Creative Categories ...

A good way of increasing sales, is by being creative when listing in categories. I learned this from ebay seller marsha_c (who I absolutely love, she has some terrific tips). You might have seen your PBS special 'Making Your Fortune Online', which is fantastic, I personally have seen this show about 30 times. She also sells a 5 DVD set of online selling tools in her ebay store, which contains a longer version of her PBS special, which contains even more great tips.

Here is how it works, let's say you have a book on vintage fashion, instead of listing it in the books category, try listing the book in the vintage fashion category. People who are interested in vintage fashion may not be browsing the book category, but will be browsing the vintage fashion category. You then have a very targeted market who will find your listing. I have tried this tip and it works very well.

Of course, make sure that the category you are listing under does have something to do with the item that you are selling, otherwise you could be in violation of ebay policies. You don't want to put a vintage fashion book under the category Plasma TV's, for example.

Your comments are welcome, so please feel free to write a comment. I as well as the rest of the ebay community want to hear what you have to say. Thanks! Steve

Be flexible as a seller ...

Hi folks... today's tip for sellers is to be flexible running your ebay business. There are too many sellers who are so set in doing things a specific way, that when someone throws them a curve ball, they don't know how to react.

An example is when you decide what to sell, and find a good source for it (yes, I will get into product sourcing in the near future, as it is a very hot topic), they realize a good profit for this item. Then all of a sudden, the bottom drops out of this product, and it just isn't profitable for them. The first reaction is to panic, and say now what. It's important to bounce back, find some other products that do well. The ebay market is constantly changing, and to be successful you need to be flexible enough to change, and roll with the punches.

Maybe, a seller will only want to accept PayPal (which I certainly prefer myself), now what happens when a customer wants to pay by money order. Sure, it may be incovenient for you as a seller to wait for the money order to arrive, and then run to the bank to cash it. It is however much better to deal with the minor inconvenience, instead of turning away a sale, or even more importantly a customer.

Another example, a seller wants to only sell to the US because it is easier, no custom forms to deal with, shipping charges that are easier to calculate. However, if a customer wants to purchase an item out of the US, and they are willing to pay the extra shipping, then a crash course in international shipping is definitely in order.

Be flexible, and your online business is only bound to grow.

Your comments are welcome, so please feel free to write a comment. I as well as the rest of the ebay community want to hear what you have to say. Thanks! Steve

Snipe Bidding ...

Buyers hate it, sellers love it. It's called Snipe bidding. It's when someone places a bid at the very last second and wins the item. This can be extremely disturbing to someone who has been watching an item, and already feels that they won the item, and then BAM at the last second, they get outbid.

First off, yes, this is very frustration, yet at the same time this is perfectly legal, and not even ethically wrong.

I'll explain the best way of sniping, however I also want to say that it isn't the person who places the bid at the last second who wins, but it is the person who bids the most, this is done by determining the highest price that you are willing to pay for an item, and then placing that bid. It can be placed days before the auction ends or it can be the very last second.

I personally don't see much value in sniping, if I really want an item badly, I will place a high bid on the item. This does not mean that the item will actually sell at the high bid that I place, but it will give me insurance to winning the item. Let's say I find an item that I am willing to pay $100 for, but the second highest bid is only $50, the final selling price will be around $50.50, and not the $100 that I placed a bid for. The second highest bidder sets the final price, not the highest bidder. A lot of buyers get that confused.

Okay, here is how you snipe. There are many sniping software programs out there, and I won't actually cover them in this tip, but if you do a search on google you will find plenty of them.

The best technique that I have learned is to open two browser windows right before the auction ends. One with the item listing, and then with the other one, you place your highest desired bid. After you submit your bid, you will then get a new page, asking you to confirm your bid. Hold off at this point on the second browser window. Go back to the first one and keep hitting refresh watching the closing price. About 15 seconds go back to the second browser window and hit the "Confirm Bid" button (this depends on how quick your internet connection is, if you have high speed access, 15 seconds usually works well, on a slower connection, you will need more time, experiment, and time it, before you snipe on an item you really want).

