing serious difficulties selling on ebay, you may be missing some of the subtleties that separate successful auctions from low-bid auctions.

Here are five tips you should always follow when you sell on ebay:

1) Sell at prevailing ebay market prices.

If you try to sell your products for obscenely high rates, you will end you losing profits. Although clever pricing strategy can get higher bids for your product, there really is a ceiling for what you can do selling on ebay. If your products aren't selling, reset the prices to something more reasonable.

2) Sell items that yield higher profit margins.

If you're selling radios from a dropship source that only yields a 2% profit margin per sale, you are in serious danger of losing money if you have to relist items. The easiest solution to this problem is finding another dropship source with lower prices or selecting another item that will yield a higher profit margin.

3) Improve your auction layout and design.

A poor layout and unprofessional design can easily deter potential customers. If you can't honestly say that you would be impressed with your own ebay auction template, you should trash it and make a new one. You may want to ask a friend or relative to give you a honest opinion of your template to help you assess where you should put information, pictures, and links (if it is a store template). This can do wonders to improve your conversion rates as an ebay seller.

4) Improve your store policies.

Offer to give your customers a money-back guarantee if they are not satisfied. Many people are weary of shopping on ebay because they have heard of other people who purchased things from less-than-honest ebay sellers. You should go out of your way to provide your customers with consistent store policies--and then to follow through with them when the need arises. This will boost your credibility, bring in repeat sales, and prevent nasty confrontations and negative feedback.

5) Improve your keyword and keyphrase density.

Most people search ebay using either "titles" or "titles & descriptions." If your title and item descriptions are not packed with highly-searched topics related to your product, you will seriously reduce the amount of potential buyers you could have viewing your auction.

To reiterate--if you want to make money on ebay, you should set reasonable prices, pick items with high profit margins, use a professional auction layout, set and follow consistent store policies, and pack your titles and descriptions with highly-searched keywords.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 08:23 AM | Permalink

If you've been on the web for a while, the chances are that at some time or other you will have taken part in an affiliate program. They generally work by giving you a URL to send people to their site that contains your affiliate number, and then giving you a small amount for each person who comes in using your link and signs up or buys something.

eBay's affiliate program follows this basic formula, but with a few twists.

It pays a lot. Each user who follows your link to eBay, signs up and then bids on anything within 30 days will earn you $20. Most affiliate programs will only give you something like 10% of the user's first purchase. What's more, for each existing eBay user who clicks through from your site and then places a bid or buys something, you'll get 10c.

You can be your own affiliate. If you just link to your own auctions with your affiliate link number from your own website, then you're getting money without sending buyers to anyone except yourself. There aren't many affiliate programs that can say that.

So Where Do I Sign Up?

You can visit eBay's affiliate program at:
http://ebay-stores.auctionresourcenetwork.net

Once you're there, just click 'Join the Program'. You will then be required to sign up for Commission Junction, which is free.

How Can I Get People to Click the Links?

eBay suggest a number of 'business models' for their affiliates. Before people can click your affiliate links, they need to be at your website. There are two ways to get them there using a search engine, which eBay refer to as 'natural' and 'paid' search.

Natural search: This is when someone finds your website in a search engine's normal results, either because something you wrote is relevant to them or you used SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques. Be careful not to use any dodgy methods to get a high search engine ranking, though, or eBay might come after you and keep your affiliate money.

Paid search: This strategy involves paying for traffic to your website or directly to eBay, by buying ads on search engines. If you go for this option, it's actually worth placing ads on the less popular search engines instead of the big ones: they'll have similar click-through rates as a percentage, but the cost typically won't be anywhere near as high.

Content: What you can do is just have a normal website, with articles on a variety of subjects and perhaps a community forum. Run the website for pleasure, but place the occasional eBay affiliate link there.

Newsletters: Don't ignore the potential of putting your affiliate ID in each time you send out a newsletter. You can get 10c for every bid it generates with no extra work, which could be enough for the email to pay for itself, whether it leads to any sales or not.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:06 AM | Permalink

If you don't know about the behemoth growing out there in cyberspace calling itself Ebay, then welcome to the planet Earth. Not only is Ebay one of the biggest Internet success stories in history, it is still growing. Not only does it allow people to come to its website and bid upon items they want, it also allows people to open their own Ebay business and use online auctions to make money. Wholesale drop shipping is a great way to sell on Ebay virtually risk free.

What is Wholesale Drop Shipping?

For a person using their Ebay store to sell items to bidders on the Internet, there is a fair amount of work that takes place behind the scenes. An Ebay business owner must secure inventory, find a place to store it until being sold, package it, and then ship the products to customers.

Drop shippers offer Ebay store owners a chance to simplify the entire process and make larger profits in the process. A wholesale drop shipping company provides and stores the inventory. Then, when someone buys an item from an Ebay business owner, that owner simply processes the order and sends it and payment onto the drop shippers who then package and ship the product to the customer.

The customer never knows that a third party exists because drop shippers will package the product using the Ebay business owner's labeling. By purchasing the products at wholesale prices, the Ebay store owner profits the difference between that price and the winning bid amount while the drop shippers take care of everything else.

Virtually Risk Free

An Ebay business owner who does not use a wholesale drop shipping company must bear the expense of buying the inventory and waiting until a sale is made before recuperating their investment. By using drop shippers, nothing is paid out by the Ebay store owner until they receive payment for the item from the customer. It is an ideal arrangement for people with little start up capital.

While not a problem in the beginning, there may come a point where an Ebay business owner must pay to store their inventory. This is another expense that you never have to worry about when using drop shippers.

Wholesale drop shipping generally requires no charge on the part of the Ebay business owner for selling the drop shipper's products. When there is a fee, it is generally so small that it is literally dwarfed by the benefits and profits received using a drop shipper.

Basically, the only thing that an Ebay business owner must invest when using wholesale drop shipping to sell on Ebay is time. And the majority of the time that is required on the part of the owner is spent researching and trying to find the best drop shipper to supply them with the products they wish to sell.

If you want to get into the world of Ebay auctions but are on a shoestring budget, wholesale drop shipping is definitely the way to go. They require little or no money of Ebay business owners to sell their products. In the process, they take care of the entire logistics involved in getting the item to your customer. So if you are serious about making money selling on Ebay but don't want to take any big risks, look into the world of drop shipping today!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 05:17 AM | Permalink

Buyers are funny creatures, aren't they? One minute they're over the moon because they've got themselves a bargain, and the next they're upset because their bargain seller doesn't provide first-class customer service. There's only really one way to reduce complaints: give these people what they want!

Post as soon as you can: The number one cause of eBay complaints are impatient or anxious buyers, who want to know when their item is going to turn up. If you get an order on Monday and wait until Saturday to post it, that's bad customer service. Try to post items at least twice a week, to avoid making your buyers wait too long.

Make the description crystal clear: You need to make sure that your buyers know exactly what they're buying, so they won't be surprised when it turns up and isn't exactly what they expect. Don't be afraid to describe small defects in your description - it's better to list it there than have buyers discover it for themselves later. If you get a lot of confusion about something, say it twice or even three times, and say it in a large font.

List all costs up-front: Don't hide away your shipping costs if you think they're too high - nothing will annoy buyers more than keeping costs secret until you expect them to be paid. If you really don't want to display your shipping costs, just offer 'free' shipping and add the shipping costs to the item's price.

Pack well: Spend as much as you need to on packing materials, and be careful with it. Remember that your item is going to have to travel through the post, and you want it to arrive in the condition it left. Wrap things securely in a few inches of a material like bubble wrap or stryofoam, and be sure to use a sturdy box. If you go around using boxes from the supermarket and old newspapers, expect things to break in the post.

Tell them to complain: This might sound a little counter-intuitive, but one of the best ways to stop your customers from complaining is to tell them to contact you if they have any complaints. Most people only complain if they feel a seller is unresponsive and confrontation - asking people to complain is more likely to get you shy and polite enquiries than complaints. You might not believe it now, but try it for a while and you'll see your customer relations improve.

Respond to emails promptly: Check your email as often as you can, and never leave an email around to respond to later or tomorrow. Having to wait days to have their email answered upsets customers more than anything, especially if they're already waiting for their item - it makes them feel stranded and powerless. Always respond to emails as soon as you can, and certainly within a maximum of 24 hours.

However much you might try to stop your buyers from complaining, though, someone will sooner or later.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:17 PM | Permalink

Any Internet marketer will tell you that the public domain is a goldmine. But if you've only been making money on ebay, you might not know how to cash in this goldmine.

The "public domain" is the collection of all documents that are publicly-owned. This usually includes really old documents and books, government documents and information, and documents created specifically for the public domain.

There are thousands and thousands of documents currently in the public domain, many of which are easily accessible over the Internet.

Before you can cash in on this goldmine, you must first find a product people are actively searching for on ebay. It could be information about building computers; it could be information about curing acne; it could be information about breeding dogs. There are dozens of possibilities.

Once you have determined what type of product you want to create and sell on ebay, you should start trying to put together some public domain information for your product.

Let's say you selected "dog breeding" for your product. You can start compiling information and pictures by searching for "dog breeding" on wikipedia.org and wikimedia.org. If the pictures and information you pull up fall into the "public domain," then save them in a folder on your computer.

Next, search Google for publicly-owned "dog breeding"sites and government sites that have information about dog breeding. Add all of the information you find to the same folder.

Organize all of this information logically and put it into a single word-processing document.

Now go to www.pdf995.com, download the trial version, and use it to compile your public domain product in PDF format.

Your next step is to take this public domain product and make money on ebay selling it. This is pretty simple. If you found a good market niche, you should have no problem making money on ebay.

Sell the product as you would normally sell anything on ebay. Remember to pack your auction title and description with highly-trafficked, related keywords. Include a picture and long description for your PDF "ebook."

Whenever someone purchases your product, you can simply email them an attached file with your product.

If you want to minimize the amount of work you have to do, you can automate the download process by setting up a custom check-out with paypal that redirects your customers to a download page on your website (if you own one). If you don't own a website, you can upload the file to a free geocities.com account and direct your buyers there.

You now will have a completely automated sales machine that will constantly make money on ebay. All you have to do is setup the auctions--and your machine will do the rest.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 05:42 AM | Permalink

Ebay just seems to be another one of those darling Internet phenoms like Google that just seems to do no wrong. With nearly 15 billion in sales last year and over 10 million visitors every month (and still growing!), it seems like Ebay might be taking on giants like Wal-Mart in a few years. Ebay auctions can be very profitable for sellers but it takes hard work and sacrifice to make an Ebay business successful.

To people first entering into the world of online auctions, the most important thing might seem to be the product itself. The better or more popular the item, the higher the bids should reasonably be. As true as this seems, succeeding with Ebay auctions is actually more complicated.

Marketing is a part of any business and definitely plays a huge role in separating a successful one from those that fail. In every form of marketing, the main point is to inform the customer of the advantage they receive by using your company to buy a product or service.

To make money on Ebay and ultimately succeed, you need to focus on the product description. After all, people cannot actually see or touch the items they are buying using Ebay auctions. All that they have to go on when deciding whether to bid (or hopefully, how much to bid!) is a picture and your product description. You have to inform them about your product and convince them that they are getting more by buying it from you than someone else selling the same thing.

Feature

Product descriptions boil down to three things: Feature, Advantage, and Benefit. An Ebay business must accurately describe the features of a product to the customer or risk negative feedback or even no bids for an item. Describe the features of your item using positive (not inaccurate or overly fluffy) words so that they clearly understand everything about the item but still feel good about it.

Advantage

What advantage does this item have over similar items that may be listed with other Ebay business owners? You have to convince the buyer that your item is superior to others like it and therefore demanding of a higher bid. This may require some creativity on your part but just remember to be honest.

Benefit

Your customers will want to know what benefit they receive by buying this item from you instead of some other Ebay business owner. There are a couple of options here. First, you could focus on the benefits of doing business with you and tell them why you offer superior quality and service compared with your competition.

A return policy is a good idea to focus on and will help your customer feel more secure about doing business with you if they know that they can return the product if it not what they were expecting (of course if you remember to be accurate when describing the features, this should rarely arise and is therefore a fairly safe policy to incorporate that definitely helps build a positive feedback rating).

Secondly, you can also focus on the item itself. How does this particular item benefit the potential buyer? Is it rare or come with some verifiable but interesting history? In all honesty, you can be fairly creative here as well. Just don't promise something that your item cannot possibly deliver upon.

Ebay auctions are a new and rather odd way to buy things. Not seeing or touching the products requires a bit of faith on the part of a buyer. Build that faith and trust with your customers by delivering the best description possible so that they can literally visualize this item and how it will benefit their lives. Your Ebay business will succeed if you remember to incorporate feature, advantage, and benefit in every product description.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:02 PM | Permalink

At some point, you bumped into a virtual item auction on ebay, where the seller was exchanging a downloadable product for cash. You probably wondered why the seller was offering the product for such a low price--and you probably also wondered how he was making money.

There are two answers to this question: the first answer is that the seller had no idea what he was doing and, in fact, wasn't making any money on ebay.

The second answer is that the seller was highly-experienced and was making hundreds of dollars each day, even though his auctions were only showing one-dollar sales.

This sounds totally bizarre, especially if you haven't sold information before, but it is absolutely true: there is a fortune in selling information--especially on the Internet.

Now, in the case of the ebay seller I mentioned above, she was probably using information products as a "loss leader" to make back-end sales. She might sell 10 copies of an ebook for $1 each and might end up being $2 in the red at the end of the day after paying seller's fees.

But she knows this--and this is okay because she now has 10 highly-qualified prospects for whatever product she is using her ebook to sell.

If her ebook is about teaching people how to make money selling on the Internet, she might list purchasing a domain name and hosting as one of the steps the buyer must take. To the buyer, this may seem innocent enough; however, when he follows her plan and purchases the hosting and domain name as directed, she will earn a commission on the domain name registration and a recurring commission on the hosting for as long as his Internet business sticks around.

If you want to try this system out, you can search google for "re-brandable" ebooks with "resale rights." You can also search ebay for similar products. A number of people make money on ebay selling these ebooks.

If the rights permit, you can purchase the product and then sell it as a downloadable product on ebay.

If you want to maximize the effectiveness of this strategy, you should keep prices very low. Your goal should be to use ebay as a medium to disseminate the book for free or for a very low price. Unless you are selling a book that contains no back-end sales mechanisms and no affiliate links, your goal should be to sell a powerful system (contained within the book) to a customer who will use it successfully to make money--and, in turn, earn you a residual income by sticking to a system that earns you money.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:43 PM | Permalink

Currently, each month there are over 14 million people whom are looking for ebay auctions online in order to purchase goods and services without having to leave the comfort of their own home. If you are one of those shoppers looking for ebay auctions online then we have some great search tips to help you find exactly what you are looking for when starting your ebay experience.

When you begin to search for ebay and start looking for ebay auctions of your choice you should take advantage of ebay's search features. These tools will make it easier on you when looking for ebay auctions. Some ebay shoppers like to use the search page while other shoppers like to use the browse feature.

Either way you slice it, looking for ebay auctions takes a bit of trial and error to get it just right for your preferences. Always attempt new techniques to help you find the exact products that you are looking for on ebay.

Bookmarking categories that on ebay that interest you is also a great way to save information when you decide to go looking for ebay auctions in the future. You can do this by using your browser tool and saving the particular ebay page in your bookmarks.

Otherwise, if you wanted to go looking for ebay auctions by saving your pages with your "My eBay page" then you can. Here is how:

1. Click on the "My eBay" button at the top of the page.
2. Click the categories link.
3. Review the information that you see when looking for ebay auctions.
4. Delete any categories you do not want by clicking on the box and then the delete button.
5. You may add new categories to the list by clicking on the Add new Category link (upper right corner)
6. You can store up to four favorite categories that you can return to when looking for ebay auctions in the future.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 06:01 PM | Permalink

Being a seller is a lot of responsibility, and sometimes you might feel like you're not doing everything you should be. This simple checklist will help you keep on top of things.

Have you found out everything you possibly could about your items? Try typing their names into a search engine - you might find out something you didn't know. If someone else is selling the same thing as you, then always try to provide more information about it than they do.

Do you monitor the competition? Always keep an eye on how much other items the same as or similar to yours are selling, and what prices they're being offered at. There's usually little point in starting a fixed price auction for $100 when someone else is selling the item for $90.

Have you got pictures of the items? It's worth taking the time to photograph your items, especially if you have a digital camera. If you get serious about eBay but don't have a camera, then you will probably want to invest in one at some point.

Are you emailing your sellers? It's worth sending a brief email when transactions go through: something like a simple "Thank you for buying my item, please let me know when you have sent the payment". Follow this up with "Thanks for your payment, I have posted your [item name] today". You will be surprised how many problems you will avoid just by communicating this way.

Also, are you checking your emails? Remember that potential buyers can send you email about anything at any time, and not answering these emails will just make them go somewhere else instead of buying from you.

Do your item description pages have everything that buyers need to know? If you're planning to offer international delivery, then it's good to make a list of the charges to different counties and display it on each auction. If you have any special terms and conditions (for example, if you will give a refund on any item as long as it hasn't been opened), then you should make sure these are displayed too.

Have you been wrapping your items correctly? Your wrapping should be professional for the best impression: use appropriately sized envelopes or parcels, wrap the item in bubble wrap to stop it from getting damaged, and print labels instead of hand-writing addresses. Oh, and always use first class post - don't be cheap.

Do you follow up? It is worth sending out an email a few days after you post an item, saying "Is everything alright with your purchase? I hope you received it and it was as you expected." This might sound like giving the customer an opportunity to complain, but you should be trying to help your customers, not take their money and run.

Being a really good eBay seller, more than anything else, is about providing genuinely good and honest customer service. That's the only foolproof way to protect your reputation
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:54 PM | Permalink

Listen to the Interviews of the Leading Entrepreneurs in the World Who Are Heroes That Are Pursuing Their Dreams With Every Ounce of Strength and Faith.

One key for business success using eBay is sourcing products to sell. The first questions eBay sellers should ask themselves are: "What can I sell?" and "Where can I buy?"

There are two kinds of sellers on eBay, garage sellers and business sellers. Garage sellers are people who sell products they are not going to use any more and that are usually not new. Garage sellers are not profit driven, their main objective is usually to get rid of some stuff they don't need. They will be happy to make some money by selling something that is no longer useful to them. On the other hand, business sellers are people who will buy and sell products for profit, they consider eBay a business and need to earn profit on the products they sell.

The first key to success for business sellers is an old marketing rule, RESEARCH. The products you need to sell are products that eBay buyers will want to buy. Apart from being a massive market place, eBay offers you a cheap source of research that you can conduct without moving from your computer.

If you are a business seller, it is fundamental that you spend some time researching before you decide which products you want to sell. Follow these research guidelines:

1. Search for the categories that are most popular. The first index is the number of listings that exist under each category. In addition, you need to look at how many bids the products have.

2. Look at the ratings of the sellers who are listing products in each category and study their profiles. See how many products they are selling and how many products they have sold in the past.

3. Analyze prices. You need to become an expert in your category and you need to know at which price a product is worth buying as well as the expected final winning price of your auction.

4. Select no more than one or two categories. "Specialization" is another basic rule of marketing. It is better to become an expert on something, as this will inspire confidence and trust in your potential customers. Online marketing is all about trust.

For conducting good research, you need time and organization. There are different software programs in the market that can help you save time as well as optimize your research.

Now that you are becoming an eBay expert and have conducted a proper search, you are almost ready to start your business. Before starting to sell, you need to buy! Here are some ideas from where you can source products:

1. Write your own e-book and sell it. If you have any passion or are an expert on a subject for which you can find a niche in eBay, do not hesitate to spend some time on writing your own book. The advantage of this is that after your initial time investment, you can sell and sell copies of the book without having any additional costs. Selling information products is one of the most profitable businesses. Even if you are not an expert writer, you can find other people who can write the book for you.

2. Use drop-shipping. There are wholesalers that will sell you products and send them to the address that you tell them. The advantage of this source is that you do not need to carry inventories, so your investments are minimized. After your auction is finished, you send them your customers address and they will do all the shipping. If you decide to use this kind of source, you need to make sure that your auctions winning price can be higher than the price you will pay for the articles. At minimum you should expect to double your costs.

3. Buy from eBay. Many eBayers success comes from knowing how to buy well on eBay and sell the same products at a higher price. If you know your category very well, you can easily find opportunities that will allow you to buy and resell making profit. Again, solid research is fundamental.

4. Buy Asiatic products. If you are willing to carry some inventories, you can invest on Asiatic products and buy them for a very cheap price. You can easily start importing Asiatic products from the Internet at www.alibaba.com.

5. Sell local products. If you live in an area that produces local products which can be bought at a cheap price and shipped to other areas where people would pay more, you should take advantage of the situation.

Best wishes for your success !

Posted by ralph at 12:24 PM | Permalink

There are so many things that people could find in eBay. From electronic gadgets up to things needed in the house are all available in this virtual shopping portal of the Internet.

The variety of products in eBay is endless. So, for people to be able to know what sells on eBay, here is the list:

a. Antiques

These include furniture, rags, silver and many other which are valuable and rare to find. When buying antiques on eBay, one would surely enjoy it because it will make them feel that they are travelling. With the different pieces of historical and cultural value, they tend to be in a world where they can visualize the place it represents. That's one way of enjoying shopping.

b. Books

Also in the list of hot as pancakes items to sell on eBay are books, which could be classified into historical, general, ebooks, romance, and a whole lot more. The books found in eBay vary in order to suit the different reading taste of people. Electronic versions of these books or e-books do quite well in eBay too.

c. Car

Cars and other car-related items are also bestsellers on ebay. This includes car accessories, spare parts, decorations, and even motorcycles. Unique accessories are also best selling items on eBay because of their variety and rareness.

d. Collectibles

Believe it or not, but eBay does sells things that are considered as collectibles. Collectible items include coins, stamps, and even art paintings. Some of the items sold here are even considered collector's items which are a rare find both online and offline.

e. Electronics

Electronic items come next in the hitlist of bestsellers on eBay. Electronics can be classified into different areas such as cameras and photos, mobile phones (accessories and parts), computers (laptops, computer accessories, parts of the computer, monitors), and many more. Gizmos or techie-gadgets never fail to amaze a big share of the eBay market, young and adults alike.

f. Entertainment

The next category included in what sells best on ebay list is the entertainment products category. These entertainment items include DVD and movies, music, music instruments, cds, entertainment memorabilia, video games, and many more. Bidding for these entertainment products is popular because of the demand for these things.

g. Sports equipment

Sports equipments gain so much popularity in ebay too. Certain accessories and equipment for different kinds of sports (basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, billiards, boxing, etc) are all here. Even hard to find ones are all there, it's all a matter of checking them out.

h. Toys and Hobbies

Toys and hobbies are also gaining more and more attention nowadays. They include toys for the boys and also toys for the big boys. Toys that are purchased in ebay could either be for amusement purposes or for added collection. Rare finds are also what makes this category of products very popular. Antique action figures and phased-out toys are often what most buyers are craving for.

i. Travel Needs

Travel items are also good products to sell on ebay. These travel needs include various products such as plane and ride information, travel books, tour kit, travel bags, and many more.

And so, eBay is like a cyberspace mall wherein everything you want is in one place only. The only thing a buyer has to tag along when shopping on eBay is a trusty credit card and he or she is set to get everything with just one click.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:40 PM | Permalink

Would you believe me if I said you could start a business on ebay and profit by the end of the year? What if I said you could profit by the end of the month? Or the end of the week?

What about the end of today?

You probably wouldn't believe me if I said you could start an ebay business now and make money by the end of the day, would you?

You wouldn't, but it's true.

Over 500,000 people currently sell on ebay to make a full time income. Not all of those 500,000 are experts. Many of them started making money on ebay selling junk from basements and attics. They saw the ebay marketplace in action, recognized the profit potential, and decided to launch an ebay home business.

There are a number of good reasons for this. Ebay affords both sellers and buyers certain advantages that are not available in anywhere else.

One advantage is that your marketplace--where you sell your goods--is already established. That means you don't have to build and optimize a website to bring in traffic. You can simply place your item on sale in a marketplace with millions of potential buyers and get prospective customers immediately.

This is why I say you can start an ebay business and make money on the first day: you can literally put an item up for auction and sell it within one day.

You're probably saying "yeah, that's great. Other people can do that, but can I?" The answer is yes, but there are a few important things you must do first.

The first thing you must do is get in the right mindset. If you talk to any successful business owner, she will tell you that mindset is one of the most important parts of being successful. And this is where you must start: you must tell yourself that you can make money on ebay. If you don't start with this step, you will give up when you encounter the first obstacle.

After you convince yourself that those 500,000 sellers who are already making money on ebay have nothing on you, you must commit yourself to learning how to sell on ebay. It isn't tricky, but there are a couple basic things you must know--and you can learn most of it in a matter of hours, not weeks, months, or years.

You can do this by selling junk from your attic and basement, like the ebay sellers I mentioned previously.

Start by going to ebay.com and registering as a seller.

Next, find some junk in your house that could potentially be useful to someone else (i.e. an old radio or tv). Take this "junk" and setup an auction on ebay. Continue selling household junk until you understand pricing and listing strategy.

Once you understand how to sell on ebay, you will be ready to open your own store.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:44 PM | Permalink

The quickest answer I feel I should give to this question is this: not your handwriting! Scrawling addresses on boxes with a pen is extremely amateurish, and you shouldn't do it. Print your own labels instead. But what should you put on them?

The buyer's address: This might sound obvious, but you need to make sure the full address is there, including country and zip or postal code. Make sure you spell their name correctly, too, as they might be a little insulted if you don't.

The eBay item number: Write this somewhere discreet and quite small, in this form: 'Item number: 123456789'. Under the address is a good place. This makes it easy for the buyer to find the auction again if they need to look at it for any reason.

Your logo: Putting your logo on the shipping box looks professional, and lets your buyers see what it is that has arrived. A good logo can make the whole package look very nice, and can help build recognition of your business.

Your address: It's worth putting your own address on the box in case the item can't be delivered and needs to be returned to you. It looks good to write this under your logo, as it reinforces the impression that you're a real business with a real address, not some shady operation.

Stamps: If you start to sell on eBay in a significant quantity, you might consider buying a postage meter. Again, this is a matter of looking professional - it looks much better than having stamps stuck everywhere. It also saves you from having to weigh your items at the post office and buy stamps there.

The 'eBay Items' Debate.

Some sellers like to mark their shipping boxes with a phrase like 'eBay items', while some feel that this is an unsafe practice that could mark their boxes out to get stolen or interfered with in the post. Whether you're willing to risk it is up to you - it's probably better to be safe than sorry, though, and there will be few of your customers who get so many packages that they won't know what yours is.

And Inside?

You'll probably find it worth printing off a 'receipt' from eBay - the confirmation of payment page - and putting it in the envelope. If you want to make your customers feel even better about having ordered from you, you can also include a compliments slip, featuring your logo, your website address and a message like 'Thank you for your order. Please contact me if there are any problems. [Your name].'

Always remember: the more they like what they get, the more likely they are to come back and order again from you in the future.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:14 PM | Permalink

When selling on eBay, time is the one factor that is never on your side. Obviously the longer your item can stop on eBay, the higher visibility it receives & the more bids it is likely to get.

eBay presently offers five different lengths of listings, either a 1,3,5,7 or 10 day listing.

While a 10 day listing will give you the most exposure your item will not appear within the top of the relevant category immediately. Those items which are ending soon are the first to be shown within eBays listings. Generally new items appear at the bottom of the category listings and work there way towards the first page. On a 10 day listing it will take the best part of a week before your listing is shown on the first page of search results.

Therefore anyone browsing the eBay categories will not see your item in the eBay search results. As with search engines, many users will only look in the top two pages of results.

That is why the 1 day auction format offers a few advantages. Your item will be viewable immediately to any users browsing though the eBay categories. However, 1 day may not give many bidders the opportunity to find your item before the item ends.

So, why not get the best of both sides.

There is a way to both, give your item maximum visibility on eBay while also keeping it in the top search results for the category it is listed in.

