Auction Power Guide

Hi there I just wondered is there anyone out there who has any tips and hints on making a living selling on ebay. Ive heard there are people who do this but I wonder how this is possible. When I look at the various products on sale there dont seem to be many people bidding and it looks quite hard to make a profit. Ive started buying a few items to get positive feedback but when i have say about ten of these where do I go from there?

It is difficult to make a living on eBay!

Most things I sell are used items, but its hard to find what the buyer wants – things that you think will sell or get the highest number of bids, often take the longest time to shift and the things that you think are not so good and won’t get any interest often go for a lot more than you think….

For example…. I make handmade cards, which are really lovely, not giddy and totally worth the money I am asking for them, and yet I struggle to sell them, not because of the price I’m asking, its because people go to the local newsagent or card shop to buy them and don’t think to look for things like that on ebay – on the other hand – I just recently sold a pair of curtains that I was embarrassed to get the money I did for them (not that they were shoddy or anything – perfectly nice pair of curtains) but certainly not worth the 25 dollars someone bid for them! AND just in case you were thinking – the buyer absolutely loved them! sent me an email when she’d received them and gave me awesome feedback!

I personally look at ebay as a way to make a little extra money, when the kiddies have outgrown things, and when I find I no longer use something! I usually put money I earn towards their new seasonal wardrobe (I have 2 young kiddies that are growing like crazy at the moment!) and must admit that it helped at christmas this year too!

I think for you to be able to get a really good living on eBay, you have to have a really good product, a niche in the market, or at least a product that you have enough of that you can get to the top of the page so to speak (eg if you have 100 of an item at buy it now, you will be higher up the page than if you have only 1 of an item to sell!)

Sorry if I sound negative, but just trying to be realistic! The more you sell (or buy) the more accustomed you become to what products are selling and what aren’t! And at the same time, what is worth actually putting on ebay and what is better to just chuck in the bin! I have listed some things loads of times and its got to the point now where even if I sell at a decent price (what the items worth) then I already spent that on listing fees!

Do research! Just have a browse at what you think may sell, and do international searches on both open and closed listings! Its very time consuming, but if you have a product in mind, you can at least see where the land lies!

Good luck with your Ebaying – Hope it all works well for you!

I deal in travel related products such as sacks, shoes, tents and other articles. I want to do online marketing for them. Considering all the modes of online marketing, in what equation I should spend my money for it?

Honestly, you need to focus on a niche segment and very specific websites/sections of portals. Also it depends on the geographic reach you want to have for these campaigns.

You can also resort to a lot of guirella marketing techniques.

You can host your products in Ebay/Rediff/Indiatimes shopping sections to create awareness and sales as well.

You can sponsor a gift hamper for registration etc and run some campaign through banners on various famous portals. You can check www.alexa.com to see the top 100 websites in India.

You can have a banner on all travel portal and travel info websites.

You can run google ad campaigns on related search keywords coming from a specific geographic region.

Its really hard to decide a ratio, but it all really depends on the budget you have at hand.

If anyone can help me with this, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Hi there,

It’s quite easy to set up the store it’s self, you just need to design the website around some shopping cart software so that people can purchase online. If you didn’t want to do this yourself you could outsource it and get someone at Elance to do it for you.

The hard part is then getting traffic to it. The best way we found with our online store was that we started by selling on ebay and building up a name for ourselves on there while we slowly built up the traffic and sales to the website shop. I’d also highly recommend using Google adwords to drive specific traffic there. Adwords works really well but does also take some time to perfect and maintain.

We actually now use some software that holds a database and we just put the description and photo’s in once and then it lists it both on eBay and the website.

Just remember to build it up can be a slow process so don’t get dishearted if the sales come slowly at first, just keep working hard and you’ll get there.

Also if your spending alot of time online you might want to look at a "pay to surf" site like AGLOCO that will give you some extra income for being online.

I hope this helps you out.

Cheers, ToNy!
"Success.Trail"

P.S. you might also want to do some clever off line marketing for the site….. my first idea was giving away free bookmarks with the site name and details on at the library’s.

P.P.S if you want to stand out from the competition i’d recommend you get super fast shipping…. there’s nothing better than ordering online 1 day and getting it 1 or 2 days later. I always buy again from those sites.

