Auction Power Guide

At the beginning of the year I started up a small home business purchasing and re-selling consumer electronics products. Business license and registered with the state (Georgia) as DBA. I am a sole proprietor and the only one involved in the business.

January and February have been kind of rocky. I was learning the best and cheapest ways to ship, the quickest ways to test my products (stuff like memory cards coming from wholesale suppliers that could unknowingly be selling fake/misrepresented cards to companies, etc.) I sell on Ebay only, and I only accept Paypal as a payment method. So every sale, sale date, product description, Ebay fees, Paypal fee, date sold, etc. are all there. When I was a little more naive, I unknowingly flipped some products before I knew of a solid way to test them, so I got some returns and had to refund. Long story short, January and the beginning of February turned into an accounting nightmare in regards to logging everything. I utilize the "Outright" program on Ebay, which pulls all of my Paypal data. So it basically organizes everything, tells me the final profit, the total fees/business expenses for each month and year, the product description, date sold, sale price, Paypal fees, Ebay fees…all of that. The only thing it doesn’t log is the original purchase price and purchase date. I’m pretty much screwed for January and February in regards to proper documentation in regards to bookkeeping, but I do have the final profit amount for both months, all of the expenses and fees, payments received, etc. and I will just have to eat the taxes on the purchase amount vs. re-sold price. So taxing the whole instead of only the profit.

Is there a better way to keep track of this? I did make a spreadsheet in January. It has the item description, purchase date, purchase price, purchase tax paid, purchase shipping fee (I buy all of my inventory online and get it shipped to me from wholesale companies using my tax id), resale date, resale price, shipping fee, Georgia sales tax charged (if they were in my state – I only had one sale to Georgia during January and February and I have logged and paid taxes to the state on that), Ebay Listing/Insertion Fee, Ebay Final Value Fee, Ebay Final Value Fee on Shipping, Paypal Fee and then Finally Profit/Loss at the end.

Yeah, that’s a lot of fields to log for each transaction. Outright seems to do a really good job with keeping up with everything and letting me just print out all fees and sales with proper dates and descriptions. The only thing it doesn’t keep up with is the purchase price. I try to print out the invoice each time I buy something to re-sell and staple that to the printed paypal transaction paper for each transaction, when I have sold it. Is there a good way to keep this from being too tedious? We’re talking probably…$4,000 a month in sales in February. January was rather slow.

At tax time, Outright supposedly makes it easy to just see the total profit, total fees/deductions and such. But it doesn’t have an option to compare my purchase price per item to the re-sale price. So I could print that stuff out…but I’d end up paying taxes on everything for the whole year as a $0 purchase price value.

Any advice from sellers? Apart from "Get a CPA to do it all for you"…I wouldn’t make anything if I did that.

I keep all my items, prices, descriptions, final payouts, etc listed in an excel workbook. It does my calculations for me once I put the formulas in and I have a nice setup now after using it for a while. I don’t have to pay any fees to use it and I’m just very organized and attentive to it. If your business is so large that you can not handle the books on your own, I suggest hiring an employee. It shouldn’t take much training to keep good records. Just discipline.

Selling on eBay is perhaps one of the easiest ways to start an online business, but most people do not know what they can sell or where to find supplies. The next problem many people have is getting their items properly packaged and shipped. Here is a common example …

For an example we’ll use Ben and Jason. They each like to sell on eBay for some extra money. First we’ll begin with Ben. Since he gets most of his items by going to garage sales, he gets up early Saturday morning, grabs a cup of coffee and rushes out to his truck and drives from one garage sale to the next, just like he has been doing for the last 2 Saturdays. But this time Ben was successful and found an old knife dated in 1868 – and he only paid $12!

Ben was excited as he drove home thinking about the huge profit he would make selling it on eBay. As soon as he got home he began taking pictures with his digital camera until he finally got a perfect quality photo. Ben then uploaded the photo to his computer. He then had to write his sales advertisement. It was late when Ben finally got his knife on eBay and ready to sell. A week later his knife sold for $83. Wow, was Ben Happy! Now, he had to carefully package the knife with the customers correct shipping address and take it to the post office, meanwhile, getting stuck in the rush hour traffic. Ben is frustrated but after a long wait he gets his item off with a nice $71. profit! But doesn’t that sound like a lot of work and hassle?

