Thursday, August 27, 2009

Dropshipping Will not Make you Money on Ebay

Author: Christopher Bernard

If you are considering using dropshipping to supply your eBay auctions with products then this article might change your mind and send you in the right direction...

Read more >>>


A Comparison of Different Earning Strategies on eBay

Author: James Finnila

Generally there is only one earning strategy employed by eBay sellers. Buy low and sell for a profit. Sellers may be cruising yard sales on a weekend, op shops, or bargain bins in department stores, or they may have access to suppliers of wholesale goods (including dropshippers).

Read more >>>


Great Ideas for your Auction Site Business

By: Joel Dresse

Finding great items to sell can be difficult for some people. After all, your auction site business depends on great items that you can purchase very inexpensively and sell for a profit. If you are having difficulty finding items online for your auction business, here are some easy tips.

Read more >>>


How to Sell Your Crafts on eBay

By: James Dillehay

Artists, craftspeople and photographers are successfully selling their wares everyday on the online auction site, eBay. According to a recent analysis of eBay sales, a crafts-related item is sold every nine seconds, a scrapbook item is sold every minute, and 40 cross-stitch items sell in an hour on eBay. Sales of craft items on eBay have grown almost 60 percent in the past year, according to TheBidFloor.com.

Read more >>>


10 Steps to Successful Selling On Ebay

By: Jane Foster

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.

Read more >>>


The Unearthed Secrets Of An eBay PowerSeller

By: Seth Chong

Have you seen any sellers on eBay which shows a "star" and the word "PowerSeller" by the side of their names? PowerSellers are eBay's top sellers who have sustained a consistent high volume of monthly sales, a high level of total 98% positive feedback or better, and have met a threshold of compliance with all marketplace policies

Read more >>>


The Easy Money Earner Using eBay

By: Ian Stables

A brilliant idea I ran across the other day meant I could get a large cash sum in about 3 days.All it meant is that I bought an item on eBay which had resale rights and struck up an agreement with a powerseller.Before I explain it I want you to imagine this...

Read more >>>


How To Use Ebay To Gather Tons Of Quality Traffic

By: Matt O'Connor

The major bugbear of any webmaster is that no matter how stylish, how well written or how downright beautiful their site is - it all counts for nothing unless you have traffic.There are many articles (just like this one) that can describe the varying ways of getting eager visitors to gaze upon the marvels of your site.You could use reciprocal links to get visitors from other websites - although there is talk that the value of these is slowly diminishing.

Read more >>>

Dropshipping Will not Make you Money on Ebay

Author: Christopher Bernard

If you are considering using dropshipping to supply your eBay auctions with products then this article might change your mind and send you in the right direction...





Dropshipping is terrible for eBay businesses!





What is dropshipping? Dropshipping is a method of buying-and-selling that requires very little money upfront and very little effort. In theory.





Here is how dropshipping works on eBay.





You look through a dropshipper's catalog to find products you want to sell on eBay. Then, you post the products as auctions or buy it now listings on eBay. If the product sells, you collect the payment from the buyer and forward the order on to the dropshipper, using your eBay customer's payment to fund the transaction. The dropshipper then send the product directly to your eBay customer.





The money you have left is your profit.





The profit is the difference in price between what you pay the dropshipper and what you sell the product for on eBay. So if your dropshipper sells the Nintendo Wii for $230 and you sell it on eBay for $250 have $20 in profit. However, to determine your actual profit you need to include and deduct your eBay fees, PayPal fees, etc. So your final profit is under $20 using the example given.





Why is dropshipping bad for my eBay business? Let me start by saying "bad" is an understatement. Dropshipping is not bad, it is deadly. Dropshipping makes no sense in the eBay marketplace... Just think about it!





Dropshipping is based on the concept that you can get just one of an item and pay near wholesale price. But if you just think about it, that doesn't make any sense. If we look at how the wholesale industry works it will be obvious.





The wholesale industry works on quantity. Wholesale is all about bulk. When a huge company, such as Wal*Mart, places an order it is in huge quantity (to fill all of their stores). I'll make you an example using dvd players...





Wal*Mart wants to order 5000 ZIP-ZAM DVD PLAYERS which retail for $105 each. Wal*Mart plans to sell them for a little under retail at $98 each. So, they contact their wholesale distributor who offers them a price of $86 each. Wal*Mart places the order and everyone is happy. But...





