The Five Things You Must Do Before You Can Start Selling On Ebay

Many people make a full-time living on eBay. This is not only possible but it is also quite easy once you know what you are doing. Some people just make a little extra money through eBay auctions simply because it is fun – it becomes a hobby.

Whether you just want to sell some old items lying about your house, or you want to build a business by becoming a PowerSeller, there are five things you absolutely must do before you can start selling on eBay.

1. You must Register. Begin by registering as a member of eBay.

This registration is free, and it will allow you to participate in auctions – as a buyer. As soon as you have completed your registration as a buyer, you can register as a seller simply by logging into your eBay account and clicking on the ‘Sell’ tab at the top of the page. The information that you will enter is very basic information, but as a buyer, you will need to enter a credit card number, or sign up for a paypal account.

2. Sign up with paypal.

Paypal has become one of the most popular payment gateways on the Internet. This website allows people to transfer money from their bank accounts or credit cards, and to transfer money from one Paypal account to another. Signing up is quite easy, but you will need to verify your account with a checking account, and you can optionally add a credit card to the account. Paypal is very secure. As long as you don’t give your password out to anyone, you shouldn&t have any problems.

Paypal is not required to sign up with eBay, but it is highly recommended. This will allow you to give your buyers more payment options. Signing up with Paypal is free.

3. Find items to sell. You may already have items that you want to sell.

For instance, if you have recently cleaned out your attic or your garage, you probably have tons of stuff that you want to get rid of. Some items won’t sell well on eBay, while others will sell like hot cakes! So a little research to see what sells well before you set up any auctions.

You can also find items to auction by going to yard sales around your area.

Many eBay PowerSellers sell brand new items through drop shipping companies as well. It is all just a matter of determining how you want to profit from eBay, and what items are hot sellers.

4. Set up your auction. Once you are signed up, and you are ready to set up your auction, eBay has a form for you to fill out.

Here, you will determine how you are going to sell the product. You can choose to sell a group of items, or just one item. You will have a list of categories to choose from, and these categories determine where your item is listed on eBay. Choosing the proper category for your item is essential – this is how people will find your auction.

You must choose a title for your auction. You want to use your title to catch the buyer’s eye. Coming up with a great title isn’t always easy, and it does require some thought. Look at some past successful auctions to get some ideas. Make sure that you follow eBay’s guidelines for titles!

Make sure that you use the form to add as much information about your item as possible.

The more information you can include, the more successful your auction will be.

Look at the history of past auctions for items similar to yours. This information will help you determine your title, your description, and even your reserve price. The reserve price is the absolute minimum bid amount that you are willing to accept.

You will be allowed to include pictures of your items, and it is very important that you do so.

Make sure that the pictures are clear, and take several different shots from different angles. Pictures will help make your bid more successful. Many bidders won’t even look at auctions that do not include pictures.

You will also need to determine how long your auction will run. Don’t make the auction too short – give bidders time to find your item and place their bids – but at the same time, don’t make it too long. Force bidders to act by getting their bids in before the auction closes!

eBay has many upgrade options that will make your auction more noticeable.

Depending on the reserve price of your item, it may be well worth it to take advantage of these upgrades to get your auction noticed more easily.

5. Communicate with your bidders.

Make sure that you monitor your auction, and keep the lines of communication with your bidders open. Bidders will have questions about the item you are selling. Make sure that you respond to the questions and comments in a timely manner.

Think of yourself as a shop keeper, and reply to the bidders just as you would to a customer who was standing in your shop!

CopyRight Ian D. Major 2005

Pros And Cons Of Buying On Ebay

In today&s fast changing world of e-commerce like E-bay, people find shopping online the most convenient way of purchasing items. The fact that a person doesn’t even have to drive to and from the store is exhilarating enough.

To date, E-bay is the most celebrated and the most world-renowned online mall today.

However, there are advantages as well as disadvantages when buying on E-bay. So, it’s important for shoppers out there to take not of these facts before buying items on E-bay.

THE PROS

1. It’s relatively simple and within reach.

Why? Because eBay makes ones shopping spree just a click away.

2. Great access.

With E-bay, buying items had never been this varied.

3. It’s twice as fun.

With colorful graphics, unusual items, and weird but quirky listings, entertainment is just around the corner.

4. A viable online price indicator.

Buying on E-bay can give a shopper an insight and update on the present price of certain commodities these days.

5. Money-back possibility.

Most often than not, there’s a higher chance of getting back the buyer’s money if things slipped up.

THE CONS

1. “In good condition” not guaranteed.

There may be a lot of sellers who use the words “in good condition,” but because the buyer cannot visually and personally examine the item before purchasing it, most often than not, the items sold were definitely not scratch free.

