Auction Power Guide

I am currently trying to start an ebay business due to financial problems in the family. But before I start, I need to know what the most popular items sold on ebay are, how to get more customers, and just basically what makes a good ebay account.
Thank you for your time and concern for reading this!!

What should you sell on eBay? As a seller, the most popular selling items in the world’s best marketplace are also the most profitable. Hot products in hot niches make the most money for sellers because buyers are always looking for them and willing to compete to buy them.

Some of the most popular selling items include designer clothing, designer accessories, especially handbags and shoes, cell phones, and video games. There are many more hot products that are sought after by buyers, some of which come and go.

Currently the most popular video game system is the Nintendo Wii, and other popular systems include Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Video games are popular with eBay buyers, including vintage games from older systems. Some vintage video games bring extremely high prices. For example, an old NES video game recently sold for more than $17,000.

The average sell-through rate for products sold on eBay is about 30%. This means the average product sold on the popular auction site has a 30% chance of selling. For this reason it often takes 3-4 times to list an item before it sells.

Popular selling items on eBay have a sell-through rate of 50% or higher. Some niches even enjoy a sell-through rate of 75% or higher. When sellers sell in these lucrative niches, they have a much higher chance of having auctions end with the item sold.

By sticking with hot products in lucrative niches, sellers sell more products for higher prices, and pay less in listing fees because the majority of items sell the first time without the need to re-list them.

When choosing products to sell online, it is always best to stick with the most popular selling items on eBay, because buyers are always searching for them, willing to pay more for them, and they bring high profits for sellers.

I am always looking for things to sell on eBay. I usually look for small items I can ship really easy. What items do you think would sell really well? What do you buy on eBay?

You can view the most searched for & watched items by going to ebay pulse

http://pulse.ebay.com/

Top 10 at the moment
1. wii
2. cricut cartridge
3. iphone
4. ipod touch
5. ipod
6. coach
7. xbox 360
8. wii games
9. laptop
10. ps3

A few years ago I bought my wii and now i wanna sell it back. How much credit will they give me for it?

It depends if your wii is old or new, slow or fast….. you can always sell it on ebay or garage sale it :33

Recently, I created a new account on ebay and I have no idea how to use it.

I wrote a detailed blog that answers this question.

http://sunforged.wordpress.com/category/ebay-selling-tips/

Some quick tips in case you never bother to read it.

Use keywords only in your listing titles

DONT – wii with 1 controller and two games CHEAP Look
(from actual listing)
DO – Nintendo Wii Wi Wimote Smash bros party play

leave out and, is, dont write a sentence, use just keywords also common misspellings are smart to include

Your pictures are the most important, also dont list expensive items until you have a decent feedback level.

Ill paste the blog in- but there are links that would help you in the original that wont transfer

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eBay Power Seller Secrets – Exposed vol 1
October 28, 2008 · No Comments

eBay has opened up a new venue for small businesses across the world to expand their sales, markets and exposure. Depending on ones prior experiences the tasks needed to expand successfully into this venue are either seen as dauntingly complex or misleadingly simple.

I recently purchased a rather expensive book that was marketed as exposing PowerSeller secrets, unfortunately I did not discover any new information from this source so I have decided to share my apparently uncommon knowledge with cyberspace.

In truth, PowerSellers jealously guard their secrets in hopes of keeping competition out.

My eBay businesses are focused on passions of mine and involve high ticket items as a result I am less worried about loss of volume that the competition may create.

For this first installment I will share links to many seller resources that I have found helpful in my sales, research and consultations. Once this series is completely composed and organized I will be moving it to a members area of my website.

www.sunforged.com

Links you will find useful in your growth:

1. Never sell an item without knowing its approximate worth

Terapeak Price Report

2. Know your target market, close your items when your customers are shopping.

Know when to sell on eBay using research

3. Use research tools to take advantage of sellers who fail to follow appropriate scheduling and BIN pricing and use eBay as a sourcing tool for inventory.

Find hot products to sell on eBay

4. In order to accept payments you must have a Payment Processing Service, ie Paypal. As of October 20, 2008 eBay will no longer allow checks or money orders as payment options, Fortunately, they will not enforce this rule until January 2009. Other payment solution companys are expected to be named in the next few months. As of this time the only other solution is ProPay

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.