It's a very simple tactic that anyone can use. As long as your item has no bids & doesn't end within 12 hours, eBay allows you to revise your listing. This revision can be anything, from title to pictures used including Auction length.

When you first submit your listing to eBay select a three day format. This will put it within the top two pages of results in this category. Allow your listing some time, to see if it's discovered and if not after two days just revise it to a 5 day auction. Because your auction will have already been running for two days, when you revise the listing it will show three days remaining, and still be within the top listings for the category.

If it's still not discovered and has no bids, just repeat the procedure for seven and then for ten days. If your able to revise your listing four times, you'll easily gain more coverage than any other listing in the same category. And more coverage should mean more bids!

Good luck & let me know how it works out.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:24 PM | Permalink

Yes, you read that correctly: ten years. eBay was created in September 1995, by a man called Pierre Omidyar, who was living in San Jose. He wanted his site - then called 'AuctionWeb' - to be an online marketplace, and wrote the first code for it in one weekend. It was one of the first websites of its kind in the world. The name 'eBay' comes from the domain Omidyar used for his site. His company's name was Echo Bay, and the 'eBay AuctionWeb' was originally just one part of Echo Bay's website at ebay.com. The first thing ever sold on the site was Omidyar's broken laser pointer, which he got $14 for.

The site quickly became massively popular, as sellers came to list all sorts of odd things and buyers actually bought them. Relying on trust seemed to work remarkably well, and meant that the site could almost be left alone to run itself. The site had been designed from the start to collect a small fee on each sale, and it was this money that Omidyar used to pay for AuctionWeb's expansion. The fees quickly added up to more than his current salary, and so he decided to quit his job and work on the site full-time. It was at this point, in 1996, that he added the feedback facilities, to let buyers and sellers rate each other and make buying and selling safer.

In 1997, Omidyar changed AuctionWeb's - and his company's - name to 'eBay', which is what people had been calling the site for a long time. He began to spend a lot of money on advertising, and had the eBay logo designed. It was in this year that the one-millionth item was sold (it was a toy version of Big Bird from Sesame Street).

Then, in 1998 - the peak of the dotcom boom - eBay became big business, and the investment in Internet businesses at the time allowed it to bring in senior managers and business strategists, who took in public on the stock market. It started to encourage people to sell more than just collectibles, and quickly became a massive site where you could sell anything, large or small. Unlike other sites, though, eBay survived the end of the boom, and is still going strong today.

1999 saw eBay go worldwide, launching sites in the UK, Australia and Germany. eBay bought half.com, an Amazon-like online retailer, in the year 2000 - the same year it introduced Buy it Now - and bought PayPal, an online payment service, in 2002.

Pierre Omidyar has now earned an estimated $3 billion from eBay, and still serves as Chairman of the Board. Oddly enough, he keeps a personal weblog at http://pierre.typepad.com. There are now literally millions of items bought and sold every day on eBay, all over the world. For every $100 spent online worldwide, it is estimated that $14 is spent on eBay - that's a lot of laser pointers.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:45 PM | Permalink

From everything you've heard about the risk of fraud on eBay, you might think it's only buyers getting scammed - but you couldn't be more wrong. Here are a few common scams that sellers fall for every day.

The Rubber Check.

This one obviously isn't limited to eBay - it's been going on for years in all kinds of business. It works like this: a buyer sends you a Check that they don't have the funds to cover and you pay it in your bank. You then send the goods right away, only to find out a few days later that the Check bounced.

The solution to this is simple: don't send anything to a buyer until their payment has cleared, no matter how quickly they might say they need it. Advise them to pay electronically if they don't want to wait so long for their items. Then again, if your items are quite small, you could just take the loss from an occasional bounced Check. Think of it as a small price to pay for faster and better customer service.

'I Never Bought Anything!'

This is one of the riskiest scams to fall victim to. In this case, the credit card's real owner still has control over it - no-one has stolen their details. They have realised, however, that they can phone up the bank who issued their card to say that it's being used fraudulently and they never bought any such thing, and the bank will often reverse the transaction without even investigating. The only way to beat this scam is to make all your sales through eBay, as they keep a record of transactions.

The Unconfirmed Address.

It is quite easy to steal PayPal accounts from inexperienced users: all you need, after all, is their email address and password. PayPal tries to protect against credit cards registered on stolen accounts being used to buy things by listing a 'confirmed address' for each buyer - an address that matches what is registered with their credit card issuer.

What many scammers will do is ask you to ship to a different address - unless you're very sure of them, this is a bad idea, as they could be trying to commit credit card fraud. Be especially suspicious of anyone who wants to pay a higher price and get overnight shipping, especially if not even to the same country as the confirmed address. The fraudster is trying to make sure the item reaches them before they are discovered.

It's up to you to take responsibility for fraud on PayPal, as eBay's favorite way to refund fraudulent payments to their rightful owner is to just reverse it from you! This is considered an occupational risk of PayPal usage, and sellers who get burned severely sometimes go as far as moving to a rival electronic payment service. See www.nopaypal.com for more.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:11 PM | Permalink

I can answer this question for you right now: the answer is 'yes'. In fact, the answer is 'YES!' - the biggest yes you've ever heard. Of the course the customer is always right. If you want to be a successful eBay seller, you should go miles out of your way to make sure every single one of your customers is 100% satisfied, however much time or money it might cost you.

A dissatisfied customer will leave negative feedback, and negative feedback is to be avoided at all costs. That one piece of negative feedback will always cost you more than it would have to deal with the complaint, whatever the value of the items you sell. You should consider any positive feedback percentage under 100% to be an absolute disaster, and a personal failure on your part.

But What If...

But nothing! There is no situation where you, as a seller, should get into any dispute with a buyer. Here are a few common situations and how to handle them.

They say the item never arrived: Politely ask the buyer to wait a few more days to see if it turns up, and then email you again if it still hasn't arrived. If it still hasn't arrived, you should assume it was lost in the post somehow and offer to send a replacement if you have one, or give them a full refund otherwise. No, I don't care what that costs you. Are you serious about selling on eBay or not?

The item has been damaged in the post: You must offer to replace it or take it back for a refund without hesitation.

They say the item doesn't match the description: Resist the urge to email back with "yes it does, you just didn't read the description properly". Take the item back for a refund, and edit your description if you need to, to make any confusing points extra clear.

I'm sure you're spotting a pattern by now. Offering a refund will make almost any problem go away, and it really will cost you less in the long run. Remember, one piece of negative feedback will stay with you forever, while having a 100% positive rating is like owning a bar of solid gold.

You should always handle customers' complaints before they complain to eBay - in fact, you should email them pre-emptively to ask if they have any. Going through the dispute process is time consuming, reflects badly on you and is downright unnecessary.

Are you still not convinced? Think this would only work with cheap items? Well, you see, the higher the price of the items you sell, the more your reputation is worth to you. Let's say you were selling $10,000 worth of items each week, for example, and making a $1,000 profit per week overall. You might think that refunding one customer's $1,000 purchase would be a tragedy, losing you your whole week's profit. It's far better to look at it this way: if you don't give that refund, then not only will you lose the next week's profit, but you'll probably lose a few weeks' profit after that too. Now which option looks better?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:56 PM | Permalink

In fact, you might not even have heard of eBay stores. Read on to find out what you've been missing.

eBay stores come at three levels: Basic for $15.95 per month, Featured for $49.95 per month or Anchor for $499.95 per month (yes, that is typed correctly: almost $500). The best place to start out is with Basic (you can even get a month's free trial), but if you like what you find then you should upgrade to Featured quickly, simply because it has so many extra features. Note that you must have a feedback rating of at least 20 before you can get an eBay store.

But what is an eBay store? Basically, it lets you list a set of fixed price auctions together on one page for much longer than auctions usually last - and most sellers with eBay stores list the items at a slightly lower price. It's like a list of your special offers. You can put your logo on the store and write a little about your business and policies, and your customers can search your store for anything they might want. Buyers can click through to your store using the door symbol next to your name.

A good way to look at it is that it's a little like having your own e-commerce site outside eBay where you can list your items more long term - except it's all done for you without you having to learn a new system. Items in eBay stores can be listed for 30, 60, 90 or 120 days, or you can list items permanently, paying monthly for each one.

So you Want an eBay Store Now?

You can visit eBay stores at:
http://ebay-stores.auctionresourcenetwork.net

Go there now and click the 'Open a Store' button on the right of the screen to start signing up for the free trial. Then there are a few steps to go before your store can open for business.

Step 1: Pick a theme. You can have whatever design you want on your store, but to begin with pick something from eBay's options that you think would be appropriate.

Step 2: Add your store's name, description and logo. You can pick one of eBay's pictures for the logo or upload a logo of your own if you have one. Don't worry, you can always change this later.

Step 3: Choose your subscription level, and then click 'Start My Subscription Now'. Your store is ready! Remember that you can customise it more at any time.

Listing items in your store is just like listing items on normal eBay using 'Buy it Now', except that the durations you can choose from for the store are much longer.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:09 AM | Permalink

Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay.

For every seller who doesn't like the idea that their item might sell for a far lower price than they intend, there's another who wants to shift hundreds of the same item quickly. eBay tries to cater to all tastes. This article gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and their advantages for you.

Normal Auctions.

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: buyers bid, others outbid them, they bid again, and the winner gets the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions.

Reserve auctions are for sellers who don't want their items to sell for less than a certain price - a concept you'll know about if you're familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that the buyer will be told if their bid does not meet the reserve price you set, and they'll need to bid again if they want the item. If no-one is willing to meet your price, then the auction is cancelled, and you keep the item.

Fixed Price ('Buy it Now') Auctions.

Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. You can add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that buyers can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. This lets you avoid all the complications of the auction format and simply list your items for how much you want them to sell for.

Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the 'best offer'. This means that buyers can contact you to negotiate a price, which could be a good way to get sell some extra stock at a small discount. The only downside to reserve and fixed price auctions is that you pay a small extra fee to use these formats. In general, it is more worth using reserve auctions for higher-priced items and fixed price auctions for lower-priced ones - but remember that you can combine the two formats.

Multiple Item ('Dutch') Auctions.

These are auctions where you can sell more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don't worry - everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that you can just say how many of the item you they have, and offer them at a fixed price per unit. Buyers can enter how many they want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:48 AM | Permalink

Unless you are willing to pay for software that finds top-selling ebay items, you will have to conduct your own research by hand. Luckily for you, there is a simple method you can use to perform market research for ebay.

If you are already selling on ebay, you probably have a general idea of what you want to sell. For instance, you might know you want to sell collectibles, jewelry, or consumer electronics. However, what you might not know is what you want to sell within those categories or what you should be selling within those categories to maximize your profits per sale.

Your goal should be to select products that have both a high demand (high search popularity) and a low supply (number and quality of sellers). In business, this is generally referred to as a "niche." If you want to maximize your profits, you should search out a number of niches within your ebay selling sub-category.

You can start this process by going to http://category-keyword.ebay.com/all_categories.html and clicking your current selling category and then sub- category. Drill down and build a list as you go of potential niches by recording the "commonly searched words" for each level.

Continue to drill down until you have the ebay search results for a given niche. For instance, if you continue to drill down for jewelry, you can eventually get results for "white gold rings" or "sapphire gold rings." Spend some time analyzing the raw amount of results (i.e. 4300 results for "white gold rings") you get for a given keyphrase, the quality of the sellers within the niche, and the prevailing market rates within the niche.

If supply is low and demand is high for that given ebay selling niche, prices will be inordinately high, allowing you to maintain high profit margins until your niche fills out with more sellers.

In order to assure consistent profits, you should select a number of profitable ebay selling niches and sell within each. When you pick a good niche, your sales will reflect it: your merchandise will move fast and you will consistently sell over the ebay market values.

If you find a good niche, but do not have sufficient stock to sell within that niche, you can simply find a dropshipper or an affiliate program to do all of the work for you. You can sign up at places like www.cj.com, www.linkshare.com, and http://www.megagoods.com for free and immediately start selling items as an affiliate.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:25 PM | Permalink

Your reputation as a buyer (or 'feedback rating') is one of the most important things people see when they deal with you on eBay. It is on the basis of this little number that they will decide whether they can trust you or not.

Each time you buy or sell something on eBay, people can leave feedback for you, and you can leave feedback for them. This feedback can be positive, negative, or neutral, along with a comment. Your feedback rating, then, is worked out using a very simple sum: the number of positive feedback comments people have left for you, minus the number of negative ones. This means that someone with a feedback rating of 28, for example, might have 30 positive ratings and 2 negative ones.

If you are a considerate buyer, then you should find that positive feedback will just appear next to your username, without you needing to do anything. If you want to help it along, though, there are a few things you can do.

Always leave feedback for others: People will feel an obligation to leave feedback for you if you leave it for them (eBay will send you an email after each transaction to offer you the opportunity). Take the time to write a positive comment about sellers who do what they should and the chances are they'll do the same for you.

Pay promptly: Sellers love nothing more than to be paid promptly - paying as soon as the auction ends saves the seller all sorts of worry, especially if you pay by credit card or another electronic method. You will often find that your positive feedback appears within a few minutes of you paying if you pay as soon as the auction ends.

Don't be a difficult customer: Understand that your seller might take a day or so to respond to you, and perhaps a few days to send your item - harassing them is nasty and unnecessary, and won't get you good feedback.

Build relationships: If a seller sells a lot of a certain kind of thing you like, buy from them a few more times. They will be very happy to find a regular customer, and will go out of their way to leave positive feedback like 'a joy to deal with as ever'. Also, they might offer you a few special deals!

Sellers won't generally be reluctant to sell to buyers without much of a reputation, simply because it is the buyer who takes most of the risk in a transaction. It is worth remembering, however, that transactions where you are the seller and where you are the buyer are counted towards the same feedback total - so if you ever want to start selling, being a good buyer is especially worthwhile.

On eBay, people pay far more attention to sellers' ratings than they do to buyers' - most sellers can't be bothered to check their buyers' feedback, while bad feedback on a seller can (and should) be a dealbreaker. When you are buying, then, you need to worry more about the seller's reputation than you do about your own.

How to Check an eBay Seller's Reputation (and Why You Should Do It).

When you buy something from an eBay seller, you are giving them your money and hoping that you will get something in return. However many guarantees of safety eBay might make to you, nothing is certain: if you just give your money to scammers all the time without doing any checks then the chances are you won't get all of that money back.

That's why you should always check the seller's reputation, or 'feedback rating'. This is a quick and easy-to-read summary of their history as an eBay seller, which gives you some idea of whether or not you should trust them with your money. Buying anything is a calculated risk: you want to minimise that risk.

How to Check Feedback Ratings.

On each item's description page, there is a box in the top-right hand corner about the seller, with the title 'Seller information'. This contains the seller's name, their feedback score, and their positive feedback percentage, as well as any stars they have earned.

Different coloured stars are given to eBay sellers depending on their rating, in this sequence: yellow, blue, turquoise, purple, red, green, shooting yellow, shooting turquoise, shooting purple, shooting red. Anyone with a 'shooting' star is an experienced eBay member who you should be able to trust.

If you click on the seller's name, you can get to a more detailed view of their reputation - their 'member profile' page. This page shows the total number of people who gave them a positive or negative rating, as well as a breakdown by time. You can also see a complete history of all the comments that have ever been left about them, with the most recent first.

What to Look For.

You might assume that anyone with a very high number can be trusted, but that isn't always true. It is more important to look at their positive feedback percentage - and you should really consider anything below 99% to be a red flag and investigate further.

Take a look through the first visible page with the most recent transactions: are there any negative comments? What do they say? Take others' experiences into account, as they could happen to you if you deal with this person. Be careful not to punish sellers unfairly, however, if they did bad things in their past on eBay but have improved since. You should look at the breakdown by time and ignore any negative feedback that was left a long time ago. Equally, though, you should sit up and pay attention if a seller seems to have been left an out-of-character amount of bad feedback in the last month or so.

Now that you know who to trust, it is worth learning a little more about how the different kinds of auctions work, so that you don't accidentally slip up and make yourself and your feedback page look bad.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:11 AM | Permalink

Do you have trouble sometimes understanding when people talk about eBay? Don't worry, some of the jargon is really obscure, and you can't be expected to understand it until someone's told you what it means. Here's a little list of some of the most useful lingo to know, but you don't need to memorise it - even the most common jargon is only used relatively rarely.

Words.

Bid: telling eBay's system the maximum price you are prepared to pay for an item.
Dutch: an auction where more than one of an item is available.
Feedback: positive or negative comments left about other users on eBay.
Mint: in perfect condition.
Non-paying bidder: a bidder who wins an auction but does not then go on to buy the item.
PayPal: an electronic payment method accepted by most sellers.
Rare: used and abused on eBay, now entirely meaningless.
Reserve: the minimum price the seller will accept for the item.
Shill bid: a fake bid placed by a seller trying to drive up their auction's price.
Snail Mail: the post, which is obviously very slow compared to email.
Sniping: bidding at the last second to win the item before anyone else can outbid you.

Abbreviations.

AUD: Australian Dollar. Currency.
BIN: Buy it Now. A fixed price auction.
BNWT: Brand New With Tags. An item that has never been used and still has its original tags.
BW: Black and White. Used for films, photos etc.
CONUS: Continental United States. Generally used by sellers who don't want to post things to Alaska or Hawaii.
EUR: Euro. Currency.
FC: First Class. Type of postage.
GBP: Great British Pounds. Currency.
HTF: Hard To Find. Not quite as abused as 'rare', but getting there.
NIB: New in Box. Never opened, still in its original box.
NR: No Reserve. An item where the seller has not set a reserve price.
OB: Original Box. An item that has its original box (but might have been opened).
PM: Priority Mail.
PP: Parcel Post.
SH: Shipping and Handling. The fees the buyer will pay you for postage.
USD: United States Dollars. Currency.
VGC: Very Good Condition. Not mint, but close.

The chances are that you'll find more specific jargon related to whatever you're selling, but it'd be an impossible task to cover it all here. If you can't figure one out from your knowledge of the subject, then type the term into a search engine, followed by the word 'ebay'. The chances are that someone, somewhere will have seen fit to explain it.

While it's good to be able to understand others' jargon, avoid using it unless you really need to (for example, if you run out of space in an item's title). Many people on eBay are not experienced buyers and you will lose them if you write a load of gobbledegook all over your auction.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 03:50 PM | Permalink

Ebay is a haven for people that are into business and the best part about it is you don't have to leave the comforts of your own house while trying your luck for your first million. There are many easy ways to make money on Ebay and this article would certainly guide you in your mission.

These tips mentioned are just some of the easy ways to make money on Ebay. You do not need to memorize this guideline word per word, just digest the important facts and guidelines and let the inner business person in you thrive.

The easy ways mentioned here are just some of the things that you could apply in your own business in Ebay.

Here are the four easy ways to make money on Ebay:

1. Know Your Products

As a seller, you must know your products well and this means its weaknesses and strengths. Through this way, you would be able to sell the product well and defend its weakness (if there is any). By knowing your product, you could also advertise it well in Ebay so that you would be able to have a large target market which is more than the usual. This number one easy ways to make money on Ebay advice suggest that you should invest well in your products.

2. Determine your Target Market

Through determining your target market, you would be able to determine or estimate the number of sales that you would be able to make. Aside from that, you would also be able to know when and where to catch your target market. For example, your target market are students, advertising in sites that are often visited by students could be a worthy investment because the target market is there. This second easy ways to make money on Ebay tip shows that you should be able to establish communication rapport with your target market.

3. Know Your Competition

By familiarizing yourself with competition, you would surely assess yourself if you meet the standards of the product. A competition could be viewed as a friend or foe, depending on the seller's reasoning. It could be considered as a foe when both of you are neck to neck when it comes to selling your products. It could be a friend when you are checking out their latest wares so that you would not be left behind. This third easy ways to make money on Ebay shows that research goes a long, long way in Ebay. Competition is good as long as it is a healthy one.

4. Present Well

Presentation is the name of the game. Be sure that your product is in good quality so that you would be able to make an impression to buyers. Also be sure that this good impression would last even up to the time that your product would reach the buyer's house. A good presentation and feedback in Ebay are considered investments in Ebay. Once the word spreads, there would be no stopping you towards the road of success. This last easy ways to make money on Ebay clearly shows that presentation aims to capture the interest of potential buyers.

These easy ways to make money on Ebay are just suggestions to start your business right. The tips and guidelines mentioned in the article five easy ways to make money on Ebay are not the shortcut for success in any business. You, yourself must be able to make your own easy ways to make money on Ebay guide so that success would land in your hands. Happy Trading!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 08:29 AM | Permalink

It's surprisingly easy to kill your eBay business, if you're not careful - sure, you can start over from scratch without it costing you anything, but do you really want to? Still, if you want your business to end up dead in the water, here are some simple ways to do it.

1. Lie about an item: Say it works fine when it sometimes doesn't work. Say it's in perfect condition when it has a scratch. Your customers will hate you!

2. Post whenever you feel like it: Make sure to leave your customers hanging around, wondering when their item is going to turn up. This makes sure they buy from someone else next time.

3. Let items end anytime: Few people will be around to care about your auction if it ends in the middle of the night. Why go to the trouble of working out whether auctions will end at a good time?

4. Don't bother with email: Customers are just timewasters anyway. eBay businesses are supposed to run themselves! Never give informed responses to questions about your item.

5. Sell rubbish: Really, it's just eBay. You can just sell any old tat from the market for a 200% profit. Let quality be someone else's concern - I mean, really, what do they expect for that price?

6. Refuse to give discounts: You know what your items cost, you know what your profit margin is going to be, and you're not going to negotiate. Remember that giving customers special deals might make them feel good and come back to you again.

7. Make your listings ugly: As many colours, flashing lights and animations as possible will really give those customers a headache. Write as much in CAPITALS!!!! as you can. Preferably big, red capitals. Be sure to use the fonts Impact and Comic Sans. For an extra special touch, see if you can figure out a way to add some music.

8. Don't take photos: It's such trouble, after all. If buyers are picky enough to actually want to see items before they bid on them, then screw 'em, that's what I say.

9. Write short descriptions: Be as brief as possible, and use lots of mysterious abbreviations. This obviously makes you look very cool. You can even just write the title again in the description box. Think of the effort you'll save!

10. Use reserve auctions: Now, this is a fairly controversial final choice, but it really is one of the best ways to scare away your customers. They'll see 'reserve not yet met', and click that 'back' button before you know it. Luckily, they can always bid in a normal auction for the item somewhere else.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:58 PM | Permalink

Ebay is really a good site for people that are looking for an alternative income. This is because eBay offers the option of working and monitoring from home.

For people who are tired of being good old plain employees, this is a good chance for growth. So, for people who want to know how they can profit from selling on eBay, here are some tips they need to know:

a. Determine your Products

To make your selling efforts very profitable, the best thing that one should do first is to find out what kinds of products gain a lot of attention.

In the selection process, it is best to sell products that you are familiar with because it would be easier to handle and advertise the item if one knows it by heart.

Determining what product to sell is a very crucial step in doing well with your selling endeavor because it is the very core of the business. So, it is better that you must find something that would be easy to dispose and at the same time a high-quality one.

b. Slowly but Surely

Success is easier to achieve if one considers taking one step at a time.

It's best for you to test the waters first before plunging into it directly. This is to find out if the product is a hit and also to determine and assess yourself if you have the skill and determination to be a top seller in the market. For example, you could start by selling in small quantities of a certain item and then up the number if it's successful or stop if it's not. Iit's best not to rush into something that you are not sure of.

c. Conduct Quality Transactions

This step focuses on the reputation of the product as well as the business people behind it.

Reputation is the key to this kind of business because most of the buyers tend to give feedbacks regarding the transaction made by the seller and the buyer. Once satisfied, the buyers could become their regular customers and at some point of time, they would be able to recommend your products to other potential buyers. This in turn would help you have a wider target market. Mastering this process also makes somebody from eBay a worthy businessman/woman online or offline.

d. Present Well

It is a must for every seller to make sure that the products they are selling are presented in an organized way. Good presentation equals not having a hard time in advertising the product.

Amongst the many elements that should be considered in improving the marketability of an item includes its description, its placement in the appropriate category, its title, the starting price, and a picture of the item. Treating these aspects of your item well will attract more traffic that could easily be converted to sales.

These tips are meant to maximize the benefits of selling on ebay. They also aim to help a seller bring out the best in themselves to make them realize that their investment, time and effort spent on ebay is indeed worthy.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:36 PM | Permalink

Did you know that the most important thing that separates ebay neophytes from successful ebay sellers and ebay powersellers is how they construct titles and descriptions?

Most ebay neophytes and unsuccessful ebayer sellers--as well as some successful ebayer sellers--have no idea that one title is any different from another. In fact, the difference between a good title and description can be the difference between 15 visitors and 250 visitors--which has huge implications for your bottom line.

So what makes a good title?--Three things: keyword-packing, accuracy, and readability.

Keyword-packing will determine when your auction is pulled up in response to an ebay search. For instance, if you are selling jewelry and use the words "white gold" in your title, whenever someone searches for "white gold" by titles, your auction will be one of the results that gets pulled up. This is why you should always load your ebay auctions with relevant keywords.

Another important part of writing titles is accuracy. If you use keywords that are highly-searched but irrelevant to your auction, your auction will get pulled up by a lot of searches, but will not end up with a high final price. If a visitor is looking for one thing and finds something entirely different, they will more than likely hit 'back' immediately. This is why you should always write a title that focuses on an accurate description of your product.

The last component of writing titles is readability. If your auction title is not readable and compelling, very few potential customers will open it. To keep it readable and compelling, avoid tossing together a jumble of words that will get pulled by more searches, but wont attract buyers. Also include descriptive, compelling words and phrases to attract buyers, such as "new" or "50% off."

In addition to writing a good title, you will also need a good description.

A good description should also include keyword-packing. As I discussed earlier, you should include as many relevant keywords as you can in your description; however, you should try to keep this within reason. Don't fill your description with random keywords. Instead, insert them into your description as often as possible without sacrificing readability.

You will also want to write a compelling description. You should consider what separates you from other ebay sellers and focus on those points. For instance, let's say all of your merchandise is brand new. You could make it a point to stress how other ebay sellers often auction off broken and refurbished items--and that they can only be assured that they will receive high quality products if they shop at your store.

The gap between ebay powersellers and ebay newbies is big, but some of the steps to bridging the gap are small. Using better titles and descriptions is one of those small steps. If you follow the methods I outlined in this article, you could easily boost the amount of visitors your auctions receive by a factor of five or ten.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 08:21 AM | Permalink

If you've ever read an article about eBay, you will have seen the kinds of incomes people make - it isn't unusual to hear of people making thousands of dollars per month on eBay.

Next time you're on eBay, take a look at how many PowerSellers there are: you'll find quite a few. Now consider that every single one of one of them must be making at least $1,000 per month, as that's eBay's requirement for becoming a PowerSeller. Silver PowerSellers make at least $3,000 each month, while Gold PowerSellers make more than $10,000, and the Platinum level is $25,000. The top ranking is Titanium PowerSeller, and to qualify you must make at least $150,000 in sales every month!

The fact that these people exist gives you come idea of the income possibilities here. Most of them never set out to even set up a business on eBay - they simply started selling a few things, and then kept going. There are plenty of people whose full-time job is selling things on eBay, and some of them have been doing it for years now. Can you imagine that? Once they've bought the stock, everything else is pretty much pure profit for these people - they don't need to pay for any business premises, staff, or anything else. There are multi-million pound businesses making less in actual profit than eBay PowerSellers do.

Even if you don't want to quit your job and really go for it, you can still use eBay to make a significant second income. You can pack up orders during the week and take them down to the post office for delivery each Saturday. There are few other things you could be doing with your spare time that have anywhere near that kind of earning potential.

What's more, eBay doesn't care who you are, where you live, or what you look like: some PowerSellers are very old, or very young. Some live out in the middle of nowhere where selling on eBay is one of the few alternatives to farming or being very poor. eBay tears down the barriers to earning that the real world constantly puts up. There's no job interview and no commuting involved - if you can post things, you can do it.