2. Additional postal fees.

The common delivery method of items bought by the buyer is through mail; additional charges screw up thereby adding hefty charges just for the delivery alone, plus most transactions are on international basis, so international rates applies.

3. Lack of human touch.

There are people who still prefer to go to the mall not just because they want to go shopping but also they want to tag their friends along, have coffee breaks, and chat along the way.

Buying on e-bay may provide an interactive mode of shopping but it’s not a form of socialization.

4. Too risky.

If Internet is jungle, then there might be big bad wolves lurking on E-bay ready to gobble probable victims. These refer to scams, frauds, and identity theft.

5. A form of enslavement.

Once hooked, shoppers will never get the hang of it. There were cases wherein people buy things on E-bay almost everyday. After all, with the convenience online shopping and credit cards give, who wouldn’t?

Just like any financial decisions, it still pays for shoppers to contemplate first on things before jumping into conclusions.

QxBid Finds Best Wholesale Merchandise

QxBid online auctions is a true global market place. There are millions of customers shopping for thousands of products in hundreds of subcategories.

Auctions for cars, computers, jeans and shoes close every few minutes on QxBid.
The demand for merchandise on QxBid online auction is greater to the demand than most of the largest department stores experience during their busiest shopping seasons.
eBay sellers who have the right product mix have the opportunity to turn their QxBid business into a full time income, or at minimum to provide them with a nice sized additional source of spending money.

Many QxBid sellers rush into QxBid with dreams of riches only to be confronted with the actual reality of the QxBid market place.
The reality is that while there is a strong demand for many types of products, an QxBid seller cannot simply put up an auction and expect to make money.
This competition makes it challenging for QxBid sellers to build their businesses.
After years of supplying eBay sellers with wholesale and closeout merchandise I have found the following.

There are requirements that must be met in order for the items to sell well on QxBid.
The two requirements are either that the merchandise must compete on price, and be priced well below other listed items.
Or, the merchandise must be unique enough so that there is none or little competition from other QxBid sellers.
One way to have merchandise that meets both of these requirements is to buy wholesale and closeout merchandise.
Many times you can buy unique items as closeouts that most sellers will not have.

You might buy an item made in limited quantities, or a collectible which is no longer available on the market.
Since the merchandise that you are buying is wholesale and closeout merchandise, the prices you are paying should be very low.
These low wholesale prices will give you an advantage over other QxBid sellers.
Keep in mind that most QxBid sellers only think they are buying from a wholesaler.
If you do your research carefully you can ensure that you are buying from a real wholesaler.
Once you start working with authentic wholesale businesses, you will have the right products for successful eBay sales.

Ebay Auction Starting And Ending Day Strategies.

It’s usually when auctions are about to end that they get half their bids – sometimes they even get their only bids. If you want your item to sell for a good price, then, it makes no sense to let it finish on a day and time when no-one’s going to be around to care.

Selling to Business.

If you’re selling business equipment and have mostly business customers, you should really aim to have your auctions finishing between 9am and 5pm on weekdays. It is worth, however, trying to avoid mornings and avoiding the ‘lead-in’ and ‘lead-out’ that takes place on Monday and Friday themselves.

Selling to Home.

If most of your sales are to private customers having it shipped to their own home, then you want your auctions to finish when these kind of customers will be around. Unfortunately, these times are the opposite of what they are for the business customers. The ideal time to catch a home customer is on a Sunday evening.

List for Durations.

In order to get your listings to end on a particular day, you can simply change the duration of your auctions depending on what day it is. For example, if you mostly sell to home customers and the day today is Thursday, then your auction needs to run for either 3 or 10 days to hit a Sunday. If you sell more to business and the day today is Friday, then:

a 1 day auction would be bad (finishing on Saturday),
3 days would be alright (Monday),
5 days would be good (Wednesday),
7 days would be good (another Friday),
and 10 days would be alright (Monday again).

You could draw up a little timetable of when you should and shouldn’t be listing depending on the days of the week – make it red, amber and green, traffic light style, and stick it on your wall.

Schedule Listings.

Of course, if that all sounds like too much trouble then there is an easier – if more expensive – way of doing things. Simply use any of the many tools that let you schedule listings (almost all listing programs and sites do) – you can set the start date for any day and time you feel like.

Be aware that you might have to pay a few cents per listing for this if you do it through eBay. With some software, you may also need to leave your computer on all the time, so the software can start the auctions when it’s supposed to. The advantage of this method, however, is that there will be no per-listing fee, since the auctions were scheduled through your computer and not through eBay.

