Auction Power Guide

I am wanting to sell my Twilight cards on ebay. I am really overwhelmed please help. Any information is greatly apreciated.

Generally, you want to save on listing fees and let the (ebay) market to set the closing price. In most cases, this means starting the initial price at $9.99 or less. However, the only exception is for expensive items. With the current recession and sales at ebay (and most everywhere else) soft now, you don’t want to get burned. Use you discretion with expensive items.

Some tips that may be helpful to you……….

Be honest and accurate in your descriptions – One-sentence descriptions are for lazy sellers. One paragraph should be sufficient for most items. My general guideline is the more expensive (read higher priced) an item, the more you should ‘talk it up.’ It won’t be time wasted. Use lots of adjectives in your descriptions. Adjectives make prose and your items come alive. Without them, prose is dull and your items less appealing. Just add a little ‘sizzle’ and even have a little fun with it. In short, make your descriptions stand out above the crowd.

Be professional – use good English with no spelling errors

PICTURES:

ALWAYS include at least one picture, more pictures for higher priced items. Make sure your pictures are clear. There are far too many pictures on ebay that are dark. If prospective buyers can’t see your items clearly, your items, more than likely, will not fetch the closing prices they deserve. To remove darkness, use any photo editor to add some brightness and a wee bit of contrast.

Eliminate clutter. Prospective bidders don’t want to know what kind of cereal you eat or what kind of kitchen table or bedspread you have. Use a SOLID backdrop when taking your pictures as you want to focus all of the attention on your item. In short, the one and only thing you want in your picture is the item being sold. A SOLID white or light blue backdrop is best. However, there are certainly items that won’t show well on a light backdrop. In these cases, use a darker backdrop. And for gosh sake, don’t even think of using a plaid blanket as a backdrop for your pictures as I once saw on ebay. You should also crop the photos in your photo editor. Good pictures can add 5% to 10% to final closing prices.

GOOD DESCRIPTIONS + GOOD PICTURES = GOOD PRESENTATION. This is what you should strive for.

COMMUNICATION:

GOOD Communication is a must – Always notify buyers when you mail their items. It is not only a courtesy you would want and expect as a buyer but it is also both good customer service and good business practice. After all, you are the ‘President & CEO’ of your ‘company’ running your business but using ebay as your selling medium. In short, conduct your business so that it reflects well on you as a person. Treat everyone as a human being, not a living being and this includes people who have inquiries about your items, not just your buyers. Prospective buyers making these inquiries could ultimately be the winning bidders and possible repeat customers.

TIPS TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS:

Do not limit your auctions to one country. SELL WORLDWIDE. The reason is elementary. You now have access to the largest market ebay has to offer. Limiting your auctions to only one country also limits your potential profits. A basic business tenet is, ‘the greater the potential market, the greater the potential to maximize profits.’ But do note in your listing that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from overseas bidders/buyers. Through experience, you will learn that there are certain problem countries. Italy seems to be one of them. Mail sent to buyers in Italy very often ‘mysteriously disappears.’ If this is the case, just note in your listing you sell to all countries EXCEPT (name(s) here).

However, if you decide to limit sales to only one country, such as the USA, never say NO when you receive an email asking if you would ship to Taiwan, Germany, Australia or wherever. The reason is that you have a ‘FISH ON THE HOOK!’ This person will bid! When he or she does, this may force a previous bidder to enter another, higher bid or force later, first time bidders to come in with higher bids. So always say YES to these emails if you want to maximize your profits. But do say that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from these overseas bidders

Avoid selling ‘nickel and dime’ items. People who list and sell a steady stream of items that close for $5 or less are wasting their time. Less expensive, similar items ($5 or less) are best sold as a group to save time. If you have a large number of these cheaper, similar items, divide them up into sub lots of three, four or five.

More expensive (higher priced), similar items are best sold individually to maximize profits. There are ebay ‘vultures’ who just love to swoop down on similarly grouped items in one listing. When they win these auctions, they turn around and sell the items individually and, in most cases, get one and a half to 2 times and sometimes three times what they paid for them on an average item basis. I know this

I am doing a school report in oppose and in favor of ebay fees.

I would like to know specifics of what may happen if eBay didn’t ask their sellers for fees or for as much as they currently ask for.

