Thursday, December 10, 2009

10 Steps To Successful Selling On Ebay.

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.

Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it’s not always as easy as that – there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider. The next email will weigh up the case for and against taking up eBay full-time.

10 Steps to Successful Selling on eBay

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 are the best rates you can get. 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.

Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it's not always as easy as that -  there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider.

10 Safety Tips For Buying On eBay

eBay has become a household name for shoppers. A lot the buyers on eBay are not regular internet shoppers but they still shop on eBay. Such is the power of eBay giving simplicity of shopping and top bargains. From time to time, there is some fraud on eBay about fake fashion items, event tickets that do not exist, some expensive electronic items that do not exist.

eBay does its best to intervene and resolve such disputes. As a shopper, you can follow these 10 safety tips to avoid being conned.

1. Check the seller’s feedback. Positive feedback rating of over 95% is good. If there are many recent negative feedbacks, then this is not a good indication. Also, read all the negative feedbacks. Are these negative feedbacks reasonable? What type of response does the seller have for these feedbacks? Does the seller’s defense sound reasonable? Sometimes new members who buy items on eBay are paranoid and they leave a negative feedback in a haste so make sure if the seller has defended himself/ herself in a reasonable manner. If there are too many complaints of the same nature, then it is probably true.

2. The sellers must have some kind of identification or recognition seal like Paypal verified, or Square trade or a Powerseller seal on the auctions. Such sellers are more reliable. This is especially a good check when you buying an expensive item.

3. Ask seller a question before bidding on the item. Responsible sellers reply promptly to questions. Also, if the seller actually has the item, he/ she maybe able to answer a valid question otherwise not.

4. If you are buying something expensive, then get the contact information of the seller at http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQtZvbQQsofindtypeZ9. You have to login to your eBay account and send a request. You can get the seller’s address and phone number. In doing this, your address and phone number will also be emailed to the seller.

5. The items must have pictures unless it is a service that is sold on eBay. If there is no picture, then the items is probably not there. Almost all sellers will put at least one picture of the item. Let’s assume that the item is there but the seller has been lazy in not putting the picture in the auction ad. Would you like to deal with someone who is so careless? It just shows that the item may not be in good condition, maybe defective or broken.

6. Check description of the item. Research other websites for the same item. Some of the shopping websites to research would be shopping.yahoo.com, overture.com and shopping.msn.com. These sites are adequate for researching items and get the description that you need. The eBay description should match item description on other sites.

7. Research prices for the item on sale. If the item on sale is Gucci handbags, then search for this model of handbag on shopping.yahoo.com. If it retails for $800 on Yahoo and seller on eBay is selling a brand new one for $90, then this item may not be authentic! Large wholesaler are able to sell items for around 50% of retail but something like an original Gucci handbag, it is unlikely that a seller would let go for $90 because these items sell like crazy. Just a note on fraud items – a lot of fraud eBay occurs on fashion items. This is very unfortunate and eBay has taken a lot of steps to eliminate fraud.

8. If the seller has not mentioned any shipping and handling terms, then ask before bidding. There are many auction ads, where the seller mentions that shipping and handling will mentioned to the winning bidder. Surprisingly, there are bids on that item! If you start bidding on the item, then it means that you agreed to the terms and condition of the sellers and there is less room for you to dispute later so ask for the clear instruction on shipping and handling.

9. Reliable sellers have clear description on their refund policy. If it is not there, then ask the seller for it. If the seller has no refund policy, then do not bid on the item. If the there is no refund policy in the auction description, then make sure you get the refund policy in an email from the seller. In this way, you have a document of the refund policy.

10. Do a search for the sellers past items on eBay. Check to see if the seller has sold similar items in the past. To search on the past auctions, go to the Advanced Search page. Here click on the items by seller link and type in the sellers ID and check the box for Include Completed listing. It is always good to check this especially if you are considering buying something expensive.


10 Great Ways To Source Low Cost Products For Ebay.

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.

After all that trouble, though, when do sell the item you might find that a buyer leaves you a feedback rating you just don’t think is fair. The next email will show you what to do about it.

9 Reasons To Do Joint Venture Deals On eBay

eBay is THE most popular home business in the USA, but it's not without its problems. Many have tried to succeed but have failed due to confusion over what products to sell, giant numbers of competitors, copy and picture theft from other sellers and eBay and Paypal that eat into profits.