5. If your monthly sales are good and consistent you will save money in listing fees by opening an eBay Store.

6. Or you may want to weave your eBay inventory with an e-commerce solution that integrates your pre-existing merchant account with Paypal and has a recognizable interface

ProStores 1 Month Free Trial

7. Your success continues to grow? You may want to consider purchasing your own domain and cross marketing your online presence.

GoDaddy is the service for web hosting and domain registration, all of their interfaces are easy to understand, There FAQ sections are thorough and customer service is easily accessed, easily understood and quick to answer.

Customer Service was able to easily walk me through a domain transfer and setting up the free hosting account that comes with all domains. This is the number one most important aspect in selecting a host when you are not an experienced guru yourself, you will have lots of questions, GoDaddy actually answers them !

Sale! $7.49 .com at Go Daddy GoDaddy.com 120×60

8. You will become uncomfortable with the fact that PayPal is constantly connected to your accounts, and has the power to hold, take and refund payments if you lose any bidder arbitration.

Be sure to have a seperate seller and buyer account, use a prepaid debit card as your funding source, paypal will never be able to seize or hold assets against your will, that simply do not exist.

Keep your connected seller account starved of funds and only connect a pre-paid debit to your buyers account.

Get a fresh start with an AccountNow Prepaid Visa

Keep in mind that I suggest only the most honest and professional conduct as a seller on eBay, but I do not trust Paypal and eBays arbitration system to make any decisions for me regarding returns, refunds and problem buyers. So a back up plan is proper.

9. Try to personalize yourself to the buyers, print up thank you cards or coupons to include with every shipment, promote your brand and encourage repeat customers.

It is also about time to have a presentable business card to present possible suppliers, customers and to prove legitimacy to those who think “Oh, he sells stuff on ebay, “

What

I want to make some good money on the side selling on ebay. I am not sure what to sell though. Can someone help me out?

Thanks.

You only need 1 type of items: short supply. That goes with anything. Since Ebay charges outrages fees, you might as well make a good amount and make it worthwhile. That could be anything in short supply, from watches to games. Remember when the xbox 360 sold out? Remember when the Nintendo Wii sold out for about a year? There was only one place for sure you can find, although it would cost a customer double price: EBAY. Ebay is the largest free-market in the world! People go to this website to find things they would not find anything else in the world.

If you are willing to make some good money on the side, that could also mean waking up early to go to them special sales. And be prepared for Black Friday next year. Go to places that are going out of business as you can find great deals there. Your local thrift shops are a treasure made to be found. There you can find books that you can sell at the true value as some college students find great deals on books on the website that they would normally pay hundreds for them. And best of all, you get a good profit. You do not need to invest that much, just invest most of your ebay business on your researching to give a convincing credibility on the item you are selling.

My wife has recently begun selling on eBay, and she really enjoys it. What are some tips to ensure that she has success in selling?

Right product, right time.

If she’s selling an iPhone for instance right now, or a Wii, she’ll do well, if she’s selling other stuff it’s a crap shoot. Not just electronics though, but general items, she needs to know the market.

Who is she selling to? Who’s on that other end? Are her customers male or female? What’s their income? Why are they buying on ebay and not in the real world? How old are they?

Then she needs to fill the needs of her target market. She can also gear her pitch for her target market. For example if her target market is rich women, and she’s selling jewelry, she may want to use words that make her jewelry sound even more upscale, like "luxurious" or "fabulous" or "couture". Conversely if she were selling jewelry for men to give as gifts to their significant others she may want to use something like "she’ll love it" or "remind her how much you love her with this beautiful ring" or "the perfect engagement ring" or something like that.

So first she needs to know her market. Then she needs to have the right products for that market. High end shoppers don’t want low end goods, and people with low income don’t want expensive goods for example.

Then she needs to know the time. Some products will sell better at different times of year. Jewelry may sell better in summer because of wedding season, socks may sell better in winter because it’s cold, shorts in summer, pants in winter. By knowing when something is popular, and when it’s not, she can avoid posting something at a time when it won’t sell, and thus minimize her risk. Also she can put more of the popular items on at peak times.