Put it this way: if you know where to get something reasonably cheaply that you could sell, then you can sell it on eBay - and since you can always get discounts for bulk at wholesale, that's not exactly difficult. Buy a job lot of something in-demand cheaply, sell it on eBay, and you're making money already, with no set-up costs.

If you want to dip your toe in the water before you commit to actually buying anything, then you can just sell things that you've got lying around in the house. Search through that cupboard of stuff you never use, and you'll probably find you've got a few hundred dollars' worth of stuff lying around in there! This is the power of eBay: there is always someone who wants what you're selling, whatever it might be, and since they've come looking for you, you don't even need to do anything to get them to buy it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:46 PM | Permalink

Yes, collectibles! Collectibles are where eBay started, and they're still one of its biggest areas - however much they might want you to believe they're not. eBay's most hardcore and long-time users are almost all collectors of something or other - it is quite common to post what you think is a mundane item, only to have collectors suddenly go to war over it because it is somehow linked to something they collect.

Collectors are the people on eBay who really do pay top-dollar for things that seem like junk to you and I - not to mention to the people you'll be getting your stock from! That's why you can make so much profit on collectibles. Here are a few tips.

Go to people's homes. People's homes are full of things that someone out there collects - they are the best and cheapest source of collectibles out there. Sure, you might find something if you hang around at enough garage sales, but you'd have competition. Getting invited to people's homes to look around should be a dream for you, and one you're doing your best to make a reality.

Buy on other auction sites. You'll be surprised how much money you can make if you buy the collectibles that people sell on smaller auction sites like Yahoo Auctions, and then list it on eBay. These sellers will often be perfectly knowledgeable about their item, but simply getting a lower price because they serve a smaller marketplace. Sometimes you can almost double your money.

List in non-collectible categories. If your collectible doesn't have a category of its own under 'collectibles', you might prefer to list it in a category that has something to do with the item but nothing to do with collecting. What you will often find is that people browsing a category for their favourite thing will pay more for your collectible than actual collectors would.

Do lots of research. Never list something you think might be valuable without searching and searching to dig up every piece of information you can on it. Everything you find out is likely to be useful when you come to list it.

List every tiny, tiny detail. Remember that collectors really care about the most seemingly insignificant things. An item from one year can be worth thousands while the one from the year before is near-worthless, or an item that is one shade of a colour can be worth far more than one of a subtly different shade. It's not worth puzzling over and it's not worth trying to pass your items off as something they're not - just make sure you put absolutely everything you know in the description.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:04 AM | Permalink

Trying to be help your buyers find your auctions can be a truly daunting task. Most people only search eBay by title, not by description, and that means that you only have those 55 characters of the title to cover all the possible search terms. That's not easy. In this article, I'll give you a few pointers.

Don't bother with eBay clichés: There are plenty of eBay auction titles that say things like "Super rare camera wow look low price". These are stupid things to put in your title, as no-one is going to search for them.

Think like a buyer: If you were looking for your item, then what exactly would you type into that box? If you think it'd help, try searching yourself to find someone else selling your item. What were the first things you thought of typing?

Think like other sellers: Keep an eye on which sellers are doing best with items like yours, and try to copy their title styles - if it works for them, it can work for you.

Be specific: You should be sure to write the item's brand and specific model number in the title, as people will often search only for this information. Make sure that you also say exactly what the item is.

A Few Examples.

Here are a few examples of good titles. They're real, and they're on eBay right now, making their sellers money. So what makes them good?

"Dell Latitude Laptop P3 500mhz Notebook PC Computer"

If you know about computers, you'll know instantly what this auction is selling. It has manufacturer (Dell) and product line (Latitude), followed by a few technical specifications (P3 500mhz is the processor speed). Notice also that the title includes the four words 'laptop', 'notebook', 'PC' and 'computer', as the seller wants people looking for any of those words to see his auction.

"OASIS Don't Believe the Truth CD Album (New)"

This auction for a CD is well formatted: it gives the artist name in capital letters, followed by the album name. It then manages to include the two key words 'CD' and 'album', as well as the word 'new' - that means that anyone searching for 'new oasis cd', 'oasis new album' and so on will find this auction.

"1840 Penny Black stamp, certificate, four margins"

Here's a slightly more obscure one, from the exciting world of stamp collecting. A penny black is one of the oldest and most famous stamps. It uses a few key words that collectors will consider important: 'four margins' indicates that the stamp has been cut out with some margins around it and so isn't damaged, and 'certificate' tells you that the item has a certificate of authenticity - it's a real penny black. Remember to use every bit of space to squeeze in as much important information as you can in the title.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:05 AM | Permalink

It shouldn't too hard to increase your eBay backend sales - because the chances are you currently aren't making any! Backend sales are sales to customers who have already bought an item, also known as 'up-selling'. These are usually easier sales to make than normal sales: in sales-speak, your existing customers are 'warm leads'.

It's a technique you've probably noticed being used on you in shops: you buy something, and you're offered a $5 piece of equipment to keep it clean, or make it easier to use. The usual human response is to say to yourself "heck, what's another five dollars - it might be useful". It's just another five dollars to them, but they might have just added 20% to your profit margin.

Figure Out What Goes Together.

Out of the things you stock, which cheaper things are there that could be useful to someone who now owns one of the more expensive ones? For example, if you sell digital cameras, the backend product is digital camera memory - they never come with enough out of the box. The backend products for a printer would be ink and paper. Try to think laterally!

If you can't think of anything, take a look around at the cheaper 'extra' items that your competitors offer, and see if you can find a supplier for them. There are very few product areas where this technique doesn't apply.

Include Letters in Packages.

When you send items out in the post, include a brief sales letter with products you think might be of interest to the customer. It's like sending out a personalised, targeted catalogue to your customers with every purchase. Again, you'll find that a significant percentage of people won't have bothered to look at what else you were selling, and will go back to buy a few more things.

To stop people from just putting such a letter aside and thinking they won't do anything about it right now, you might like to include some kind of limited time offer - 10% off if you order within the next month, for example.

Email Your Customers.

Each time you sell something to a customer, you get valuable market information about them, and they get to see that they can trust you as a seller. That's why backend sales are so powerful. Keep your customers updated in your newsletter, making sure you list any new products there that you might have in stock. The chances are that these customers will be far more eager to buy from you.

Consumable Products.

If the product that the customer bought from you to begin with is consumable (it will run out), then this is a special case. You shouldn't try to make the backend sale straight away, but should instead wait long enough that the average customer would have just run out of the product. That's the time to strike.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 06:15 AM | Permalink

So what's a PowerSeller? PowerSellers are the people on eBay who've made it, recognisable by the little 'PowerSeller' badge next to their name. You've probably seen these people around - and to succeed on eBay, you want to think the way they do.

How to People Get the Right to Call Themselves PowerSellers?

eBay gets to decide who can be a PowerSeller and who can't, and they have strict requirements. To get in at the minimum PowerSeller level, you must have a feedback rating of at least 100 (minimum 98% positive) and sell at least $1,000 worth of items every month for three months in a row. There are different levels of PowerSeller membership as you sell items of greater value: $1,000 total is bronze, $3,000 is silver, $10,000 is gold, $25,000 is platinum and $125,000 is titanium.

If PowerSellers ever fail to meet the required amount of sales, or their feedback falls below 98% positive, then they lose their PowerSeller status. In short, the only people who get to be PowerSellers on eBay are the people who have been successful for a good while, and are on track to stay that way.

The Shop and the Marketplace.

This is the most important part of understanding how PowerSellers think. They don't see what they're doing as being some random bazaar, or a hobby - instead, they see themselves as a business.

Put it like this. If you run a stall in a marketplace, the chances are that you have a general area of business, but you mostly just sell whatever you can get your hands on that week. If your dodgy buddy got his hands of a job lot of something at a discount, then that's what you'll be selling. This might be fun - and when you have a good week, you'll have a really good week - but it's no way to run a real business in the long-term.

PowerSellers think far more like shops. They sell the same things again and again, every week - regular stock for regular customers. They do 'boring' business things like keep inventories and budgets. They know what they're going to be selling, how much they buy it for and how much they expect to sell for. Just like a real shop, there can be hard times sometimes, but their income is stable and their business can grow slowly.

The best advice I can give you on thinking like a PowerSeller is this: don't take long-term risks for short-term gain. Look after your reputation, manage your selling properly, provide good customer service and the rewards will come to you in due course. And you'll get a little badge next to your name that makes people trust you more!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 01:01 PM | Permalink

So you want to be a successful seller with your own eBay business, do you? Here's a simple, ten-step path to eBay enlightenment.

Step 1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn't out of the items you're interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You'll probably see the 'sweet spots' quite quickly - those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.

Step 2: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.

Step 3: Find a product: Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are - don't be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you've seen are higher than the supplier's, then you're set.

Step 4: Start small: Don't throw thousands at your idea straight away - get started slowly, see what works and what doesn't, and learn as you go. Remember that it's very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!

Step 5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don't be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you've just found a good niche.

Step 6: Work out a business plan: A business plan doesn't need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you've spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.

Step 7: Invest and expand: This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.

Step 8: Make it official: Once you've made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don't worry, it's not expensive or hard to do - a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.

Step 9: Automate: You'll probably find that you're writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.

Step 10: Never give up: Even when it looks like it's all going wrong, don't stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you'll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 12:59 PM | Permalink

You may have noticed that many sellers list PayPal as the only payment option they accept - they simply can't be bothered cashing cheques and money orders, never mind any of the other strange ways some people want to pay. Like all things in life, though, PayPal has its advantages and disadvantages. Let's take a look at what PayPal can do for you, and what it can't.

The Disadvantages.

PayPal is very vulnerable to fraud, and it's you as the seller who'll be paying the price when it happens. What's more, they do take a percentage from every transaction that you could be keeping if your buyers were paying by cheque.

You might also have noticed that PayPal come from the eBay school of customer service, enjoying such pastimes as hiding their phone number and only ever sending out automated responses to emailed queries. PayPal has an unusual number of campaigners against it, most of them people who've had their accounts frozen and had to chase PayPal for months for thousands of dollars. Some of these people recently filed a class action lawsuit against PayPal, claiming damages for lost business - and they won. This alone should make you cautious about using PayPal.

The Advantages.

PayPal is quick and easy for buyers to use, and is certainly a more secure and reassuring way to accept credit cards than signing up for your own merchant account. You'll probably also find that it's cheaper for you.

That's before you even consider that eBay buyers are more eager to buy from someone who accepts PayPal, as it saves them all sorts of hassle with posting payment and then waiting around. PayPal lets you give speedier customer service.

But Should You Use It Exclusively?

The most important thing about only accepting PayPal is, again, a matter of customer service: some of your potential customers might not have or want a PayPal account. Not everyone loves electronic payments - some fear them, and like eBay because it is one of the few places on the Internet where many sellers will accept payment by more traditional methods. Do you want these people as customers, or don't you?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 06:12 AM | Permalink

Once someone's bought something from you on eBay, you suddenly have all sorts of details on them. In marketing terms, this information is gold dust. If someone's bought from you once before, then the chances are that at some point in the future they'll want to buy a similar item, and you can take advantage of this to market to them directly.

The simplest form of direct marketing is the email newsletter - and it's one that is still oddly underused on eBay. Simply ask people who buy from you if they'd like to be added to your mailing list, and then send them a monthly update on your new items. You should also include some information you think might be useful to them, to give the email more value.

For example, here's a newsletter you might write if you were selling DVDs.

"Here are the dates for this month's new DVD releases: [list of release dates]. If you want to pre-order anything on this list, just click here [your website/email] and let us know.

Meanwhile, we've got some great deals for you this month! [links to your best ebay auctions]

You are receiving this article because you signed up for my newsletter when you bought an item from me on eBay. To unsubscribe, hit reply and type 'remove'."

Isn't that simple? As long as you can remember to do it once a month, people will come to like your information, and perhaps take a look at some of the things you're offering.

It's all about building up a customer relationship, and making the customer feel like you are providing them with some information they wouldn't otherwise have. Make your email a useful service to them, whether they buy anything from it or not.

Remember that it's not a newsletter without the news, and send out the best things you can think of: you might even try writing an article or two. Think of it as a free gift for your customers: the gift of useful information. Apart from anything else, it's quite fun to have your own newsletter.

If you sell items that a seller is likely to need more than one of, like auto parts for example, then you can even try highly targeted emails like this.

"I'm sending you this email because you bought a [item name] from me a while ago - I hope you were happy with it. This is just to let you know that if you ever need another [item], I'm currently doing special offers on them. [link]".

You would probably want to automate this, though, as it could quickly get tedious to do it manually.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:08 PM | Permalink

Some people think it's easy to choose the right eBay category, and often it is. Sometimes, though, it might not be quite clear exactly what to go for.

Why is it Even Important?

Plenty of people use the category system to find items, when they're not looking for something specific. If your item is listed in the wrong category - or you've just given up and listed it in 'Everything Else' - then these people aren't going to find your auction.

Also, listing items in the wrong categories is against eBay's rules, and eBay say they will remove any auctions that are wrongly categorised. They don't often actually do this, but it's not worth the risk - especially since breaking any rules can cause them to penalise your account, including losing PowerSeller status if you have it.

So What Can You Do?

eBay will suggest categories for you when you sell your item, if you type in a few words to describe the item on the category selection page and click 'search'. You can make the best of this feature by typing in exactly what your item is, with brand name and model number (if any), so that eBay can find the best category for you. If that doesn't work for you, then search yourself for items like yours, and pay attention to which category most of them seem to be in (you can see this near the top of each item's description page). Try different words and see which ones come back with the most results. You can also browse through all the available categories from eBay's front page.

Remember that the more specific the category is, the better - use as many subcategories as are appropriate. Don't just list your HP laptop in the 'Computers' category, for example - list it in 'Computers > Laptops > HP'. Don't worry: your item will still appear in the 'Computers' category, as well as 'Computers > Laptops', because items listed in subcategories are always listed in every category above.

Take some time to look through all the categories and get familiar with the way eBay as a whole is laid out. After all, that's better than getting a few months down the line and finding that you still think of eBay's category system like it's some kind of scary jungle.

What if More Than One Category Fits?

Don't worry, eBay have you covered. For a small extra fee, you can list your item in an extra category, to increase the number of potential buyers who will see it. This isn't always worth it, though - some items only really fit properly in one category, and listing them in extra categories is just a waste.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:04 PM | Permalink

If you know what you're doing, you can quickly find what you're looking for on eBay - and the more you know about how buyers find you, the easier you'll find it to be found. Here are a few golden searching rules.

Be specific: If you're searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you'll get further searching for 'harry potter rowling philosopher's stone first edition' than you will searching for 'harry potter'. You'll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It's a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can't spell. Whatever you're looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - you might find a few items here that have slipped through the cracks.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe an item, for example searching for both 'TV' and 'television', or for 'phone', 'mobile' and 'cellphone'. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you'll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD, you should click the 'CDs' category to look at results in that category only. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don't care about?

Don't be afraid to browse: Once you've found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click 'Browse' and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay's search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it'll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say 'anything can go here'. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for 'car 195*'. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes ("") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for "Lord of the Rings" won't give you any results that say, for example "Lord Robert Rings".

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don't want to appear in your search results. For example: "Pulp Fiction" -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become '(TV,television)', which would find items with either word.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 05:03 PM | Permalink

One thing many eBay sellers neglect is to actually communicate with their buyers - not with some automated 'suggestion' system, but with actual person-to-person contact. If you can be friendly and sound nice, then you can make them think you're doing them a favour while you make a few extra sales.

'I Could Throw In...'

When you receive an order for an item that costs a lot for shipping and needs some kind of equipment, this is an ideal opportunity to make a 'friendly' extra sale. For example, if someone has just bought a computer, you could send an email like this:

"I'm just emailing you to ask if you'd like a mouse or a keyboard - since you're buying a computer from me, I can throw in any accessories you want without charging any extra shipping. If you're not interested though, then don't worry about it - it was just a thought."

Note how informal this article has to be. It can't stink of sales, or the whole 'communication' thing will be ruined. Would you rather buy something extra from someone who says "you might as well, since you're paying shipping anyway" or from someone who says something like "our valued customers will also love our GREAT DEALS on mice - check it out!" I know what my answer is.

Know Anyone Else?

Here's a simple thing to try: when you thank your buyer, simply say that if they're pleased with you then you'd really appreciate it if they could spread the word. Many eBay buyers feel like they've got a real bargain, and combining this with good customer service could be enough to make your customer go out and start writing down your eBay store's address on pieces of paper for their friends. If you notice a lot of orders coming from the same town, then you'll know that this technique is working.

Any Problems?

If you contact the buyer a few months down the line to ask if their product is still working fine, you might find that they're having a problem you can fix, by sending a spare part or an upgrade. This is another opportunity to make a sale - not to mention helpful for them.

Anything to Sell?

If you've just sold them a brand new item, ask your buyer if they have an old one that they might like to trade in. They will often be delighted to take you up on your offer, since they were wondering how they were going to get rid of their old one anyway. Give them a fair price for it and offer to pay their postage and you won't believe how happy they'll be - and the chances are you can make a good profit on what they send you.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 06:41 PM | Permalink

It shouldn't too hard to increase your eBay backend sales - because the chances are you currently aren't making any! Backend sales are sales to customers who have already bought an item, also known as 'up-selling'. These are usually easier sales to make than normal sales: in sales-speak, your existing customers are 'warm leads'.

It's a technique you've probably noticed being used on you in shops: you buy something, and you're offered a $5 piece of equipment to keep it clean, or make it easier to use. The usual human response is to say to yourself "heck, what's another five dollars - it might be useful". It's just another five dollars to them, but they might have just added 20% to your profit margin.

Figure Out What Goes Together.

Out of the things you stock, which cheaper things are there that could be useful to someone who now owns one of the more expensive ones? For example, if you sell digital cameras, the backend product is digital camera memory - they never come with enough out of the box. The backend products for a printer would be ink and paper. Try to think laterally!

If you can't think of anything, take a look around at the cheaper 'extra' items that your competitors offer, and see if you can find a supplier for them. There are very few product areas where this technique doesn't apply.

Include Letters in Packages.

When you send items out in the post, include a brief sales letter with products you think might be of interest to the customer. It's like sending out a personalised, targeted catalogue to your customers with every purchase. Again, you'll find that a significant percentage of people won't have bothered to look at what else you were selling, and will go back to buy a few more things.

To stop people from just putting such a letter aside and thinking they won't do anything about it right now, you might like to include some kind of limited time offer - 10% off if you order within the next month, for example.

Email Your Customers.

Each time you sell something to a customer, you get valuable market information about them, and they get to see that they can trust you as a seller. That's why backend sales are so powerful. Keep your customers updated in your newsletter, making sure you list any new products there that you might have in stock. The chances are that these customers will be far more eager to buy from you.

Consumable Products.

If the product that the customer bought from you to begin with is consumable (it will run out), then this is a special case. You shouldn't try to make the backend sale straight away, but should instead wait long enough that the average customer would have just run out of the product. That's the time to strike.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:16 AM | Permalink

Most of the people who make money from eBay don't actually make all of that money on eBay. There are all sorts of ways you can use eBay to give your existing businesses a helping hand.

The Supply Side.

If you have any leftover stock or used items from another business you run, then why not sell them on eBay? You can make this a regular thing, using it to get rid of things that won't sell for the premium you ask for in a shop, or items that are no longer in demand in the town or city where your business is based.

You can really make a lot of money this way, if you know what you're doing. You will, of course, already be an expert in the items you're selling, as you use them in your business, and you'll know that the items are of high enough quality to be sellable. This is a whole new market for your old inventory!

Not only that, of course, but remember that your good eBay reputation will make you a great buyer! If there's ever anything you want to get for your business, the chances are you'll be able to get it on eBay for a discount.

The Sales Side.

Here, though, is where the true power of eBay lies. eBay give you an 'About Me' page, where you can write anything you like and link anywhere you like. This means that you can get traffic to your business' website by linking to your website from your About Me page and linking to your About Me page from each auction.

To create an About Me page, just click on 'Community' on the toolbar, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'Create an About Me page'. You then get the option to either enter your own HTML or let eBay guide you through the process. All you need to do is write a little about your website, link to it, and you're done - you'll notice that more people start to come to your site straight away.

There are thousands of people who swear by this technique to drive traffic from eBay to their website - with a little persuasive sales copy on your site, they say, you can sell directly to buyers, cutting out the eBay middleman. What's more, all the traffic you'll get will be targeted - because the people who click through were interested in your auction to begin with.

This can be a really powerful technique, especially if you've already got an e-commerce site. Even if you haven't, you might find it worth your time to set up a website that does nothing but list your eBay inventory with a few dollars off each item, with a PayPal 'Buy Now' button for each item. Then simply make the link to your About Me page read 'Visit my website for even more bargains!', and you're done.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 12:02 PM | Permalink

Don't worry, getting items returned happens to everyone eventually. You can't satisfy all of the people all of the time, and occasionally someone's going to want to send something back to you. Turning returns into profits isn't easy - but with a little determination, you can manage it.

Don't refund shipping charges: If followed our advice and you're now making a decent profit on your shipping charges by using cheaper materials, then you might still be able to come out ahead with returns. Just refund the charge of the items but not the shipping. I know sellers who make $1 profit on the sale and $2 profit on the shipping. If they get a returned item then they don't really mind: they still get to keep two-thirds of their profit.

Charge a restocking fee: You're perfectly within your rights to charge a restocking fee, and that's nothing but profit for you. Bear in mind that this will get customers very annoyed, however.

Resell with a better description: Now that you know if there's something wrong with the item, you can write a more honest description. Surprisingly enough, items can sometimes sell for more the second time around, simply because word has had time to spread that you were selling the item and there might be a few people looking out for another.

Take their packing materials: Inexperienced buyers will send back your items using all sorts of expensive luxury packing materials - take them and re-use them the next time you want to give a buyer an extra special service. Incidentally, this also applies when you buy things on eBay - you'll find that you can save a lot on packing when you re-use every piece of packaging that comes your way. Make sure to take off any labels first, though.

You know what they want: Remember that every buyer who buys something from you and then returns it was at least interested in it. They're a potential sales lead, and you should add them to your mailing list to follow up later - if you were nice to them when they returned the item, they might be willing to give you another chance.

Replace with a better model: Finally, if the buyer is returning the item for a replacement, then tell them that the only replacement you have in stock at the moment is a slightly more expensive model - but you'll send it to them if they pay the extra. Again, more profit for you.

Of course, it's up to you whether you want to use these techniques: you might think it's more valuable to refund the shipping on returns as a gesture of goodwill, as part of your perfect customer service. I would tend to agree with you: your reputation is invaluable. If what you're interested in is making as much profit as possible in the short term, then go right ahead - but remember that in the long-term you might be sacrificing some repeat business for the sake of a few dollars.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:23 AM | Permalink

You might not ever have heard of eBay consignment centers - don't worry, most people haven't, as they're a relatively new concept. The idea is that you drop off anything you want sold, and then the consignment center will sell it for you and share the profits.

You Can Sell at Consignment Centers.

Just find something to sell and take it to a consignment center - they'll sell it for you on eBay, handling all the listing, description and shipping.

You do, however, give up some profit when you sell through a consignment center, not to mention losing all control over your auctions - and who's to say that you couldn't sell it better than they can? The chances are they will only give you a fraction of the item's real value, to the point where you might as well have just taken it to the pawn shop.

You Can Be a Consignment Center.

A better option is to be a consignment center for the non-eBay-using public in your area. After you've been selling things on eBay for a while and you've told a few people about it, someday a friend will walk up to you and say "Hey, could you sell this on eBay for me?" Give it a try - if you like doing it, then why not start up your own consignment center business?

Put an ad like this in your local newspaper or anywhere else you think is appropriate:

"Create Space and Get Money For Doing It! How would you like someone to come and clean out the old stuff in your house that's taking up all your space, and then give you cash for the lot? I am currently looking for things to sell on eBay and I can do this for you. Call me on [your number]."

Go round to a few people's houses and take some things that you think are sellable, giving the items' owners a sensible amount for them - not too much, since they don't know how much they're worth. It's best to try to take things that are part of a set or collection, so you can sell lots of the same kinds of items. You're in a strong position: why would they so no when you're offering them money for things that, to them, are rubbish?

The only requirement to be successful with this is that you need to know what you're doing, and be able to spot a high-value item when you see one, regardless of what it might be. It's also worth opening a new account to sell items you get from other people. You can't guarantee quality as well, and your regular account should only be used to sell the one kind of item that you decided you're an expert in.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:25 AM | Permalink

Before you send anything to that buyer, you might want to get to know them, especially if you're selling them a high-ticket item that you couldn't afford to lose. Even if the buyer has paid, the PayPal transaction could still end up being reversed, leaving you out of pocket. So how do you figure out if you can trust your buyer?

Look at their feedback for others. Go to their feedback page and click 'Left for Others'. If they leave a lot of negatives for their sellers, then you should try to get away from them as fast as you can - if you do deal with them, make sure not to leave your feedback first. You should consider a negative someone has left to be just as bad as a negative left for them.

Look at feedback from sellers. Click 'From Sellers'. You might find that they have more complaints from sellers than from buyers - or, on the other hand, it might be the other way around. Some people really are just better at selling than buying, or vice versa.

Pay attention to bid retractions. If they have a high number of bid retractions, you should regard this as a red flag that something might be wrong.

See what else they've bought. When someone goes from buying items worth $1 to suddenly buying something worth $1,000, you might want to be a little suspicious of them.

See what they're bidding on now. If they've never shown any interest in your kind of item before, and now suddenly they're bidding on lots of them, then that's cause for concern. You should also be suspicious of someone who seems to be spending a lot of money all at once - few buyers have thousands at a time to blow on eBay.

Check their ID history. People who've changed their ID are often trying to get away from someone who's trying to find them. This is another warning sign - be especially wary of someone who changed their ID very recently.

Be nice to new buyers. Genuine new buyers will probably have a name ending in a number and a feedback score of 0 - don't always think these people are fraudsters. Somewhat counter-intuitively, people trying to commit fraud will almost never do it when they have a feedback score of 0 - they'll think it's too obvious. New buyers often have problems with being inexperienced on eBay, however, and you might have to guide them through things like opening a PayPal account.

Email them! If you want to get to know your eBay buyer, why not have a little chat with them about the item, what they plan to do with it? Say that how you know they're going to love it, and ask if there's anything else you can do for them. Few buyers who seem chatty and nice will turn out not to be in the end.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:57 AM | Permalink

If you've a savvy businessperson, the chances are you've already taken a look at your competitors' auctions. What you might not have realised is just how much you can learn if you know what you're looking for.

To begin with, don't bother looking at listings that haven't ended yet - you don't know what's going to happen with them. Instead, use the advanced search page to search for listings that sold. Just go to the advanced search page, type in the keywords that you know will find your competitors' items, tick 'Completed listings only' and set the minimum number of bids to 1. Set it to sort by 'Price: highest first'.

This will show you auctions competing with yours that have recently finished, starting with the ones that sold for the most (ignore any with prices in red - they didn't sell). Go through and take a look, paying special attention to the following points:

Titles. What information do the top sellers of your item put in their titles, and what do they leave out? If your titles are very different to theirs, it might be time for a rethink.

Descriptions. You'll probably notice that the highest sellers haven't just copied text from the company's website or an Amazon.com review - they've gone to the trouble of writing a little about the item, and about themselves. Learn from their example.

Pictures. I can almost guarantee you that the listing will have very nice pictures - not catalogue quality, but good enough to see what you're getting. With items of any significant cost, you'll probably find more than one photo from different angles.

Style. Is it written conversationally, or in terse businesslike language? The way you should write entirely depends on what the market seems to like - and the market seems to like what the top sellers wrote.

Time. It's pretty easy to ignore this as a factor without meaning to, but pay attention to when the top selling items' auctions began and ended. This might give you a few clues about the best to catch buyers who will bid highly on your item, and then you can schedule your items accordingly.

Price. If your competitors are selling using Buy it Now, you can see what the maximum is that they've managed to sell for recently, and set your own Buy it Now price slightly below that.