If it’s the home market you’re after, then you might not have realised what one of the most powerful things to sell on eBay is. I’ll give you a clue: it’s not consumer electronics, or media products. It’s what eBay is famous for. Check out the next email for more.

Tips for Selling Collectibles on eBay.

Yes, collectibles! Collectibles are where eBay started, and they’re still one of its biggest areas – however much they might want you to believe they’re not. eBay’s most hardcore and long-time users are almost all collectors of something or other – it is quite common to post what you think is a mundane item, only to have collectors suddenly go to war over it because it is somehow linked to something they collect.

Collectors are the people on eBay who really do pay top-dollar for things that seem like junk to you and I – not to mention to the people you’ll be getting your stock from! That’s why you can make so much profit on collectibles. Here are a few tips.

Go to people’s homes. People’s homes are full of things that someone out there collects – they are the best and cheapest source of collectibles out there. Sure, you might find something if you hang around at enough garage sales, but you’d have competition. Getting invited to people’s homes to look around should be a dream for you, and one you’re doing your best to make a reality.

Buy on other auction sites. You’ll be surprised how much money you can make if you buy the collectibles that people sell on smaller auction sites like Yahoo Auctions, and then list it on eBay. These sellers will often be perfectly knowledgeable about their item, but simply getting a lower price because they serve a smaller marketplace. Sometimes you can almost double your money.

List in non-collectible categories. If your collectible doesn’t have a category of its own under ‘collectibles’, you might prefer to list it in a category that has something to do with the item but nothing to do with collecting. What you will often find is that people browsing a category for their favourite thing will pay more for your collectible than actual collectors would.

Do lots of research. Never list something you think might be valuable without searching and searching to dig up every piece of information you can on it. Everything you find out is likely to be useful when you come to list it.

List every tiny, tiny detail. Remember that collectors really care about the most seemingly insignificant things. An item from one year can be worth thousands while the one from the year before is near-worthless, or an item that is one shade of a colour can be worth far more than one of a subtly different shade. It’s not worth puzzling over and it’s not worth trying to pass your items off as something they’re not – just make sure you put absolutely everything you know in the description.

When you are listing items that require close research and description down to the tiniest detail, however, don’t be tempted to steal someone else’s work! Whatever you do, don’t take another seller’s description and try to pass it off as your own, as this could have all sorts of consequences for you. Our next email gives you a guide to eBay’s policy on ‘description theft’.

Get More Money On eBay By Taking Good Photos Of Your Item

A picture is worth a thousand words. When selling items online on auction sites such as eBay this saying becomes more relevant. A picture is worth money and a lot of money. A good set of pictures can make the difference between an item that is sold and an item that is not sold. It can also make a big difference in the highest bid price received for an item.

It is not enough to just to take a photo of an item. A good photo can raise the value of the item and help sell it. This article provides a few rules to follow in order to take better photos of such items.

The first rule when taking photos of an item is to take more than one photo. Show the item from many angles show it zoomed in and zoomed out in different positions – for example if the item is a car show it with doors closed and with doors open. If it is a DVD show the front cover the back and the disc itself.

The quality of the photos must be as high as possible. Make sure that you have the right lighting. It is always better to take photos during the day time with natural light rather than with flash light. It is also better to take pictures when there is overcast rather than when the skies are clear and the sun light is strong. If the skies are clear try to take the photos either at the beginning or the end of the day. Follow the rules of good photography, use a tripod if long exposure is needed make sure the photo is not overexposed or underexposed and that it is not blurry.

When taking the photo make sure that you stage the right background for the item. Usually you would want to stage a background that is in contrast with the item and that has no details or interesting objects that can steal the viewer’s attention. Also make sure that the background is a matte color and that it does not reflect light. For example when taking a photo of a black computer mouse and keyboard use a white or light gray background.

Emphasize the value and the details of the item. Every item has unique features or important details that you would like to draw the viewer’s attention to. The best way to do that is to take close-up photos of those details. For example when selling a car that has very low mileage take a close-up photo of its odometer. Another example when selling a known brand product such as shirts or pants take a close-up photo of the tag or the logo to emphasize that the item is genuine.

Take photos that support the textual description of the item. For example when selling a high end brand purse if the description says “perfect stitches” take a close-up photo of the stitches to prove that the description is right.

If your item size is important you can use a known size object in order to help the viewer visualize the item’s size. For example when selling a miniature spy camera take one photo of the camera side by side with an object such as a quarter or a matchbox. The viewer will find it much easier to visualize the camera’s size when looking at such a photo rather than reading the camera’s measurements.