Using dropshipping you cannot expect to get that DVD player for anywhere near $86. The distributor offered Wal*Mart the $86 price because of the quantity they were agreeing to purchase. At the $86 price the distributor is only profiting $5 per DVD player. But that is ok. One sale of 5000 units to Wal*Mart is $25,000 in profit. But you want just one, and a $5 profit sale is not going to do.





You have to look at it from the dropshipper's perspective. If a dropshipper had a really hot product -- why would they sell it to some small businesses for very little profit? Anyone using dropshipping is not going to sell huge quantities (or they would use wholesale)... So what is in it for the dropship company? The dropshipper could even sell direct to the public and do much better. They could charge a higher price and probably sell more units. Wholesalers could do this too, but remember, they do not sell one item at a time. They have a completely different business model.





So, when you think about it even a little bit - WHY would any company sell you just one of an item for very little profit? WHAT would be the advantage?





The answer is simple. They do not. The exception to this would be companies that sell large items that most stores do not keep in stock but will special order or very unique specialty items. But in the real world; in the EBAY world, dropshipping will cost you much more than wholesale price. Since eBay is a low-price marketplace, this means that often the dropshipping price is MORE than the eBay price.


eBay is a very competitive marketplace and the profit margins with dropshipping are just too thin to allow anyone to actually make a good living with this method of product sourcing.


But even if you could find a good product with a high profit margin, you cannot use dropshipping's main advantage. You can no longer sell the item on eBay and then use that money to buy the item from the dropshipper.





You see, dropshipping is about getting paid first and then using that money to buy the product and have it shipped directly to your eBay buyer. So, you list an item on eBay then someone buys it. Then you use the money they paid you (though PayPal) to buy the item, which the drop shipper then ships directly to the buyer.





YOU LIST THE ITEM


YOU SELL THE ITEM


BUYER PAYS YOU FOR THE ITEM


YOU USE BUYER'S PAYMENT TO BUY THE ITEM FROM THE DROP SHIPPER


THE DROP SHIPPER SENDS THE ITEM DIRECTLY TO YOUR EBAY CUSTOMER





eBay's recent policy changes will make it nearly impossible to start with dropshipping. One of the major benefits of dropshipping has been obliterated by eBay. You can no longer use the buyer's money to pay for the product you are selling on eBay.





eBay has an new policy in place where they will start HOLDING FUNDS FOR 21 DAYS or UNTIL POSITIVE FEEDBACK IS LEFT! This applies to small sellers, new sellers, and sellers with less than stellar feedback.





Here are the details direct from eBay's website...





FROM EBAY'S POLICY CHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT:





Occasional holds on payment


27. Which sellers will have their payments held?


In a small percentage of cases where it has been determined the risk of dissatisfied buyers is higher, PayPal may delay release of the payment funds to the seller until the buyer has left a positive feedback or 21 days have passed without a dispute, claim, chargeback or reversal filed on that transaction.





To determine if a transaction may have a higher risk of dissatisfied buyers, eBay reports to PayPal a number of factors, including but not limited to:





Seller's % Positive Feedback in the last 30 days


Seller's Detailed Seller Ratings in the last 30 days


Final price for the item


Shipping & handling fee


Seller's eBay tenure as an eBay member


Seller's total number of Feedback





29. When will PayPal release the eBay item hold?


PayPal will release the hold when the earliest of the following occurs:





the buyer leaves positive feedback,


3 days after confirmed item delivery* or


21 days without a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal filed on that transaction.





* This applies to US domestic transactions that are shipped by USPS or FedEx and either (i) use PayPal shipping labels to ship items or (ii) upload tracking information to PayPal via the transaction details page.





So, now assuming you are a newer eBay seller (and if you're established why on earth would you be considering dropshipping) you can not use the money they pay you to complete the transaction as it will be held.





You must use your own money to complete the drop ship order as the funds will not be released for 21 days. Seeing as this "pay only after you sell" feature was one of the best things about the dropshipping method of product sourcing there is really no reason whatsoever to use dropshipping any more.





While this might have you upset. I think it is a blessing in disguise. This will undoubtedly put a dent in the business of the handful of dropship sourcing companies that have made a fortune preying on eBay business hopefuls.





Dropshipping doesn't work on eBay. It didn't before and it definitely will not now!