Examples:
Employees can’t be paid
Maintenance can’t be paid
Full service can’t be provided…

Ebay didn’t charge fees originally. They were completely free. The more they increase their fees, the more they lose power sellers. In 2008, with the new CEO "genius" in charge, they made some changes, one of the major changes was they lied to their sellers and made it seem like they were charging less fees (by making the listing price cheaper), but they increased the final value fee, so people were paying an arm and a leg in fees once the item sold. There was also some feedback changes (sellers could no longer leave negative feedback for buyers who dont pay, and feedback hurts a sellers rankings in search), and other changes (they put digital download sellers out of business overnight, gave them a few days warning and suddenly came out and said digital download items weren’t allowed anymore). All of these changes, especially the fees, caused the powersellers to leave and go to other sites, especially craigslist. The surge in sellers going to craigslist caused ebay to decline in visitors. Less sellers means less items (the power sellers and digital download sellers accounted for thousands and thousands of listings), and this means less visitors because those items get listed in Google, and many visitors find ebay by googling items first instead of going directly to ebay. This was ebay’s downfall. In winter 2008, for the first time ever, Craigslist matched ebay in monthly visitors (I checked on Alexa.com). Ebay continued to tell their investors that they were losing visitors because of the recession, which wasn’t true because Craigslist continued to increase around the same time. Ebay keeps increasing their fees to make up for the loss in visitors and actual sales, so its only a matter of time when this catches up to them, they cant keep it up forever.

I live in San Jose, where ebay is located, and they layed off more than 2,000 people in the past 2 years. They have more fees now than they ever did, but have much less employees than they did when they were free. Fees have nothing to do with service, employees, or maintenance….fee’s are only related to profits. The site could still run without fees, and they could generate income from selling advertising space on the site like Myspace does. They do sell advertising space, but its not enough and they will continue to try to squeeze more fees out of their sellers until their sellers are finally gone. Do a "completed listings only" search in advanced search. 80% of the items on there don’t sell. It was the opposite 5 years ago, and it’s not the economy, it’s less visitors. My websites still get sales and my sites are worldwide just like ebay is.

Amazon has lower fees, and doesn’t charge a listing fee, and continues to outdo ebay in generated income.

I just lost my job and would like to start a home business selling on ebay. I dont have anything to sell though. Is there a way to start this up without having items in my home. Is there sites or something to get these things?

Generally, you want to save on listing fees and let the (ebay) market to set the closing price. In most cases, this means starting the initial price at $9.99 or less. However, the only exception is for expensive items. With the current recession and sales at ebay (and most everywhere else) soft now, you don’t want to get burned. Use you discretion with expensive items.

Some tips that may be helpful to you……….

Be honest and accurate in your descriptions – One-sentence descriptions are for lazy sellers. One paragraph should be sufficient for most items. My general guideline is the more expensive (read higher priced) an item, the more you should ‘talk it up.’ It won’t be time wasted. Use lots of adjectives in your descriptions. Adjectives make prose and your items come alive. Without them, prose is dull and your items less appealing. Just add a little ‘sizzle’ and even have a little fun with it. In short, make your descriptions stand out above the crowd.

Be professional – use good English with no spelling errors

PICTURES:

ALWAYS include at least one picture, more pictures for higher priced items. Make sure your pictures are clear. There are far too many pictures on ebay that are dark. If prospective buyers can’t see your items clearly, your items, more than likely, will not fetch the closing prices they deserve. To remove darkness, use any photo editor to add some brightness and a wee bit of contrast.

Eliminate clutter. Prospective bidders don’t want to know what kind of cereal you eat or what kind of kitchen table or bedspread you have. Use a SOLID backdrop when taking your pictures as you want to focus all of the attention on your item. In short, the one and only thing you want in your picture is the item being sold. A SOLID white or light blue backdrop is best. However, there are certainly items that won’t show well on a light backdrop. In these cases, use a darker backdrop. And for gosh sake, don’t even think of using a plaid blanket as a backdrop for your pictures as I once saw on ebay. You should also crop the photos in your photo editor. Good pictures can add 5% to 10% to final closing prices.

GOOD DESCRIPTIONS + GOOD PICTURES = GOOD PRESENTATION. This is what you should strive for.

COMMUNICATION:

GOOD Communication is a must – Always notify buyers when you mail their items. It is not only a courtesy you would want and expect as a buyer but it is also both good customer service and good business practice. After all, you are the ‘President & CEO’ of your ‘company’ running your business but using ebay as your selling medium. In short, conduct your business so that it reflects well on you as a person. Treat everyone as a human being, not a living being and this includes people who have inquiries about your items, not just your buyers. Prospective buyers making these inquiries could ultimately be the winning bidders and possible repeat customers.