And last but not least remember to keep the photo file size small. When viewing a photo on the user’s screen a low resolution is more than enough. In most cases a VGA (640X480) picture is all that it takes and such a photo can be as small as 50Kbytes. It is important to keep this in mind and not be tempted to put high resolution photos that are big. Such big files load very slowly on the viewer’s computer. In most cases the viewer will get frustrated and would just skip to the next seller.

Tips For Buying Collectibles On eBay.

Buying collectibles is one of the most enjoyable things to do on eBay, simply because you can find so many things that you just can’t get anywhere else. Here are a few tips to help you on your way.

Find your Category.

You’ll probably find that all the items you’re after are listed in a single category. Add this category to your browser’s Favorites, and keep coming back.

Look for Mistakes.

If you collect something, the chances are you know a lot about it. This can be your opportunity to make a mint from a seller’s mistake. They might not realise that they have a rare version of an item, or they might have left off the key information that makes it valuable. If you’re willing to email the seller and ask them a few questions about the item to confirm that it is what you think it is, then you should be able to buy items like these. You can then resell them at a big profit, if that’s what you want to do.

Don’t Always Believe Descriptions.

If you find something you haven’t heard of, and the description calls it ‘rare’, don’t assume that it actually is. Far too many sellers just put ‘rare’ into all of their descriptions – the chances are that the item is common and has just been described wrongly. Don’t bid unless you know what you’re buying.

Stalk Other Users.

When you collect something, you’ll probably notice that there are four or five sellers who seem to come up with consistently good items – and the same buyers buying them. Add their user pages to your Favorites, and check back often to see what they’ve got – or what they’re bidding on – that you might be interested in.

Don’t Get Too Attached to an Auction.

There are millions of items being listed every day on eBay – whatever you want, it’ll come around again, and if you don’t get it there are plenty more things to buy. This is similar to the golden rule of negotiating: always be prepared to walk away. If you can’t walk away, then expect to pay over the odds. There are few things so rare that another seller won’t have one to sell. Go and bid in a lower-priced auction, instead of getting into a bidding war in one that is already expensive.

Beware of the Postage.

If you collect lots of small things with a relatively low value, you might end up paying as much for postage as you do for each item. You should take these costs into consideration when you make your bid. Another good strategy is to always buy a few things at once from the same buyer, as they will almost always offer you a discount on the postage.

When you’re bidding, you might notice that some auctions go more slowly than others, going days at a time without any new bids. The next email tells you how to take advantage of these ‘slow’ auctions.

How To Get Help From Ebay’s Safeharbor Team.

SafeHarbor are the eBay police department. If a buyer does something they&re not supposed to, then it’s SafeHarbor you should be reporting it to.

Non-paying Buyers.

This is the most common rule buyers break — it’s all too easy for them to just change their minds and try to get out of the auction. eBay, however, regard every auction as a contract. They will punish the buyer for you if they don’t go through with their end of the deal, by giving them a ‘strike’ against their account. A buyer who doesn’t consistently doesn’t pay for items they win will probably get banned.

To report a non-paying buyer, you need to file an ‘Unpaid Item’ dispute, which you can do here: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CreateDispute. All you need is the item number. Once you do this, eBay will send the buyer a reminder that they must pay for the item they won, wait a while, and then take action against them. You must wait 7 days before you can file a dispute.

This isn’t that helpful to you, of course, since in most cases you still won’t get paid for the item or have anyone to post it to: it is a rare buyer who responds to eBay’s threats and pays up just to avoid a little warning from eBay. You will, however, at least get a refund of your final value fee and be able to relist the item for free – and you can send a second chance offer to someone else if you want.

Auction Interference.

If someone ends up with a grudge against you, then you might find that they start emailing your bidders and telling them that you’re a scammer, they should cancel they bid, they shouldn’t deal with you, and so on. You might even find that you have unscrupulous competitors who will try this tactic to get buyers to bid on their auctions instead!

SafeHarbor will investigate this for you – the procedure to report it is to click ‘Help’ on the toolbar, then ‘Contact us’ from the menu. This can be a bit of a maze: you need to choose ‘Report problems with other eBay members’, then ‘Problems with buyers’, then finally ‘User is emailing buyers to warn them about seller or item’. This will then let you send SafeHarbor an email.

Feedback Extortion.

You might find that someone tries to intimidate you into giving them something using the threat of negative feedback – in its crudest form, this could be as simple as “Pay me $20 or I’ll leave you a negative comment”.

To report this to SafeHarbor, you should also use ‘Contact Us’, making sure you attach all the emails you have that prove the extortion happened.

You know, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Maybe you’re not be having all that many problems with the buyers you do get, but you seem to be having a problem with items that just don’t sell. Never fear: the next email will give you some hints on what could be going wrong.