If you are interested in buying products in a method similar to dropshipping (but that actually can help you profit) please visit my anti-dropshipping website at http://www.DropShippingSucks.com





Good luck and no matter what you try remember... If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

About the Author:

Christopher Bernard is an eBay Power Seller and Expert Wholesale & Drop Ship Product Sourcing Specialist with Over 9 Years Experience.



Christopher Currently Operates the Anti-Drop Shipping Website at DropShippingSucks.Com.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Dropshipping Will not Make you Money on Ebay

A Comparison of Different Earning Strategies on eBay

Author: James Finnila

Generally there is only one earning strategy employed by eBay sellers. Buy low and sell for a profit. Sellers may be cruising yard sales on a weekend, op shops, or bargain bins in department stores, or they may have access to suppliers of wholesale goods (including dropshippers). But the strategy is still the same. This is the easiest and most direct method to make money on eBay as it involves listing an item for sale and then within days or weeks seeing a return on the investment.



Sellers may be able to repeat the sales that they have achieved, as in the case of goods obtained in bulk from a wholesale supplier or dropshipper, or they may have different items to sell in each listing. There are many people making excellent money on eBay from this strategy by all accounts and so it obviously works. I do it myself.



There is another strategy, hardly employed on eBay by sellers, which can also earn money for the account holder. That is using eBay as a vehicle for generating traffic to a seller's other items, located off eBay, or for the seller to create affiliate sales of other peoples' products. I will endeavour to explain the workings of these two strategies in more detail below.



Buy Low - Sell High



There's definitely nothing new about this. It has been the backbone of trading since time began and essentially eBay is just an extension of any shopping mall or market place where trading goes on - the only difference is that a lot of eBay sales are conducted by auction, which is somewhat unconventional in a traditional commercial sense.



There are a number of ways that eBay sellers utilise this method of selling and trading on eBay. As mentioned, the auction format is perhaps the most used, or at least the most commonly noticed method of trading on eBay. This may be used predominantly for items that are personal possessions being sold off on eBay, such as old DVDs and clothes, where the seller would be happy to accept any value for the goods seeing they have already used up their value by using them themselves.



It is also used where an item is rare and this is where eBay has built its global reputation as being the place of choice for selling such items so that sellers can attract a global audience to fight over the product.



Sellers often also utilise a fixed price format, or include a buy-it-now price on their listing to encourage quick sales or to set a reserve price on an item in categories in which this option is not available using the auction format. Fixed price format sales are also used for eBay store owners where the listings are generally listed for a month at a time rather than for a week or 10 days or less.



There are advantages and disadvantages to owning a store for different sellers and different items, but as regards the benefits of a store for listings I'm not going to go into that here.



The costs of listing and selling items on eBay, apart from the purchase costs of the items that are being offered for sale are:



* the listing fees payable to eBay calculated as a small percentage of the listing price upfront and the sales price in arrears



* the cost of promoting your listing through use of pictures, highlighting and a premium for promoting your listing on search results or on eBay's featured listings pages



* a percentage of the total sale amount (including postage) for buyers who use PayPal



* postage costs (although these costs are usually totally offset by the buyer)



* eBay store subscriptions and other eBay subscriptions such as Picture Manager and Selling Manager Pro



Another cost that too many eBay sellers don't take into account when they start selling stuff, particularly low value (and hence low margin) items such as books and DVDs, is the value of their time. I don't know about you, but my time is worth money during the day at least. I also put a value on the time that I have after working to spend with my family, or having fun, resting, exercising and eating amongst other things.



When valuing my time monetarily I put a higher value on the time that I spend out of work, just as I would expect to be paid extra for overtime. This time is an important part of any eBay seller's strategy because it takes time to put up listing, pack and post products, respond to email queries and perform other administrative tasks. And this time is usually time spent after work, i.e. the most valuable time.



All up I allocate at least 30 minutes to a unique listing and 15 minutes to an item I can repeatedly re-list. That means that if I value my time at $20/hour then I wouldn't list any unique item that doesn't make me $10 profit or a $5 profit on items I list repeatedly.



If you can make some money selling on eBay with this strategy then there is no limit to what you can do with your business as all you have to do is multiply the number of items that you sell to increase your profits. There are even eBay sellers that employ people to do their postage and packing or other administrative tasks where they are selling more than they can handle on their own.



eBay as a Traffic Generator for Other Products



No doubt, affiliate marketing is a huge money maker on the internet. There are probably millions of products that can be sold as an affiliate and usually all you need is a website or some content, whether in the form of a regular newsletter or blog or articles, to get into the game. eBay is another great place to ply affiliate products, or even your own products, outside of the usual eBay sales channels of auctions and fixed price listings.