Another tip, place a bid in a unusual amount, such as $100.03, rather than $100.00. The reason for this is that most people are going to place bids in even increments. You may win the auction for just a few extra pennies. Remember though, if someone bids $102, you are still going to lose. The highest bidder always wins, no matter when they place the bid.

So you might ask why people go through the trouble of sniping ... well for a lot of bidders, the excitement comes at the last second, wondering if they are going to win the item or not. It's an adrenaline rush for many bidders.

By the way, sellers love snipers, because at the last second they can see a big serge in their final selling price.

Your comments are welcome, so please feel free to write a comment. I as well as the rest of the ebay community want to hear what you have to say. Thanks! Steve

Auction Times & Starting Prices ...

Here comes the $64,000 question ... what day and time is best to end my auctions? The answer, is that it all depends. Some categories are best on different days of the week. I did learn however that it is a pretty good bet to end your auctions during times that people are awake (sort of hard to determine since ebay is a worldwide site), but a pretty good rule of thumb for me is during the day, or early evening. 2 in the morning, doesn't work out the best, however it still does work. Experiment on your own, maybe you will find the perfect day and time. Oh, try to avoid ending your auction while popular TV shows are on (American Idol, for example), hot sporting events, and absolutely NEVER while the super bowl is on.

Another popular question is ... what should my starting bid be? The risky one, start at 99 cents or even a penny. MOST of the time the item will be built up to the market value, but every so often it will sell at 99 cents with only one bid. The advantage to this approach is that traffic will be drawn to your listings, because most people will browse listings sorted by the lowest price first. It does generate interest in your item, as people are looking for the best bargain, and a bidding war is almost sure to start. Don't panic if you still find your item at 99 cents throughout the auction. Most bids are placed within minutes (and even seconds) before the auction ends.

The other side of the coin is to start at a reasonable price that you want the item to end at, I would recommend something like 75% of the final value fee that you want. There are two disadvantages to this approach. One is that your item may not sell, and then you'll need to relist the item. The other is that even if you get a bid, you probably will not generate a bidding war, meaning that your item will sell for less than you are hoping for. Again, experiment and find out what works best for you. By the way, I have found if you use the 99 cent approach, save your money and avoid posting using a BuyItNow price. Once someone places a bid (and it will usually happen quickly at such a low starting price), the BuyItNow option will go away, and the extra money that you spent for BuyItNow will be lost. BuyItNow does work pretty well if you are using the higher starting bid option.

Your comments are welcome, so please feel free to write a comment. I as well as the rest of the ebay community want to hear what you have to say. Thanks! Steve

Shipping Supplies ...

Shipping is really simple now on ebay. I remember that shipping used to be a bit of a headache on ebay, but gone are those days.

First, did you know that you can get free shipping boxes from USPS? Did you know that USPS will pick up your packages from your home at NO COST to you? Because of this, USPS is my primary shipping company. I have shipped over 500 items with USPS, and have never had a problem. I love them!!

There are a couple of recommendations on shipping supplies. Everything that I need can be found on ebay at fantastic prices. I recommend getting a digital scale, I found one on ebay for about $25. Get yourself a label printer, it saves a lot of time, and every order is integrated with PayPal so that you can print labels directly from PayPal. No headaches involved at all. The labels can be found on ebay at a great price. If you use UPS, you can also get free labels from them. I have even gone to my local UPS store, and asked them for labels, and they gave them to me FREE. The label printer (either Zebra or Eltron) only cost me about $15 on ebay. Well worth the money.

I also purchase padded mailers on ebay (#0 and #5 work well for me). This is great for smaller items.

As for padding for boxes, you can either use shipping popcorn (also available on ebay). I am not a big fan of popcorn as it is messy, so I use newspaper. I order the Sunday paper, which also can be used for finding good deals from retailers, and then recycle the paper for shipping purposes.