P.P.P.S You will also need to set yourself apart from the competition like amazon and have a point of difference that you can market. Maybe you should look at setting up smaller niche book stores. e.g. 1 site for cook books, 1 site for gardening books
This way they are normally better to optimize in the search engines like Google and easier to start up because your not trying to do everything to start with. You could also offer a range of E-Books on there to download for a certain price.

I’ve had this site for a while now. I’ve been selling my stuff to family and friends and sometimes word of mouth. Now everything is going really slow. I need the money to pay bills. I want to quit because there are no more sales. Someone please help me. I want my business to be more advertising. How can I do that?

Hi there,

You could try to increase the traffic to your website through Blogging about your particular niche along with article writing. You also may need to work on Search Engine Optimization or look at paid advertising on yahoo………. it works very well.

You could also try offering a bonus (product, e book or report or something) to customers who refer friends to your site.

you could also try selling your same products on eBay to increase your product sales and if you get well known on there and put your website in your about me page this will also increase your traffic to your main site.

At my business we started on ebay and did really well and we are currently building up the traffic and popularity of the website.

You may also want to try some Public Relations/Publicity Stunts to increase your Profile in the local community. It’s normally pretty easy to get publicity in the paper’s by donating to a worthy cause, or if you don’t have the money to donate why don’t you organize some other type of charity event to raise money this way it only takes you time to organize……..

Hopefully every time you sell a product you are getting the customers to opt into your emailing list, this way you can keep them up to date with new information about yourself or send them out special offers….. This works very well because you know they are interested in your products and they have bought of you before.

I hope this helps you out and if you want to email me your website i’d be interested in taking a look.

Cheers, ToNy!
"Success.Trail"

P.S. if you are spending a bit of time online it may also be worth looking at building up a couple of other MSI’s (Multiple Sources of Income) for example affiliate sites, advertising on your site for other company’s and "Paid to Surf" sites like www.agloco.com.au

Starting your own home business on eBay can be a fun and lucrative endeavor, especially if you find a popular niche, such as designer handbags or accessories. But many sellers are finding out that the items that thought were low-priced, high-quality designer goods are really very good imitations of the real thing. Besides the fact that the seller is now part of something much larger – and very illegal – selling counterfeit goods can get your eBay business shut down permanently if you get caught, even if you had no idea you were doing it in the first place.

The VeRO program was developed by eBay to help designer brands combat counterfeit items. Since eBay has a hard time policing the millions of listings on their website every day, VeRO lets the brand themselves do the policing. Since designer brands are usually the most knowledgeable about what is a legitimate product, and what is a counterfeit, you can find your auctions being suspended. This is an excellent way to prevent buyers from being duped in to paying high prices for fake designer goods – but where does that leave the seller?

Unfortunately, sellers don’t really have much recourse in this situation. Often time, they are left with an overabundance of counterfeit goods, and nothing to do with them. The companies that manufacturer these knock offs aren’t usually responsive to requests for refunds, since they’re often times nothing more than a few individuals using stolen fabric from the actual designer to create these goods themselves. Most of the time, they are overseas, and therefore cannot be prosecuted, or even tracked down for a refund.

Instead, sellers need to know how to tell a counterfeit from an original designer accessory. Becoming an expert on every designer overnight is impossible, but with some common sense and good resources, you can double-check every good you want to sell, before you purchase it yourself. To start, there are few companies that offer their handbags and accessories for whole sale. Neither Burberry nor Louis Vuitton offer their items to the public for resale; their products are only sold through licensed vendors. That means there is nowhere to find discounted Burberry of Louis Vuitton items, so right away, you should scratch these brands off your list. Anything you find from a wholesaler with these names on them, are 100% definitely counterfeit.

Other popular brands include Gucci, Prada, Dooney & Bourke, and Coach. While these are often sold at discounted rates from overstock, use your common sense. Dooney & Bourke bags are probably the most low-end of the bunch, so it wouldn’t be uncommon to find a wholesaler offering them for a low price. However, Gucci and Prada typically do not sell handbags or accessories that are under the $500 mark, so if you find a wholesaler who is offering these brands for pennies on the dollar, steer clear – this is almost always a counterfeit scam.

When in doubt about a particular item’s authenticity, simply ask the wholesaler for the serial numbers that are listed inside every handbag and accessory. Some of the designer brand websites offer a tool that allows you to enter the serial number right on their site to see what handbag was manufactured to match it. Other brands have a toll-free number you can call with the serial number to verify its authenticity. If the serial number is a forgery, or is linked to a product other than the one you intend to purchase, you know you are dealing with counterfeit items.