If you want to sell anything on the internet then you need some sort of product and some webspace on which to advertise and sell it. Duh. Well eBay is a free platform that you can use to do that - and I'm not just talking about your listings. Every eBay account comes with an opportunity to create an About Me page on which you can tell the world who you are and what you are about.



You can include text, graphics, video and even HTML on that page and unlike the very strict policies that eBay maintains and enforces in regards to the content and links that you include on your listings eBay is much more lenient on the stuff that you have on your about me. About the only restriction is that you don't link to other auction sites or sites with a catalogue of products for sale (ie eBay's competition).



You can link to your home page, your blog, your granny's poker club - anything - including sites that sell certain products that you can refer people to and earn affiliate commissions. This is best done with information products in my opinion, or by inviting visitors to your about me to leave you their details through a web form so that you can send them newsletters (though which you can sell anything you want). This is a very poorly tapped opportunity on eBay.



I use my about me page to invite visitors to my online business website where I have a form to capture their name and email so that I can send them info about building a home business. I've worked out that for ever 100 people that view my listings about 15 go to my about me page and approximately 1 goes on to check out my business homepage. Small numbers at this level, sure, but seeing as I average about 1000 listing views per day, that's 10 people visiting my online business and they convert to leads on my website at about the rate of 2%. So I get one lead from eBay each week.



It's still a trickle, I'll give you that, but it's a FREE trickle that I wouldn't otherwise get and each year I make about $3000 this way. I'll take $3000 for free, wouldn't you?



If you don't have an online business then you can just promote someone else's. Just go somewhere like Clickbank and sign up as an affiliate there. Easy money if you ask me.



You can also set up a link in your eBay store header that can take your store visitors to your online business or affiliate business (though I'm not entirely sure if eBay approves of that). I haven't found anything that directly says it's a no-no & I haven't asked or had my store suspended (yet). Until then I'm getting another trickle of traffic there as well.



Conclusion



Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that the key to any successful business is optimising your opportunities. You only have so many and if you are not making the most of each one then you are not going to be in business very long. You should be using all that eBay offers to build your trading business and also adding additional streams of income that you can profit from where available as well.



Buying low and selling high is going to be your key weapon in your business strategy and part of this is going to be finding a good supply of items from which you can profit (though I haven't gone into that here), but you should have an affiliate stream built in there as well - especially seeing that you don't have to pay anything extra for the privilege and it's so easy.

About the Author:

James Finnila (jimmyvanilla on eBay) is a successful eBay seller and author. To find out how to sell on eBay and make money online quickly, go to: www.eBaySuperSelling.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - A Comparison of Different Earning Strategies on eBay

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Great Ideas for your Auction Site Business

By: Joel Dresse
Finding great items to sell can be difficult for some people. After all, your auction site business depends on great items that you can purchase very inexpensively and sell for a profit. If you are having difficulty finding items online for your auction business, here are some easy tips.

One of the best ways to find a great idea is to check out the auction sites. Many people don't realize that great ideas are on practically every page of Ebay. You can easily look at which products are selling, how much they sell for and the average price that they are sold at. Using Ebay is probably the easiest and quickest way to find great products that already have a thriving market.

You can also check out auction site forums. Here many people talk about great products that are hot. There are even auction analysis companies that analyze millions of pieces of data to come up with great items for their customers to sell.

There are many overseas manufacturers and distributors that would love to sell their items to you for a great price, which can be quickly converted into profit. Many of these overseas manufacturers are usually located on large marketplace websites which are easy to find. So if you are looking for great items to sell on auction sites, follow the above tips.


Author Bio
Joel Dresse is the Webmaster of www.auctions-00.com, an informative website on auctions

How to Sell Your Crafts on eBay

By: James Dillehay
Artists, craftspeople and photographers are successfully selling their wares everyday on the online auction site, eBay. According to a recent analysis of eBay sales, a crafts-related item is sold every nine seconds, a scrapbook item is sold every minute, and 40 cross-stitch items sell in an hour on eBay. Sales of craft items on eBay have grown almost 60 percent in the past year, according to TheBidFloor.com.

But, at the same time, many would be sellers are listing their pieces for sale on auctions and getting no bids, concluding that eBay just doesn't work.