Now, let’s see how Jason is doing. Jason sleeps as long as he wants, which is usually around 11:30 on Saturdays. He gets up and prepares a nice pot of coffee and taking it, goes into the livig room to watch some cartoons with the kids. When the show is over he gets on the internet with another cup of hot coffee and logs onto his eBay Wholesale Suppliers – Drop ship Account and finds some products that are hot on the market. He decides on laptop with a great discounted price of $549 which was his wholesale price. But wait … Jason does not even have to pay for this until it is sold! Now, all Jason has to do is to download the custom photos that are offered by his wholesale supplier. He then copies and pastes the custom sales advertisement, also supplied by the company. Jason is now ready to launch his eBay auction.

Asset #1: A Dutch Auction

Oh, there is a special. His wholesale supplier has several of these laptops available. So Jason decides to list 5 on the dutch auction. Ebay’s Dutch Auction allows you to sell as many of 1 item as you like, so Jason hits the Dutch auction button and his sale is launched for 5 laptops. That’s it, now Jason goes and relaxes with his (still hot) cup of coffee! At the end of a 7 day waiting period, at which time the auction has ended, Jason has sold all 5 laptops for $825 each. That is a whopping $276. profit for each laptop. This is all Jason has to do: After his 5 customers have sent their payments to his paypal account, he sends the addresses of the 5 customers with payment of $549 x 5 = $2745. Jason pays his wholesale supplier with just the click of a button through his paypal account. Jason has now completed his job which took him about 30 minutes of his time and leaving him with a pure $1380 profit! Jasons Wholesale Supplier will ship the laptops to the customers. Jason works smart while Ben works hard. It is clear that using wholesale suppliers who will also dropship would be one secret to success as an ebay seller.

Asset #2: Be Professional

Having a professional site for your ebay auctions is much the same as a business card. Your ebay auction site will show your visitors everything you have to offer and they can see that you have high quality merchandise. It will be worth your time to learn how to be a professional ebay seller, because if your listing looks appealing and professional it will entice your visitors to stay on your site longer which will result in more bids and a higher price which = more profits.

Asset #3: Follow Up for More Money

I’m sure you have heard that before, but it is a very crucial part of your success as an ebay seller! After a week or two, send your customers a follow up email, asking if they are happy with their purchase and inviting them to view an added item on your auction, making sure the item is somehow related to their recent purchase. Better yet is to send them a free digital product relating to their purchase as a “thank you”. This will make them want to buy from you again instead of buying from someone new.

Asset #4: World Wide Selling

Many ebay sellers neglect the aspect of selling worldwide. First, check with your wholesale suppliers and see what countries they ship to and find out the cost of shipping overseas. If everything looks good, you should list your auction international. This will ultimately result in many more sales because buyers are looking for “worldwide shipping”.

Asset #5: Stand Out From The Crowd

You should look at other auctions similar to what you have and make your listing “unique”. Dare to be different! The first thing is that you want to have a picture in the photo gallery. It doesn’t cost much more and is definitely worth the bit extra. Searchers almost always ignore listings without a photo, so this is VERY important! Next is the importance of your title. The title is all that ebay “spiders” when someone searches for a “specific” product. The idea is to make sure you use your main keywords in your title. Just take care though, because “key word stuffing” is something that ebay does not like! Do some creative thinking and prepare 2 or 3 different titles and test them to see which ones work the best.

Emily Nolt
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/ebay-selling-5-assets-for-success-701699.html

You open a store on eBay and off you go! Once you’ve done this you have more than you need to start doing business online. Everything has been set up for you. Yes, everything, including marketing, and you will find your customers there already. This is one of the only places where you can submit your product and have a buyer for it within minutes. If you feel you need to market your eBay store, by all means to do that. Your store’s web address will be unique and will remain the same, so marketing it is very easy. You can direct traffic to your wholesale online store at eBay by building links.