One way to avoid this swamp, though, is to do a Joint Venture with established eBay sellers. This allows a JV partner to build her own mailing list and sell products off eBay.

There are multiple advantages to this way of doing business on eBay:

1. The biggest uncertainty for would-be eBay sellers is what products to sell. Sometimes vendors risk large sums of money on untried products, only to lose their investment, become sour and give up. With a Joint Venture there is no risk except for a few hours of time.

2. Since there are no auctions listed on eBay, no one can  steal copy or pictures from JV sellers - because there is nothing to copy. In effect, we become invisible - no one even knows we exist and this hidden aspect has many advantages.

3. eBay JVs are usually done with a digital product that can be instantly downloaded.  This is great for any entrepreneur because inexpensive autoresponders mean that her entire business is handled via autopilot. Contrast this with the usual way of doing business on eBay which involves mailing dozens, hundreds or even thousands of boxes.

4. eBay and Paypal have lots of rules. It's easy to break some unwittingly, and even the most honest seller does so from time to time. A JV merchant isn't answerable to eBay, however, but only to her customers.

5. A JV seller never directly lists on eBay, thus avoiding eBay and Paypal fees.

6. Successful Powersellers have large numbers of customers and there are lots of administrative details involved. Implementing a sales system can cost time and money because without attention to detail packages won't be mailed in a timely fashion, payments won't be accurate, items will be sent to the wrong buyers, and so on. A JV partner eliminates all of that because all transactions can be funneled through a hands-off system.

7. eBay selling lives or dies through the 'feedback' system. Negative feedback can kill sales instantly and lack of feedback causes buyers to hesitite and choose other sellers. Feedback is totally irrelevant to a Joint Venture seller because she is using the reputation of carefully chosen other sellers. She knows in advance that their feedback is high quality or she doesn't do deals with them.

8. Inexperienced sellers sometimes drag wiser merchants into price wars. In a panic over sales, they foolishly slash prices, beginning a chain reaction that results in bare bones bids that allow no one to make any money. A Joint Venture seller floats serenely above such hiccups in the marketplace.

9. Best of all, a JV seller doesn't settle for a one time sale. She concentrates her efforts on a mailing list of happy customers that she can sell to again and again and again. In this way, not only is she ensuring repeate profits, but she gets paid for creating this list, rather than having to pay someone else for names.

With its 147,000,000 registered users, eBay is the best source of targeted, Net-savvy buyers on the web. By putting together Joint Venture deals with established sellers, anyone can add large numbers of qualified buyers to their database efficiently and inexpensively.


7 Ways To Outsell Other Ebook Resellers On Ebay

How would you like to have your car payment or mortgage paid for?  Or perhaps you would like to quit your job and work part time from the comfort of your home?

Whatever your dreams are, selling ebooks and software with resell or master resell rights can help make them a reality!  But what if you are not a savvy  internet marketer?  Well, eBay is an easy and great place to start.  It is also a great source of supplemental income even for seasoned resell rights marketers.

But, with increased competition on eBay among ebook resellers, an effective strategy is a must have to continue to grow your ebook business effectively.  Don’t ever let the seemingly low prices and the thought of resell rights saturation discourage you from reaping large financial rewards.  I have been selling ebooks and software on eBay for 3 years now and have developed and refined 7 tried and true tactics that will allow you to resale ebooks for up to 10 times the price of your competition.

The secret is in the listing title!  Below are 7 ways to maximize your traffic, conversion and profit using smart listing strategies.

1.  Keyword Rich Listing Title

This tip is not unknown but is still rarely used.  Most people who sell ebooks with resell rights simply list their item on eBay using the “actual name” of the product for the listing title.

For example, “James Jackson's Giveaway Gold” is listed by many sellers by it’s title.  In reality this is an ebook on how to build your email list.  If you were looking for a guide on how to build your mailing list would you type in “James Jackson’s Giveaway Gold?“  Not if you have never heard of such an ebook!  It should be listed as “Build Create Make Your Mailing Email List”.  This would be a wise use of relevant keywords and phrases which will bring in the greatest amount of traffic to that listing.  You can find these targeted keywords with a free keyword search tool.