Here are some tips from James Dillehay, craft artist, eBay seller and author of the new book, "Sell Your Crafts on eBay" (Warm Snow Publishers), on how to profitably sell your wares online:

1. A word's spelling impacts an item's profitability. For example, the word 'handmade,' spelled as one word, was part of 2,233 auction titles with an average closing price of $16.29. However, auction titles that included 'hand made' as two words were found in 1,358 listings, but with an average auction closing price higher, at $27.81, or $11.52 more profit per item.

2. Go to eBay.com and find the search box. Type in the word or phrase that describes your art or craft item. Then scroll down the links on the left side of the page and click on the link for "completed items." Here, you'll be able to see the demand for this type of product. Do searches for your items every two to three weeks to chart buying patterns.

3. Find out how much people are willing to pay for your wares. Click on the link that says "highest price." This will give you a list of completed auctions from highest priced items to lowest priced ones. You want to know what people are willing to pay for items like yours. If you can't make and sell your product for a profit, eBay might not be your marketplace.

4. Determine how much money you'll make on your product. To determine your profitability, use the cost of your materials plus the cost of your labor plus the cost of your selling price, which should be the minimum price to recover your expenses. If it takes you eight hours to make a piece of jewelry and the highest priced similar item sells on eBay for $26, you won't make a profit.

5. Look at the elements of successful sellers of products that are similar to yours. Examine their winning auction titles. Observe how much detail they use to describe their item. See if the seller used any of eBay's special features such as gallery photos or a bold, featured listing. Evaluate the starting price, starting day of the week, and duration of winning auctions.

For more tips on how to sell your craft items on eBay, consult a resource book like "Sell Your Crafts on eBay," by James Dillehay. It offers-more than 200 easy-to-learn tactics and tips that help sell art, craft and theme-related items for a profit on eBay and on other online auction Web sites.

Author Bio
James Dillehay is a 20 year crafts veteran and nationally recognized expert on craft business. Author of eight books, his articles have helped readers of Family Circle, Better Homes & Gardens,Country Almanac, Working Mothers, The Crafts Report,Sunshine Artist, and many other magazines. For more information, see www.craftmarketer.com

10 Steps to Successful Selling On Ebay

By: Jane Foster
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 are the best rates you can get. 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.

Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it's not always as easy as that - there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider.

Author Bio
Jane runs the website www.Cyberlibrary.biz - an article library and resources directory for webmasters and novices alike.

The Unearthed Secrets Of An eBay PowerSeller

By: Seth Chong
Have you seen any sellers on eBay which shows a "star" and the word "PowerSeller" by the side of their names? PowerSellers are eBay's top sellers who have sustained a consistent high volume of monthly sales, a high level of total 98% positive feedback or better, and have met a threshold of compliance with all marketplace policies.

Sounds hard? Nope, not at all, in fact anyone can do it. Shortly, if you want to qualify for being an eBay seller you need:

To be an active member for 90 days.
Average a minimum of $1000 in sales per month for three consecutive months.
Achieve an overall Feedback rating of 100, of which 98% or more is positive.
Have an account in good financial standing.
Now we'll learn about the methods used by our fellow eBay PowerSellers. A successful auction has three elements which are: the title, a description and pictures of your selling item.

When listing, always write a clear, attractive and concise title. The first thing any potential buyers see will be your title so you should grab their attention once they enter. It should tell what the buyers want, make them nod their heads when they read your title. Some descriptive words like old, vintage, runs, works or condition statements like "New in Box", anything that is appropriate can get you better results than a bold headline.

Many people left a lot of money on the table when they depended just on "see photos" instead of writing a good description. A large number of auctions are filled with paragraph after paragraph of information about where to send the payments, how to send the payments, when to send the payments, who can bid and who can't which sometimes clutters the auction.

It's really simple to include a good description which can make your potential buyers stay glued to what you say right until they make a bid or purchase your item and everyone in the world should do it!

By writing an accurate description you will make bidders more confident about your item. Not certain on what to describe? Search for similar items on eBay, and read the description, take down the catchy words then use it in your listing. The confidence can translate into higher prices.

As for your auction's pictures, use big clear photographs. The best way to get nice and clear photos is to take them using a digital camera. Other than that, it is also easier for you to upload the photos into your computer with a digital camera. Try and improve your pictures by adding suitable lightings as well, it can help produce better results in your picture's quality.