Shipping tape.... this one is really easy for me. I have used a lot of different shipping tape, and found the best to be the shipping tape that I order from Office Depot. The texture is the best that I ever found. It comes out smoothly, and extremely easy to use. It costs approximately $15 for 6 rolls. Find a good tape gun and you are set. The one that I bought was from Wal-Mart for about $10 and works very well for me.

Your comments are welcome, so please feel free to write a comment. I as well as the rest of the ebay community want to hear what you have to say. Thanks! Steve

Find a comfortable price point...

One thing that I have learned is to find a comfortable price point for the items that you sell on ebay. What I mean by this, is find an average selling price on the items that you buy for resale, and the price that you sell it for.

When I started, I didn't want to risk too much money, and I was comfortable with spending only about a dollar on each item that I purchased for resale. In fact, I was dragged to a 99 cent store, and found several items that I thought I could resell (believe me, most products that I find at my 99 cents store I feel that I can't sell on ebay). However I found some computer cables from a major manufacturer, as well as mouse pads (which I originally thought would not do that well on ebay, guess what, they became one of my biggest selling items on ebay). Even if they didn't sell well, I didn't invest too much on these items, and I made some pretty good money. I then built up to items that cost me $5, then $10, and now I am comforable with sellling items that cost me $50 or so. The key is building up to a level that I was comfortable with.

Start SMALL and build up, that's the key. I was very tempted to sell high item products, after I did research to see what those items would sell for on ebay. I started to buy products that cost me $200-$300 and ended up losing money. I was constantly checking my listings, only to worry that they weren't going to be bid up to the price that i was hoping for. I simply wasn't ready for that yet. The cost of worrying about making a profit simply wasn't worth it. It's like playing a slot machine where you are comfortable spending 5 cents a pull, and then you go the $100 machines, hoping to make a bigger profit. Believe me, when you are ready, you will go the bigger items, and you will still be comfortable.

Your comments are welcome, so please feel free to write a comment. I as well as the rest of the ebay community want to hear what you have to say. Thanks! Steve

Which listing format is best ...

Auction format, Fixed Price, or Store Inventory? Which one is best?? That depends on what you are selling. Here is my thoughts on what works best...

Auction Format ... This is the one that most people use. This is excellent for anything that is rare, or collectable. The buyer sets the market price for the item by bidding on your item. However, if you don't set a reserve price on the item, you can end up losing money. This isn't always the worst thing, check out my tip to learn why. For an item that isn't rare or collectible, you should probably use the fixed price format.

Fixed Price Format ... Great for more common items. Let's say you have a quantity of 20 of an item. List it in the fixed price format. It is similar to the auction format, but the buyer will only see a BuyItNow price for the item. There is no bidding involved with the Fixed Price Format. The disadvantage to this format, is that you will pay the insertion fee for the price that you specify, which can be high if your selling price is high (plus...of course, a final value fee of each item sold). However, if you sell, for example 5 units of the same product, you still only pay the insertion fee for 1 item. It can be a great savings if the item that you sell is popular. I recommend that you do research to find out what the average selling price is for the item that you are selling. The customer does not determine the selling price for the item, it is determined by you.

Store Inventory Format ... A terrific bargain, however your listing will not appear when a buyer does a search or browses the appropriate category. Your listing only appears if they click your Store icon that appears on your listings. The store format is a LOT cheaper to list. Currently it is only 2 cents per item (3 cents if you use a gallery photo, which I always recommend). The way to be successful with the store inventory format is list your items in the store format, but also list other items in either the Auction or Fixed Price format, which will drive traffic to your ebay store. I use the store format on lower price items which may or may not sell using the other selling formats.

Feedback isn't everything...

First, I want to say that checking the feedback of a buyer is very important. It can save you a lot of heartache...

However, let's say you are looking to buy a lot of iPod's for example, and you do a search, and find a good deal which you can use to sell these iPod's on ebay, and get a good profit from.

Everything looks great, you check the seller's feedback, and again, everything looks wonderful. A feedback score of 250 and 100% positive feedback. Obviously, you found a GREAT source for iPod's. Well, not so fast.