2.   Understand What You Are Selling

If you don’t know what you are selling how can you give it a proper listing title?  Be sure to read the sales page that it comes with.  Often times you can find useful keywords and phrases in the sales page that will help you list it correctly.

3.  Check Out Your Competitor’s Listing Titles

Do this before you pick your listing title.  As you start writing down possible keywords and phrases to use in your title, cross check them on eBay to see if any other of the same products pull up.  Be sure to choose the keywords and phrases that give you the fewest competitors.

4.  Use Misspellings To Your Advantage

People’s inability to spell means money for you.  For example, a product that has to do with “Google Adsense” can also be written as “Google Ad Sense,” or even Goggle Adsense.”

5.  Cross Positioning

A great example of this would be having an ebook on coin collecting but listing it as coin collecting with metal detector.  There may be nothing in your ebook on metal detectors but no doubt anyone who pulls up metal detectors will see your ebook on coins and bingo, you just created a niche listing with no competitors.

6.  Name Recognition Tie In

This is a great way to pull in brand name recognition traffic even though you aren’t selling the product with the name.  An example of this would be if you were selling an ebook on how to create a pay per click search engine.  You could list the title as something like “Make A Pay Per Click Search Engine Like Google Adwords.”

Another benefit to using all 6 of these techniques is that often times the resellers won’t find you very easily.  Resellers will be looking at other resellers and trying to copy their titles while undercutting their listing price.  Because most of them are looking for the actual name of the product, you will be virtually invisible to them.

7. Put Your Ebook On CD

Now that you have positioned yourself on eBay away from the rest, burn your ebooks to CD.  Why on a CD?  You can increase the price as well as charge shipping and handling.  You can easily charge $4.99 for shipping when in fact it costs less than half that to pay for the CD and shipping materials.

There you have it.  Now you can be the ebook reseller you have always wanted to be and start pulling in easy cash, the smart way!


7 Ways To Enhance High Priced Items On Ebay

Just like any eBay auction, you as the seller must have a powerful listing with attention-grabbing photos. It does not matter what type of object you want to sell. If potential buyers see it well presented on eBay, the chances of a sale only increase.

1) Price

Always decide the lowest possible amount you will accept for each object and set that price as the reserve. Make your opening bid as low as possible. If you foolishly start the bid at the price of the object, there is no doubt that you will lose customers. Keep in mind that people shop on eBay because that is where they want to get items very cheap. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand this method. That is just how business is done on eBay.

2) Shipping

In order to keep everyone protected, you should insist that the potential buyer purchases shipping insurance. Try very hard not to make this a simple little option to be brushed off. You do not want to be held responsible if there is a problem getting a high priced item to the buyer. Stop and look everything over twice if the buyer does not want insurance.

3) Item Packing

Use a significant amount of space on your auction listing that explains how you will pack your item and send it. This is of major importance because the potential buyer wants to make sure that they will receive the item in excellent condition. If you say in your listing that it will be delivered in excellent condition, then they expect it that way. A buyer who wants a high priced item will always be thinking of the problems in case they receive a damaged item. You need to ensure them that they will get the item the same way it is presented on eBay.

4) Quality

Do everything in your power to prove that your item is of the best quality, or in other words, genuine. This one aspect could mean the difference between a sale and a dead item. A few questions to ask yourself as the seller are, is the object in the original package?, is it labeled correctly?, and are there any markings on the item? Be sure to take pictures of the item at all angles in and out of the package to ensure it is genuine.

5) Satisfaction Guarantee

This tip is another one of all time importance. Be sure to give the buyer a “satisfaction guarantee” type notice. Any buyer that is bidding on a high priced item will want to be able to send it back in the event that that they are unsatisfied or if the item is defective in any way. If someone is not satisfied and sends your item back, there is a high probability that it will be broken. This step will build credibility to you as the seller and will hopefully result in more future sales.

6) International Shipping

If you are planning on shipping worldwide, you will need to take special steps to protect yourself. Many countries outside the United States are full of fraudulent buyers. Be sure that you have insurance for yourself and do some research on the area you will be shipping to. If you need help with this part, eBay will provide services to help you out. 

7) Escrow Service

With a high priced item, you should always offer the option of an escrow service. Charge the buyer the extra fee in case they want it. Even if they do not want it, keep it available as an option. As the seller, you already know the item is legitimate; however, the potential buyer is not so sure.