Auction Power Guide

I’ve just started selling on eBay and have been using the paypal print labels option to print postage. I’ve been using paper and taping it to my packages but would like to use labels but not sure what type to buy etc and would appreciate some guidance. I think it’s four to a page but am not quite sure.

Pooky,

I understand where you are. When I got started on eBay I too used plain paper for labels and taped it to my boxes. I soon learned from fellow eBay sellers that I should be as professional as my wallet would allow.

That meant proper boxes to ship items in, instead of the dumpster diving I would do behind every Dollar store I could find or bothering the Fed-Ex Kinko’s people for extra boxes.

And of course proper labels. So to answer your question, I started using Avery labels and have ever since. Avery supplies printer paper for many different purposes, from business cards to name tags. They also provide an array of papers that customers can use to print out their own labels. Avery offers these labels in various sizes and types (such as peel and stick ones.) But to use these labels properly, you will want to go to the Avery website to get the template you need for the particular label you are using.

Hope this helps!

Hello my name is Erick and my dad and I want to open up an eBay business selling old car parts. We have a bunch of old car parts and I wanted to know if it is worth opening a eBay business. Also, what are the pros and cons of opening it and if there is any tips on opening a business. Thank you.

Hi Erick

Opening an eBay business can be very rewarding and profitable. I would start small by listing a few parts and gaging your response from buyers as to the demand for your products.

You have 2 ways of listing your products,
1) to do the conventional auction listing.
2) Buy it now listing.

Both have their benefits and draw backs as you can imagine. I would be tempted in your case to go for the buy it now system as you are able to obtain a higher selling price I would imagine. Unless the parts you propose to sell are very rare and widely sort after.

Shipping is a very important point to think about. I would call your local UPS depot and talk to them to see what they can offer on shipping rates. Most shipping companies are always willing to talk about their prices and give brake’s to businesses who ship large volumes. Some of your smaller parts I would imagine could be shipped using USPS, Priority Mail. THey offer all the boxes free and you can pack quite a lot of weight into the boxes, up to 70lbs for a very reasonable rate.

Most eBay sellers miss a very simple listing point when selling items, that is to give good contact information. Buyers feel better and are willing to pay more if they feel they can contact the seller easy. I would not only allow them to contact me through eBay but I would also use a Skype telephone number. You can place a recorded message on it and get back to them later if necessary. This seems to give you more credibility and so more sales.

Photographs are another must have. The more pictures the better. Buyers want to see the item from many different angles. Don’t forget the buyer cant touch the item so they rely on the pictures to give them a better idea as to the condition of the item. I would not use eBay’s picture hosting as it is too expensive. Find a business’s that does picture hosting or a business the does both picture hosting and eBay templates. It will save you a lot of money over the course of a year.

eBay Templates! These are a must have. They make your listing look professional and neat. It is a proven fact that templates do increase the selling price of items. You can find many online businesses offering templates for you to use. Remember look for one that hosts your images as well as having templates. Expect to pay around $8.00 per month for their service. Some but not all of these businesses have a huge information system to help you sell on line so they are worth the investment. Also a lot offer the first 30 days free.

Payment is another option you need to consider very closely. Are you going to accept only PayPal? or will you allow customers to send you checks or money orders. The more payment options you have open the wider your market place is. A lot of older people do not like to use systems like PayPal and would rather send a check or money order. Obtaining your own payment gateway can be expensive when you first start. I f your business flourishes, then I would possibly consider one in about 12 months time.

Customers inquiries. These can be a pain, people do not tend to read the item description for some reason and will often send you a message asking about a feature you have explained in the listing. MAKE sure you always answer these questions quickly, as this shows you are a serious eBay seller and that your customers matter to you. I know it sounds stupid stating the obvious but you would be surprised at how many online sellers do not do it.

What is the cheapest way but yet the most profitable way to go on ebay? doing auctions or just running a store. I have bought some things off ebay and have my paypal account but have never checked out the costs to get setup or how much time it takes. I’d love to hear from sellers on ebay to tell me what they think.