TIPS TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS:

Do not limit your auctions to one country. SELL WORLDWIDE. The reason is elementary. You now have access to the largest market ebay has to offer. Limiting your auctions to only one country also limits your potential profits. A basic business tenet is, ‘the greater the potential market, the greater the potential to maximize profits.’ But do note in your listing that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from overseas bidders/buyers. Through experience, you will learn that there are certain problem countries. Italy seems to be one of them. Mail sent to buyers in Italy very often ‘mysteriously disappears.’ If this is the case, just note in your listing you sell to all countries EXCEPT (name(s) here).

However, if you decide to limit sales to only one country, such as the USA, never say NO when you receive an email asking if you would ship to Taiwan, Germany, Australia or wherever. The reason is that you have a ‘FISH ON THE HOOK!’ This person will bid! When he or she does, this may force a previous bidder to enter another, higher bid or force later, first time bidders to come in with higher bids. So always say YES to these emails if you want to maximize your profits. But do say that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from these overseas bidders

Avoid selling ‘nickel and dime’ items. People who list and sell a steady stream of items that close for $5 or less are wasting their time. Less expensive, similar items ($5 or less) are best sold as a group to save time. If you have a large number of these cheaper, similar items, divide them up into sub lots of three, four or five.

More expensive (higher priced), similar items are best sold individually to maximize profits. There are ebay ‘vultures’ who just love to swoop down on similarly grouped items in one listing. When they win these auctions, they turn around and sell the items individually and, in most cases, get one and a half to 2 times and sometimes three times what they paid for them on an average item basis. I know this

I just opened an account on Ebay. Let me know if you know anymore helpful tips when selling on ebay. Thank You !

Generally, you want to save on listing fees and let the (ebay) market to set the closing price. In most cases, this means starting the initial price at $9.99 or less. However, the only exception is for expensive items. With the current recession and sales at ebay (and most everywhere else) soft now, you don’t want to get burned. Use you discretion with expensive items.

Some tips that may be helpful to you……….

Be honest and accurate in your descriptions – One-sentence descriptions are for lazy sellers. One paragraph should be sufficient for most items. My general guideline is the more expensive (read higher priced) an item, the more you should ‘talk it up.’ It won’t be time wasted. Use lots of adjectives in your descriptions. Adjectives make prose and your items come alive. Without them, prose is dull and your items less appealing. Just add a little ‘sizzle’ and even have a little fun with it. In short, make your descriptions stand out above the crowd.

Be professional – use good English with no spelling errors

PICTURES:

ALWAYS include at least one picture, more pictures for higher priced items. Make sure your pictures are clear. There are far too many pictures on ebay that are dark. If prospective buyers can’t see your items clearly, your items, more than likely, will not fetch the closing prices they deserve. To remove darkness, use any photo editor to add some brightness and a wee bit of contrast.

Eliminate clutter. Prospective bidders don’t want to know what kind of cereal you eat or what kind of kitchen table or bedspread you have. Use a SOLID backdrop when taking your pictures as you want to focus all of the attention on your item. In short, the one and only thing you want in your picture is the item being sold. A SOLID white or light blue backdrop is best. However, there are certainly items that won’t show well on a light backdrop. In these cases, use a darker backdrop. And for gosh sake, don’t even think of using a plaid blanket as a backdrop for your pictures as I once saw on ebay. You should also crop the photos in your photo editor. Good pictures can add 5% to 10% to final closing prices.

GOOD DESCRIPTIONS + GOOD PICTURES = GOOD PRESENTATION. This is what you should strive for.

COMMUNICATION:

GOOD Communication is a must – Always notify buyers when you mail their items. It is not only a courtesy you would want and expect as a buyer but it is also both good customer service and good business practice. After all, you are the ‘President & CEO’ of your ‘company’ running your business but using ebay as your selling medium. In short, conduct your business so that it reflects well on you as a person. Treat everyone as a human being, not a living being and this includes people who have inquiries about your items, not just your buyers. Prospective buyers making these inquiries could ultimately be the winning bidders and possible repeat customers.

TIPS TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS:

Do not limit your auctions to one country. SELL WORLDWIDE. The reason is elementary. You now have access to the largest market ebay has to offer. Limiting your auctions to only one country also limits your potential profits. A basic business tenet is, ‘the greater the potential market, the greater the potential to maximize profits.’ But do note in your listing that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from overseas bidders/buyers. Through experience, you will learn that there are certain problem countries. Italy seems to be one of them. Mail sent to buyers in Italy very often ‘mysteriously disappears.’ If this is the case, just note in your listing you sell to all countries EXCEPT (name(s) here).