Ecommerce Shopping Solutions for Ebusiness

E-commerce shopping solutions are available to act as bridge between online businesses and the consumer. By serving a link with the customer, the E-commerce application of your website is a basic feature of your Ebusiness. Searching the complete
E-commerce solution for your business is quite important, and it must be both users friendly and secure for customers to feel safe passing on their details. With uniqueness theft and credit card fraud on the increase, it is critical that your E-commerce shopping solution is trustworthy and safe, which can make it quite complicated to find the proper one that fits within your budget. On the other end, the importance should be given more on the quality, usability and scope of features served by any given package.

E-commerce is current update trend of business process special by majority and it is the internet through online business done. E-commerce is divided in three most factor listed bellow….

B2B (business to business)
B2C (business to customer)
C2C (customer to customer)

B2B Ecommerce: B2B is the selling and buying between companies, wholesale rather than retail. B2B involves widening the circle of suppliers (for safety and competition), and of centralizing control (for records and discounts).

B2C Ecommerce: The B2C E-Commerce Refers to a business communicating with or selling to an individual rather than a company. Most of business to customer in the US report tracks the trends as online selling moves from its youth to early adulthood.

C2C Ecommerce: This is new type of facilities given by internet to C2C, even if it is essential to note that type of commerce, i.e. the form of exchange, yard sales, flea markets, swap meets, and the like — has existed since time immemorial. Simply, good example of C2C is EBay. Moreover we can define it as, where consumers advertise their services and goods to other consumers.

Searching for an ecommerce shopping solution for your business might be some difficult, given that most providers like to offer individual opinion in favor of their own solutions. It is essential to try to consider precisely what your needs are, and what you’re searching for, you consider before taking decision yourself. It is more important to search an option that is best suited to your requirements, regardless of budget. So long as the ecommerce solution is within your price range, and provides the features that you require for your business, it is best to part with several hundred extra if it means finding the perfect solution for your business.

Consider using an ecommerce solution provider that offers the ability of developing websites and online shopping in any language. This will help to reach a global community of e-business and fetch in more sales. Take benefits of sites that provide quick search features and graphics and online promotions.

Usually, you can develop these types of storefronts and databases in any programming language, including Perl, PHP, ASP and C++ developing environments. When taking this approach, the database will have to be designed from scratch and integrated into the store along with modules to support tax, shipping and payment processing software.

E-commerce website design and development is both services need more friendly solution. Website designing services India and Web development staff is knowledgeable in the latest technologies available today at India designers.

Website Design for E-commerce Shopping Solutions

Your site should have not only an attractive but easy user interface. It should be a practical, handy and user friendly website. Just have a look at the following points that can help you.

*Attractive and Eye Catching Layout

*Clear and Logical Presentation

*Straightforward Navigation System

*Working Hyperlinks

In short, your website should be simple to search and informative enough to keep your visitors stick to it preserving their interest.

E-commerce offers buyers maximum flexibilities. They can visit the websites of multiple vendors round the clock a day to compare prices and make purchases, around the globe. In some cases, consumers can immediately obtain a product or service, such as an electronic book, a music file, or computer software, by downloading it over the Internet.

Is The Ebay Customer Always Right?

I can answer this question for you right now: the answer is ‘yes’. In fact, the answer is ‘YES!’ – the biggest yes you’ve ever heard. Of the course the customer is always right. If you want to be a successful eBay seller, you should go miles out of your way to make sure every single one of your customers is 100% satisfied, however much time or money it might cost you.

A dissatisfied customer will leave negative feedback, and negative feedback is to be avoided at all costs. That one piece of negative feedback will always cost you more than it would have to deal with the complaint, whatever the value of the items you sell. You should consider any positive feedback percentage under 100% to be an absolute disaster, and a personal failure on your part.

But What If…

But nothing! There is no situation where you, as a seller, should get into any dispute with a buyer. Here are a few common situations and how to handle them.

They say the item never arrived: Politely ask the buyer to wait a few more days to see if it turns up, and then email you again if it still hasn’t arrived. If it still hasn’t arrived, you should assume it was lost in the post somehow and offer to send a replacement if you have one, or give them a full refund otherwise. No, I don’t care what that costs you. Are you serious about selling on eBay or not?

The item has been damaged in the post: You must offer to replace it or take it back for a refund without hesitation.

They say the item doesn’t match the description: Resist the urge to email back with “yes it does, you just didn’t read the description properly”. Take the item back for a refund, and edit your description if you need to, to make any confusing points extra clear.

I’m sure you’re spotting a pattern by now. Offering a refund will make almost any problem go away, and it really will cost you less in the long run. Remember, one piece of negative feedback will stay with you forever, while having a 100% positive rating is like owning a bar of solid gold.