You will probably notice that in the listing you will see something like "I don't always check myEbay page, so please contact me directly by email", and then you find their email address.

WARNING: Even though everything looks legit, you are about to be scammed!!! Here's why... The seller's account has most likely been taken over by someone who is going to rip you off! The person who originally set up the ebay account most likely doesn't even know that their account has been taken over by this scam artist.

Here's what happens next ... you contact the buyer (who has no inention of completing the sale on ebay). He/she will say that they are out of town, and will ask you to send you payment by Western Union (NEVER SEND ANYONE YOU DON'T KNOW ANY MONEY BY WESTERN UNION ... it can NOT be traced). You will lose the money you send, and you will NEVER get the item that you purchase.

This trick is usually found on high ticket and very popular items. Always been very careful whenever you see a seller saying that they want you to contact them directly to purchase an item.

Feedback

I believe that once a customer pays for the item that you have listed, you should leave positive feedback for that customer.

There are some sellers that may disagree with my theory, feeling that if they wait for the buyer to leave feedback, that they won't get feedback in return. I have found this to be wrong. I get feedback on 75% on every completed transaction. Make the customer happy, it doesn't take that long, and the buyers love it. I hate playing the game of "Who ends up the leaving feedback first". The customer paid, leave them feedback.

And for god's sakes, before you even consider leaving negative feedback for someone, take a deep breath, and try to work it out with the other side. Negative feedback really can be a serious blow to someone, even if it is earned. Most people on the site want to make their partner happy. Give them the chance to make things right. Negative feedback is very difficult to have removed, and it becomes part of their PERMANENT record. You also risk having your partner leave negative feedback for you, simply out of anger that you left them negative feedback.

Also, remember that feedback is OPTIONAL, it is not required. Don't annoy your partner by emailing them over and over for them to leave feedback. Usually a nice little note with the item that they purchased reminding them to leave feedback is normally all that is necessary.

Return policy

No seller really likes giving a customer a refund on purchases that they make, however I feel that a solid return policy is the best way of doing business on ebay.

On all our items, we offer a 30 day no questions asked return policy. Although that may seem liberal, I have found it to work out the best for both myself as the seller and the customer.

Remember, the customer is king. You want to make sure that the customer is comfortable purchasing from you. A liberal return policy will have a customer feel comfortable.

Don't make a customer feel that if they are unhappy, that they are going to go through hoops to return a product.

It is traditional to have the customer return the product at their expense, should they be unhappy. You as the seller, should however pay their full purchase price including the original shipping charges. Sometimes, depending on the price of the item, I will even tell them to keep the item AND provide a refund. A happy customer is MUCH more important than the profit that you made on the item.

By the way, I originally offered a 7 day guarantee, but after consideration, I changed that to a 30 day guarantee. The results ... I got less returns after I did that. If you have any doubts, take a look at QVC, who has the same policy. They aren't doing too bad ... are they?

It's okay to lose money on some listings

Of course, we would like to make a profit on every listing that we put on ebay, but that isn't always the best plan.

Sometimes, you are going to lose money on an individual item. I recommend that you don't always look at the profit on each individual item, but rather look at how much you are earning on a weekly or monthly basis.

There are advantages to losing money on some listings. You will be able to drive traffic to your ebay store (if you have one), you will also be able to build your feedback score, as you will sell more product. You will also be able to build a customer clientele, by building traffic to your listings.

Consider each loss as an expense to your ebay business. In the long run, you will end up earning more money.

Ship as quickly as possible!!

I have to say that I feel that main reason for my success on ebay is shipping as quickly as possible. Okay, I have to admit that I am rather obsessive about shipping quickly, but let's face it, nobody wants to wait for their goodies to arrive to them.

Whenever possible, ship out the product to your customer the same day that you receive payment.

I also recommend that you do not use USPS media mail. Yes, it will save you a few pennies, however it can take up to a month for your customer to receive the product that they order. Believe me, the amount that you save will not make you or your customer happy if they have to wait that long for their product to arrive to them.