She should also know the peak time of day, she can just check bid history, if she puts something out for a week, sporadically through that week she’ll get bidders. If they share a common time range, say 9-midnight or something, after work hours, then she can also figure out when to list things so that the closing time will coincide with the larger amount of customers bidding, and avoid posting something when there’ll be fewer people bidding. Compare it to a regular business, they have set hours because that’s when customers come in, businesses aren’t open when there’s not going to be any customers, that’s just wasting money.

So yeah, know your market, know your customer, have the right product for your market, and the right timing. That’s the best you can do.

Move over eBay, there’s a new site in town! ZapADeal is a brand new online auction site that is turning the online auction world upside down. Why? Because ZapADeal has created something called “reveres auctions.” In a reveres auction, the “bidder” causes the price of the auction item to go down instead of up. Let me repeat that, the price of the item goes down. It actually keeps going down until it reaches zero, than the last bidder wins the item for free.

That’s why we call it online auction entertainment. You can’t sell anything on ZapADeal, only the site owner’s list items. And, all items on ZapADeal are brand name, brand new items. Items like a brand new 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and many different iPods and iPhones, Mac Notebooks, Nintendo Wii’s, and the list just keeps going on. Everything is brand new and maintains the factory warranties.

How can ZapADeal afford to put on an online auction like this? Well, it really is a simple yet very smart concept. Let me explain. Let’s take a brand new Nintendo Wii that would sell for $350. It would be listed on ZapADeal and start at $350, but the price is always hidden. Every time someone clicks on that item the current price is revealed to them and the item price drops 20 cents. This continues to happen until eventually the price reaches zero, at the time the last bidder wins the item. Now, the key on this is every time you click on the item to reveal the current price it costs you 1 credit. 1 credit equals anywhere from 50 cents to 2 dollars. Remember, the price only dropped 20 cents on that click where you spent 50 cents. So on every click there is a 30+ cent profit for the company.

You may be thinking, “That’s not that great of a deal, spend 50 cents to save 20.” That’s where you are wrong, because if you are the last person to click on it before it reaches zero, you just spent 50 cents to buy a $350 Nintendo Wii. That’s why it’s called Online Auction Entertainment. It’s an entertaining social game. You are competing with people allover the world to be the last person to click and the winner wins the item.

ZapADeal has positioned itself as the new social networking site, the latest and greatest gaming site, and a legitimate way save big money on great brand name items. The people who win these items will tell you, the reward is worth the cost.

Now, ZapADeal has several other auction styles as well, the bid to zero I just described is simply the most common one. I recommend heading over there and checking it out for yourself. You just might win that 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. At the very least you’ll have a good time. You can also go to Google and do a search for ZapADeal and find out some more information about this unique and fun online auction

Paul Merryman

I was on eBay for 6 years, over 10,000 positive feedbacks. i closed my account recently; I became to dissatisfied with their policies and rising of fees, it is too big now, I was also getting more non paying bidders than ever before and eBay seems uniterested in addressing these issues.
my question: I sell everything, at Present I have 4 dyson vacuums, 6 sets of cutco homemakers, kitchenaid mixers, 16 PS3s, and more than 20 wii. (to name a bit of curent inventory)I have researched and researched. Amazon, was VERY SLOW, Overstock EVEN MORE SLOW. I have found many collectible focused auction sites, but where are users like me to go? Powersellers who worked hard to keep feedback consistant. Craigslist…goodness, Craigslist just did not work. As successful as eBay is, has there been no decent alternative created yet for those of us who have become increasingly unhappy with eBay?
it seems like I’ll just need to put up "garage sale" signs and hope my neighbors are interested…

I’ve used http://www.oztion.com.au in the past, but I think they no longer accept sellers from outside australia