Now, all of us know that feedbacks are based on the seller's customer service. Whenever we go out somewhere for a meal, customer service is very important. Let's say DOME, people likes going there because the food has low calories, and of course, it tastes great. But what makes people feel comfortable eating there is the customer service. Good customer service is always defined by: a smile, fast service, and simple.

We'll need to always be pleasant to our customers. Don't be shy, be more humble than your customers and treat them as though they're your boss. When people know you have good customer service, they won't mind considering buying more items from you. Since you are a trusted person and easy to communicate with it, being your repeated customer in time to come will be great. If you have excellent customer service, it just hurts if I don't write you a good feedback and keep your items, right?

Selling the item to your customer doesn't mean he or she is done for good. There are a lot more ways to benefit from your current customers. After they've purchased your item, try to offer a bonus, like a free e-book or something that is useful. But first, they will need to sign up for your newsletter, or subscribe to your opt-in list. You can instead not only offer the bonus for the buyer, but all the other bidders. This way, you add up your opt-in list, make everyone happy, and all these current bidders can be potential buyers of your items in the future.

In your auctions, you can always put a link to your other auctions in your description and inform the surfers that you have more items for sale. By telling the viewers you have similar items for sale and can offer cheaper shipping & handling cost, it urges people to buy more items from you.

A guarantee is always part of the most important factor in your auctions. This can be a simple statement like if the item is not as represented you can return it for a refund. Using a strong guarantee can greatly increase your response. If you offer a guarantee you need to honor it, but if you're diligent, you will definitely not have many returns. If you want to know how a good guarantee statement sounds like, you can refer this one:

"100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE - IF YOU ARE UNHAPPY FOR ANY REASON JUST RETURN YOUR ITEM FOR A COMPLETE REFUND INCLUDING SHIPPING BOTH WAYS."

How does it sound? Safe enough to buy definitely! It doesn't matter if they refund your item in the future, you just need to sell your items to your customers and let them make their choices after receiving it. 863 words

At the end of your auction's description, always make it easier for surfers and maintain their urge of buying by listing the shipping & handling costs for your items. Refrain from letting them do the math or turn to other pages just because it's troublesome inquiring for the fees. A good example is:

"$5.00 shipping to US Destinations by Priority Mail. I will pack with care and ship with delivery confirmation for your protection. International shipping are sent by Airmail letter Post. I will combine items that end on the SAME day to lower your shipping cost."

This is absolutely clear and to the point. When you include this information, surfers will not have to figure out anything extra or look at other pages to find out the shipping information, and it can help increasing your response in sales!

People have many different opinions when it comes to how long they should list an auction. There's no definite answer to it, but five to seven days are the peak ones. Search results are presented by newly listed items or those items which are ending on the same day, which means the first and the last 24 hours are when most people will see one's auction.

Pack well! By packing nicely you inflict the message of how valuable your item is, and it increases your customer's satisfaction for the product. Chocolates like Ferrero Rocher or Kit Kat have nice packing and that urges people to buy it as well, noticed it before?

To be an eBay seller isn't hard at all, it takes a little time and effort, but that's it. Slowly build your customer database, keep the opt-ins, add up your positive feedbacks, continue providing good customer support, and you're almost there.
Author Bio
Seth Chong is the owner of IMViral, one of the largest, greatest viral Internet Marketing Newsletter which is being spread around the world, you can sign up for the Newsletter(worth $297) for Free at www.imviral.com

The Easy Money Earner Using eBay

By: Ian Stables
A brilliant idea I ran across the other day meant I could get a large cash sum in about 3 days.

All it meant is that I bought an item on eBay which had resale rights and struck up an agreement with a powerseller.

Before I explain it I want you to imagine this...

A desirable item that's for sale at £10 is suddenly offered to you for £5. The person offering it to you is someone you've bought similar items from before, so you trust them.

But the half price offer is only going to be available for 48 hours. The person offering you this item has struck an agreement with the seller. They've agreed to offer their item half price but just for 2 days.

If it's something you really desired do you think you'd miss out and pay the full price later on. No, of course not. 3 out of 10 people who are made this offer go ahead and buy. Everytime!

Now imagine if 100 people are offered this or 200 or maybe even 500. Multiply a third by £5 halve it and get this in your bank account in 3 days.

What if the product was normally £20 and offered for £10?