You should always handle customers’ complaints before they complain to eBay – in fact, you should email them pre-emptively to ask if they have any. Going through the dispute process is time consuming, reflects badly on you and is downright unnecessary.

Are you still not convinced? Think this would only work with cheap items? Well, you see, the higher the price of the items you sell, the more your reputation is worth to you. Let’s say you were selling $10,000 worth of items each week, for example, and making a $1,000 profit per week overall. You might think that refunding one customer’s $1,000 purchase would be a tragedy, losing you your whole week’s profit. It’s far better to look at it this way: if you don’t give that refund, then not only will you lose the next week’s profit, but you’ll probably lose a few weeks’ profit after that too. Now which option looks better?

I absolutely can’t emphasise enough the importance of really believing that the customer is always right. But trying to make excuses for complaints isn’t the only thing you need to avoid. There are a lot of pitfalls that you need to avoid if you don’t want to kill your business before it’s even started properly – and I’ll show you in the next email what they are.

Clueless About What You Can Buy On Ebay?

Being clueless on what items to buy on E-bay is a phase.

In fact, it’s the very first step to online shopping. With every new day, online shoppers conquer more E-bay buying techniques, and slowly lift off the novice&s launch pad.

From then on, online shoppers realize there’s more they can buy on E-bay than meets the eye.

Generally, E-bay is comprised of almost all the things a buyer would want and need under the sun. In fact, it seems that E-bay&s selling almost everything.

Because of its diversity in items being sold, E-bay categorized each item for easier search. Though, each listing varies from one country to another.

Generally, online shoppers may choose to buy things under the category of antiques. These may include old-fashioned decors; house wares; vintage cars, clothing, and accessories; historic collector&s item; and old postcards.

Buyers may also deliberate on buying items classified under the automotive category. These may range from cars to accessories to almost insignificant extras like car stickers, car perfumes, and collectibles.

Those who are looking for computer gadgets, electronic bolts, or printers may look at the Electronics and Computers category of E-bay.

E-bay listings also have the basic necessities like clothes, shoes, and accessories. It also includes different kinds of jewelries like trinkets, charms, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, watches, and ornaments.

Those who are looking for stamps and other collectables like postcards, old papers, even different kinds of minerals, rocks, and fossils will find E-bay a very lucrative place to do online shopping.

E-bay also caters to people who are into sports. Buyers can find different sorts of sports gadgets, sports get-ups, and tools. Those who are hobbyists may also find practical tools for their respective hobbies like gardening tools, cross-stitching paraphernalia, cooking and baking utensils, or scrapbooks.

Best of all, E-bay offers a great line of entertainment appliances and high-tech gadgets like mobile phones, mp3 players, pc tablets, PDAs, memory cards, flash cards, video cameras, digital cameras, audio recorders, sensors, and camcorders.

Aside from these common items that reflect fads and fashions in today&s contemporary society, e-bay has also that special section that consists of “everything else.” These are the things that do not fall under the basic categories. These are ephemera, costumes, children&s themed gift sets, party packages, mobile sim card, and mobile load, even a Google account.

With these things, buyers can be assured of a wide array of things and gadgets that would serve them best provided that it does not fall under E-bay&s prohibited list.

Auction Fortunes Are Dependant On Ebay Software

Ebay software, that is tools that automate many of the steps required to sell items online, are making all the difference for the small business types who are trying to make it as professional auctioneers.

So what kinds of tools are we talking about? Well if you are at all familiar with internet marketing well then you know the jobs that most of these tools are created to accomplish. First there are simply automated tasks that ebay software or software designed specifically to interact with the ebay website. These include things like marketing research, that is finding out what kinds of things are popular and how the trends of the demand for these items is for specific times of the year. Research tools are also built to analyze the habits of people buying these products. What are the most effective descriptions of the products? What are the most profitable ways to display the products on line? What price structures should be used? What prices are most effective for certain times of the year?

After research comes building the descriptions and sales pages to put up on ebay&s auction site. Each of these sites needs to be managed during the auction as well as after the auction has ended. There is ebay software that can take care of each of these steps. As you can imagine if each of these steps were automated, the scale that you can operate on becomes much larger and therefore more profitable.

The reason that computer programs (i.e. ebay software) can do this successfully is that marketing on the internet has been reduced to a science of steps and formulas that create a situation favorable for the sale of an item. After that it is just a numbers game. All you need to get enough people who are interested in the product you are selling to see your sales page and you will make a certain percentage of the sales.