Shipping. Look around to see the sweet spot for shipping. If you can figure out a way to get your shipping costs lower than the highest sellers, then this is a great opportunity to differentiate yourself in the market.

Once you see what works, you can start to emulate your competitors - of course you can't just copy them completely, but you can structure your auction similarly and make sure it includes the same information.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:29 AM | Permalink

As you get more experienced on eBay, you might be tempted to use fixed price auctions, just so you can budget better. It's often more reassuring to know that either you will make a small profit on an item instead of having to wait and see whether it makes a big profit or a big loss. However, you should be aware that there are some times when you really shouldn't use 'Buy it Now'.

In the Holiday Season.

The market goes absolutely crazy just before the holidays - and that's why you shouldn't list items using Buy it Now. Do you really want to wake up one morning and find that all your stock has been bought up, the current highest bidders on your rivals are bidding double what you just sold them for, and the people who bought your item have relisted it with a starting price higher than what they paid? Of course you don't.

I would recommend that you stop listing anything as fixed price as soon as you get into December, unless you have a lot of accumulated stock that you want to get rid of for low prices.

When an Item is In-demand.

If an item is selling within a few hours each time you list it using Buy it Now, then you really ought to consider using a normal auction format instead. The chances are that the final price you'd get would be much higher than whatever you're charging now.

When You Have the Only Item on the Market.

If you have a hard-to-find item that no-one else is currently selling, then it makes no sense to use Buy it Now. You'll be surprised just how high buyers will go on things that are truly rare, and how upset they'll be if someone snatches it away from them using Buy it Now. It's only fair to give everyone a chance to pay you more and more money, isn't it?

If Your Item Doesn't Sell.

If you keep needing to relist your item because it consistently fails to sell, that might be the time to give up on listing it in the fixed price format. Buy it Now only works for things that people always want - traditional auctions involve them more with things that they wouldn't usually buy. You might end up with a slightly lower price than you wanted in the end, but at least that bad item will be off your hands.

If No-one Ever Buys From You With It.

It's simply not worth having a Buy it Now button on every one of your auctions if nobody ever touches the thing: it's just sitting there, costing you money for each listing. When it comes down to it, Buy it Now is expensive, and you should only use it in auctions where you really think it will help the item to sell.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:20 AM | Permalink

When someone wins your auction, you might think that's the end of it. In fact, you can offer the item to anyone else who bid in the auction but didn't win.

Why Would I Do That?

There are three reasons you might want to do this:

1. Your top bidder never paid. Unfortunately for sellers, it is all too common for buyers to win an item and then decide they don't want it after all. Making a second chance offer lets you offer the item to a buyer with a better reputation.

2. You have another one. If you have another item just like the one you just sold then you might as well sell it to another bidder - after all, you know they're interested and what they're willing to pay.

3. A buyer emails you directly to ask. If they got 'sniped' at the last second, or just weren't around when the auction ended, then a buyer might email you to ask if you'll sell them one for however many dollars. You might as well make them an offer - it's a free sale.

So How Do You Make a Second Chance Offer?

Well, it's easy really. The easiest place to send a second chance offer from is the My eBay screen - simply go to the Selling page and click 'Make a Second Chance Offer'. eBay should also provide a link for you to make a second chance offer in the email you will receive after the sale of an item is completed, or you report a non-paying buyer.

What Happens Next?

The buyer can choose to either accept or reject your offer. If they decline, that's the end of it, and you pay nothing for making the offer. If they accept, then things work exactly the same way they would if they'd won the auction - you pay a final value fee, they pay you, and you can leave feedback for each other as normal.

Making a second chance offer on all your auctions can be a great way to make extra sales. You will probably find that about 50% of the buyers you make offers to will take them up, and you save the effort of relisting the item and paying another insertion fee.

The only disadvantage is the time that it might take you to send so many second chance offers, but the chances are it will be time well spent. If you find that it doesn't work for your particular kind of items, though, don't keep pushing it - just re-list the item and let people bid again. It might be that the buyers for your items just aren't the negotiating type - or perhaps they hope that the next one will sell for less.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:27 AM | Permalink

It can be very time-consuming to keep your auctions ticking along, especially if you have hundreds listed at a time. Don't despair, though: there are a few things you can do to take the weight off you.

Use My eBay.

If you want a broad overview of where you are with your auctions, make sure you pay a visit to My eBay occasionally instead of just relying on emails. With my eBay, you can see all your auctions in a big table, and sort by things like the number of bids and the current price. If you want to see which of your auctions currently has no bids, then you can do that.

One of the most useful things about My eBay, though, is the 'Summary' view. If you're not sure what you should be doing next, then this acts effectively as an eBay to-do list: anything you need to be doing will end up here.

Use Selling Manager.

If you're willing to pay the fee of $4.99 per month, you can sign up for Selling Manager, which is a more effective version of the My eBay 'Selling' view. It lets you customise your view more effectively to see the information that's important to you, see useful snapshots of how things are going, make automated responses to your buyers using email templates, and more.

Selling Manager Pro gives you more features: it keeps track of inventory for you, and lets you relist items in bulk. It will even produce a monthly profit and loss report to help you keep track of the big picture. Unfortunately, it costs $15.99 per month.

Use a Listing Tool.

Even though they're called listing tools, much of the software out there lets you manage what you're doing long after it's been listed, with all the features of Selling Manager and sometimes a few more besides. This programs also often have the advantage of being programs instead of websites, meaning they're faster to respond and can do more sophisticated analysis.

Remember the 'Relist' Button.

After your auctions end each time, there's an easy way to put the exact same thing back again: the 'Relist' button. You can Relist items quickly and easily this way, as long as you don't want to change in the listing.

Pay Someone!

Here's something you might not have considered: if you're listing so many expensive items that even automated selling tools take too long to use, then have you considered paying someone to help out, as an employee? After all, you wouldn't try to staff a shop full-time on your own, would you? If you already run a business, you could even give the responsibility to someone who works for you there. Freeing up your own time to do something else might pay off for you in the long run.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 05:49 AM | Permalink

Are you ready to take your Ebay business to that next level as a rich ebay seller? Would you like to quit your day job to become an ebay seller full time? Can you imagine the freedom you will have from working as an ebay seller from anywhere you please? Want to know the secret?

Good... Now that I have your attention I want to be honest with you. Today's article does not really have any well kept "secrets" or magic wands with bells and whistles that will make you a rich ebay seller overnight. Instead, we are going to discuss the importance of keeping a proper paperwork train moving along so that your ebay business can stay strong and thrive based around good record-keeping.

I realize that this topic is a dry one but trust me, keeping good records of your ebay seller business can make or break you in the long run. As boring as it is, the advice you are about to be given is rock solid for anyone like you who wants to become wealthy as an ebay seller. It only takes one time to get audited by the IRS before everything can come crashing down on you and your business as an ebay seller. In addition to the tax law, without proper paperwork tracking, your business has no direction and will ultimately fail.

3 Reasons why it is essential to keep good records:

1. Without keeping records of everything pertaining to being an ebay seller and the sales you have made then how else will you be able to gouge your progress? A detailed paperwork trail will show you how well or how poorly your business is doing. If becoming an ebay seller full time is your goal, then keeping good records is key.

2. Second, the tax law requires you to keep records of your business. Unfortunately the law is the law and there is no choice in the matter, even if you are just a small-time ebay seller trying to make it big.

3. You may need a business loan or other type of loan from a financial institution someday. Many power ebay sellers jump-started their ebay business by obtaining a loan from the bank and you can too, provided you have kept good records as an ebay seller. Most loan applications require a ton of paperwork and all of the details and history of your business.

Tracking your Ebay business is not just for the IRS:

If I were to ask you today how your business is doing as an ebay seller, what would your answer be and what would determine that opinion? It's not enough just to say that you are doing good in your business. Instead, your answer should be calculated from your paperwork records, by tracking specific items.

In other words, keeping detailed records of your ebay seller business is not only for the purpose of the IRS but also to help you create a profitable business plan based on actual facts. For example, do you know which ads are pulling in the most sales? Do you have the history of testing and tracking on the ads that are not pulling in sales? Are your profit margins high enough to cover your business expenses? What percentage is profit?

It would obviously be impossible to accurately answer these questions unless you were the kind of ebay seller that kept good business records. And if you have not started documenting and saving copies of everything pertaining to your ebay business, then it is never too late to start! With a little commitment and self discipline, you can get into the habit of keeping the books up to date immediately.

Taking that first step:

Getting started with keeping the books up to date with your ebay seller business is kind of like doing that big chore that you have been putting off for a long time. You know you can do it, you know it needs to be done, but getting started just seems like a mountain to climb.

Well let's break that mountain into a molehill today and get started with explaining to you about profits margins and gross profit margins.

1. What is Gross Profit? Gross profit is your starting point in order to determine profitability from being an ebay seller. You simply subtract the total cost of your inventory that you have sold from the total revenue that you earned for the sales.

2. What is a Gross Profit Margin? A gross profit margin is a determination of how profitable you are as an ebay seller. You will know this information by dividing your gross profit by your total revenues. The higher the percentage is, the better off you are as a profitable ebay seller.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 05:46 AM | Permalink

Back in the 'old days' of eBay, getting payment for the item was entirely left up to sellers: you had to choose your payment service, sign up for it and then send links to your buyers. Now, though, eBay handle most of the complexities of payment for you with their checkout.

How Do I Offer the Checkout?

The checkout will be offered to your buyers automatically. When they win an item, eBay send them an email with a 'Pay Now' button that takes them to the checkout, and they can also access it through their My eBay page.

It is in step 4 of the 'Sell Your Item' process, the payment and shipping step, that you can choose which kinds of payment you want to accept through the checkout and which you don't.

PayPal: You should be accepting PayPal. You might want to click 'Edit Preferences', however, to either select or de-select the 'tell buyers I prefer PayPal payments' box - you don't want to tell people you love PayPal when you only tolerate it. If you're selling Buy it Now items, you can also tick the box to require immediate PayPal payment for them. Register for PayPal here: http://paypal.auctionresourcenetwork.net

Money orders and checks: tick these boxes if you want to accept the more 'traditional' payment methods. Your address will be revealed to your buyers so that they can post the payment to you - you should make sure eBay have the correct address.

You may also tick credit cards to accept, which you should do if you have your own merchant account.

It's also worth writing any instructions that might be needed in the box on this page, such as who to make checks out to or a warning that international non-PayPal payments might take a long time.

What Happens When Buyers Use It?

Once you've set the checkout up on your items, buyers will be able to choose which way they would like to pay you out of the options available, and eBay's checkout will take them through the process step-by-step. This will save you the trouble of having to explain things.

When the buyer pays or agrees how to pay, eBay will send you an item letting you know what happened. If might tell you that the money is now in your PayPal account and you should send the item, or it might say that they've put a cheque in the post. Remember to wait for payments to clear before you send anything.

That's it - the role of the checkout is over. You just configure the checkout; it's the buyer who deals with it the most. You might have noticed, though, that you can configure the checkout differently for different items. This is sometimes worth doing if you some of the items you sell are worth more than others, and you'd prefer not to accept PayPal for the highly-valued ones, for example.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:44 PM | Permalink

'VeRO'? What on Earth is that? Well, it's a very scary eBay program that can get your auctions shut down, that's what it is.

VeRO stands for 'Verified Rights Owner'. It is the eBay policy that deals with complaints about your auctions from companies who own copyrights, patents or trademarks on the items you are selling. Unfortunately, it is often abused to remove items from eBay that are perfectly legitimate to resell, simply because the copyright owner doesn't want people getting their hands on them.

If the copyright of something you're selling is owned by one of eBay's 5,000 verified rights owners, be prepared for trouble. eBay have given these companies the right to remove any auction from eBay that they see fit, and, say eBay, "eBay cannot require the rights owner to provide you with the exact reason of the request to remove your listing". Worse, eBay may even suspend your account, or give your real-world contact details to the company in question.

Why Do eBay Do This?

Basically, they do it to avoid getting sued, or even getting threatened with being sued. There is a law called the DMCA (digital millennium copyright act) that means that eBay must either take these auctions down when it asked to or take full responsibility for them from that point on. eBay doesn't want to take any responsibility for your auctions.

It's not worth worrying too much about it - 99% of the VeRO program is aimed at stopping fake brand-name goods or pirated media being sold through eBay. Big companies also seem to get quite upset when eBay sellers take the company's ad copy, logos or professional pictures and use them for selling on eBay.

If you'd like to take a slightly patronising quiz about copyright to help you understand eBay's policy, go here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/tutorial/verotutorial/intro2.html.

So Who Are These Companies?

There's a complete list available here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html. This list includes everything from the Microsoft and Adobe to Chanel and Nike, not to mention the RIAA (recording industry association) and MPAA (motion picture association). Most of the companies, understandably, deal in software, media or fashion.

eBay Say I Violated VeRO and I Want to Appeal.

Use the link at the bottom of this page: http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/vero-removed-listing.html. That'll get you to eBay's VeRO Seller Appeal Form, where you can put your case to them directly. You are supposed to take it up with the company that complained about you first, however - and sometimes you might find that they just back down, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.

If you have no luck getting any response from eBay by email, it's not really worth trying to phone them - you'll find they're most responsive if you use the 'Live Chat' feature or write them an actual, real-paper letter. You're best off being nice to eBay: they have absolutely no obligation, after all, to ever let you sell anything at all.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:02 PM | Permalink

If you care to take the time to look, there is more advice out there on the Internet about how to be successful with your Ebay store than you could ever possibly read in a lifetime. Ebay itself offers plenty of advice for newcomers to the world of online auctions that can be quite useful. But at the end of the day everything will really boil down to just one thing: excellent customer service.

Living and Dying by Reputation

When you are first starting out in any business it is absolutely vital to generate positive feedback from customers. This not only helps you get their business in the future, but it also helps generate word of mouth advertising about your company. An Ebay business is definitely no exception to this rule.

A company offering the absolute cheapest product or service possible will still die if it treats customers poorly. Although you cannot please every single person that uses your Ebay store to buy something, it is definitely possible to keep the vast majority pleased with the services you provide.

Accurate Descriptions

Since the customer cannot physically touch or see the actual item you are trying to sell at your Ebay store, descriptions are absolutely critical. Misrepresenting an item may yield you a few dollars more on the winning bid but the negative feedback can absolutely destroy your reputation and any chances of true success using online auctions to make a living.

Also, you want to write your descriptions so that you anticipate most questions a customer may have about the item. You still have to respond to customer questions as soon as possible but you certainly don't want to be bogged down all day shooting e-mails back to people. Try to think of all the questions a customer might have before writing your description so you can write it so that almost all of these questions are answered in the description itself.

Clear Photos

Never be tempted to use trickery or odd angles to misrepresent your item with a photo. Again, negative feedback kills more Ebay business owners and their dreams than you would ever believe. Look carefully at the picture you plan to post with your listing and ask yourself if it accurately represents what you are selling. If it does not, take another picture that does.

Transactions

It can honestly be intimidating for customers to use the Internet to buy the things they want and Ebay auctions can be even scarier. People want to believe that they are buying from a reputable and honest seller who is professional in every respect. You send this very message by making the transaction as convenient as possible.

All of your terms should be clearly listed up front so that there is no chance for confusion. Inform customers about your shipping charges and consider including the Ebay calculator in your listing so that they can figure them out themselves and cut down on questions that you will have to respond to.

Be certain to include your return and warranty policies so that you did everything possible to inform the customer of precisely what they are getting should they decide to buy from you. You may want to consider making an occasional exception to your policies in the interest of avoiding negative feedback, but that is something you, as owner of your Ebay store, have to decide on a case by case basis.

Include as many payment options as you can reasonably accommodate. Fewer options generally means few bids and less profitable online auctions for your Ebay store.

By following these simple guidelines and being sure to make the customer feel as special as possible, you will build a great reputation on Ebay. In the end, this will help grow your Ebay business and keep your business thriving.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:04 PM | Permalink

Quality merchandise at reasonable prices definitely is the winning combination when attracting buyers to bid on your auctions, but the one thing that can make you stand out from your competition is outstanding customer service. Customers will buy from you again if they liked the service that you provided them.

Where does service start? The very instant that you email them after they have purchased your product from a winning bid is when you either create a long term customer or just a one time fly by the night purchase.

Your welcome email should be very detail oriented yet display compassion for their needs. In today's article we are going to give you 10 very important Ebay tips that you should take into consideration when emailing your customer after they have won their bid and purchased your products.

Ebay tip number 1: You need to let your new Ebay customers know approximately when they are going to get their product. I realize that the timetable for shipping varies but do the best you can based on the shipping option that was chosen. For example if you indeed ship the product out via second day FedEx delivery then you know it will take 2 days but on the other hand if you use the US Postal Service then it could take longer so try to do your best to guess.

Ebay tip number 2: Provide your Ebay customers with the name of the item that they bought and the auction number. This is also another way to double check their orders and to avoid unnecessary refunds from Ebay. Yes of course it is their responsibility to record this information but it is insurance on your part to go the distance and remind your Ebay customers of this information.

Ebay tip number 3: Be sure to make it clear and verify what the closing purchase amount was. Although this is probably already known it is still nice to remind the customer of how much they have paid for your products.

Ebay tip number 4: When allowing your new Ebay customers to pay with checks, let them know how long it will take for you to hold the product while waiting for the check to clear. This usually takes about 5 to 14 days for your Ebay customers.

Ebay tip number 5: Another piece of advice to take into consideration when accepting checks or money orders is to be sure to be very specific as to what location that you want them to send the payment to. List your name and address as clear as possible.

Ebay tip number 6: If you are making any quantity number of sales then you probably have experienced payments being sent in without any information as to what product the customer ordered. You can remedy this by making it clear in the email to your buyers that they need to write down the item name and auction number with their payment.

Ebay tip number 7: Get a confirmation of the shipping address and the phone number of the customer. Even though there this information is provided when the bid was won it is wise of you to verify this in your welcome email. Do not risk a bad testimonial from a buyer just because you did not confirm the shipping address.

Ebay tip number 8: If you accept credit cards online from your Ebay business then be sure to guide your new Ebay auction winners through the process of paying with their cards. Some online payment systems may confuse people and you do not want to risk a chargeback because of confusion on your buyer's part. With the strict rules that Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover have these days, you will want to be careful with your Ebay charges.

Ebay tip number 9: Entice your Ebay customers by trading a good testimonial for them (the buyer) if the entire exchange and delivery goes smooth. This may help insure a smoother transaction on your customers part.

Ebay tip number 10: Last but not least, be sure to include your phone number for contact info when selling your Ebay products. This may help expedite the process faster if your customers can call you for questions or concerns.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:01 PM | Permalink

Going full-time as an eBay seller is living the dream: making a real income, working from home, being your own boss and all the rest of it. It's the promise of a million scams, and it's finally come true - at least for some.

What they don't tell you in the success stories, though, is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is by no means for everyone. You really, really ought to try it part-time before you even consider taking it up full-time, and even then, caution is advisable. Before you burn your suit, here's a list of questions you should ask yourself.

How Much Do I Earn From eBay Now?

Work out how many hours a week you spend doing eBay-related things (be honest here), and divide it by the average amount of profit you make in a week. If you were doing full-time hours, would you earn as much as you earn now?

Do I Have a Good Job?

Think about what you might lose if you give up your job to focus on eBay. If you're in a well-paid job with good promotion prospects then it's well worth reconsidering: you might get a few years down the line and wish you'd stayed in your traditional job, as you'd probably be the CEO by now.

Would I Really Make Much More Money?

Unless you're selling a large quantity of small goods, most of what you do on eBay will be waiting for auctions to end - and you can wait at work just as easily as you can at home. This is why whether you would make more money on eBay really depends on what kinds of items you're selling - for low value items, going full-time could be a good move. For high-value ones, the chances are you'll hit the limits of how much money you have to invest in inventory long before you hit the limits on your time.

Is my Home a Good Place to Work?

Quite apart from anything else, you might find that the dream of home working is more of a nightmare in reality. People can start to depend on you to get things done that need to be done during the day. If you have a wife and children then they can resent the fact that you're in the house but refuse to have anything to do with them for large parts of the day. Giving in to any of these things and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to fall.

Can I Survive if it All Goes Wrong?

In the end, would you be able to get by if you had a month or two where you sold literally nothing? Or would you be desperately looking around for a job and cursing the day you ever discovered eBay? That's the real test.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:00 PM | Permalink

Your eBay reputation is everything you are on eBay - without it, you're nothing. Your reputation is worth as much as every sale you will ever make.

If you've ever bought anything on eBay (and the chances are you have), then think about your own behaviour. Buying from a seller with a low feedback rating makes you feel a little nervous and insecure, while buying from a PowerSeller with their reputation in the thousands doesn't require any thought or fear - it feels just like buying from a shop.

A Bad Reputation Will Lose You Sales.

In fact, a bad reputation will lose you almost all your sales. If someone leaves you negative feedback, you will feel the pain straight away, as that rating will go right at the top of your user page for everyone to see. Who's going to want to do business with you when they've just read that you "took a month to deliver the item", or that you had "bad communication and sent a damaged item"? The answer is no-one.

Your next few items will need to be very cheap things, just to push that negative down the page. You might have to spend days or even weeks selling cheap stuff to get enough positive feedback to make anyone deal with you again.

It's even worse if you consistently let buyers leave negative feedback - once you get below 90% positive ratings, you might as well be invisible.

You Can't Just Open a New Account.

Besides eBay's rules about only having one account, there are far more downsides than that to getting a new account. You literally have to start all over again from scratch.

You won't be able to use all the different eBay features. Your existing customers won't be able to find you any more. Your auctions will finish at a lower price because of your low feedback rating. Opening a new account is like moving to a new town to get away from a few people who are spreading rumours about you: it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

A Good Reputation Will Get You Sales.

When a PowerSeller tells me something, I tend to believe them. They can be selling a pretty unlikely item, but if they guarantee it is what they say it is, then I trust them - they're not going to risk their reputation, after all. This is the power of a reputation: people know you want to keep it, and they know you'll go to almost any lengths to do so.

This is true even to the point that I would sooner buy something for $20 from a seller I know I can trust than for $15 from someone with average feedback. It's worth the extra money to feel like the seller knows what they're doing, has all their systems in place and will get me the item quickly and efficiently.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:55 AM | Permalink

Once you've drawn the buyers in with your title, the next thing to do is to tell them all about your item with the description. But just what should you write in your description?

At its heart, your item description is an ad. Without making it too obvious, you should be writing sales copy. You're trying to get buyers excited about your products, and that's usually hard - but on eBay, if you have the right thing to sell and give enough details, the buyers almost excite themselves.

Technical Details.

Include every technical detail you know, including the item's manufacturer, its condition, how big it is, where and when it was made, its history, and anything else special about it. Don't be too boring, though: the best descriptions are written in friendly, conversational language, and show a real knowledge of the item. Whatever you do, make sure you tell the truth!

Remember that most of the people who'll be buying your item will be just as knowledgeable about it as you are, if not more - this is their hobby, and they're experts. Don't feel like you need to explain the basics of the item: just go into as much technical detail as you can. As a rule, don't write anything in the description if you don't know what it means, as the chances are someone will, and if you've got it slightly wrong then you'll look like you don't know what you're talking about.

Interesting Details.

You might find that you enjoy writing a few things about how you got the item, why you're selling it, and who you think might like it. This isn't strictly necessary, but it gives your auctions some character and a personal touch, and can make people more likely to trust you. People might wonder what you're doing selling 500 CDs all at once, and if you tell them the reason, then they'll feel reassured that nothing dodgy is going on. If you're selling them because you're having a baby and you need the space, just say so.

Write as Much as You Can.

Leave nothing out of your description, even if that seems to you like it makes it cumbersomely long. There is no way you can be too thorough: someone, somewhere will appreciate that you took the time to write the extra information.

Don't assume that anyone who wants extra information will email you to ask a question: many buyers are shy and won't do it. Think of questions that buyers might have and add the answers to your description, as people generally tend to ask the same questions over and over again.

Each time a buyer does email you with a question, you should both answer their question and update your description so that it will include the answer next time. If people ask questions that are answered in the description, try putting these parts of the auction on a line alone, or in bold, to make them easier to notice.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:06 PM | Permalink

Even when there aren't any disputes, you might run into a few transaction problems on eBay - glitches that aren't really anyone's fault, but are just the result of a technical malfunction or another situation beyond the buyer or seller's control. The number one cause of problems like this is email.

Email Problems.

If you use the Internet a lot, you'll no doubt be familiar with the problems eBay can cause, and many buyers and sellers are relying on email to keep them informed about their transactions.

Sometimes, you might find that your emails to a seller bounce -you might have the wrong email address, or there could be a problem with their email. This happens especially often when buyers have free webmail accounts at places like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.

When this happens, the buyer might not know you're trying to contact them. Consider it urgent to contact them in the real world, before they leave you bad feedback. To find out someone's real-world contact details, follow these steps: Click 'Advanced Search' near the top of your eBay screen, then 'Find Contact Information' in the menu on the left (under the 'Members' heading). All you need to do then is enter the other users' eBay ID and the item number of what they bought.

You might find that the address you end up getting doesn't exist, and the phone number seems to be disconnected, or wrong. However, if you didn't get any working contact information for the buyer, then this means they've violated eBay's contact information policy. You can report them at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-false.html, and nothing that they do from then on will reflect badly on you.

Be patient, though: Don't send masses of angry emails to someone's account: for all you know, they might be having problems with their computer or their Internet connection. Try phoning, and try waiting a while for a response.

PayPal problems.

You might also find that you have problems with people who aren't quite sure how PayPal works. For example, they might try to send you money directly and send the wrong amount - this means that you need to refund any overpayment and get them to pay underpayment. If your buyer is reasonable, though, this should be an easy enough problem to solve - remember that they're hardly going to refuse to pay the right amount when you've already got some of their money!

If Nothing Helps, Who Do I Report It To?

You need to click 'Help' on the toolbar and then 'Contact us', to contact eBay's customer service. You might find you have better luck with the 'Live Help' function than you do with trying to get sensible responses to emails. PayPal have the same procedure - 'Help' then 'Contact us' - and offer limited phone support if you need it.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:48 PM | Permalink

At some point in your eBay selling life, one of your customers is going to send you a complaint. As long as you respond to it properly, however, it's easy to keep a complaint from turning into a crisis.

Respond Immediately and Grovelingly.

Someone might complain to you directly, or they might do it through eBay. Whatever happens, you need to email them immediately. Here's a template to use:

"I have just received your complaint and I would like to say that I am very sorry you aren't satisfied. If you would like, I can send you a [replacement/refund] for the item, as part of my 'no questions asked' guarantee. I apologize again for our mistake."

Whatever you do, don't start making excuses for yourself. "Oh, sorry, I didn't get around to posting it yet because I've been busy at work and I'm going on holiday next week..." - no-one cares. If the buyer isn't satisfied, then you screwed up, and you need to apologise repeatedly and do everything you can to make them happy again. Besides, is it really worth your time to go through eBay's long-winded dispute process when all it's going to do is alienate your customers?

This an attitude that will give you a massive advantage in eBay selling, for the simple reason that many smaller sellers are confrontational, unhelpful and out for every penny they can get. If buyers are rude to you, it's just because they're used to dealing with rude sellers.

Responding politely, promptly and being willing to do anything for your buyers will mark you out as different. It's so rare that you might even manage to turn your complaining buyer into one of your most loyal customers!

Let People Phone You.

Don't insist that everything is done with email - allow frustrated buyers to phone you and have a chat about their item. The chances are that they will never have talked to a human voice before about an eBay complaint, and will be even more impressed with anything you offer them to solve their problem.

Neutralise Negative Feedback.

If it really comes down to it and your complaint ends up as a piece of negative feedback on your record, make sure you post a response - and don't make it something like "buyer was impossible to work with, avoid"!

Instead, post an apology, and detail what you did to put things right, for example: "Very sorry for the scratched item, I have sent a replacement". You may also find that some buyers leave feedback before you have the chance to put things right, in which case you could write a phone number in the response space, or something like "I have emailed you about a refund".