How it works is simple. You could either write your own ebook that is desirable or buy an ebook with resale rights that's already a best seller. Don't waste your time with 99p items you want something at least £10. Check someone else is not offering it on eBay for less.

You then send an email message to a powerseller on eBay or someone who's an eBay shop owner. You say that if they will offer your item to their past buyers at half price that you'll go fifty fifty with the profits. Make sure they're selling similar ebooks to their customers. That way they are already interested in what you have to offer.

You simply set up a free web site on something like Tripod.com. Just follow their instructions. You can put a Paypal link on as well quite easily.

If someone agrees to offer your item to their list you simply send them a link to your temporary website. They then send an email with the temporary half-price offer and website link to all their past customers. The email tells them when the offer expires to create some urgency to buy.

At the end of the 48 hour offer period you simply close down the temporary web site. Check how much money has been taken into your Paypal account. You'll be amazed. Copy the screen into an email and send it to the powerseller as proof of earnings. Pay 50% of the earners into his Paypal account. You keep the other half yourself.

Powersellers or eBay shop owners who sell ebooks have a vast number of past buyers. Imagine they offered your item normally sold for £10 at £5 to a list of 500 people. Results have shown that about a third of people offered the item actually buy. A third of 500 is approx. 166. Multiply 166 by £5 = £830. Divide by 2 which is yours and the powersellers share and you get £415. Not bad for 3 days work eh?

3 days is required because the first day is what you'll need to allow you to build the temp web site and your powerseller partner to email all his list.

Author Bio
For A Change This Actually Works Do You Have A Digital Camera? Want To Leave Work For Good? This Simple Business Earns At Least £300 A Week Visit sensiblemoneyideas.tripod.com/digicam.htm

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

How To Use Ebay To Gather Tons Of Quality Traffic

By: Matt O'Connor

The major bugbear of any webmaster is that no matter how stylish, how well written or how downright beautiful their site is - it all counts for nothing unless you have traffic.

There are many articles (just like this one) that can describe the varying ways of getting eager visitors to gaze upon the marvels of your site.

You could use reciprocal links to get visitors from other websites - although there is talk that the value of these is slowly diminishing.

You could write articles to get back links to your site - write a particularly good one and you'll be surprised how many times it gets duplicated over the net, all the while with your website address in the author bio!

There are other avenues to explore such as viral e-books, forum signatures and so on, but what if you could harness the power of a site that already has billions of visitors?

Heard of ebay? Thought so, you're probably already a buyer or seller on there. But it's time to start seeing auction listings as something other than a way to sell off unwanted tat.

I'll let you know what I do and then you can adjust the method to suit your own needs.

I have a newsletter which I publish at least once a month - I struggled for a long time with how to get subscribers whilst also selling a lot of e-books on ebay. Then it hit me - time to combine the two!

Now, it's a great idea to include links to your site within the ebook, providing you've written it yourself obviously. The buyer will read the book and hopefully click on the link to whichever of your sites you've chosen. You could even have them sign up to your newsletter before they can receive the book.

On ebay however, you're going to get a lot of visitors who read your auction and decide not to buy for whatever reason. You may only sell 4 or 5 books per one hundred visitors.

This is where the "about me" page comes in to play. Make the most of this underused tool!

Ebay gives you the opportunity to write a quick description about yourself, your interests and a list of your feedback. Use this space to give yourself a short bio and then a link to your latest website. Be careful though - ebay doesn't allow direct links to sales pages. Instead link to your newsletter course, a page on one of your content sites or anywhere that doesn't obviously look like you're taking sales away from ebay.

The killer tip is to include a link to your about me page on your auction listing. I usually place a short paragraph above and below my listing pointing out the benefits of my free newsletter.

It helps also to make the product you're selling compatible with what you are offering through the "backend" of ebay. Don't sell a mint condition Barbie doll and then put in an advertisment for your bonsai gardening auto-responder course for example.

I tend to offer a resell rights ebook or (preferably) a short guide I have written myself about one aspect of Internet Marketing.

That way you will no only get sales for your listed product (provided you do your listing in the correct manner, but that's a whole other article) but also subscribers or visitors and therefore future sales for your off-ebay business.

Give it a try and use some of eBay's billion dollar power for yourself!

Author Bio
Matt O'Connor is owner of www.the-complete-guide.com. Join the newsletter now and get your FREE guide to flooding your website with traffic.