However, if you decide to limit sales to only one country, such as the USA, never say NO when you receive an email asking if you would ship to Taiwan, Germany, Australia or wherever. The reason is that you have a ‘FISH ON THE HOOK!’ This person will bid! When he or she does, this may force a previous bidder to enter another, higher bid or force later, first time bidders to come in with higher bids. So always say YES to these emails if you want to maximize your profits. But do say that PayPal is the only form of payment you will accept from these overseas bidders

Avoid selling ‘nickel and dime’ items. People who list and sell a steady stream of items that close for $5 or less are wasting their time. Less expensive, similar items ($5 or less) are best sold as a group to save time. If you have a large number of these cheaper, similar items, divide them up into sub lots of three, four or five.

More expensive (higher priced), similar items are best sold individually to maximize profits. There are ebay ‘vultures’ who just love to swoop down on similarly grouped items in one listing. When they win these auctions, they turn around and sell the items individually and, in most cases, get one and a half to 2 times and sometimes three times what they paid for them on an average item basis. I know this works. When I had more time (read unemployed), I was one of these ‘vultures.’ This is one of those situations where the parts are worth more than the whole.

Short of items to sell and where to find items to sell? Garage and yard sales, church bazaars, flea markets are obvious as are ‘junktique’ shops. If you want to let your fingers do the walking, you too can be crafty ‘vulture’ like a select group of other ebay sellers. Become a member of several smaller auction sites and search for bargains there. But as before, ‘stick with what you know.’ These smaller auction sites are great for buyers for the same reason they are bad for sellers:

Far fewer potential bidders = less competition = lower closing prices

Once you have your bargains, turn around and sell them at ebay. Ebay has the largest membership of any auction site. There isn’t another auction site that is remotely close and I do mean remotely close to having the number of members that ebay has. Here is the ebay formula:

Largest, by far, of any auction site = MAXIMUM competition = HIGHER closing prices,

If you want to do your listings OFFLINE, download the TURBO LISTER program free from ebay. Once you have finished with your listings, you can upload them anytime or schedule a date and time when you want your auctions to start.

Lastly, keep in mind that experience is the best teacher. Start off slowly listing only two or three items and see how that goes for you. Once you get your feet wet and gain confidence, start listing more items on a weekly basis. You will soon learn the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts in short order and ultimately settle on a system that works best for you. The more items you list, the more items you will sell, the more $$ you will make and the harder you will work. Nothing in life comes easy and that includes becoming a successful seller at ebay. Good luck & happy selling!

I sell on ebay full time mostly clothes, but a little of everything. It seemd my clothes have not sold hardly at all the last 2 weeks as to where before they were selling good, Anyone know why this is? Is it spring break, and when will it pick back up?

Thanks everyone,
Josh

Retail sales have not slowed since this so called "recession". Actually a lot of people are protesting eBay but it could be just a slow week. Depending on what type of clothes you sell, they may be out of season. And some colleges and schools have had spring breaks the past two and three weeks so that could be a good reason. Hang in there, they’ll pick up.

What has a high value now that wasn’t 5 years ago or longer.

Please help im new to ebay

As the one answerer said – go to ebay and do an advanced search to search "only ended items" and look at different categories and you can pretty much see right away what sells and what doesn’t.

Shipping cost has a lot to do with perceived value..so make sure you know your shipping cost and total costs against what it would cost for the person to get it locally.

Used electronics seem to be hot..especially laptops..computer people are not afraid to order off the computer – and online sales are growing despite the recession…

I was looking for Wonder Woman stuff for my daughter and it was SOOOO expensive..and things were always being bid on…if you’re going to do collectibles..make sure you examine what collectibles are hot and what’s not..there’s a lot of things people call "collectibles" that are junk – and there’s a lot that have a high value – but the person who might buy it isn’t looking on ebay or hasn’t seen the ad..and since you’d have to keep the ad up for a while, it might not be cost effective to sell it on ebay. You want things that have a large audience. Or have a very very targeted marketing program supplemented by website advertising, PPC, etc. etc.

Auto stuff has picked up over the years..and that category has grown…

I also bet there’s some ebay statistics on the web with best selling categories, highest growth, etc.

Remember that advertising outside of ebay in the search engiens can also have a great deal to do with your level of success.

Start with looking at completed Ebay sales and investigating sales from that point of view…

I was selling about 10 things a day, with the majority of my business on just Monday and and Tuesday. Today I only sold one thing this has happened for about 2 weeks and my overall sales have dropped dramatically. I’m really unsure what is going on I haven’t changed my business and I’m listing about 80 auctions per week. My DSR’s are good with only the shipping and handling charges a 4.5 I know I can’t prevent this since I haven’t changed anything but maybe somebody who has a little insight on why this might be happening.

There’s a recession going on.

People aren’t buying like they used to.