This will let anyone looking through your feedback see that not only are negatives very rare, but the few that there might be aren't really worth counting.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:18 PM | Permalink

eBay Stores come with a very powerful feature: store newsletters. When buyers add your store to their favourites, you can offer them the chance to join your mailing list. You can then send highly targeted emails to people who you know were at least interested enough in your products to add the store to their favourites.

How Do I Send Them?

First, you need to get some people to sign up for your newsletter - this will happen with time, as people buy from you and browse your store.

Once you've got a few subscribers, it's worth sending out a newsletter. To send store newsletters, go to My eBay, click 'Manage My Store', and then click 'Email Marketing'. Once you've done that, click the 'Create Email' button, and you're away.

All you need to do now is write an email subject and a message, choose any items you want to include in the email, and specify who you want to receive it. The subject and message can be something relatively generic, like 'here are my latest deals' - it's the targeting that's important, and eBay's is powerful. You can choose to only send an email to people who've bought from you in the past, or only to people who've opened your email before.

It is important to note, though, that you can only send one email per week to a mailing list.

The Ups and Downs.

The downside of store newsletters is this: they're expensive. A basic, $15.95 per month store only comes with 100 emails, while $49.95 comes with 1000. Even the $499.95 anchor store only comes with 4000! Extra emails for all stores cost 1 cent each. That's $1 per hundred extra emails. If your mailing list has a significant number of people on it, then that'll get really expensive, really fast.

Surprisingly, though, it can often be worth it, despite the cost. It's very rare to send out a newsletter to a mailing list of a hundred and not get at least one sale, and you'll often get three or four, even to small lists.

Measure Your Success.

Each time you send an email, eBay produces a report telling you how well that email did. You can view these reports on the 'Email Marketing' page by clicking the subject line of an email you sent.

This report will show how many people received your email, how many opened it, the number of clicks it generated on your items and your store, and the number of bids and Buy it Now purchases that resulted from the email. Some of the numbers might be too low, though, as many people use email software that displays email in plain text format and so stops eBay from collecting statistics. Also, you will notice that you'll have more success if you send out emails regularly, as people will start to expect them, and react in a more open way - don't expect the Earth from your first email.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:53 AM | Permalink

If you've never heard of drop shipping, then prepare to be impressed - it sounds like every eBay seller's dream. With drop shipping, you don't have to keep any stock at all. You simply list auctions for what your drop shipper sells, without actually seeing it yourself.

Each time something sells, you let them know, and they deliver it for you - directly to the customer. They'll charge you a near-wholesale price for the item they delivered, you charge the customer whatever price you agreed, and then you pocket the difference as profit.

The Magic.

Just think of the sheer amount of trouble this takes out of eBay selling. You don't have to find space in your house to keep your stock in, or money to buy it with. You don't have to take any risk by buying things that might not sell. You don't have to deal with suppliers. You don't even have to pack or post the auctions yourself. Wow! Can you imagine how good this would be if you could pull it off?

But, as with all things in life, if it sounds too good to be true…

The Myths.

Drop-shippers don't do deals with just anyone - any drop shipper who says they'll take orders from unregistered businesses is likely to be a scammer. They might not send out anything at all to your customers, or you might send out very poor quality merchandise that they will then return to you for a refund.

Also, beware of companies that claim they will put you in contact with drop shippers for a fee - they are inevitably rip-offs. At the end of the day, the best way to find drop shipping companies is to contact them in the 'real world', not by typing 'drop shipping' into a search engine.

Doing it for Real.

If you want to make a profit with drop-shippers, be prepared for it to be quite a small one: you're not going to make sales on eBay at a big mark-up from drop shipping prices. You will also have to accept that you can't inspect stock before it gets sent out, and some of your descriptions might not be as good as they could be.

You should also be prepared for a few frustrating experiences with your drop shipper, as they might not share the same customer service values as you. The first time you'll realise that they never sent something to one of your buyers is when you hear about it from the buyer a week later.

If you can accept all these things, though, and find a reputable drop shipper, then there's money to be made. Good luck!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 05:24 AM | Permalink

PayPal and eBay were made for each other - and now that eBay owns PayPal, using them together is getting even easier.

What is PayPal?

People with PayPal accounts can send money to each other securely online. You can deposit money in a PayPal account from a bank account or a credit card, and withdraw money to your bank account. It is the most common way of paying on eBay, as well as being in widespread use on the rest of the Internet.

Opening a PayPal Account.

It's very easy to get a PayPal account. Just go to www.paypal.com and click the 'Sign Up' link. As a buyer, you should get a Personal account - you can always upgrade later if you decide to start selling. Then all you need to do is enter your address, phone number and email address, and create a password, and two secret questions. You'll be emailed a confirmation, and then you're done!

You can register for PayPal here: http://www.paypal.com

If you want to deposit money into the account now, then you need to register a credit or debit card or your bank details, and if you want to withdraw money then you need to register your bank details. There's no need to do anything like that just yet, though.

Paying with PayPal.

Paying with PayPal is very simple. When you win an auction and click 'Pay Now', you'll be given a list of payment methods the seller accepts. You should always check what the seller accepts before you bid, as there are still some sellers who won't take PayPal. If the seller does accept PayPal, it will already be chosen for you on the payment page.

Now you just need to press 'Next', type in your PayPal username and password and confirm the amount you want to pay. The first time you pay with PayPal you will need to enter the details of your card or bank account, but after that it will remember for you.

Becoming Verified. You might have noticed that there is a limit to how much money you can send or withdraw using PayPal before you need to be verified. Verification has two steps. First, PayPal deposit some very small amounts of money in your bank account and you need to tell them how much they deposited. Second, they need to phone you to confirm your address and phone number. Once you've done that, all the limits on your account will be lifted. Log in at paypal.com and click on 'Get Verified' for more information.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:19 AM | Permalink

You might think that shipping costs are simple: surely you just add up the price of your item's postage and the price of packing materials, and charge that - right? Well, you could do that, but there are better ways to make your shipping costs work for you.

Find Cheaper Materials.

The key to making profit on shipping is to use the cheapest materials you can get for packing, without compromising on quality. The great thing for you is that many eBay PowerSellers have made a business out of providing sellers with quality packing material in bulk at really low prices. To get an idea of what's out there, take a look at this category: Business & Industrial > Office, Printing & Shipping > Shipping & Packing Supplies. You might also try paying a visit to a big-box office supplies store.

Buy in Bulk.

Always buy hundreds of the same sized packing boxes at the same time. Since you should be selling the same items over and over again, you'll need the same sized boxes each time. You will always be able to get discounts for bulk - if the place where you're shopping won't give you any, go somewhere else.

Streamline Your Packing.

Try to pack every time using the same amounts of the same materials in the same way, so that you don't need to think about it too much. Have all the labels for the packages printed up in advance, and do the items in that order. The less time you spend on the packing, the more profit it is for you.

Round to the Next Dollar.

Let's say you're buying items for $2, and selling them for $4 + $1.50 shipping. Rounding the shipping to $2 would make you an extra 40 cents on each sale - considering you're currently only making $2 profit, that's a percentage profit increase of 25%!

You see, this extra money will be far more important to you than it is to the buyer, because it's on the margin. For you, it's extra profit for nothing, and for the buyer, it's too small an amount to bother caring about. Everybody wins in this scenario.

The Ideal Price Point.

Find out what your rivals are charging for shipping, and try to just undercut them while still making a profit. If you managed to buy some cheaper materials, this shouldn't be too hard for you - most of the sellers on eBay are buying envelopes and boxes one-by-one, which is a very expensive way to do things. If you work things out correctly, you should be able to offer shipping at a price point which makes your rivals look silly, and still be making a good profit on it!

If you're running the kind of operation where shipping is a big concern, then the chances are that you're listing a significant proportion of your items using 'Buy it Now', instead of going through all the trouble and uncertainty of using real auctions every time.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:19 AM | Permalink

So you're going away for a while, and you're not going to be able to ship people's orders from your eBay store? Imagine how you'd feel if you got home from a nice vacation, only to find that your feedback rating had been trashed!

Buyers can find your store, pay for items, and then complain about you for not shipping them or responding to emails - without you even being there to stop it. What's more, no-one will accept the fact you were on vacation as an excuse: after all, what were you doing listing items on eBay if you were on vacation?

So what's the solution to this little problem? Well, it's easier than it sounds. Whenever you go on vacation, just make sure you don't forget to send your eBay store on one of its own.

What Do You Mean?

eBay offer a facility to put your store on 'vacation', which basically means that it is temporarily suspended while you're unavailable to ship items. This means that you don't need to be available 365 days a year just in case someone orders from your eBay store.

How Do I Put the Store on Vacation, Then?

Go to My eBay and click 'Manage Your Store'. Now click 'Change vacation settings' and choose 'Turn vacation settings on'. Click the 'Save Settings' button, and it's done. Once the settings are on, you have a few options about what you want your store to do while you're away.

Hide your listings. You need to do this - your listings will be hidden from buyers, so they can't bid on them. Be aware that it can take a few hours for your listings to disappear from the search results, though.

Display messages. If you want, eBay can put a message in your listings and on your store to say that you've gone on vacation - just in case anyone wonders what happened to you. You will be asked to say when you expect to come back. You should always do this, as it's quite inconsiderate to just disappear without telling your loyal customers where you went!

Will I Still be Charged for My Store While I'm Away?

Unfortunately you will - not only the subscription for the store, but also for any listings that expire while you were gone. This is quite cruel of eBay, but what can you do? To lessen the impact of this, make sure you don't list any new items for a while before you put the store on vacation.

I'm Back! How Do I Turn the Store on Again?

Click: My eBay, Manage Your Store, Change vacation settings, Turn vacation settings off, Save Settings. Everything will now go back to normal. You might want to send out a newsletter at this point, to let your buyers know you're back.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:01 AM | Permalink

For sellers who constantly have to put up with bid snipers, non-paying bidders and other anti-social, timewasting buyers, eBay's 'pre-approved buyer' feature is a godsend.

Pre-approving buyers lets you choose in advance who you're going to allow to bid: not by banning people you don't want, but by explicitly allowing people you do want. Anyone who is not on the pre-approved list will have to email you and ask you to let them bid.

While that might sound great, it's only really a good idea to do it on very, very high value items. After all, half the point of eBay is that it's such an open marketplace - if you're going to restrict bidding to a few people, why not just email them to offer the item?

Most buyers will be very upset if they come across an item that they need to be pre-approved to bid in. They almost certainly won't have heard of the rule before, and they'll think this 'new feature' (it must be new if they've never heard of it, right?) is absolutely terrible. The one time I required pre-approval for an item, someone actually wrote to eBay to complain about the auction's format - as if eBay had nothing to do with letting me list that way! The chances are that almost no-one will ever email you asking to be included in the auction - they'll go somewhere else instead.

Of course, it'd be better if you could just require that bidders have a minimum feedback level, but then that might overly restrict the choices of new buyers, and make them less likely to buy anything to begin with. There's a delicate balance at play between trust and openness, and pre-approval tends to violate it. If one of your regular buyers wants to bid on your item only to find out they weren't pre-approved, the chances are they'll be more than a little offended at your lack of trust.

The only situations in which you might find an advantage in pre-approving bidders are if your auctions get consistently disrupted. Jokers sometimes bid millions because they think it's funny, or people bid high and then don't pay as a protest against whatever you're selling - this is a pain to deal with. Requiring approval makes sense on very high-ticket items simply because it shows the buyer is serious about wanting to buy.

Before you can restrict an item to pre-approved buyers, you have to list it and get an item number. You can then set up pre-approved bidding on this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?PreApproveBidders. From there on, it's a simple process - just type the usernames of the people whose bids you want to accept, and then keep checking your email.

Remember, though, that you don't need to restrict your auction to pre-approved bidders to keep people you don't like from bidding on your auctions. You can simply cancel these buyers' bids when they appear, and then use eBay's 'block bidder' function to ban them from bidding on any of your auctions again. Edit your block list here: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:58 AM | Permalink

If you want to make the most money you can on eBay, then you need to know what sells. But how can you find that out?

The Manual Way.

If you're just starting out, you might find it easier to simply go to your category, tick 'Completed listings' in the left-hand menu, and then click the 'Show items' button. Sort them by highest price first, and there you have it: the items that sell for the highest prices. In most categories this will change often, but it's still useful to know - if you think you can get an item quickly for less than the kind of prices it is selling for, then go for it.

eBay's search interface can be slow and hard to use, however, and you're unlikely to discover everything you could learn this way. There's more than one way to do things, though.

The Statistical Way.

If you'd prefer to do a little hardcore statistical analysis to determine what's selling and what not, then don't worry - you can do that too.

eBay make all their market data available to third-party developers through what's called a 'programming interface' - this basically means that you have a wide choice of programs that can take market statistics from eBay and analyse them for you. Type 'ebay analysis' into a search engine for a long list.

In my opinion, some of the best eBay statistics tools out there are made by Hot Item Finder. "Hot Item Finder" software is an unbelievable product to conduct this eBay research. You can extract and analyze licensed eBay data and statistics to virtually ensure your auction success by seeing what has sold, for how much, how many bids it got, etc.

Visit the website here: http://www.hotitemfinder.com/auctionresourcenetwork

These automated programs will almost do everything for you, and come with help and tutorials. You should be aware, however, that eBay charge them for the data, which means that they will never give you their programs for free.

Keep Your Finger on Pulse.

If you want a quick, big-picture snapshot of what people are looking to buy on eBay, then go to http://pulse.ebay.com. This is a page where eBay list the top 10 most searched for words, and the top 5 largest eBay stores.

Looking at it, it's easy to spot current trends. For example, right now all of the top stores are selling media items, either books or music. That suggests that these are good things to be selling, at least if you want to shift volume. Right now the word 'ipod' is at number 4, and 'ipod mini' is at number 6 - there are a heck of a lot of people out there looking for a cheap iPod or iPod mini. If you could find a good supplier for them then you could make a lot of money.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 05:30 AM | Permalink

Improve Your eBay Auction Selling Technique

There just is no doubt that auction selling is a great way to boost your income. The potential is certainly there for you to use Ebay auctions to save for retirement or even as your primary source of income. Like most things, however, there are some subtle techniques that can be used to transform an average Ebay auctioneer into a superstar that is courted by others to sell their wares as well.

Without question, the biggest challenge of auction selling is to get the people to come to your posting and make a bid. The traffic is definitely out there and people are scouring the Ebay business website every minute of the day looking for that next great deal. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind that will help you get the buyers to come to your postings time and time again.

Know Your Product

Any great salesperson is an absolute expert on the products or services that they are selling. They are never caught off guard by a question that they do not know the answer to and customers respect this. A solid auction selling reputation is built upon a sound knowledge of the products or services being sold. So before you post anything, do your homework!

Standard and Simple Sales Policy

People hate to feel stupid so don't have a confusing sales policy with awkward shipping requirements. You don't want someone to think something costs $20 and be surprised by an extra $8 in unnecessary shipping costs. Give the customer some options such as insurance and expedited shipping, but keep your standard shipping procedures as cheap as possible and easy to understand. Auction selling is a somewhat risky endeavor for buyers, so you may want to consider a refund policy to help build trust and confidence.

Customer Service Guru

If you want to be a serious player in the auction selling game, you are going to need repeat customers or at least a great reputation so that word of you and your great deals spreads throughout the Ebay business site. So, if you get a question via e-mail, immediately respond and try offering something a little extra like some history on the product or manufacturer(see, this is where knowing your product will really pay off!). Make people feel special and they cannot help but like you and they will come back time and time again.

Timing Critical to Ebay Auctions

Before you post any listing, do some research. Auction selling is far more profitable if you are not competing against 10 other people offering the same products or services. So, should you learn that the competition in your particular area is intense, wait a little while until they have sold their wares before listing yours. Just a few short days can add up to a lot more money so patience and doing your homework are rewarded on the Ebay business website.

Auction selling is really like any business in that you need to keep the customers coming in if you want to be successful and make any real money. The ideas listed above are certainly not earth shattering secrets nor will they guarantee your Ebay auctions to be a resounding success. But, if you don't take them to heart and apply them to your online auction business, then you will find it almost impossible to be the next great Ebay business success!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 01:52 PM | Permalink

So you're having trouble finding stock cheaply enough to sell it for a good profit? Well, you've come to the right place.

Garage sales. The chances are you've gone most of your life seeing ads for these and ignoring them. Start going to as many as you can. You won't find good things at every one, but when you find one person with good stuff, make them an offer for the lot - they'll be so happy about it that you can get a real bargain.

Markets. If your area has a market, then go there and look around for anything good. You could buy it there if it's cheap enough, or try to make friends with the market traders and find out who their suppliers are.

Pawn shops. Pawn shops don't usually know what to do with the junk they accumulate (unless it's jewellery, of course). Generally, they put their stock out on the shelves haphazardly, hoping that someday someone with a little money will just happen to come in, search around and buy wildly obscure things. Get them to offer you a discount for bulk.

Real auctions. Go to a real auction, as the chances are that you can resell things for more than they will sell them. After all, they only have a few hundred people in that room - you have a few million to sell to!

Local newspapers. Place an ad in the local paper that reads "I pay cash for [your item type]", with your phone number. If you can afford it, make it a big display ad, so it'll be noticed.

Ad boards. Get one of those little ads in the grocery store.

Friends. Ask your friends if they have anything they'd like to sell you, and ask them to spread the word to their friends.

Become known. Give out business cards, mention to people what you do. The chances are that you'll come across someone who'll say "Oh, really? I've got a load of [item] I don't want".

Shops. This might be a little surprising, but some real shops even sell things more cheaply than they sell on eBay. Take a look around your local deep discounter, and pay special attention to any shop that takes trade-ins from customers. The chances are they take a loss on trade-ins as a promotion, and are dying to get rid of that stock.

And finally: eBay! When you're looking at the completed items view, you'll notice the massive range of prices that items can sell for on eBay. Try taking the highest-priced item and searching for it on its own, then sort by lowest price first: I can almost guarantee that you'll see an auction for the same item where it sold for almost nothing. The trick is to find these flawed auctions before they close, win them using a bid sniping service, and then turn around and resell the item.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:31 AM | Permalink

So you've done everything you can to keep your buyers happy - but still someone's left you negative feedback! You don't think it's fair, either because you fixed the buyer's problem, or they never gave you a fair chance to fix it. What can you do?

Communicate.

Tell the buyer that you don't think that feedback was fair, and give them a list of the things you'll do in exchange for them withdrawing it. You can offer refunds, replacements, or even to 'compensate them for their time' (that means bribe them), depending on how desperate you are. If they agree, you can go through the mutual withdrawal process detailed below.

Respond.

Leave a comment under the negative feedback explaining what happened - this at least minimises the damage it will do to your reputation if anyone looks at it. Remember that you can more-or-less write whatever you want, as there is no facility for the buyer to respond to your response - and anything you write will show up on their 'Feedback Left for Others' page! If you're a little devious, you can make them look very bad.

Retaliate.

However much you're not supposed to do it, you really shouldn't let a buyer leave you negative feedback without leaving them a negative in return. Be polite and factual, saying something like "buyer did not give me a fair opportunity to fix their complaint" (note that this is one of the reasons why you should always leave feedback second, or not at all). This might not be the 'nicest' way to do business on eBay, but it's the only realistic way to protect your flawless reputation.

Don't be worried: retaliatory feedback is not against eBay's rules, however much it should be. Anyway, you're not just doing this for revenge - it's essential for the next step.

Try for a Mutual Withdrawal.

Since the buyer probably won't want a negative response or feedback comment on their record, you can do a simple "I'll take away my negative if you take away yours" deal. This is called mutual feedback withdrawal, and the process can be started at this page: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MFWRequest

This will cause eBay's system to send an email to your buyer, asking them if they agree to withdraw their feedback in exchange for you withdrawing yours. You should get them to agree before you press the button, though, because you can only use it once per transaction.

Use Dispute Resolution.

You and the buyer can take your feedback dispute to SquareTrade, where you can both give your side and they will cancel feedback that they feel is unfair - they are far more responsive than eBay. Be aware that this costs about $20, but it has the advantage that if the buyer doesn't respond to the process then their feedback will be removed automatically.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:32 AM | Permalink

Every day, hapless bidders get beaten to the punch by auction snipers who jump in at the last minute. I know how annoying it can be, as I once had it happen to me three times in a row on the same item! The thing is that the only people who can help the poor bidders are us, the sellers.

The Problem.

Bidders will bid on an item and then wait for days until it finishes, only to have someone else outbid them at the last minute. In a traditional auction at a real auction house, this isn't a problem at all, as the auction keeps going until everyone has bid as much as they want to, and the auctioneer double-checks with the classic phrase "going, going, gone".

The problem on eBay is caused by the fixed length of time that eBay's auctions last, and the fact that they aren't extended significantly if someone places a new bid in the last few seconds of the auction. Imagine if a real auction house worked that way, letting people shout "50 cents more!" at the last second and win an item. It would simply be unfair, and many buyers think it's unfair on eBay too.

The Solutions.

Until eBay decide to fix the problem (and by now it's looking unlikely that they ever will), you're the only one who can do anything for your buyers.

First off, you can encourage your buyers to use eBay's proxy bidding system the way it was intended. The idea of the system is that they enter the maximum they're willing to pay for an item and eBay places bids for them automatically up to that maximum. They're not supposed to come back and bid an extra dollar every time they get outbid.

If your bidders are bidding high enough, then no sniper will even come along and beat them - because they will have set the maximum snipe level in their sniping software to less than the normal bidder's maximum. Changing the way people use eBay is hard, though.

One alternative is to keep an eye on who's bidding on your auction, and cancel bids from known snipers - but this requires you to be around right at the end of the auction to cancel their bids. You might also want to set your auction to end sometime when bidders will be around so that they can outbid snipers themselves. This is good business sense anyway - most of the bidding always takes place in the last few hours of an auction.

An easier way to thwart bid snipers is to offer 'Second Chance' sales to bidders who get outbid by a sniper at the last minute. This is good for you, and for them - they still get to buy the item they wanted, and you've just made two sales: one to the sniper and one to them.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:22 AM | Permalink

One day, you might decide that you want to end an auction early. Before you do, though, you should consider why you want to do it: cancelling auctions upsets buyers and upsets eBay, and there might be a better to way to get what you want.

I Want to Change my Listing.

If you just want to revise your listing, you don't always need to end it. For listings that have more than 12 hours left to run and haven't received any bids, you can revise almost everything. You can remove the Buy it Now price or reserve price, change the duration of the listing, or add listing upgrades.

If the listing already has one or more bids, then you can still add upgrades, or add to the description. You add more pictures too, if you want to. Once the listing gets into its last 12 hours, however, what you can do becomes far more limited, even if it has no bids: you can only really add to the description.

It's a very bad idea, by the way, to cancel one listing and ask bidders to bid on another listing for the same item instead. The chances are they'll be annoyed with you, and won't bother.

The Item is No Longer for Sale.

Perhaps you sold the item to someone else, you lost it or it got broken. Whatever happened, if you no longer have the item to sell, you should remove your listing - in fact, this is just about the only situation when eBay allow you to.

However, you need to make sure you get the listing removed quickly - if you leave it to the last 12 hours, eBay will refuse to let you remove it, whatever has happened. This might seem cruel, but it's there to stop people from backing out in the last few hours because they want to try again for a better price.

So How Do I End My Listing Early?

You can do it at this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction. Just type in the item number and hit 'Continue'.

Now, be very careful. The option you almost certainly want to choose is 'Cancel bids and end listing early', NOT 'Sell item to high bidder and end listing early'. You'll be asked to choose a reason why you ended the listing, and then it will end. Your bidders will be emailed to let them know what happened.

Note that ending a listing early because it looked like it wasn't going to get a good price is against the rules, and eBay could come after you and get upset.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:50 PM | Permalink

Buyers really like pictures. The more pictures you have, the more they'll feel like buying their item from you, and not from your competitor. In fact, there are plenty of buyers who will literally leave your auction within 5 seconds of arriving if they don't find a picture there waiting for them.

A little extra work on photography can pay off massively, especially if you're working on slim profit margins. But why is it so effective?

It shows you're serious. Sellers who take the time to take good pictures and present them carefully are surely more likely to go to the trouble of providing good customer service, and buyers know this, at least on a subconscious level. If you can't even be bothered to take a photo and upload it to eBay, are you really going to pack their item properly? Are you going to post it on time?

It makes them trust you. Your buyers will feel more comfortable that you actually have the item if they can see that you have your own photo of it. It also reassures the buyers that your item isn't a beaten up and broken piece of rubbish.

It makes your auction stand out. When your picture is displayed on the search results screen, people can see your item right there instead of having to read your title. People prefer to work visually, and are more likely to pay attention to a result with a picture.

But if you want the benefits of the response pictures can bring, then what should you do? Here are a few simple tips to make your pictures better.

Bombard them with images. eBay might want you to pay for the privilege of adding more than one picture to an auction, but if you have your own web hosting then you can do it for free. Just take as many pictures as you want, upload them to your webspace, and then add them to the auction using HTML.

You might not know how to do this, but it's very simple. Just write this in your description each time you want to insert a picture: < img src="http://www.your-website.com/picturename.jpg" >

Take better pictures. Use an image-editing program to touch up your pictures. Adjust things like brightness and contrast to make sure that buyers get the best view of your items. For a good, free image editing program see: http://www.irfanview.com/

Improve picture quality. Get a good camera, and pay attention to technique and composition when you take the photos. Don't just throw them on your bed and take photos. If you're not sure of yourself when it comes to photography, an empty, lightly coloured table against a white or nearly-white wall is always a good place to put things when you take photos of them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:37 AM | Permalink

Templates are the design elements that you might have noticed some sellers using on their auctions, like the borders around the edge, and the different fonts. Many sellers who are new to eBay don't bother using them, and you might not have either - generally, a descriptive listing and a good picture will do the job just fine.

If you want to really finish your auctions off and make a really good impression on your buyers though, it's useful to have a good template. Here are a few tips on what to do and what not to do.

Choose something appropriate. The most important part of your template is what you choose in eBay's listing designer (in step 3 of the Sell Your Item process), or the equivalent in whatever listing software you're now using. You might prefer to use third-party software for this, as eBay's designs can be somewhat... unimpressive.

Anyway, the different template designs will usually be themed, with names like 'Computers', 'Toys' or 'Crafts'. Make sure what you choose is appropriate for what you're selling - those flowers might be very pretty, but what exactly do they have to do with DVDs?

Put the photo at the top. The photo of your item is far more important than the text. Put your best photo at the top of the description, followed by the text, and then finally any extra pictures you have. The full-size photo of the item is the first thing your buyers want to see when they click your auction - why leave it for last?

Add your logo. A well-designed logo gives a professional air to your auctions, especially if the colour scheme and look fits in with the rest of the template, and it also serves to create more recognition when people have seen your auctions before. Pay a logo designer a few dollars to do you a logo if you don't have one already.

Don't be afraid of large fonts. Fonts are supposed to be different sizes sometimes. When you have something important to say, don't be afraid to put it in a bigger font, headline-style... just as long as you don't get carried away, of course.

Learn a little HTML. It might sound scary, but there are plenty of books out there about learning HTML, and a little goes a long way. Once you know what you're doing, you'll find all sorts of ways to make your auction look better - you'll be able to put complicated information in a table,

Preview your listing. Remember to click that 'Preview listing' button to see what everything's going to look like when it goes live. Good luck!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:59 AM | Permalink

SquareTrade are eBay's chosen provider of dispute resolution services. If you want your buyers to have a little more confidence in you, you can get a SquareTrade seal, and put it on each one of your auctions.

The chances are that you've seen these seals around. They show SquareTrade's blue and green logo, along with the eBay user's ID and the current date. This is followed by the text "SquareTrade Verified Seller, Click to Learn More". SquareTrade is also used on sites other than eBay, for example Yahoo and eLance - it's an Internet-wide trust system.

So why will this little seal increase your sales? Well, it signals a number of things to your buyers.