So much of the so called ebay software functions in the internet world that exists outside of ebay. There are tools that promote product pages from ebay to the major search engines. This promotion is really the bread and butter of internet marketing in general and may be the most important set of tools that a successful professional auction marketer owns. One thing that we know for sure is that the internet is here to stay and anyone who invests in the ability to make an income online will not be disappointed.

Ebay

If you peruse Ebay a lot, you’ll see a lot of members selling website businesses. Often advertising these as “Turnkey”, they claim that the site has been making X dollars a month for the past X months. The businesses include expired domain name searches, online auction sites, credit repair sites, dating and adult sites, etc. Take a look at the current bids or prices – $1.99? What gives? If this site is making money, why would they want to sell it??? Here are some tips to help avoid buying a waste of time.

Take a look at the domain name. Do a Google search for it. Does it show up? Keep in mind how long the seller claims the site has been in business. Go to Internic and do a Whois on the domain name…how long has it existed? Chances are less than a month.

Are there any bids on it? the number of bids is generally a good indicator on how legit this “business” is. If there’s only 25 minutes left on the auction, and there is one bid for a very low dollar amount, this one&s most likely a dog. If it is down to 25 minutes and there are 60 bids on it up to 500 bucks, it’s most likely a keeper.

Proof of income. Some sites show a screen shot of their payment processor. Visit the website. Is the payment processor the same? For example, is the screen shot on Ebay from 2Checkout, and Paypal is the only payment method on the site? Smells fishy to me.

Most of these sites claim to be “100 Percent custom hand coded by experienced developers”. Do some Googling for “website templates”. Look through some of the places that offer web templates for sale. You will most likely run across the design of the website that is for sale. View the source of the site that&s for sale – you may find that the seller forgot to remove the comment code that states that “This site was developed by ” . There are actually websites that SELL turnkey web businesses specifically for sale on Ebay, and they use these templates all the time, over and over again.

If you are still skeptical, email the seller with your questions. If this site is truly on the up-and-up, they&ll be honest. If not, they&ll dodge your questions like a bullet.

One more thing to consider: Often these sites will come with “Dirt Cheap Web Hosting”, for something like $6.99 per year. Think about it – would a TRUE e-commerce site that was getting tons of traffic and sales rely on lowest-bidder web hosting? Nope.

Now, don’t get me wrong – there ARE some good web businesses available from time to time on Ebay…but with the availability of so many free website scripts and templates, they seem to be few and far between. Caveat Emptor, my friends – let the buyer beware.

However, if you want to learn more about running a real ebay business and selling real goods and making good sales,

take a look at this site, “ebay auction software” to find some great tips

Becoming An eBay Power Seller

Most people think of eBay as a place where they can change some of their old junk into cash, gaining some money from what otherwise might have ended up taking a trip to the dump. There are those, however, who have recognized the money making potential of eBay and brought it to a whole new level: the power seller.

Power sellers on eBay have various methods of going about turning a tidy profit. They may employ age old methods such as beachcombing and garage saling in order to gain a large stockpile of inventory that they can then turn around and sell at the world’s largest auction at a handsome profit. Power sellers may also offer to sell other people’s goods on the eBay market place for a percentage of the profit or an up front fee. Regardless of their method, power sellers often find themselves making quite a bit of money simply by using the potential of the site to its fullest.

The existence of the eBay professional is certainly no joke or figment of the imagination; there are over 700,000 individuals who make this their full time job, with another million supplementing their income through more casual eBay sales. These professionals have learned the ins and outs of the eBay system, and most understand the best ways to sell products for top dollar.

The fact that the professionals have been in the market for so long should not discourage any new entrepreneur from taking the same steps themselves. The fact is, eBay is so huge, with over 1.4 billion items listed in 2005 and three million auctions closing every day, that it could stand a lot more competition before the professional selling business became cut throat.

There are also ample resources to assist a prospective eBay power seller in starting up their new venture. Many books have been written already about successfully and strategically creating auctions, including where to list certain items, what is hot, what is not, and how to go about finding buyers.

As with any business, one of the keys to eBay is to keep your clients happy. EBay operates through feedback, and this feedback is essential both for buyers and sellers in order to retain and evaluate the legitimacy of the business or the offer. Unlike other bid sites, however, eBay also offers a regulated feedback system, in order that professionals do not take a hit to their bottom line because some disgruntled buyer ended up being unhappy with the final price they paid, or they felt that the seller was too pushy when it came to asking for payment.

An eBay power seller has hit upon a fun way to make some extra cash or even to earn a good full time income, without having to go out and invest in advertisements or finding a clientele. EBay brings clients from around the world to your product, and it is just a matter of getting the word to them that you have something that they will need.

Top 10 Strangest eBay Items Ever Sold.

eBay can be a very odd place, given that you can sell almost anything you want. Here are the auctions we’ve picked as being the strangest ever.