Do not fall prey to the counterfeit designer good scams. Often times, sellers will knowingly sell these fake goods because they know the items sell, which is a bad idea. It’s just not worth it to make a few extra bucks. So use your common sense, and know what you’re buying and selling.

Vickie Sayce
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/protect-yourself-from-selling-counterfeit-items-on-ebay-690207.html

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.

Peter R

The answer to this really depends on the product you are selling, and you need to take all the selling factors into consideration before making a decision. Obviously it would be ideal if you could cover all your costs within the selling price of your product, but if you’re selling e-books for a cent or two each you’re obviously not going to be able to do that.

But the only investment into that e-book will be the amount of time it takes you to write it. There are no physical costs involved – you don’t need to buy it in multiples and you don’t need to stock it. It’s safely stored on your computer and you can send out as many copies as you like without it costing you anything.

A tangible product will have a unit price, but it may be sold at a slightly higher price than the e-book. You will also need to figure postage and packaging costs into the picture, although postage is usually paid for by the customer – unless you decide to offer free postage of course. Overall you could find the loss taken on each product will turn out to be the same, even though one has a higher price than the other.

We’ve talked about looking at these low priced eBay sales as a form of advertising; you’re not going on eBay to make money, for more details visit to www.auction-words.com you’re offering several products that are extremely low in price in order to attract the attention of the niche customers you’re after. It’s those valuable follow up sales and sign ups to the newsletter you send out informing people of your latest (and higher priced) products that is the ultimate goal to aim for.

What you are essentially doing is offering loss leaders as bait to attract new customers. Loss leaders are a form of promotion in which you’ll take a hit on that first sale in order to obtain bigger and more profitable sales later on. In short, it’s a trade off – lose some money now to earn more in the future.

The best way to keep tabs on your eBay ventures is to set yourself a realistic budget to stick to. Make sure it’s an amount of money you and your business can afford, for more details visit to www.auction-professional.com and set it aside to pay for your eBay listings and associated fees. It should also cover the cost of buying any tangible items you want to sell.

In this way it’s much like setting a budget for advertising; you might have a hundred dollars set aside for the purpose, but you just need to decide how to spend it.

Obviously the cheaper the selling price, the cheaper your listings and final value fees will be, but you should still keep tabs on what you are offering for sale, and how successful each product is. If something isn’t performing as well as it should be, try tweaking the title and the price a little, and if it still doesn’t draw in the customers you should think about dropping it and replacing it with another product that has more potential.

jaswinder
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/should-your-auction-cover-ebay-selling-fees-upfront-729368.html

Has eBay been one of your online money makers in most recent memory? Did you ever stop to think how much work you put in each day, yet the website itself doesn’t lift a figure? Basically, they came up with the right software to allow others to do all the work while they collect small listing fees from millions of people. It’s a great idea, but the Site Sell Auction Sellers eBay Course wants to put more power in your hands. Here, we’ll explain more below.

Understand This Upfront

This informational product isn’t going to tell you to stop selling on eBay. They won’t be suggesting that you quit using eBay all together. Most important, they don’t want you to start over from scratch. However, what they do want you to do can change the amount of money you make with eBay forever. How? Well, it all starts with the information the Site Sell Auction Sellers course gives you.

Things like thinking outside the box and developing a bigger concept or finding a niche. Then utilizing all the tools that they give you to have traffic coming your way like never before. Did you know you can have multiple streams of income through eBay? No, not just from selling different items, but actually uses different facets of their site. These are all things the SSAS course offers and plans to help you learn.

The Rest of the Site Sell Pitch

After talking about all the benefits they have to offer, the SSAS course starts getting into the “Big Three” that are most important. Don’t worry, this is one of the smaller informational landing pages we’ve found. The good news is they are still able to get their point across with minimal text. Talking about targeted traffic, diversifying, and building equity in your business can definitely get the wheels spinning.

They even give you a hint into why these three are so important and one of the reasons is if eBay decided to up their listing fees. Actually, their remarks were geared towards tripling the fees and how you can take all your traffic, subscribing lists, and everyone else to a different auction site. This analogy simply reminds us that all good things do come to an end and at some point in time someone else bigger and better than eBay will come along. They’re just saying why not be ready for the inevitable.