Your identity has been verified. Before you can get a SquareTrade seal, you need to let them confirm your real name, address and phone number, which they can do in various ways. They can check you out with a credit reference agency, ask you to fax them a utility bill, or send you a letter in the real mail with a code you need to enter online.

You are committed to resolving disputes through SquareTrade. If you ever refuse to resolve any dispute with a buyer through SquareTrade, then they'll take away your seal, and you'll never get it back. This lets buyers know that there's someone independent they can go to for help if you prove not to be trustworthy.

Real people will review their case. Buyers like that someone will actually take the time to read the emails, establish the facts and all the rest of it - they feel like eBay normally traps them in a chain of automatic responses.

You meet SquareTrade's criteria. SquareTrade monitor your feedback, and if they feel you're not up to scratch, they'll take your seal away. They also operate an anti-fraud 'early warning system', which keeps track of the kinds of items you buy and sell, and takes action if your account starts doing unusual things.

Buyers are covered for an additional $250 against fraud. This is very important to buyers - eBay's standard purchase protection isn't very much, and this more than doubles it. If they get PayPal's fraud protection as well, then they're covered for quite a lot overall.

How Do I Sign Up?

If you want a seal of your very own, all you need to do is go to www.squaretrade.com, choose 'eBay seller' under the 'eBay seal services' heading, and click 'Apply'. Enter your name, address, phone number and eBay details here.

You should note, though, that SquareTrade costs you $9.50 per month - it's up to you to decide if it's worth it. Ultimately, it is often worth signing up just to get the facility to effectively dispute and remove negative feedback. If you think you can maintain a good record alone then it might not be worth subscribing to yet another service to use with eBay.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:00 AM | Permalink

eBay doesn't have very many competitors, and the ones that there are remain small by comparison - that's part of what makes eBay so powerful for niche items. If you're selling more common things, though, you might like to list auctions on other sites besides eBay, to increase your potential customer base and avoid some of the occupational hazards of relying on eBay for all your business. But which ones are worth bothering with?

Yahoo! Auctions.

Yahoo Auctions wins in one big way: selling there is free. There are no listing fees or final value fees. What's more, Yahoo is still one of the biggest sites around, and gets plenty of traffic to its auction site. The site benefits from Yahoo's experience in providing good, categorised searching, and the site is easy to use all round.

The rub, though, is that dodgy buyers and sellers are even more rampant on Yahoo than they are on eBay, and that's saying something. Sellers on Yahoo Auctions can expect to run into far more non-paying buyers than they would on eBay. Also, the site is plastered with text ads, which get in the way, and the design in general leaves a lot to be desired - but then, so does eBay's.

uBid.

uBid's model is to offer more security for less flexibility. They pre-screen everything: sellers must be registered businesses and buyers must pre-register a credit card. It takes some of the 'Wild West' feeling out of selling - but it also takes away most of the fun.

On eBay, you have complete control over what you're doing, while selling on uBid feels like you're just a faceless supplier for a big company. Searching for anything vaguely non-mainstream will come back with no results, to the point that it will quickly get frustrating for your buyers. If you're just selling common consumer goods for the money, though, then by all means do it at uBid.

Amazon Auctions.

Amazon Auctions is an underused auction site. The design is quite bad, and searches don't turn up many results. The payment system is the same one people use to buy things from Amazon itself, though, which seems more secure that PayPal.

You might be more interested in becoming an Amazon Marketplace seller, which means that you can list your items on their main pages for people to see when they click the 'Used & New from...' link. This can be a good way to make a few sales, as you can simply keep your inventory updated at your Buy it Now prices and someone will occasionally buy something. You don't even have to write a description or upload any pictures. This is probably a better thing to be using than Amazon Auctions.

To sum up, registering your items at a few other auction sites could get you a few extra sales - but compared to eBay, they're all very unimpressive, and have nowhere near as many users.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:35 AM | Permalink

SafeHarbor are the eBay police department. If a buyer does something they're not supposed to, then it's SafeHarbor you should be reporting it to.

Non-paying Buyers.

This is the most common rule buyers break -- it's all too easy for them to just change their minds and try to get out of the auction. eBay, however, regard every auction as a contract. They will punish the buyer for you if they don't go through with their end of the deal, by giving them a 'strike' against their account. A buyer who doesn't consistently doesn't pay for items they win will probably get banned.

To report a non-paying buyer, you need to file an 'Unpaid Item' dispute, which you can do here: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CreateDispute All you need is the item number. Once you do this, eBay will send the buyer a reminder that they must pay for the item they won, wait a while, and then take action against them. You must wait 7 days before you can file a dispute.

This isn't that helpful to you, of course, since in most cases you still won't get paid for the item or have anyone to post it to: it is a rare buyer who responds to eBay's threats and pays up just to avoid a little warning from eBay. You will, however, at least get a refund of your final value fee and be able to relist the item for free - and you can send a second chance offer to someone else if you want.

Auction Interference.

If someone ends up with a grudge against you, then you might find that they start emailing your bidders and telling them that you're a scammer, they should cancel they bid, they shouldn't deal with you, and so on. You might even find that you have unscrupulous competitors who will try this tactic to get buyers to bid on their auctions instead!

SafeHarbor will investigate this for you - the procedure to report it is to click 'Help' on the toolbar, then 'Contact us' from the menu. This can be a bit of a maze: you need to choose 'Report problems with other eBay members', then 'Problems with buyers', then finally 'User is emailing buyers to warn them about seller or item'. This will then let you send SafeHarbor an email.

Feedback Extortion.

You might find that someone tries to intimidate you into giving them something using the threat of negative feedback - in its crudest form, this could be as simple as "Pay me $20 or I'll leave you a negative comment".

To report this to SafeHarbor, you should also use 'Contact Us', making sure you attach all the emails you have that prove the extortion happened.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:33 AM | Permalink

If you have an eBay store, then you can print off promotional flyers for it for free.

You might have seen ones that other sellers have sent you - they're basically lists of items available in their eBay stores, usually bearing this default message: "Thank you for your purchase! Please visit my eBay Store for more great items and friendly, reliable customer service." If you know what you're doing, though, you can really make your flyer stand out from the crowd.

How Do I Do That?

Go to 'My eBay', then 'Manage Your Store'. Now click 'Promotions', and you'll see the 'Store Promotional Flyer' option there for you to use. A flyer will be automatically created using the settings and items from your eBay store, and you can customise it however you want. Be sure to add a border, to make your flyer more attractive visually.

Once you've created a flyer, you can print it as many times as you need to - it will be updated each time you print it to show your latest items, so you should only print what you need that day.

What Can I Do With the Flyers?

Well, there are all sorts of uses for promotional flyers.

While you could go and hand them out on the street, that probably wouldn't be especially effective. Most of the people who walk past you and take the flyer will have no interest in your product, and it'll just be a waste of paper, ink and time. No, as with all marketing, there are better ways to target your flyers.

Put them in envelopes: if you've been putting business cards or compliment slips in your envelopes, use the flyers instead. It's like sending out a mini-catalogue to your buyers, and including the right items on it might help you make a few backend sales.

In your shop: If you have a real shop or business, then you can hand flyers out to your customers to let them know that you also sell things on eBay.

At a rival's shop: This is a bit of guerrilla marketing, but maybe you're into that. You can try handing your flyers out outside a shop that sells your items. Be aware that this might get the shop's owners a little upset if they see you, however - you should only give flyers to people leaving the shop, not entering it.

Send them to businesses: Look up the addresses of businesses in the area that might need what you're selling, and send them flyers in the post.

Flyers give you another advantage: If someone types your store's address as it appears on the flyer and then buys something, then you'll get the 75% final value fee credit for advertising, without even having to pay anything for advertising!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:47 AM | Permalink

Listing tools automate the process of adding listings to eBay, to stop you having to go through the 'Sell Your Item' process every time. There is a surprising amount of choice out there when it comes to eBay listing tools, to the point where you might not know what to choose. Here's an overview of what's useful and what's not.

Turbo Lister.

Turbo Lister is a free download from eBay, and allows you to sell on eBay without ever having to actually visit the site. You can write descriptions, save them and list them over and over again - if you want to, you can even do most of your eBay work offline, and just go online for a few seconds to upload it.

You can list in bulk and schedule your listings to start any time. Since this is eBay's officially supported program, you're guaranteed that upgrades to eBay's site will never break it and leave you out in the cold. Personally, though, I find the design quite bad - it's not really that much easier than just going through eBay directly.

Blackthorne.

Also from eBay, this is what used to be called the 'Seller's Assistant'. It's a downloadable program, but it's more powerful than Turbo Lister is. It lets you do everything in bulk: listing, re-listing, and even feedback. You can export your sales data to an accounting program, and track your auctions while they're still going on. You only have to enter things like payment choices and shipping details once, and they're saved forever.

So where's the disadvantage? It costs $9.99 per month, or $24.99 for the pro version, which also lets you print shipping labels in bulk and manage an inventory.

Andale Lister.

If you want to try something that's not been made by eBay, Andale's lister is still web-based, but aims to streamline the process.

You can create 'profiles' with different selections for your auctions. For example, you could create a 'Normal' profile that doesn't include any of the listing upgrades, a 'Promote' profile that includes Bold and Highlight, and a 'Super Promote' profile that buys Bold, Highlight and Featured Plus. This makes it easier to choose the set of options you want for each item.

It's all about saving things you've done. Each time you upload a picture, it gets added to a 'Picture Library' for you to use again, and you can store an inventory and choose from it to create a listing. You also get nicer-looking templates than eBay provide.

Of course, if eBay had their act together then this is what their own process would be like - but they're happy for third-parties to make money doing the work instead of upgrading their own site. Andale Lister can cost anywhere between 20c and 4c per listing, as you get discounts for volume.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:45 AM | Permalink

When it comes to durations, you have a wide range of choices: your auction can run for 10, 7, 5 or 3 days, or even only one day if you have a good enough feedback rating.

There's a reason why you get to choose your duration, and that's because different durations are good for different things. To decide how long you should list your items for, all you need to do is ask yourself a few questions.

Do you want to sell things quickly? If you'd rather sell now than in a few days, even if it means losing a little of your profit, then go ahead and choose the shortest duration you can get. If you're the more patient type, on the other hand, you might as well sell slowly.

How much is your item worth? Items with a higher price are worth re-listing every 3 days or so using Buy it Now. The fees aren't that big as a percentage of the item's cost, and you'll sell more when you're constantly higher up in the search results.

Could your item benefit from competitive bidding? Not every item is going to make bidders get excited and try to outbid each other. If you have items that consistently attract more than five bidders, though, you should always list then for as long as possible, to get the best price you can. People will be quite happy to follow your auction for days, bidding the price higher and higher as they go.

What did the seller getting the best price do? Go back to that completed items display, and take a look at which durations the top seller uses the most often. The chances are that what they're doing works.

Can you ship quickly? You might find that customers get frustrated if they have to wait for over a week for your auction to end, only to have to wait some more for the item to actually turn up. If you're running auctions with the longest duration, try to have the thing packed and ready to go for posting the day it ends.

Is there a rush on? If it's the holiday period, or there's a sudden surge in demand for your particular item, then don't list items for as long as you would usually. It's in your interest to have a quick turnover, then you should be listing for the minimum of one day.

How visible do you want to be? You might have noticed that most of the effects caused by varying item durations are basically caused by the fact that, by default, eBay sorts search results so that items ending sooner appear first. Since it's the default, this is the view most people use - meaning that items ending sooner get viewed much more.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:39 AM | Permalink

When you sell on eBay, it's important to know how to take advantage of the kinds of markets you encounter in the different seasons. As a rule, the summer months are slow and the winter period is fast, but there's more to it than that.

It Depends What You're Selling.

Your sales won't necessarily be slower in the summer than in winter - they might just be different. If you're selling sports equipment, for example, you'll probably find that surfing gear sells in summer while skiing gear sells in winter. You should make sure you are aware of any seasonal variations there will be in your particular market, and plan in advance to take advantage of them.

Selling in Peak Season.

The holiday season is eBay's peak, and the best time to be selling on eBay - the December rush is relatively short, but if you play it right then you could make half your year's profit over those few days.

In the holidays, people are looking for presents, and eBay run more advertising than usual targeted towards buyers, not sellers. Target your auctions more towards new users than experienced ones, writing easy-to-understand descriptions. If you have any items that are in demand, try listing some at auction and some with high But it Now prices, to see what works best.

The chances are you'll be surprised when the Buy it Now auctions go almost instantly and the auctions rack up bids like nobody's business. It is important to remember, however, that most of these buyers will only buy from you once.

Selling Off-peak.

For the rest of the year, the market is far slower. Don't worry though - you can still make money. It's a little like being a stockbroker: you can make money whether the market is good or bad, if you know what you're doing.

Remember that your target market is a little more 'expert': you're mostly selling to people who know what they're buying, and know what they want to pay. Cater to this by providing a service suitable for these customers. Show that you know what you're selling and sell things consistently and you'll have people coming back again and again.

Here's one extra tip that you might try. If you know of items that have a consistent value, it might be worth buying up as many as you can cheaply in the summer, storing them for half a year, and selling them during the winter rush. If you're willing to give over a little space for storage, you can make a lot of profit for little effort. After all, you don't even have to take the items out of the packaging the last seller put them in.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:26 AM | Permalink

Once you've optimised your titles for search terms and your items have short durations to get them near the top of the results, there's really only one sure-fire way to make your auction stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, it involves paying eBay more money - but it can really pay off, especially for higher-priced items.

In this article, I'll take you through the various 'listing upgrades' eBay offer, how much they cost, and whether they're any good. Remember that if you want any of these, you can just tick their box while you're going through the process of listing your item. The charges will be added to the other fees you're charged for the listing.

Gallery. The most basic of upgrades, this will show your photo on the search results page as well as inside on the item's description page. This is always worth having. Cost: 35c.

Subtitle. If you add a subtitle, you get a little more space to fit in any extra information that you couldn't squeeze into the title. Use this if you're selling a relatively technical item that just has too many good features to fit into that 55-letter title space. Cost: 50c.

Bold. This will put your auction's title in bold on search results pages. Not especially noticeable, but might make your auction stand out a little. Cost: $1.

Border. Choose this option to put your listing inside a coloured box on results pages, making it look a bit special. Cost: $3.

Highlight. You can get your listing highlighted in purple on results pages. Cost: $5.

Featured Plus. This upgrade will show your item at the top of the page in the search results, with the 'featured items', for the duration of your listing. It will also be shown in the featured items list seen by people who browse by category. This is easily the best upgrade you can buy, and will easily pay for itself twice over with an item that's worth more than about $100 and getting a decent number of bids. Cost: $19.95.

Gallery Featured. This will show your item first when someone chooses to view items using the 'Picture Gallery' view. Few people ever use this view, but it might be useful for some kinds of items. Cost: $19.95.

Home Page Featured. This is the ultimate in listing upgrades, but its value is questionable, especially given the small space featured items are actually given on the home page. If you think you could pull a lot of buyers into your auction with nothing but the first four or five words of your title, go for it. Really, you have to get yourself on the home page at least once in your eBay life, don't you? Cost: $39.95.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 05:40 AM | Permalink

There are plenty of companies out there offering third party eBay tools. Most of them are web-based instead of downloadable, so you pay a monthly fee instead of just buying the software. But do you know what these sites can do for you? It can be hard to get to grips with what's out there using a search engine, so here's a quick rundown of the key players.

Andale (www.andale.com).

Andale offer lots of small products instead of one solution that does everything: you can take your pick from a lister, image hosting, counters, analysers, a gallery, a checkout and an email manager. The price plans are a bit of a maze, but quite reasonable as long as you don't go and use everything.

Andale's real claim to fame is that they've been doing it for so long - they're not some fly-by-night organisation, and many eBay sellers have been using their free counters for absolutely years. They also have a reputation for being very responsive to customers, and will often talk to you directly on their forums and implement any suggestions you might have for improving their software.

Vendio (www.vendio.com).

Vendio offer two editions of their software, Sales Manager: a Merchandising edition and an Inventory edition. The difference between the two is that the Merchandising edition is designed to make it easier to list individual auctions, while the Inventory edition is for sellers who sell many of the same item. They offer a pay-as-you go price of 10c per auction.

They also offer software called Tickets Manager, special software for people who sell lots of tickets on eBay - an odd product to have, but useful if you happen to sell tickets. Other services offered by Vendio include web and image hosting, fancy Flash galleries of your products for your listings, and stores.

ChannelAdvisor (www.channeladvisor.com).

ChannelAdvisor offer their software in three versions: Enterprise, Merchant and Pro. Enterprise and Merchant are both designed for very big businesses, though, and the chances are that the Pro version does everything you'd want. ChannelAdvisor is popular among sellers who want a solution that they know is used and trusted on a very large scale by enterprise-level customers.

It offers all the standard bulk listing and inventory features, as well as the unique feature of being able to create auctions from an Excel spreadsheet of your inventory. The cost is high, though, at $29.95 per month.

And Many, Many More...

eBay maintain a comprehensive directory of third-party software, which you can browse through anytime you have a few days to kill. You can look either for complete solutions or for each part of what you want individually - the choice is so daunting that there's bound to be something out there for you. You can look at their directory at http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SolutionsDirectory

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:56 AM | Permalink

Some people think they can make money on eBay by setting a high price for something they perceive to have a high value. The problem is that their perception is skewed. Very often they assign an emotional value to the item and are disappointed when they can’t get their asking price.

You can avoid disappointment and even losing money by following these simple steps:

1) Don't buy anything.
The object here is to make money on eBay. So don’t spend any. It often very tempting to surf eBay and buy something that you think you need.

Start out by having a "garage sale" or clean out the basement. In other words sell what you got. On eBay especially, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Old books, toys, tools, souvenirs, office supplies, electronics, etc. Anything you can find, you can sell. You will just have to set reasonable expectations on price.

2) Research pricing.
The biggest mistake made is setting an opening bid too high. It works against you in two ways. First, a prospective bidder may not even open your item. The opening price is listed on the summary. Second, it costs more to list it at a higher price.

3) Lose the sentimental value.
This is the toughest part. When we are selling mementos, memorabilia or other items, we tend to remember the circumstances upon which we got them. "Remember how long we had to stand in line for those concert tickets?" or "That was from my first car."

If you can’t stand to part with it... don’t. Other people will not have the same attachment to it that you do. Price it as if you were going to go to the mall and buy it today.

Antiques and ephemera generate their own "sentimental value" by the provenance or history of the object. But it is unlikely that your ownership has added much to that.

4) Set a low starting price.
The best opening bid is one that is high enough to indicate some value. Bids starting at a penny or a dollar are often thought of as junk and a waste of time. But a hundred dollar item opening at ten dollars is a real bargain.

To determine the best starting bid. Surf eBay and the rest of the Internet for similar items. Look at both the new retail cost and the resale value. Then set your price low enough to get generate some excitement. It will rise to its proper value.

5) Place it for 7 days.
This is the standard listing. Listing it for a shorter period may seem to generate a bid sooner. In reality, it is missing out on a lot of potential buyers who will return when it’s close to closing time - not the best way to make money on eBay.

6) Make it pretty.
At the very least use a photo. No matter how well you describe you will ALWAYS benefit from the extra "thousand words". It will result in more bids and higher bids (important to make money on eBay). Even if it looks like junk, the buyer knows exactly what they are getting.

Even better, use ad builder software to dress up your presentation.

7) Don’t buy any extras
BOLD listings, slide show, gift tags, etc. all add up to increase the fees associated with your listing. This only serves to reduce your profit.

8) Cover your costs
Do not estimate the shipping costs. Use actual costs. Be sure to include charges for the shipping materials, as well as postage. The best way is to use free materials supplied for Priority Mail. Using Stamps.com or a postage meter is convenient, but be sure your scale is accurate. More than once I’ve had to add postage at the post office.

9) Use Paypal.
The quicker you get paid, the quicker you make money on eBay. Paypal is instantaneous. No waiting for the "check is in the mail" and no waiting for the check to clear.

10) Do it often.
The more you sell, the more you make on eBay. Don’t worry that you only getting a few dollars at a time. Ten dollars a day, every day for a year will get you $3,650. Not a killing, but quite a nice vacation.

© Copyright 2003 Jim DeLillo Reprint rights are granted if this entire resource box is included.

Jim DeLillo, is president of Pleiades Group, Inc. He has been an invited speaker for: American Management Association, Material Handling Society, APICS, and Independent Computer Consultants of America. Pleiades Group, Inc. implements improvements in efficiency by automating processes. Mr. DeLillo holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from NJIT.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:54 AM | Permalink

It's usually when auctions are about to end that they get half their bids - sometimes they even get their only bids. If you want your item to sell for a good price, then, it makes no sense to let it finish on a day and time when no-one's going to be around to care.

Selling to Business.

If you're selling business equipment and have mostly business customers, you should really aim to have your auctions finishing between 9am and 5pm on weekdays. It is worth, however, trying to avoid mornings and avoiding the 'lead-in' and 'lead-out' that takes place on Monday and Friday themselves.

Selling to Home.

If most of your sales are to private customers having it shipped to their own home, then you want your auctions to finish when these kind of customers will be around. Unfortunately, these times are the opposite of what they are for the business customers. The ideal time to catch a home customer is on a Sunday evening.

List for Durations.

In order to get your listings to end on a particular day, you can simply change the duration of your auctions depending on what day it is. For example, if you mostly sell to home customers and the day today is Thursday, then your auction needs to run for either 3 or 10 days to hit a Sunday. If you sell more to business and the day today is Friday, then:

a 1 day auction would be bad (finishing on Saturday),
3 days would be alright (Monday),
5 days would be good (Wednesday),
7 days would be good (another Friday),
and 10 days would be alright (Monday again).

You could draw up a little timetable of when you should and shouldn't be listing depending on the days of the week - make it red, amber and green, traffic light style, and stick it on your wall.

Schedule Listings.

Of course, if that all sounds like too much trouble then there is an easier - if more expensive - way of doing things. Simply use any of the many tools that let you schedule listings (almost all listing programs and sites do) - you can set the start date for any day and time you feel like.

Be aware that you might have to pay a few cents per listing for this if you do it through eBay. With some software, you may also need to leave your computer on all the time, so the software can start the auctions when it's supposed to. The advantage of this method, however, is that there will be no per-listing fee, since the auctions were scheduled through your computer and not through eBay.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:03 AM | Permalink

Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay. There are many people who don't like the idea that their item might sell for a far lower price than they intend. Equally, there are people who have hundreds of the same item and don't want to sell them individually. This article gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and how to spot them.

Normal Auctions.

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: you bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions.

Reserve auctions are for sellers who don't want their items to sell for less than a certain price - a concept you'll know about if you're familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that you will be told if your bid has not met the reserve price set by the seller. If no-one is willing to meet this price, then the auction is cancelled, and the seller keeps the item.

You can spot these auctions by looking out for 'Reserve not met' or 'Reserve met' written next to the current bid on an item's description page.

Fixed Price ('Buy it Now') Auctions.

Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. A seller might add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that you can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the 'best offer'. This means that you can negotiate a price to someone who offers their items using Buy it Now, which could be a great way to get a bargain on things that don't seem to be selling.

Fixed price auctions are easy to spot, as they have a little 'Buy it Now' logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.

Multiple Item ('Dutch') Auctions.

These are auctions where a seller is selling more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don't worry - everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price. You can enter how many you want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:12 PM | Permalink

So your buyer has paid on time, you've shipped them the item, and they've left you positive feedback. Everything is going great! You know that leaving your buyer some nice feedback will finish everything off, and make them glad they chose to buy from you.

When you see that little feedback box, though, you might find that you have no idea what to write to make your buyer happiest. Well, here's a guide.

Don't write "A++++++++". Once upon a time, leaving grades on eBay buyers actually meant something. Now, though, writing an 'A' and filling the rest of the space with pluses seems to have become a common way of saying 'good'. The meaning of the grades is gone entirely - no one ever leaves a B-, after all - so it's a pretty useless thing to write. Try something more descriptive.

'Prompt/fast/instant payment'. Did the buyer get on PayPal within hours or even minutes of winning the auction and pay you as quickly as they could? If they did, then your comment should include the words 'prompt payment'. This is a big thing for buyers, as other sellers will really prefer to deal with someone they know will pay on time.

'Great communication'. If you found the buyer was very responsive to all your emails, then point this out. It's especially worth putting this if there was a problem that you had to overcome, and the buyer was co-operative and easy to work with.

'A pleasure to deal with'. If this was one of those very easy transactions where nothing went wrong, then you should put that the buyer was a pleasure to deal with, or 'the way ebay should be', or just a 'great ebayer'.

'Great as always'. When it's the second or third time that the buyer has bought from you, make sure to point it out. The fact that they go back to the same seller more than once and build up a relationship is a good thing for them to have on their record.

The Main Rule: Praise to the Skies.

Think of anything good you have to say and try to fit as much of it as you can in that limited space. Don't worry too much about punctuation. Here's a good example comment: "Instant payment, great communication - excellent buyer!".

As a side effect, this then gives you the power to leave slightly negative feedback for some buyers without actually having to make it negative, like this: "Paid quite quickly, communication fine". Making very short, to-the-point comments also reflects badly on the buyer: if you just write "OK", it means "I really wanted to leave a neutral or a negative". Don't do this if that's not the meaning you intend.

Don't spend too much time agonising over what to write in your feedback comments, though - the chances are you'll be leaving hundreds every week. You might find it worthwhile to come up with a few standard ones for different situations, and use eBay's Selling Manager to leave feedback in bulk.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:43 PM | Permalink

If you've got this far, you've got the basics of eBay. There are a few things left, though, that you might not have thought of trying. Quite a few of these tips go against the advice many give for eBay selling - some are a little risky and some are just odd. They're all worth a try, though, and I'm sure you'll find at least some you want to keep using.

1. Keep more records. It might sound time consuming, but you'll actually find it easier in the long run - less time spent trying to figure out which item that cheque you got this morning is for.

2. Post without payment. Don't even wait for payment to clear! That might sound risky, but it'll mean that the buyers get their items more quickly - for small items, you might find it worth the occasional loss to give such quick service.

3. Post every day. Once you start shifting a high volume of items, go and post them every day - again, they'll get there more quickly, making your customers very happy. The best way to do this is if you have items small enough to drop in a postbox.

4. Encourage an auction mentality. Don't have a Buy it Now price, and make it very clear when it's the last or only stock you'll be getting in. Always refer to winning bidders as 'winners'.

5. Mention every defect your item has. Now why would you do that, you might ask? The answer is that it builds credibility: the small hit you take from the slight flaws is nothing compared to the big boost in trust you get for admitting it. People bid more when they trust the seller.

6. Say how you got the item. Don't be afraid to go off on a tangent and give all sorts of fun details of how you got hold of what you're selling - it gives your auction character and, again, builds trust.

7. Accept odd payment methods. Sooner or later you're going to get a buyer who wants to pay by sending cash in an envelope, or something equally unusual. Why not let them? Be flexible.

8. Don't be afraid to sell low. Let the occasional item go for a really low price to a good buyer. You might only just break even on the item, but the person who got that bargain will be back again and again.

9. Give free shipping for a certain number of orders, or orders over a certain amount. People might buy something else they don't want as much, just to get the free shipping. (Amazon use this strategy to great effect).

10. Ship worldwide. Take the time to investigate the prices, and be nice to international customers - imagine how much you're expanding your market. That's not to mention the effect of people bidding highly for items that are rare in their country.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:55 PM | Permalink

So you want to market your eBay business? Well, you probably won't have too much luck with traditional marketing methods - they're just not targeted enough. The best way to do things is to pay for targeted advertising, which comes up when people search for keywords you specify: they're looking for exactly what you're selling, and so many of them will click on your ad.

On eBay.

You might not have noticed that eBay offer this kind of advertising, but they do. You can pay them for a small ad that will appear above the search results (next to the banner ad) for any keywords you want. Buyers will then be able to click through and get to your eBay store - and you only pay for clicks, not for views. You can also set a budget for how much you want to spend, and your ads will simply stop if they go over-budget.