Many properties have repossessed this year. Due to recession, there has been an increase in home repossession. According to a survey, there were nearly 19,000 properties that were repossessed in the first half of 2008. It is not easy to digest who have lost their houses. If you are planning to buy your dream home at a reasonable price, you can look for those repossessed properties which are now available for auction, at a lesser price. If you would have purchased a new home you would have paid 50 percent more but if you buy the same house through auction you will pay half the amount. In the past three years there has been an increase in the percentage of repossessed properties that are auctioned by over 300 per cent. In numbers the repossessed properties that were auctioned were nearly 3,102 in the first half of 2008 from 800 in the first half of 2005.

A survey from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors tells that the properties that were sold easily through auction over the past three years are going through a bad phase due to credit crunch. But there is a plus point with less competition in auction you can bargain for the property at a price you wish to buy. Many bankers and lenders sell repossessed properties on a single day itself because they want to receive their amount and so they don’t wait for achieving a higher price. Due to this many properties are sold at a low price which is enabling investors to get some excellent deals. Even newly build flats are being sold at huge discounts. If you buy a property at auction you can save as much as half the value of the property. But remember before you step into the auction room do your homework well.

See to it that you auction the property at a price that you can afford, because if you raise your hand once you have to buy the property. The timescale that is involved in a property auction is much tighter when compared to real estate agent. If you’re planning to buy a property through auction see to it that your finances are in place, as there is limited time frame. You have to make 10 percent of the purchase price on the day of auction and the rest within 28 days. So contact a lender in advance who will help you out. Many lenders will not be able to process the mortgage application in such a limited period of time. So it would be better if you take guidance of a good broker. Remember to inspect the property properly before going for a bid. Some auction properties have legal minefields like bad titles of ownership. So try to spot it in advance. On the day of the bid you should have 10 per cent of your maximum bid, solicitor’s bid, two forms of identification and auction catalogue. If you don’t carry these don’t go for a bid.

Ron Victor
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/property-auction-at-a-lesser-price-716730.html

I occasionally sell collectibles on eBay, and I never sell the same thing twice, so I don’t have a direct comparison, but it seems to me I’m getting a higher percentage of disappointingly low bids and no-sales than I have before. Anyone else having the same experience, or is my perception affected by the pervasive gloom and pessimism around the Great Recession?

I have to agree
Last year sales were great- this year about 1/4. (all mine are multiple BIN’s)
Most items only going for starting bid.
I also found the shops quite yesterday, and was suprised how quick I did my shopping.
Think people are cautious this year, but also ebay search is a hinderence to some Buyers- so they go elsewhere.
Lets hope it picks up in the New Year

Lately. we all tend to hear conversations around the water cooler at work, on televisions while pumping gas, or from shoppers at the grocery store that all talk about how we’re currently in a recession. The slowing of our economy is very real and effects everything in our daily lives, but is it a little misleading to over-generalize and say that we’re all in a recession and are doomed?

Well, when it comes to making a living and earning money, I think it depends on how you look at things. As unemployment rates continue to rise, gas prices soar into the stratosphere, and home values drop like crazy it’s easy for us to be depressed about our countries’ current state and feel like we’re trapped. For the lucky rich of the nation, they are hardly bothered by all of this and have found new ways to continue making money that are actually thriving and growing year after year.

So, what’s this resource that is largely untapped by the general population? Ecommerce! This secret recession killer isn’t anything new, you’ve used it yourself, and know tons of people who’ve done the same. The Entrepreneurs and independent research firms of the country have tracked eCommerce results for numerous years now and have shown a huge increase in money being exchanged for tangible or information products on the Internet. Not only that, but sales over the Internet are expected to keep growing at stunning rates for years to come.

It makes sense why eCommerce is continuing to explode on our online world. Confidence in our malls and stores is lower because of the extra costs we incur at the gas pump and time it takes away from our busy lives. The world is a hectic place and most of us are tired of dealing with annoying sales messages or salespeople all vying for our attention. Nowadays, the consumer has more power and control than ever when researching a product and doesn’t even have to leave home to do it.

This is why there’s so many opportunities online. There are countless product sourcing websites out there to find things to sell on eBay or your own storefront and are quite easy to setup. In addition, you can find products that are made by other people and can sell them through what’s known as affiliate links. Everyone has some form of information they’re an expert on and, in that case, you can greatly benefit by writing your own eBook.

Don’t think that just because talks of the recession are all over the news and pop up everywhere in our daily lives, that there aren’t ways to become a part of the rich few who understand the online world of commerce. If you get out there and do some research, you too can join the club of entrepreneurs working for themselves.

Jeff Przybylski