Our Overall Analysis

You know they do make a good point that many of us rely on eBay’s traffic a little too much to sell our items. So why not build your own traffic and get more bids and higher ending auctions. It’s only going to be more money in your pocket right? Since we tell everyone to do their own research on a company we review, you will find additional information at the bottom of their page. There is a quick tour link you can click on to get more information or simply talk to a representative. Both ways will be sufficient, but do whichever one makes you feel comfortable. Good luck.

Brian Garvin

I have been an Ebay powerseller for a number of years and have bought and sold thousands of items on ebay. But as a seller, one of the drawbacks we find with Ebay is the high cost of their fees. It is true that ebay does allow eBay Store owners can reduce their fees by listing with fixed price formats, but still the fees will take quite a chunk out of your profits.

One problem / advantage is that Ebay rules the online auction market and has milliions of visitors each and every day. You must use ebay if you want massive amounts of traffic, high bidding wars, ludicrus fees, megolithic dominance and undeniable sales. The fees on ebay should be a deterant to anyone who wants start up a business selling on online auctions, but the amount of customers coming through your virtual storefront seem to never end. 

It may sound like I am promoting ebay, and I am!  Anyone with half a brain should be selling on ebay.  NO doubt about that.  BUT you also need to supplement your income with alternative sources, Amazon, Bonanzle, RoboBomb, Bidtopia are all ideal resources for additional sales and profit.  What if ebay decides to change more rules… they will… what if those rules do not work well with your business?  You could be in trouble.  Dont let that happen.  Get other outlets for sales and start today.

My favorite free auction site is RoboBomb.com, the potential of this site is HUGE! All fees are optional. RoboBomb really needs more sellers and the buyers will be piling up. RoboBomb has a growing Social Network through Myspace, Facebook and YouTube.  This site will grow. Get into it now and reap the benefits of a exploding resource!

RoboBomb Auctions
http://www.articlesbase.com/online-education-articles/alternative-to-ebay-niche-745005.html

bay is widely considered the digital flea-market of the Internet. But for many savvy infopreneurs, Ebay is a goldmine. And to them, selling ebooks on eBay is wildly profitable.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying they are banking big checks from selling ebooks on eBay at $1 for a bundle of 100 of them! No. These smart infopreneurs are looking on eBay in the right sense – as a huge gathering place of eager, ready to buy customers.

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You could get into their midst, scream yourself hoarse about your ebooks, and make a few sales. Or you could go about the process of segmenting and selling your ebooks to the perfect targets – and make a lot more sales at far less effort or expense.

To get it right, you need to understand the process.

#1 – Having your product funnel

Are you planning to get rich by selling your ebook on ebay for $19 – and doing it over and over, many times? Forget that. It’s hard work.

Instead, create your own product funnel. This means having a series of products or services – ebooks, reports, courses, homestudy programs, seminars, coaching and mentoring sessions and more – on the theme of your expertise.

#2 – Segment your audience

Then, write an ebook and offer it for sale on eBay – at a mouth-watering low price that’s hard to resist.

This is the wide mouth of the funnel, designed to attract as many interested prospects who are good candidates for buying your other products and service. The main purpose of your ebook here is to find those people on eBay who are interested in your niche or theme.

#3 – Educate your buyers about the value you offer

Once you’ve got a list of customers from selling ebooks on eBay, communicate with them regularly. Give them valuable information, coaching, education and resources to improve their life. While you do this, educate them about the value you offer.

For instance, don’t just give away a collection of links to helpful websites. First, mention how you spent 14 hours surfing the Web, checking out hundreds of other websites, looking for only the very best resources that offered the highest value without wasting a user’s time. You should visit us at www.eazy-ebook-money.com. Then share how you sifted through the list, and compiled the best of the lot into this special report, which you are sharing with only valued clients, because you care about them!

#4 – Sell your eBay list your higher value items

Once you have established a trusting relationship with the list you build from selling ebooks on eBay, you can now offer them more value at a higher price point and still have a fair number of them take you up on it.

This sequential approach has helped you turn a $1 buyer on eBay into a life-long client who willingly spends increasingly higher amounts with you because you offer more value.

Selling ebooks on eBay is not a route to instant profits. But if you know what you’re doing and have a structured approach to business building, it can be very lucrative. eBay being a dynamic marketplace, things change very rapidly. To stay on top of things, you must constantly study and educate yourself on the nuances of being a better infopreneur. This way, you can make eBay your goldmine too.

Akshay Sharma
http://www.articlesbase.com/ebooks-articles/selling-ebooks-on-ebay-is-really-very-lucrative-686248.html