If you do this, it is best to create very targeted ads for specific products. Buy a specific model of something as your keyword, and write how much you sell it for in the ad - this will be more effective than just advertising across the name of a whole category.

There are some products that this approach simply doesn't work for, though, and you might be better off spending your money on a more visible Featured Plus listing for your item, especially if you're trying to advertise on valuable keywords.

Search Engine Ads.

If you want to market your business more widely, then you can try to bring in business from outside eBay. The best way to do this is by buying keyword-targeted ads on search engines. With Google AdWords, for example, your ad will appear in their 'Sponsored Links' section when someone searches for your keywords. Again, you set a maximum budget and only pay for clicks.

This can be very effective, as you've just taken your products to the world outside eBay - imagine someone going to a search engine, typing in what they're looking for and seeing your store right there! What's more, if you target this approach to specific models of a product it can be very cheap. Most advertisers try to get as much traffic as they can instead of targeting their ads as specifically as you will be, meaning there won't be much competition for the keywords.

eBay benefit from this as well as you, since it drives new buyers to eBay as a whole, not just to your site. They actively encourage sellers to go and advertise on search engines by offering you 75% of your final value fee back for each item that someone finds and buys this way. On expensive items, that's probably enough to pay for the advertising to begin with!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:46 PM | Permalink

The 'featured gallery' is a little-known and little-used eBay feature, but that's part of its power: it is far more used by buyers than it is by sellers, which means you can pick up some new buyers by advertising there.

Basically, the featured gallery works a lot like 'Featured Plus' for normal listings, which shows your item before all the other results. Buying a 'Featured Gallery' listing shows your listing at the top when someone chooses to use the picture gallery instead of the list view.

Which Picture Gallery?

Exactly - you've probably got no idea what I'm talking about, since it's such a little-used and well-hidden feature. Try doing a search for an item. Do you see just above the results, where you can choose between 'List View' and 'Picture Gallery' (it's next to the options for sorting the results)? Click 'Picture Gallery'. A whole new world opens up before your eyes!

This feature is there for buyers who prefer to work visually instead of by title - and there are a surprising number of them, especially if your items are being sold for their visual appeal.

What Happens When I'm Featured?

Becoming featured in the gallery means that your item will be displayed above the other items in the picture gallery when any search there includes your item in the results. You might think this useless, considering how few people ever look at the picture gallery - but for the people who do look, you'll be right up there. You'll stand out even more, in fact, since so few sellers buy the featured gallery listings.

Not only that, but your picture will appear almost twice the size of the normal gallery listings below it. Your picture will be taking up a big part of the users' screen as soon as they get their results, and they can't avoid seeing it! For users with smaller screens, your picture could take up as much as a third of their display area.

Consider it targeted advertising towards buyers who prefer to work visually - if you want to attract that kind of buyer, you'll do well from the featured gallery. If you sell art then this will be absolutely ideal for you, especially for large, striking pieces. There are independent artists out there who've gone from no sales to bidding wars just by getting featured in the gallery.

So How Do I Get a Featured Gallery Listing?

Just tick the option when you're going through the Sell Your Item process. It costs $19.95 per item, so it's only really worth using on auctions where you think you'll make more than that back in the extra bids.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:07 PM | Permalink

It's a heady feeling when you win your first eBay auction: a mixture of happiness and perhaps just a little fear. After all, there seems to be so much to do before you can actually get your item. What do you do next?

The simple answer is: you send payment to the seller, as quickly as possible. The quicker you pay, the more your seller will like you, and the sooner your item will arrive. But how you go about it? That all depends on how you plan to pay.

PayPal.

PayPal is one of the most popular options for paying on eBay, to the point where eBay decided to buy the company. It allows instant electronic payment across the Internet. Money goes instantly from your credit or debit card to the seller's PayPal account, where they can either use it for Internet purchases or transfer it out to their bank. You can register for PayPal here: www.paypal.com

eBay offer incentives for using PayPal, and almost all sellers now accept it. Its instant nature makes sellers very happy, and means that they can have your item packed and sent and leave you some positive feedback within a few hours of the auction ending. When paying by PayPal, you will be covered by PayPal's own insurances and guarantees, as well as any that your card might have.

Checks and Money Orders.

This is payment the old-fashioned way, and will lead to a long wait to your item. You need to post the check or money order, then the seller has to take it to the bank and get it cleared, and only then do they send the item. The only reason to use this method is if either you or the seller distrusts electronic payment methods. If you're willing to go to the trouble with these sellers, though, you might get an item very cheaply, as most buyers just can't be bothered.

When you pay by cheque or money order, make sure to print the eBay order confirmation page (it will be emailed to you) and put it in the envelope with your payment. Underline or circle key information like your mailing address and the item number. Finally, remember to be patient: keep in contact with the seller, as it really can take a month or two before everything falls into place and your item turns up.

Money Transfers and Bank Deposits.

Some sellers may ask you to pay them using a wire service like Western Union, or simply give you a bank account number and ask you to pay money into it. Unless you really trust the seller, this is generally a bad idea - these methods are hard to trace and you're unlikely to get any money back if anything goes wrong. Paying in cash, it hardly needs to be said, is an even worse idea.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 12:17 PM | Permalink

In an effort to compete with more 'traditional' shops, eBay has started to offer finance agreements though PayPal for expensive items. This means that, if the seller decides to offer it, you can now spread the cost of an item into affordable monthly payments.

This is good for buyers, good for sellers, and good for eBay. Buyers can get the kind of credit agreements they're used to in shops. Sellers can make their items more attractive to buyers who might not have all the money then and there, but eBay still pays the sellers upfront - they don't have to wait to be paid each month or anything like that. Buyers make their monthly payments to PayPal's credit provider instead.

The APR of the Buyer's Credit program is currently 12.9%. You can pay back $999 or more over 12 months, or $1,999 or more over 24 months. There are also interest-free options for purchases of $199 or more over 3, 6 or 12 months.

The reason why some of these credit offers sound better than others is that it is up to the seller to decide how good the credit offer should be and pay extra to PayPal to offer it. To give their buyer the best promotion, for example, of no interest for twelve months, the seller must pay 3.75% of the item's cost to PayPal.

Basically, this means that sellers pay less when the buyers pay interest, and sellers pay the cost of the interest on the interest-free offers. PayPal makes its interest either way, buyers are happy to get credit, and sellers are happy to sell more.

Can I Get This Credit?

On items over $199, Buyer's Credit is now being automatically offered to buyers in the USA only. Just click the link when you buy something for more than $199 and you will be taken through the application process, which includes a 30-second check on your credit history. Then you just go through the buying process as normal, and you get your item before you've paid a penny.

Why are eBay Offering This?

eBay say they want to "level the playing field", to allow eBay businesses to compete with the big chain stores, and they also want to promote PayPal as a payment method. Relatively few buyers can afford the more expensive items on eBay all at once, and so the introduction of Buyer's Credit seems likely to significantly increase prices and sales at the higher end of the market.

It is worth noting that you can use Buyer's Credit anywhere PayPal is accepted, not just on eBay. PayPal say it's "like a credit card - minus the card!" You don't get a card number - you can pay with credit with just your email address and password.

The only thing left to do now, then, is find the best deal for that really special item - the expensive thing you've been wanting for ages but could never afford.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:21 AM | Permalink

It is important to remember that eBay is a lot like a marketplace. There will always be a dodgy guy in the corner, selling things that most people wouldn't touch. The trouble is that, on the Internet, these people can be a little harder to spot. Here are ten tips to help you keep an eye out for the rip-off merchants.

1. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is: This holds for everything in life, but especially for eBay. Things that seem too cheap are usually too cheap for a reason - it might be a complete scam, or the items might just be of extremely poor quality. Investigate before you go further.

2. Know the value of what you want to buy: There are people on eBay who regularly bid such high prices for used cameras that they might as well have gone out and bought them brand new. Check around for prices first.

3. Only bid on real things: eBay has plenty of people who are trying to sell all sorts of schemes and scams. It is never worth bidding for these, no matter how cheap they might be.

4. Don't do anything outside eBay: Occasionally people will ask you to send them money outside eBay, to avoid the fees eBay charges sellers. Any money you send this way is entirely insecure - don't do it.

5. Be careful where you send payment: People may hack into others' accounts, and ask you to send payment to addresses that eBay has not confirmed as belonging to that account - you might send your money and receive nothing in return.

6. Look out for sellers who suddenly change what they sell: Sellers can look like they've made lots of transactions, when really they've never sold anything of worth. If they suddenly start selling $1,000 televisions, steer clear - the chances are they're planning to run off with the money.

7. Beware the shill bidder: If someone who doesn't seem to have bought anything before is constantly outbidding you on a certain item, be suspicious. It might be a seller 'shill bidding' to force up his item's price.

8. Don't use the seller's escrow service: If an escrow service is recommended to you by a seller, it could well be owned and run by them - and they're quite likely to keep your money and send you nothing.

9. Pay electronically: You are more likely to be able to recover any losses if you pay using a credit card instead of sending out cheques and money orders - these low-tech payment methods can't be tracked as easily.

10. Buy from reputable sellers: Each seller has a number next to their name, which is their feedback rating. The higher this rating, the more you can trust them.

On that last point, feedback ratings are the most important way that buyers and sellers can protect themselves on eBay - and you, as a buyer, have a rating too!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:10 AM | Permalink

When a seller writes an original description of an item or takes an original picture, they own the copyright on their work. This happens without any requirement for them to register or even to want the copyright - that's just the way copyright works. What that means is that it's actually illegal to copy another sellers description or pictures.

eBay's Policy.

eBay refer to the practice of copying another seller's listing and using it in your own auction as 'description theft'. It is against their listing policies, and ignorance of the rules is no defence.

What Could Happen?

If your 'theft' is discovered, then your listing will be ended and all bids will be cancelled. Do it more than once and your account could get suspended, and you're subject to the usual eBay punishments: you could lose PowerSeller privileges, or your auctions could be ended, leaving you with a stack of eBay fees.

Is it Likely?

It's only likely that eBay will investigate description theft and go after you if the seller whose description you took actually takes the time to report you. When you're competing with that seller directly, though, don't be surprised if they do turn you in - after all, you're their competitor!

Think of how you'd feel if someone was re-using a description that you took the time to research and fine-tune for the most sales - and not only that, but they were using it against you, to list competing items. That's why other sellers don't want their descriptions taken.

But I Don't Like Writing Descriptions.

Instead of taking another seller's descriptions, you can use the stock descriptions that eBay have on file for many items, especially things like CDs, DVDs and books. Simply enter the item's unique ID number (an ISBN for a book, for example), and the listing will be created for you. If you can't find any unique ID, then you can also search by name to find a matching item.

Once you've found your item, you'll get a listing with all the technical details on the item, and often a stock picture, too. This is called 'pre-filled item information', and eBay licence it from big databases on your behalf.

It really is worth taking the time to write your own descriptions, though, as many people will be listing items using the pre-filled information. Remember that if you sell the same things often then you can re-use your own descriptions as many times as you want. You can keep your own database, re-using the ones that get high prices and re-writing the ones that don't. Writing descriptions is the biggest way that you have control over your auctions.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:05 PM | Permalink

So you have a question? Has something gone very wrong and you don't know what to do? Well, fair enough. Here are the questions that I hear all the time from buyers.

Does eBay have a Customer Service Department I Can Phone?

eBay are notoriously hard to contact, should you ever need to - it sometimes seems like they expect the site to run itself. You can email them, as long as you don't have your heart set on a coherent response: go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index.html. You might have better luck in a 'live help' webchat here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/n-livehelp.html.

Only eBay Power Sellers (sellers with a very high feedback rating) get to phone customer service. If you really want to try your luck, type 'ebay [your country] phone number' into a search engine and you'll probably find something. Unfortunately, the chances are you'll have gone to all that trouble for the privilege of leaving an answer phone message.

It might seem cruel, but imagine the number of people who would call eBay every day with the silliest questions if they gave out their phone number everywhere. Its Wild West nature is, in a way, part of its charm.

eBay Sent Me an Email Saying They're Going to Close My Account. What Should I Do?

This email asks for your password, right? It's a scam, an attempt to frighten you, make you give up your details and then steal your account. eBay will never ask for your password or any other account details by email. eBay say that you should only ever enter your password on pages that whose addresses start with http://signin.ebay.com/. They even offer a special 'Account Guard' as part of their toolbar, which lets you check that you're not giving your password to a dodgy fake site. You can read more here: http://pages.ebay.com/toolbar/accountguard_1.html.

It Seems Too Good to be True. How Does eBay Make Money?

For you, the buyer, eBay is free. Sellers, though, pay all sorts of fees: a listing fee for each item they list, a final value fee (a percentage of what the item sold for). They can they pay optional fees for extra services, including Buy it Now, extra pictures, reserve prices, highlighting the auction, putting it in bold, listing it first in search results or even putting it on the front page. You can see a full list of fees at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html.

It's obviously worth it to the sellers, though, or they wouldn't carry on using eBay. The system is quite efficient, and basically forces both eBay and the sellers to keep their profit margins as low as possible - otherwise prices will simply go too high and the buyers will stop buying.

How Safe is eBay?

All of eBay's safety services for buyers and sellers are in one place, called 'SafeHarbor'. SafeHarbor handles fraud prevention and investigation, helps with dispute resolution and keeps rule-breakers in check. Read all about it next time, and be safe.

SafeHarbor; eBay's Own Scotland Yard.

SafeHarbor are the eBay police department. If you break the rules, commit fraud or try to buy something you're not supposed to, they'll be after you.

When You Don't Pay.

This is the most common rule buyers break - it's all too easy to just change your mind and try to get out of the auction. eBay regards every auction as a contract, and will punish you if you don't go through with your end of the deal. If you decide not to pay then expect to get a few nasty warning emails from eBay threatening you with banning if you do it again. Not to mention, of course, that you'll get a big negative 'DID NOT PAY' feedback comment from the seller.

So There Are Things You Can't Buy on eBay?

Yes, there are: more things than you'd expect. It makes sense that you can't buy firearms, for example, but you also can't buy fireworks - eBay are worried about the risks of sending them in the post. Laws in many countries mean that you can't buy alcohol or tobacco. You can't buy illegal or prescription drugs, stocks and shares, or lottery tickets. No underwear, either. You can't buy any little pet puppies or kittens, as animals are banned. If items infringe on copyright, like pirate CDs or software, then they're not allowed either.

eBay's policy is controversial, not least because it is somewhat random in its enforcement - and there have been accusations that they're more responsive to the copyright concerns of big businesses than to auctions for items that might actually be dangerous. If they do decide to go after you or the seller, though, they will cancel the auction and may also suspend your accounts.

Fraud.

eBay runs remarkably well considering how unregulated it is, but there are still fraudsters. If you are a victim of fraud - for example, you pay for an item that never turns up - then SafeHarbor will investigate for you. eBay's standard purchase protection will give you up to $200 back if your claim is successful. Be aware, though, that this can take a few months.

In addition, if you paid by PayPal, then they can usually reverse the transaction relatively easily and get you more (if not all) of your money back. This is another reason why many buyers prefer to use PayPal. Some sellers are a little scared of the effectiveness of the refund system, as they can send out items in good faith only to find that their buyer was fraudulent and the transaction has been reversed. If you're worried about fraud, as a buyer, you should always use PayPal.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:18 PM | Permalink

If you know what you're doing, you can quickly find what you're looking for on eBay. Here are a few golden rules.

Be specific: If you're searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you'll get further searching for 'harry potter rowling philosopher's stone first edition' than you will searching for 'harry potter'. You'll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It's a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can't spell. Whatever you're looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - the chances are that fewer people will find these items, and so they will be cheaper.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe your item, for example searching for both 'TV' and 'television', or for 'phone', 'mobile' and 'cellphone'. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you'll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD because you want to buy that CD, you should click the 'CDs' category to just look at results in that category. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don't care about?

Don't be afraid to browse: Once you've found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click 'Browse' and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay's search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it'll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say 'anything can go here'. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for 'car 195*'. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes ("") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for "Lord of the Rings" won't give you any results that say, for example "Lord Robert Rings".

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don't want to appear in your search results. For example: "Pulp Fiction" -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become '(TV,television)', which would find items with either word.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:22 PM | Permalink

So you've got the buyer in front of your auction, and they've read the description. They're must be interested, or they wouldn't be looking... but just how can you push them over that line and make them leave a bid? Read on for some tips.

1. Improve your picture: In all that description writing, you might have missed the vital importance of your item's picture. A picture with bad lighting or an intrusive background looks amateurish and won't make anyone want to buy from you.

2. Add an About Me page: You'll be surprised how much you can reassure bidders just by creating an About Me page and putting a little bit about yourself on your business on there. You can also have a few special offers there for people who bother to look at the page, and let people subscribe to your mailing list so that you can email them updates.

3. Use SquareTrade: Signing up at SquareTrade and displaying their logo on your auctions shows that you are committed to have them resolve any disputes that arise. You always see this on PowerSellers auctions - it makes you look more professional.

4. Write terms and conditions: Have the 'small print' clearly visible on all your auctions, giving details of things like shipping times and prices, your refund policy, and any other business practices you might have. This helps build confidence with buyers.

5. Show off your feedback: Copy and paste a selection of the feedback comments you're most proud of to each item's description page, instead of making bidders go and look for it. If you have 100% positive feedback, be sure to write that on every auction too.

6. Add NR to your titles: If you have extra space in a title, put 'NR' (no reserve) on the end. Bidders prefer auctions that don't have a reserve price, and doing this lets them see that yours don't.

7. Benefits not features: Make sure your description focuses on the benefits that your item can give to the customer, not just its features. This is a classic sales technique. If you have trouble with this, remember: 'cheap' is a feature, 'save money' is a benefit.

8. List more items: If you want more people to respond to your items, then list more items! You might find you have better like listing items at the same time, instead of one-by-one. There's no need to use a Dutch auction - you can just keep two or three auctions going at once for an item you have more than one of in stock.

9. Accept unusual payment methods: To reach those last few buyers, accept payment methods that many sellers don't, like checks.

10. Buy some upgrades: The best upgrade is the most expensive one, which makes your item appear first in search results. In crowded categories, you might find that this is worth the money.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:07 AM | Permalink

eBay are a little strict about letting you withdraw your bid. They call it a 'bid retraction', and have a stringent set of conditions that you must meet before you are allowed to do it. Here are eBay's three acceptable reasons for withdrawing a bid.

You made a typographical error: This means that you accidentally typed the wrong amount into the bid box, bidding a far higher price than you meant to. This can be scary: imagine bidding $100 and accidentally adding an extra '0'! You are entirely allowed to withdraw your bid in this situation, and bid again if you want to.

The item's description changed: If you bid on something and then the seller updates the description, you have the right to withdraw your bid. It wouldn't be fair, after all, to force you to take something that you now realise you don't want.

The seller is uncontactable: If emails to the seller bounce and they don't answer their phone, then the auction obviously can't continue, and you can cancel it.

So How Do I Retract My Bid?

eBay hide away the bid retraction form a bit, because they don't like people using it. You can find it by going here: http://cgi1.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?RetractBidShow

Now all you need is the item number from your auction: this can be found on the item description page's top right corner. If you can't see it on the page, look in your browser's title bar, and in any emails eBay have sent you about your bid on the item. Choose one of the three allowed reasons, click 'retract bid', and you're done.

Are There Any Consequences?

Well yes, there are. The more unethical among you might have considered that you could just cancel bids anytime you feel like it by saying that you accidentally entered the wrong amount. eBay are one step ahead of you. Each time you retract a bid, it is counted on your feedback page for all to see - and anyone with a lot of retracted bids looks more than a little dodgy. eBay also say that abusing the bid retraction feature could get you banned.

So is there a way to retract your bid without facing a penalty? There is if your seller is nice, and most are. Sellers can cancel bids on their auctions at any time, and if you email them with a half-decent excuse then most will be more than happy to do this for you. After all, it's not in their interest for their item to go to someone who won't like it, as you might leave negative feedback.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:16 PM | Permalink

You have to be very lucky to be one of the chosen few who receive an eBay coupon by email. These coupons are just like cash that you can use towards anything you buy on eBay - the only conditions being that you pay using PayPal, and that you are using eBay in the USA, Canada or the UK.

There are two ways to get eBay coupons.

Wait for that Email.

Of course, if you just wait, you'll be waiting for a long time. You have to do something to make yourself look like the kind of person eBay would want to tempt back with a coupon. If you open an account, buy a few medium-value things and then suddenly stop, the chances are you'll find yourself with some kind of special offer - but still, not always.

Go Searching.

The better way, of course, is to go and find the coupons that are out there on the web. This is quite hit-and-miss, as eBay don't always have an offer on, but when there's a valid code you can guarantee that it'll be everywhere within a few hours. Just type 'ebay coupon codes' into your favourite search engine, but be prepared to pick through some rubbish. You might find you have better luck if you use a more obscure search engine, where people haven't taken the trouble to game the results.

If going through search engines is too much for you, then just keep an eye out at any community forums you frequent, where someone might just post one. You probably have the best chances if you make a few friends on eBay's own forums at http://hub.ebay.com/community. It can be fun and educational to chat to the regulars there too, so you really have nothing to lose.

How do You Redeem Coupons?

A coupon is basically a code, with some being quite long. All you need to do is pay with PayPal as usual for the item you want to use the coupon towards. After you choose PayPal as your payment method, you will notice a heading that says 'Coupons, Gift Certificates and eBay Anything Points'. Type the coupon code in here: they can be long, so you should use copy-and-paste to make sure you get it right. Just click 'Redeem', and it's good to go.

Don't worry about causing problems for sellers by doing this, by the way - they have no way of even telling that you used a coupon, as eBay just pay them for the item as usual. Coupons are good for sellers as they attract more buyers to eBay, meaning that they get more bids on their auctions. After all, why would they object to getting more money without you actually having to pay it?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:20 PM | Permalink

Listen to the Interviews of the Leading Entrepreneurs in the World Who Are Heroes That Are Pursuing Their Dreams With Every Ounce of Strength and Faith.

eBay isn't just an auction and a marketplace: often it can feel quite a lot like a game. Like any game, you can get ahead if you think strategically, using your head to outwit the other buyers and get the best price. Here are a few things you can try.

Shop in the Summer. This is simple, but effective. Summer is the quiet season on eBay - almost everything sells for less. While everyone else is out enjoying the sun, invest a little time to find some real bargains.

Beat Them by a Few Cents.

Outbid people by a few cents instead of a few dollars - if they don't check back before the auction ends, then you will be the winner. To avoid people using this tactic on you, though, always bid strange, hard-to-guess amounts instead of round numbers.

Play Dirty.

If you know when the auction ends, you can get in there at the very last second and outbid your rivals. The chances are that they won't have the time to sit in front of the auction waiting for it to end - as a rule, he who stays wins. If someone else does retaliate at the end of the auction, though, try not to get carried away in those last few seconds and end up paying too much!

Take Risks.

This is a strategy for the braver eBay buyer. All of the advice you will see for eBay beginners tells you to buy items that have good pictures, clear descriptions, trustworthy sellers and all the rest. If you're brave, why not take a risk and do the exact opposite?

Many buyers won't want that item from the seller with a feedback rating of 5, no picture and a one-line description. If you take a calculated risk and bid anyway, you might be able to make a tiny bid and win by default. There are people on eBay who make their living from winning auctions like these, taking good pictures of the item, writing a good description and then reselling it at a huge profit. Be careful, though: do this for long enough, and you will inevitably lose your money at some point. It's especially unwise to try it with very high-value items.

Avoid Bidding Wars.

There are few things on eBay that are so rare that you'll only see them once and never again. There are usually quite a few sellers who have an item. What's more, they will generally have more than one to sell, even if they haven't listed them all at once. Always check your seller's history to see whether they sell your item all the time - and if they do, then wait for the next one instead of bidding to the skies.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:15 PM | Permalink

You will often find yourself facing the choice of whether to pay a fixed price or keep on bidding. This choice might be presented to you in a single auction, or you might be choosing between different auctions of the different types. So should you use that 'Buy it Now' button or keep on trying to outbid everyone else? It's all a question of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages.

Buy it Now.

- The Advantages.

When you use Buy it Now, you know the asking price and you can take some time to decide whether to pay it or not - you can even negotiate. You don't need to keeping your eye on the auction, or get caught up in the last-minute bidding frenzy that is now inevitable on any popular item. Not only that, but the seller will be happy to get a fixed price for their item, and they're likely to nicer to you than usual. Some sellers can be a little resentful when they feel that you got a little too much of a bargain on their item.

- The Disadvantages.

You will almost certainly pay more for the item, especially with more expensive items. Also, it takes some of the fun out of eBay. Aren't you there for an auction, after all? If you want to pay a fixed price then there are thousands of online stores you could be visiting. It's like pressing 'collect' instead of 'gamble' on a fruit machine: it's the boring option. But then, maybe that's what you want.

These rules are relatively constant: there are few times when using Buy it Now would allow you to get something cheaper, or when bidding would be an easier way to do it. In the end, as with so many things in life, it's a simple question of price vs. convenience, and it's up to you.

There are those times, though, when the strategic use of the Buy it Now button can be a useful tool to help you outwit your competition. If the current bid is almost as high as the Buy it Now price, then why bid higher and keep the contest going? Clicking that button is a no-brainer. The same goes for times when a seller has, for some reason, set the Buy it Now price only slightly higher than their starting price for bids. Why bother to go through all the hassle of bidding?

You might also find that there are times when you should leave the Buy it Now button as a last resort: it can be a useful way of ending last-minute contests with a decisive 'this is mine' gesture.

In fact, there are all sorts of tricks you can use on eBay, if you want to get ahead of the game. Remember that most buyers on eBay are casual, and don't know what they're doing: a little knowledge can go a long way in getting you an advantage.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:13 PM | Permalink

Have you noticed that whenever you open a newspaper, watch the TV or have a conversation, people seem to be talking about eBay? If you've never used it and you've no idea what it's all about, then the chances are that you're starting to feel a little left out. But don't worry! This article contains everything you need to know about the basics of bidding and buying on eBay.

So What is eBay?

eBay is an online auction website - and not just any auction site, but the biggest one in the world. If you know how an auction works, then you already know how roughly eBay works. Someone adds something they want to sell to the site, and then buyers come along and place bids on it. The highest bid wins the item! It's that simple.

eBay being an online auction makes a big difference, though. Buying and selling are not reserved for any elite. eBay accept almost any item, no matter how small, and will then advertise it on their sites all over the world. It's a powerful combination of an auction and a slightly chaotic marketplace.

What is Bidding?

Bidding is when you say how much you will pay for an item in an auction. Bidding on eBay, however, doesn't work in exactly the same way as a normal auction, at least in theory. On eBay, you tell the site what the maximum you are willing to pay for each item is, and then eBay places the bids on your behalf. That means you could say you were willing to pay up to $100 for something and only have to pay $50, if that was the highest maximum bid anyone else placed.

It's not as complicated as it sounds - the best way to get used to it is to give it a try. First, the best thing to do is to go to the eBay website designed for your country. If you don't know the address for it, just go to www.ebay.com and it will tell you there. Now, on the front page you should see a big box marked 'search': just type in anything that you'd like to buy there.

Wasn't that easy? Now you should have a list of items for sale in front of you, along with how much people are currently bidding for them and the time when bidding ends for each item. If you click one of these, you can read the description, and then - if you're happy with the item and happy to pay more than the current highest bidder is - you can bid!

How Do I Bid?

Go ahead and scroll down to the bottom of an item's description page, and type the maximum you are willing to pay (your maximum bid) into the box. Then simply press the 'place bid' button - you will need to sign in once you press the button, or go through a quick registration process if you don't have an eBay username).

If someone else's maximum bid on that item is higher than yours, then eBay will tell you and give you the opportunity to bid again. Otherwise, you're now the new highest bidder! All you need to do now is wait until the end of the auction - if someone else outbids you, then eBay will email you and you can bid again.

Your Rights as an eBay Buyer.

When you buy things on eBay, you pay the seller before they send you anything. This means that you, as a buyer, are vulnerable to all sorts of problems. You might not get the items you have paid for, or they might be damaged or faulty. Luckily, you have two very important rights when you buy on eBay.