So what do you have to do to make this scenario happen?

Deciding what to sell and sourcing the product you’ll be selling on eBay isn‘t easy. You need to do your research and determine what products are popular and what is actually selling. Look at the history, find out how many units of a given product have sold in the last couple of months, and determine the price that people are willing to pay for this item.  Continue this research until you have come up with a viable product line for your store.

Once you have figured out a great product line to carry and sell, you need to seek out wholesale closeout suppliers to meet your needs. There are a number of places on the Internet where you can access this information.  Searching the web for wholesale suppliers of specific products will give you instant results. Sift through the results and find a reputable company. Make sure your supplier is reliable and that you can make some profit when re-selling. It is important for you to note that finding a good supplier is one of the most important things when in a business dealing with liquidations.  It is also highly important to be wary of people waiting for newbie like you to scam through the guise of eBay. I recommend never clicking links from eBay emails.  Instead, you must point your browser to their web site. A lot of people use fake emails from eBay as a phishing tool to seek out private information.  This is a situation that you most certainly want to avoid.

Wholesale closeouts move a lot at eBay and you should consider selling them there. Products from liquidations enable you to have a wide variety of products at your store without a huge financial outlay on your part.

Watches are good examples of wholesale merchandise that does well, even more so during the holiday season. However, you must ensure that your approach is right because the competition there is international. You have to work to be the best and ensure that you build a good client base. Always make sure to build on customer trust. If you don’t do this, they will go to the next seller of liquidations merchandise.

You should start making some good money selling the closeout products within a short time on eBay if you did your homework well. You should try to build your closeouts venture over time by always improving your product line and sales tactics.

Start small and grow with your eBay sales by working with the wholesale closeouts company of your choice. Make sure you take time to learn what happens at eBay. Look at how the top performers operate and see whether you can learn a thing or two from them. Work to be the best. You can easily expand your business by creating a website and growing further. You also have the choice of just selling through your eBay store – we are sure you can make good money doing this if you invest time and thought to the process.

Joel McLaughlin

The concept of selling was taken out of the need to dispose something in one’s garage, attic or wherever they may store unused or old items. Instead of just throwing it away, the owners thought of selling it to other people who still may find a use in it.

Then there was online selling like eBay. With online selling, one can almost sell anything virtually this is why eBay has a fast growing number of members. The tight competition inside this arena gives a newbie an almost impossible chance of selling his item. So how do those Power sellers do it? The key to their success is to know the right item to sell.

For more information on selling online click here

A lot of many people are asking, What is the most sold item on eBay Most web based merchants and shoppers can attest that it is practically impossible to point out the single most famous and saleable item that on eBay. In spite of this, most professionals agree that the most sold item on eBay falls below the category of consumer electronics (iPods, Mp3 players, Mp4 players, GPS devices, gadgets, and so on.).

The consumer market place for this category is tremendous therefore the infinitely sizeable quantity of sellers. Arranging to go against other sellers and sell merchandise in this category can either bring fortune or spell doom to you. For 1, Energy Sellers who are already established sellers in this category already won the loyalty of most shoppers in the market place. They can also afford to lower their rates as they see fit.

What is their secret you could possibly wonder. Becoming a Energy Seller on eBay does not take that considerably as lengthy as you know how the technique operates. Their secret is: order at low bulk rates, and sell at marginally high but reasonable rates. That is perfect – order in bulk. The crucial to the order-and-sell market is to acquire your goods at wholesale suppliers. You will save a lot when you acquire sizeable numbers of items or in groups from excellent wholesale providers. Take note of this principle and you too will come to be a Energy Seller in no time, selling the most sold item on eBay.

Therefore, you too can exploit the most sold item on eBay. All it takes is a high quality home business sense, a bit of investigation, connections to high quality wholesale suppliers, and some time and effort. If you do not know exactly where to appear for wholesale suppliers, there are wholesale directories which can guide you.