The basic eBay store subscription costs $15.99 a month. One advantage of an eBay store is the insertion fees for store inventory range from $0.05 to $0.10 for a one month listing. You can list multiple quantities of the same item for a single insertion fee. When you compare that with $0.20 to $4.80 for a single standard auction listing, it is a bargain.

The insertion fees may be cheaper, but the final value fee (FVF) charged when an item is sold from an eBay store is significantly higher. The fee is almost double the final value fee of a standard auction. For example, the FVF for a $100 item selling in an eBay store is $7.75. For an auction, the FVF is $3.75. This difference in FVF needs to be factored in when deciding whether to list an item as a store listing or as an auction listing.

The main disadvantage of using an eBay store is the store inventory only appears in the main search results when there are 30 or fewer auctions and fixed-price listings found. This means if you are trying to sell a very popular item in an eBay store, it will not will not be included in the standard search results. This makes it very difficult for buyers to find store items.

An eBay store works best if you have multiple quantities of the same item. The best strategy is to list one unit as an auction and list the rest in the store. When buyers see the auction listing, they may check the other items that are listed for sale by the seller. This list will include items from the seller’s eBay store. Buyers may chose to buy the unit out of your store instead of waiting for the auction to end.

Good Luck,
Bill
Visit http://www.newlifeauctions.com for more eBay tips.

The Dallas Cowboys Web-site allows season ticket holders to post tickets, but every season ticket holder lists them above face value. What is the cheapest method…anyone?

Being that I am a ticket broker, it is possible to purchase cheap cowboys tickets. The trick is to find them. The best sources are ebay, Stubhub and discounts on ticket broker web-sites. Some times you can find season ticket holders on Ticketmaster that sell their seats cheap by accident, but not the norm. Also, the Cowboys will release their seats before the season starts on ticketmaster, but it normally starts with season ticket purchases, then if remaining seats will be sold individually. For the absolute cheapest, you can purchase seats below face value for preseason games, but not regular season games. The regular season games will be above the face value, but not really, since season ticketholders all paid a premium option fee that is factored into the ticket price.

If you have the patience, you should wait until the day of the game, and all ebay sellers will be asking below face value…i know that since i have done that every year. When tickets dont sell, sellers will just about give them away. Since the cowboys schedule isn’t filled with big games, their is a great chance of this happening again…i would go to vegas on that bet.

If you are giving them as a gift and can’t wait, best bet are the following: Stubhub, ebay auction style sells, or a ticket broker like eticketcentral (my web-site). Stubhub allows individuals to sell at any price and there are often great deals that occur or tickets priced incorrectly cheap. ebay auction sales require many people to bid, and it is very possible to catch a slow moment. Else, other broker web-sites will have 10% discounts like my web-site. The bottom line price will normally beat stubhub, but maybe not ebay. You can always request a discount at my web-site, and we will give you one. Above all else, shop around. My web-site is: http://www.eticketcentral.com

Hey to all eBay sellers out there have you find that your sales are decreasing in anyway with the credit crunch?

Thanks for your input.

Possibly – our ebay sales were down 85% on last Christmas. However I also firmly beleive that ebay themselves have failed sellers by introducing their new search format in September 2008; our sales started falling dramatically from this point!

I just started selling items on ebay. The last few items that I shipped have been light weighted and the shipping is about $10.00… I think it is way too much money. Especially if I will be shipping constantly. Is it because of the size of the box? Please Help.

Figuring out the most economical shipping methods for your eBay sales can be complicated. Here’s a few rules of thumb. For books, CDs, DVDs, etc., use USPS Media Mail – you can ship a 10 pound box of books for under $6! For non-media items under about 5 pounds and not oddly shaped, USPS Parcel Post is generally the cheapest. For heavier items, UPS becomes competitive, especially if you purchase through Paypal.