The Right to Receive Your Item.

Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it doesn't arrive in the post as described, you have the right to a replacement or a refund, whether it's the seller's fault or not.

The fact that you bought something on eBay doesn't mean that you don't have the exact same rights that you would have if you bought it in a shop (these rights are pretty much the same all over the world). Plus, under eBay's rules, the seller isn't allowed to change their mind about selling you the item: once the auction ends, it becomes a contract - you must buy and they must sell, or face eBay's penalties.

The Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction.

Sometimes sellers don't wrap items properly, and so they get broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details that would have caused you to change your mind about buying. If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement or a refund.

So How Do I Use My Rights?

First, you should take it up with the seller - most will be responsive, as do not want to have their reputation damaged when an upset buyer leaves negative feedback for all their future buyers to see. If that doesn't work, report them to eBay.

While eBay don't have many people handling complaints, they do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.

Finally, if that doesn't work, then you should seek advice from consumer groups in your country, and as a last resort from the police. You should never have to get this far, though: problems on eBay that can't be resolved easily are extremely rare.

Don't Be Too Quick.

Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller: nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they were being held for me at the post office! Always try your best to communicate and think of everything that might have gone wrong: eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out their problems together, instead of reporting each other to the authorities straight away.

More often that not receiving what they paid for, buyers have an altogether different problem: they knew what they were paying for, but didn't realise that what they were paying for was overpriced, low quality or a scam.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:09 PM | Permalink

Are you finding that auction after auction fails to attract any bidders or buyers? It happens to the best of us sometimes - take a good look at these things to see if any of them could be making your bidders avoid you.

1. The starting price was too high: People don't want to have to make a high bid before anyone else has - you should always start your auctions low and let the bidders bid them up.

2. The fixed price is too high: If you're just selling with Buy it Now, then of course your items won't sell if they're too expensive. Try reducing the price a little each time the item fails to sell.

3. No picture: Most buyers are reluctant to bid on something without a picture, and that goes even more for high-value items. Think of it from the buyer's point-of-view: would you want to bid on an item when you've no idea what it looks like?

4. You had a reserve: Reserve prices scare away buyers like you wouldn't believe, not to mention costing a percentage of your final sale price. Avoid them like the plague.

5. Bad spelling and grammar: If your titles are spelled wrongly, then no-one will find your auctions. If your descriptions are incoherent, then no-one will know what you're talking about. Always run your text through a spelling and grammar checker before you put it up on eBay.

6. Too much for shipping: You might be expecting people to pay more for shipping than they're prepared to. Give them a few cheaper options that will take longer, or use cheaper materials.

7. Negative feedback: If you got negative feedback on your last transaction, expect things to be slow for a while. Try selling cheap things for a while to get your account back in good standing.

8. Nasty terms: Don't write things all over your auction like "I will only accept returns in PERFECT condition" or "Serious bidders only, no timewasters!!" This is entirely unnecessary and just makes you look difficult to deal with.

9. No PayPal: Many buyers simply avoid any seller who doesn't accept PayPal as a payment method - they can't be bothered with the hassle of anything else. Even if you don't like PayPal, you should accept it if you want to business on eBay.

10. The items were bad: You will have to accept that there are some items no-one wants - perhaps they were hyped to begin with, but now people had heard that they're useless and stopped buying. Before you come to this conclusion, though, check everything else you can, and check if anyone else is managing to sell it. If you're sure, try to return the items, and buy in some new stock.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:34 PM | Permalink

If your items aren't selling, then you might have a bad pricing strategy. There as many pricing strategies in the world as there are buyers - if you look at two businesses selling the same thing, often the only difference you'll be able to find between them is pricing.

The 'Few Dollars More' Strategy.

Here's something you might not have thought of. If you set your auction's starting price to what you would usually charge for Buy it Now, while setting the Buy it Now price a few dollars above, you can make a profit by setting off an interesting psychological reaction in the buyer's mind.

Here's what they'll think. They want the item, but why should they bother bidding for it? After all, they could use Buy it Now for just a few dollars more, and be sure of getting it! Doing things this way makes the value of the Buy it Now option extra clear to the buyer, and makes them more willing to pay extra for the privilege.

The 'One Dollar Less' Strategy.

This is simple, but requires you to keep an eagle eye on your competition. As soon as they start a Buy it Now auction for an item you stock, start an auction for one of those items yourself. Match the title closely, but price your item one dollar less than theirs. This will mean that your auctions will sit together in the search results, and who's going to see both and go for the one that's a dollar more expensive?

The 'Free Shipping' Strategy.

Buyers really hate paying for shipping. With Buy it Now, you might find it easier to incorporate the shipping cost into the main price of the item, and then write "free shipping" in the auction's title. You'd be surprised how many buyers would prefer to pay one price including shipping for the auction, instead of having shipping added on at the checkout. Again, this is psychological: they pay the same at the end, but it doesn't feel like they've paid an unnecessary 'extra' cost for Internet shopping.

The 'Go for It' Strategy.

If you'd like a slightly more risky strategy, try this. List your item for the maximum duration (ten days), starting the listing on a Thursday so it goes across two weekends and finishes on a Sunday. Set the starting price to the minimum (one cent).

What you're trying to do here is give bidders as long as possible to discover your auction, so that they push the price up themselves. Pay for a few upgrades like bold and highlight, to give them a helping hand. If you do this right, you can make a much bigger profit than you would have with any Buy it Now price, especially with a medium or high value item.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 10:38 AM | Permalink

The eBay business phenomenon has seen millions of buyers and sellers join together in what amounts to the world's biggest virtual flea market. In this world's fast-paced online transactions, that amounts to billions of dollars a day, a person can actually make some money without selling anything he owns. In the world of free enterprise, all it takes is the ability to grasp opportunity and take an educated risk.

Here are some tips on how you can think out of the box with eBay:

1. Promote products as an affiliate. Promote other sites with products. An affiliate program is actually just another way for a company to give its products as much exposure as possible to potential buyers.

Most affiliate programs actually let you join them for free or with a small fee. All you have to do is to list the product, with the highest bidder getting what he wants through you. The company tracks these sales. Depending on the revenue generated, or even the agreement you ad with the company, every sale of a product you make, you get a commission. As an affiliate of a company, you are not an employee or a contractor, receiving no perks nor benefits, except for the commission.

2. Get out there and join the forums. If you are quite passionate about the products you advertise, you can create interest by providing highly relevant content to enthusiasts. Find others like you. You have to let people know you exist. Participate in chats, forums and user groups. Once these people get to know you and your level of expertise in the subject, it gives you a leg up on making "recommendations".

3. Drop shipping products. Another variation of the affiliate program, drop shipping involves just passing on to the manufacturer or wholesaler your customer's order letting them take care of the delivery, and you make a profit from the difference between the wholesaler's price and your selling price.

4. Advertise other products when you post. Most veteran eBay sellers know a large volume of customers can pass through their auctions without people actually buying something. So, in order to maximize their marketing space, they advertise other products in the same space through links. Savvy eBay sellers even edit their About Me links to get people interested in other wares.

5. Create a link to other sites. If you are a web programmer, one outfit suggests you make use of the About Me site in another way. When you create the About Me link, there is a way to take advantage of the HTML layout feature. This layout can be edited with HTML syntax to link users to another site, if you so choose.

As a further explanation, when you create your About Me link, choose any format layout. This may sound strange but you will have the opportunity to enter a code on your own. Next, go to the bottom and click on "Preview". There, you will go to the bottom of the page again, this time clicking on "Edit using HTML". Delete everything in the box and replace it with your own code. If you are not code-savvy, you better hire someone to create the link.

So there you have it, five (out of a lot of) tips to make money from eBay without resorting to selling.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:38 PM | Permalink

Many thousands of people making a living both buying & selling on eBay. Currently ranked as the 37 biggest site on the net (according to Alexa figures) eBay shows no signs of slowing down, even fortune 500 companies are opening eBay shops to sell surplus & unwanted stock. The following are five resources that I use personally & encourage you to use them to increase your eBay profits with ease.

Reports show that over 90% of searches on eBay are done using the search facility. What users do not know about eBays search factility is that by default it only searches the item titles - not the descriptions of the items. Remember this fact as it will show the significance of some of the resources listed below.

1) FatFingers

How professional a seller are you? Do you check your listings before submitting them or even does someone else proof read them for you? With millions of listings on eBays networks of sites at any one time, a small proportion of these listings contain errors - & a misspelt word is about the biggest error you can make.

Imagine your selling a Sony Television for example. What if you misspell the item as Sony Televisoin. Anyone who searches for the term "Sony Television" simply isn't going to be presented with your item. Only those eBayers who search manually though the category will find your items. Needless to say that if people can't find your item, they're unable to bid on them.

FatFingers is a service you can use to find all misspelt variations of a term. Why would you need such a service?

Well obviously if an item has low visibility on eBay it's also likely to have zero or few bids enabling you to snap yourself up a bargain. I've known people use this service to make a full time living, purely buying items cheaply and relisting them without errors.

Details at: http://www.fatfingers.com

2) eBay Pulse

Back to the search facility eBay pulse shows you the top 10 searched keywords in every category. It's a real gem of a service, obviously by looking at the most widely used search terms you can see what eBayers are after. And if your selling in this category, by inserting some of these keywords within your title your items will be seen by more users.

The only thing to watch out with this service is make sure the keywords are relevant to your item, IF NOT DON'T USE THEM. How many times have you saw listings such as "SONY PANASONIC LG WIDESCREEN DIGITAL TELEVISION GUIDE", - listings such as these are well thought out to earn high visibility from the way users search. Anyone searching for the items with any of the keywords will uncover your listings.

While it may lead to a high number of views, firstly fellow users will get annoyed if they find your item completely unrevealed to what they searched for, Secondly keyword spamming as it is known, is against eBay policy and will lead to your item being pulled. I use pulse daily with all my listings but make sure it's relevant to your item first.

Details at: http://pulse.ebay.com

3) Keyword-Pro

Keyword-Pro is a commercial subscription service which is similar to eBay pulse. However, the main difference is Keyword-Pro offers a much more in depth list of relevant keywords. It lists the top 50 keywords for every category for both eBay.co.uk & eBay.com. This is a great addition, especially if any of the terms found in eBay pulse are not relevant to your item.

Keyword-Pro is available as both a web service or as a small program that downloads the list onto your P.C. It's data is updated weekly to keep you informed of the latest search terms.

Details at: Trading-Web-Solutions.com/keywords

4) Selling Manager

When you first open a selling account on eBay, options listed under the sell tab of eBay are enough to get you by. However, you can upgrade to a more in depth service known as Selling Manager. As eBay describes the service "eBay Selling Manager is our online sales management tool for medium to high volume sellers". It allows you to track every eBay sale, customise your feedback comments, print shipping labels & much more. It saves me about four hours a week tracking orders and watching my sales.

Selling Manager is FREE on eBay.co.uk & has a small monthly charge of on eBay.com (after one a month trial free). Once I moved over to Selling Manager, there's simply no way I would go back.

Details at: Click on services once you've logged into your eBay account.

5) Hot Item Finder

Performing a market analysis is one of the most important ways to maximize your net revenue once you have listed enough auctions to collate plenty of raw data. "Hot Item Finder" software program is an unbelievable product to conduct this eBay research. You can extract and analyze licensed eBay data and statistics to virtually ensure your auction success by seeing what has sold, for how much, how many bids it got, etc. Visit the website here: http://www.hotitemfinder.com/auctionresourcenetwork

I hope you find these services useful & time saving in your goal for a successful home business on eBay. Remember, your most important resource is your time when your starting or building up an online business & if you discover any site, person or opportunity that can save you time give it the attention & serious consideration it deserves. Every top Internet marketers constantly educate themselves by purchasing & reviewing almost every new product released. The way I look at it, if an ebook costs $197 and the information within the ebook saves me this or allows me to make an additional $197 it's well worth it - once you can do it once you'll be able to repeat the exercise over and over again making repeated profits. If you discover a precious eBay related resource let me know & I'll consider revising this list for future editions.

Good luck with your eBay selling.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 07:05 PM | Permalink

Ten million-let me say that number again-over ten million people visited the Ebay website last month. With everything from online auctions to drop shipping opportunities, the Ebay business website has something for everyone. If you are thinking about joining in on the hysteria and trying to make your fortune with an Ebay business of your own, here are some of the best things you can do to maximize your chances for success.

Do Your Homework

To begin with, you want to know as much as possible about the items you plan on offering on the Ebay auctions. This not only helps you create more interesting descriptions, but it also helps when trying to answer the barrage of questions that inevitably fly at you from potential buyers. The more knowledgeable you appear, the more likely you are to make a sale!

You also need to know if there is actually a market out there for what you are planning to sell. While you might occasionally hear about some off-the-wall item commanding big money at auction, these are the exceptions and not something to base your Ebay business upon. Run a search on the item and see how many items for that keyword come up to get an idea about your potential market. Chances of success are poor if no one else is selling a similar item.

Keywords and Descriptions Will Make or Break You

People find their way to Ebay auctions by using keywords to find the items they want. Your listing will use keywords to draw people in to bid on your item. If you try employing a keyword that no one uses, then who will come to bid on your item?

There are websites out there that will allow you to type in a keyword and see how many people used that keyword in the past month. These sites are free and a great way to test the keyword you intend to use. Just go to any search engine and type in "free keyword selector tool" and a number of sites will come up offering help finding the perfect keyword to attract people to bid on your item.

Once you have the people coming in to look at your item you are going to need a great description in order to get them to actually bid. If you are not the best writer but are serious about succeeding with your Ebay business, you may want to consider hiring a freelance writer to compose stunning descriptions that will awe people into bidding on your item. But, by doing your homework, it is usually possible to write a great description simply by being knowledgeable about the item and simply conveying some of that knowledge in your description.

Post Items During "Hot Periods"

Anyone serious about succeeding with their Ebay business needs to know when to post items and when to hold onto them. Online auctions offering leather jackets in July may solicit a few bids but they will obviously be lower than they would be had the item been posted in late fall or early winter. If you have an odd item and are not sure what the best time would be to post it on Ebay auctions, try searching for the item on the Internet. Find out what the current buzz is or whether there is any for your item. Also, try finding other sellers on the Ebay business site offering the same item. If you find a lot of people selling the same item now, then clearly it is a good time to post. Timing can really make a difference in the final price you receive for your item.

Now there are of course other things you need to do if you want your Ebay business to succeed such as: post the item in the right category, make buying easy by offering a number of payment options, and keeping your shipping costs to a minimum. All of these are essentials to a successful Ebay business but are not likely to have the same effect upon your chances of success like the other ideas mentioned earlier.

There is no doubt that Ebay auctions are a great way to make some serious money. By doing your homework, using the right keywords and descriptions, and by posting during the hot periods for your items, you significantly increase the odds of your Ebay business succeeding and making all of your financial dreams a reality. So what are you waiting for? Start doing your homework now!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 05:40 PM | Permalink

Ten million-let me say that number again-over ten million people visited the Ebay website last month. With everything from online auctions to drop shipping opportunities, the Ebay business website has something for everyone. If you are thinking about joining in on the hysteria and trying to make your fortune with an Ebay business of your own, here are some of the best things you can do to maximize your chances for success.

Do Your Homework

To begin with, you want to know as much as possible about the items you plan on offering on the Ebay auctions. This not only helps you create more interesting descriptions, but it also helps when trying to answer the barrage of questions that inevitably fly at you from potential buyers. The more knowledgeable you appear, the more likely you are to make a sale!

You also need to know if there is actually a market out there for what you are planning to sell. While you might occasionally hear about some off-the-wall item commanding big money at auction, these are the exceptions and not something to base your Ebay business upon. Run a search on the item and see how many items for that keyword come up to get an idea about your potential market. Chances of success are poor if no one else is selling a similar item.

Keywords and Descriptions Will Make or Break You

People find their way to Ebay auctions by using keywords to find the items they want. Your listing will use keywords to draw people in to bid on your item. If you try employing a keyword that no one uses, then who will come to bid on your item?

There are websites out there that will allow you to type in a keyword and see how many people used that keyword in the past month. These sites are free and a great way to test the keyword you intend to use. Just go to any search engine and type in "free keyword selector tool" and a number of sites will come up offering help finding the perfect keyword to attract people to bid on your item.

Once you have the people coming in to look at your item you are going to need a great description in order to get them to actually bid. If you are not the best writer but are serious about succeeding with your Ebay business, you may want to consider hiring a freelance writer to compose stunning descriptions that will awe people into bidding on your item. But, by doing your homework, it is usually possible to write a great description simply by being knowledgeable about the item and simply conveying some of that knowledge in your description.

Post Items During "Hot Periods"

Anyone serious about succeeding with their Ebay business needs to know when to post items and when to hold onto them. Online auctions offering leather jackets in July may solicit a few bids but they will obviously be lower than they would be had the item been posted in late fall or early winter. If you have an odd item and are not sure what the best time would be to post it on Ebay auctions, try searching for the item on the Internet. Find out what the current buzz is or whether there is any for your item. Also, try finding other sellers on the Ebay business site offering the same item. If you find a lot of people selling the same item now, then clearly it is a good time to post. Timing can really make a difference in the final price you receive for your item.

Now there are of course other things you need to do if you want your Ebay business to succeed such as: post the item in the right category, make buying easy by offering a number of payment options, and keeping your shipping costs to a minimum. All of these are essentials to a successful Ebay business but are not likely to have the same effect upon your chances of success like the other ideas mentioned earlier.

There is no doubt that Ebay auctions are a great way to make some serious money. By doing your homework, using the right keywords and descriptions, and by posting during the hot periods for your items, you significantly increase the odds of your Ebay business succeeding and making all of your financial dreams a reality. So what are you waiting for? Start doing your homework now!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Posted by ralph at 05:40 PM | Permalink

"Going once, going twice...", that is usually the phrase associated to the traditional practice of auctioning. This has indeed changed with the advent of the internet particularly the emergence of the ebay explosion. Ebay made auctioning a modernized one and the benefits are enormous. This is a guide on how to make money on ebay auctions.

a. Presentation counts a lot.

If you would like to make money on ebay through auctions, you should be able to devise a way to make your products more presentable to your target customers or market. In this case, presentation is everything because people are not likely to pay a high amount for something that looks like it is low in quality. Human nature dictates the habit of judging things by the way they look, thus one should exert efforts in making his or her products as enticing as possible.

b. Categorically speaking.

It is a must to position your product in the right category to make your product more visible. If it is somewhere it should really not be, chances are it will not gain the proper attention it deserves from auctions enthusiasts.

Make use of the category guide provided by ebay to help you on this matter. Also, the proper title for your item should be given major consideration since this is what buyers will be keying in if they would not want to go through the tedious task of rummaging through hundreds of categories.

c. Proper Advertisement

Advertisement is essential in any business and apparently this particularly applies to eBay auctions too. In advertising your item, its description should be given ample consideration. Too lengthy and it gets too boring. Too short and it will look not so well thought of. Being truthful with your item's description will prove to be one of the best way to do it. A picture of the item you are selling will also do great in making your product attract more traffic. Practice on producing good shots of your item to make more people appreciate the effort you put in advertising your product.

d. Starting Price Schemes

You can use various methods in pricing your item to make buyers to look at the auction.

Depending on your item, you can either price it low and wait for it to be bid up to your expected level. Ebay offers fixed pricing as an alternative. If you prefer a method wherein you will determine a certain minimum price or a reserve price you just have to be ready for the limited traffic and the extra amount you have to pay for your auction to be listed.

e. Payment Methods

If you limit your payment method to only one, say Paypal, it will lose the chance to be considered by other buyers who can afford to bid and pay using other payment methods. If you are planning to do this for a long haul, including other payment method options will help you do better in auctioning off your products.

These are only a few of the fool-proof ways to capture the attention of buyers and eventually convert them to sales. It is still important that you keep yourself updated with the other methods that other ebay sellers are employing for their auctions to do well.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:35 PM | Permalink

It's surprisingly simple to get started posting your very first auction on eBay. Here's what you need to do.

Step 1: Open an eBay seller's account.

If you've bought things on eBay, then you already have an account - just log in with it and click 'Sell' in the toolbar at the top of the page, then click 'Create a seller's account'. If you've never used eBay before, then you'll need to open an account first using the 'register' link underneath the toolbar, and then click 'Sell' and 'Create a seller's account'. The eBay site will then guide you through the process. For security, this may involve giving card details and bank information. You can register for eBay Here: http://ebay-register.auctionresourcenetwork.net

Step 2: Decide what to sell.

For your first little experiment with eBay, it doesn't really matter what you sell. Take a look around the room you're in - I'm sure there's something in there that you're not all that attached to and could put in the post. Small books and CDs are ideal first items.

Step 3: Submit your item.

Click 'Sell', and you're on your way to listing your item.

The first thing you need to do is choose a category - it's best to just type in what the item is and let eBay choose for you. Next, write a title and description. Include key words you think people will search for in the title box, and all the information you have about the item in the description box.

Now set a starting price. $0.01 is the best starting price, as it draws people in to bid who otherwise wouldn't, and items will almost never finish at such a low price. The next thing to set is the duration of the auction: 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This is up to you: longer sales will usually get more bids, but will also seem to drag on forever. If you've taken a picture, add it now - items with pictures always sell for more. Finally, tick the payment methods you will accept (just PayPal is best for now), and where you will post to (limit yourself to your own country to begin with). Submit and you're done!

Step 4: Wait for it to sell.

This is just a matter of sitting back and letting eBay do its thing - buyers will find your item and leave bids on it. Some bidders might email you with questions about the item, and you should do your best to answer these questions as quickly as you can.

Remember that if your item doesn't sell then you can list it again for free.

Step 5: Collect payment and post it.

eBay will sent your buyer emails guiding them through the process of sending you payment for the item. Make sure you have the money before you send anything.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:51 PM | Permalink

So you've decided that you want to get started as a seller on eBay. There are a few things that you really need to know before you go and throw yourself in at the deep end.

What to Sell.

First off, you need to know what it is you're going to sell: what's your speciality? You'll do far better on eBay if you become a great source for certain kind of products, as people who are interested in those products will come back to you again and again. You won't get any loyalty or real reputation if you just sell rubbish at random.

When you think about what to sell, there are a few things to consider. The most important of these is to always sell what you know. If you try to sell something that you just don't know anything about then you'll never write a good description and sell it for a good price.

You might think you're not especially interested in anything, but if you think about what kind of things you usually buy and which websites you go to most often, I'm sure you'll discover some kind of interest. If all else fails mention it to your friends and family: they'll almost certainly say "Oh, well why don't you sell...", and you'll slap your forehead.

Out of the things you know enough about, you should then consider which things you could actually get for a good enough price to resell, and how suitable they would be for posting. If you can think of something of that you're knowledgeable about and it's small and light enough for postage to be relatively cheap, then that's great!

Don't worry if you think the thing you're selling is too obscure - it isn't. There's a market for almost everything on eBay, even things that wouldn't sell once in a year if you stocked them in a shop. You'll probably do even better if you fill a niche than if you sell something common.

Tax and Legal Matters.

If you earn enough money, you should be aware that you're going to have to start paying tax - this won't be done for you. If you decide to sell on eBay on a full-time basis, you should probably register as a business.

Prepare Yourself.

There are going to be ups and downs when you sell on eBay. Don't pack it in if something goes a little wrong in your first few sales: the sellers who are successful on eBay are the ones who enjoy it, and stick at it whatever happens.

Anyone can sell on eBay, if they believe in themselves - and if you do decide it's not for you, then the start-up costs are so low that you won't really have lost anything.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 07:47 PM | Permalink

The income you get from selling items on eBay is just like the income you get from any other business: it is taxable, at least in theory. In practice, many get away without declaring profits from their eBay sales just because they're hard for the government to track. If you want to be strictly within the law and legit, though, you should be paying tax.

Income is Income.

If you make money from it, then it's income - and if it's income, then it's taxable. There is a question of scale involved, though, where the more you've sold, the more important it is to declare your eBay income. If you don't, you risk getting yourself into all sorts of trouble.

There are some rules for deciding whether your income counts as taxable or not. If you depend on the income you get from eBay, spend a lot of time on it, or just act as if you are running a business, then you need to file a Schedule C tax form and pay tax as a business.

How Do I Work Out How Much to Pay?

The 'income' you make from eBay is how much profit you make. Remember that you can subtract absolutely all of your costs from this income, like this.

Sale price - cost of item - eBay fees - PayPal fees - cost of postage - cost of packing materials = income.

For example, let's say you sell CDs for $10 each, including shipping. You pay $5 for the CDs at wholesale. That's $10 - $5 (cost) - 25c (insertion fee) - 52c (final value fee) - 30c (PayPal fixed fee) - 29c (PayPal percentage fee) - 37c (stamp) - 50c (packaging) = $2.77 income.

For reference, eBay's final value fee on a $10 item is 5.25%, while PayPal's cut is 30c + 2.9% for most sellers. These numbers will vary depending on the value of what you sell and the kind of account you have.

When you work this out at the end of the year, you can calculate your overall price for all sales, and then work out how much of that you actually received, remembering to adjust for non-paying buyers. Then just subtract what you spent on shipping and packing. There's no real need to do tax calculations on a transaction-by-transaction basis, although it is advisable to keep a printed record of everything you buy and sell.

However, there could be a few advantages to paying tax on your eBay sales - you might be able to make it back through deducting tax on your business expenses. All of the costs in the sum above that aren't profit are business expenses and so tax-deductable. You may also be able to deduct the cost of any computer equipment you buy, as well as ink and paper for your printer. You could even try something a little unusual, like deducting the cost of renting your home office from yourself.

Whatever you do, though, don't just rely on the information in this article. If you want advice about tax issues, you should really go to an accountant.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 08:36 AM | Permalink

So many books, too little time. This is the exact phrase to describe the evolution of ebooks nowadays thanks to the revolution of the internet. There are so many books to choose from and ironically, one of the best selling ebooks is the great ebooks on making money on Ebay.

These ebooks are a hit because it talks about making money-something that the world never gets tired of. Books belonging in the category, great ebooks on making money on Ebay are growing in numbers and never running out in demand.

Here are some of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay: (in random order)

1. Auction Explosion by Maria Vowell

This is one of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay. It tackles about turning your knowledge as a means of income. It could be done through creating and selling ebooks even though you are not a professional to begin with. The author claims that her book is considered as one of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay because it was a product of months and months of research regarding the best way to benefit from Ebay.

2. Auction Hints by Jim Wilson

This ebook is considered as one of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay because it talks about strategy when dealing in auctioning. Many people are not aware of the tricks of the trade which causes them a lot of loss when it comes to improving their business strategy in Ebay. It is actually the second book of the author which was a big hit for people planning to dwell in the world of Ebay. The change in rules and policies prompted the author to publish a follow up of his first book.

3. Jim Wilson's Ebay Secrets

This another ebook considered as one of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay by the same author of Auction Hints. This time, the author explores the secrets of Ebay and how a person could actually double or maximize the benefits of Ebay. This is a good read especially if you are just starting up because you could immediately have access on information that only professional businessman in Ebay only possess. This is also valuable because it would help you be aware of the treachery that is looming in every successful business venture. This is also considered as one of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay because it does not only teach the value of the business; it also helps a person be aware of his business dealings.

4. ebay Reports

This book is considered as one of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay because the information comes directly from the site itself. This book speaks about the steps and guidelines that should be applied in ebay business dealings regardless of the product. The business strategies found in this book is priceless because it came straight from the horse's mouth. The books mentioned in the article are just some of the great ebooks on making money on Ebay. There are hundreds more of the same books considered great ebooks on making money on Ebay and I assure you that each book is worth the purchase. Just pick one that would be applicable to your business and of course your business style.

*All of the aforementioned eBooks are available in the Auction Resource Network members area. Get access to these, as well as 70 other "Auction Selling" eBooks. Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here: http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Resources Box:

Claim your FREE 14 Day "Learn How to Sell on eBay" e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource Network" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Posted by ralph at 09:32 AM | Permalink