Netflix’s Profits increase by 30%. I have read of how so many companies are firing employees due to a loss of revenue. However, recently I have been researching and found that many other companies are making profits and staying in business.
This ‘economic crisis’, I think, We are experiencing and being pressured into believing, is not so much a ‘crisis’ to me.
I believe that We as a People are Changing in how We are evolving.
Technology has Changed over the last 20 years dramatically. The lifestyles of how People are choosing to live, is the reason for this economic ‘Change-Over’.
Check this out, and see if what I’m saying can hold any water here.
When Internet first became available, the majority of households did not have a computer. It was ‘new’. Most new products are expensive. So, our extra curricular activites included doing things outside the home.
Going to the movies, the arcade, the local store to buy your favorite jeans, or sneakers…..
Well, now in present day, We can rent movies online, record on DVD, and each year a new video home sytem like Wii, XBox, or anything else, and your favorite pair of jeans, can come from the Internet without ever leaving the house……
People then incurred a gas price increase….. Now, who has the money to put in the car, and then pay for $20 or more in tickets for a couple, plus buy movie popcorn at almost $15.00 with a drink? Why, when there’s a more convient way to go?
Or when Amazon, EBay, or Overstock, has increased sales, while Our local stores are suffering from sales loss?
Or when We’re going "healthy’, and Subway gets profits from $5.00 subs, while other competitors are offering cheaper value meal items in order to gain back or keep thier money rolling in?
Or a ‘Go Green’ attitude, now has the automobile industry being scrutinized, and making it harder to sell?
The times are Changing. I think thats what’s causing this ‘economic crisis’. We are Changing. Technology is Changing. The Internet is booming while companies that once found their business through Person to Person product consumption, to what We have now as a Technological Revolution.
This is an opinion, but I wonder if this could actually be the truest to heart reasoning for this World Wide spread of what seems to be an economic failure?
You would think if there’s consumer buying, then there should be no reason for the loss, right?
Think of this for example:
The movie theaters realy on the People to come view a movie indoors at their location. They sell ‘treats’ at the consession stand in order to make profits. They have to pay for the leae of the movie We watch, the property rental for the buliding and the People who take the tickets to cleaning the bathrooms. If many are staying home, and the theater does not get filled, then there’s what money being made? If peopl are eating more healthy, then what’s being bought at the consession stand? If movie makers are spending more to make a movie to compatete with other movie makers, then the theaters have to raise their price of tickets when they consider all these factors. Higher costs = alternative ways for consumers to view it. They stay home and wait for it come out on DVD and then rent it from companies like Netflix. The movie theater industry would inevitably suffer and decline in sales. Which means less people working, right?
I’ve had my own experience in the work at home field, and my profits had almost doubled from last year. This is why I think this Change is just simply part of Evolution….

uh…no
not even close
the economy is crashing because it was designed to fail

Dprogram.net

I was going to buy Friday the 13th on eBay but then I remembered I can just watch it online.

No, not really, that is mostly a myth put around by the movie/record companies.

Most people who pirate music/videos pirate stuff that they wouldn’t actually buy in the first place. The might pirate a few things that they’d actually have paid for but the majority of it they just grab whatever is going watch/listen to it a couple of times, then they forget about it and move on. Or pirate stuff that they couldn’t have brought even if they’d wanted to, such as Anime from Japan or music from Europe that’s not been released in the US and probably never will be released in the US. Or music that the record companies are holding on to in their back catalog but aren’t releasing.

For example, I’m a big Lisa Loughheed fan (Canadian singer) but I can’t buy anything of hers legally because it’s just not on sale (80’s music, never been released on CD). But it’s available on P2P. I’m not going to download it legally, but if I want it then there’s not much else that I could do short of going round her house and getting her to give me personal concert.

What is killing the DVD/CD market are legal downloads like iTunes, and rental services like Netflix, as well as the general poor state of music and movies being released (garbage cover songs and remixes, and unimaginative singles) for high prices that people just don’t want to pay.

Pay per view is also killing the market. My cable company gives me instant access to thousands of movies for next to no cost, and It gives me free and unlimited access to thousands of music videos.

Then there’s computer games. People are playing on their WII instead of watching movies.

People are also getting their movies and music from independent companies now, too and these are often not counted on the CD/DVD sales. Especially not if they’re imports.

I’m buying more music than I ever did before thanks to the Internet, but if I buy my CDs directly from independent bands/labels, they may not count on the official charts or the CD sales figures. So it looks like CD sales are going down, when in fact they may not be.

Going back to your example of the movie that you watched on line. I could watch that on pay per view, or I could rent it from Netflix, and as far as the movie company is concerned I haven’t brought the movie, even though I legally paid for it and watched it. I could also have brought a used copy on eBay and they’d never know, or I could order it from Canada where it’s cheaper because of the currency difference.