Here’s an article with additional tips and more detail: http://www.ehow.com/how_4799738_pitfalls-made-new-ebay-sellers.html

The fees for selling on ebay suck sometimes. I once put some thing for sale for a dollar and free shipping.(just to see how it would turn out) and after the fees and everything i wound up owing them money!

what are some money saving tips?!

I never use the free shipping option – all that does is raise your final value, so you end up paying a higher fee! If you add your own small fee to actual shipping costs, you can offset the costs of packaging.

Also, the better you tailor your listings toward a specific set of buyers, the higher your bids will be.

Here are a couple of articles:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4887097_money-selling-ebay.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_4799738_pitfalls-made-new-ebay-sellers.html

I am thinking of getting a new computer, not right now, but soon cause ours is 7 years old and a bit slow and with updates not supporing the old windows packages and some other issues too, we want to either upgrade or buy new.

so what i would like to know in your opinion which make/company is the best to go to, give the best sales service (ie don’t try to sell you the highest priced rubbish, promising it does what i want and find that the graphics card is worse than we got now say!

also want a company that if i should need them, have good after sales service too. often a sore point with computer stores/co’s

right I am after a good, reasonable priced, fast machine, with good graphics and sounds for game play, as well as home/office like MSworks/broadband, decent basic software, without loads of school child programs, not lookiing to buy via ebay sellers either.

does anyone just do the tower, without mouse/keyboard cause we got good ones?

thanks in advance for any sensible advise

This is U.K. Answers, so I’m going to assume you live in the U.K.
I had my system built by a local shop that I checked had been in business for a while. I found them by word of mouth advertising. They asked me what I wanted to be able to do on the p.c. and helped me design a system within my budget. The price included set up and delivery.
I’ve had to call them out three times. Twice I got a quick response and the problem was fixed at my home for £30 – £50. The other time they talked me through what to do on the phone and there was no charge.

If you can’t find anywhere like this, then think about somewhere a bit pricier like Evesham. Frankly, all the big companies will sell you a system using the lowest grade components they can use, slapped together in a factory. Profit margins are so low that its a wonder any of them are still in business. They get their money back from the expensive phone support.

Well this is what is happening, I have purchased $60 worth of goods from Ebay off several different suppliers. At the time i went to pay the the people i actually had $0.00 in my paypal, My mum said i can still pay for the items and paypal will take it as a credit thing. Two days later i put $60 in the paypal account, i waited for the payments to clear for several days and then it saild Declined "Insufficient funds"

I used the pay now button from ebay to pay with paypal the first time, the second time i tried to pay (With the money now on my paypal) I could not click on the pay now button from ebay so i simply clicked the "Send money" on paypal to the sellers correct payment email address. All good and well, But they still say they have not received payments and will cancel the sale if the money does not clear in 4 days.

Paypal said that the payment was sent on the 3rd of Feb its now the 17th of Feb! whats going on?

Is it possible to claim back that money if i may of sent it to a email address that is wrong or anything like that?

Thanks in advance,

>> HyperSpeed <<

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This has been happening to me.

I changed my primary email with Ebay and Paypal. I had to go into my Ebay store and change that email address on every item in my store.
You made a purchase, and Paypal defaults BACK to the old email address, which is no longer connected to my account. You send the money there, I cannot get it.
Then you have all the hoops to jump through to fix the problem.

First- Go to the item and check on payment. It should send you to the Paypal transaction. If it says that seller has not claimed the money, then BINGO! it went to the wrong address.

Second- Cancel the payment.

Third- Contact the seller and ask for the correct email address to make payment to, or better yet, ask for a new invoice with the correct email.

Fourth – Make payment again.

Would be so much easier if Ebay and Paypal were not so greedy that they accept payment to email addresses without accounts.

Used items in very good condition or better offer a good value against the same new product. When things are tight – like they are this season – sales of used items may be pretty good.

All sales will slide in January as people begin to pay off Christmas credit debt. Necessary items (winter clothing, baby supplied, household goods) will be okay, as will inexpensive entertainment items (DVDs, books, music).