#10 – Girlfriends: Some girls auctioned their services as ‘imaginary girlfriends’, who would send the winning bidder pictures of themselves and loving letters, which they could use to pretend they had a girlfriend
.
#9 – Wedding dress: Nothing strange about selling a wedding dress, you might think – but this was the guy’s ex-wife’s wedding dress. And he modelled it, as well as writing a long screed about his ex-wife in the description. It sold for £3,850.

#8 – TV part: Producers on the TV show Ally McBeal once used eBay to auction off a walk-on part on the show.

#7 – Kidney: One man tried to sell his kidney on eBay – after all, you only need one, right? Unfortunately it’s illegal to buy or sell human organs. Good thinking, though.

#6 – Toenail clippings: A girl once sold her toenail clippings on eBay, one clipping from each toe. She got a $1 for the set – a low price for the years of joy they no doubt provided to the buyer.

#5 – Britney’s gum: Someone picked up Britney Spears’ chewed gum at a London hotel and decided it’d be a great thing to sell on eBay. Oddly enough, they were right – they got $263 for it. A Britney fan probably has it framed in their house.

#4 – Ghost: Yes, a ghost. In a jar. Well, why not? The ghost was, apparently, ‘terrorising’ the man who owned it, and so he decided to capture it and sell it on eBay to someone who might be able to give it a better home.

#3 – Virgin Mary sandwich: A seller offered a grilled cheese sandwich upon which the Virgin Mary had appeared to her – and the strange thing is, she genuinely seemed to believe it. This item, unbelievably, sold for $28,000. Some people just have too much money to waste, don’t they?

#2 – Virginity: An 18-year-old British girl sold her virginity on eBay – but it was bought by a businessman who kindly agreed to give her the money without actually taking the ‘service’.

And at #1 – Fighter jet: A state brokerage in Virginia sold a U.S. Navy F/A-18A Hornet jet fighter on eBay for just over a million dollars. It was, unfortunately, in pieces and so unusable, but they offered to put it back together and make it ready to fly for the low, low price of just another $9 million.

Of course, when you’re buying expensive items – not quite as expensive as the fighter jet, but you know what I mean – you will want to get them for the very best price that you can manage. If you can master the dark art of eBay ‘sniping’, then you can jump in at the last minute and get items for only a few cents more than the bidder who was going to win. You can learn the sniper’s secrets in the next email.

How To Post Your First Auction On eBay

It’s very easy and simple to get started posting your first auction on eBay. This article will cover the steps you need to follow to get your first auction up.

The first thing you need to do is set up your eBay seller’s account. If you have already bought things on eBay in the past, then you already have an account. Just log in and click “Sell” on the toolbar at the top of the page and then click “Create a seller’s account”.

If you have never bought or sold on eBay, then you need to create a new account. First click on the “register” link beneath the toolbar, then click “Sell” and “Create a seller’s account”. From there the eBay website will guide you through the process of getting set up. For security reasons, this may involve including providing your card and banking information.

You can register for your eBay account here: eBay.com

Now that you’re registered, you need to decide what you want to sell. It doesn’t really matter what you sell, this is just your chance to get your feet wet. Check your garage and attic, I’m sure you can find something that you’re not attached to and something interesting. Small items like books and CDs are great for your first time.

Once you have your item picked out, it’s time to submit it. Just click “Sell” and you’re on your way. The first thing you need to do is choose the best category for your item. eBay makes this easy, you just type in your item, and eBay suggests the best category for you. It’s usually best to just go with the category that eBay comes up with.

The next step is writing the title and description for your item. You want to make sure to include any keywords that people might use when searching for your item in the title. Include all the rest of the information in the description.

Now you need to set your starting price. In order to draw people to bid on your auction, set a starting price of $0.01. Don’t worry because items almost never end up as such a low price. Next set the duration of the auction. You have the choices of 3, 5, 7 and 10 days. This is really up to you, the longer the auction the more bids you are likely to get. Add a picture to your auction because items with pictures always sell for more.

Great, now you’re ready to select the payment methods you want to accept, and where you will post to. I would just go with PayPal for now, and limit yourself to the country you are in. Just click the “Submit” button and you are done!

Now you can just sit back and let eBay work it’s magic. Potential buyers will search for your item and submit bids on it. Some bidders may email you with various questions about your item. Just do your best to answer the questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Don’t worry if your item doesn’t sell the first time. The great thing about eBay, is that if your item doesn’t sell the first time, you can list it again for free!

Once the auction closes and you have a winning bidder, eBay takes care of all the work. eBay will send your buyer emails guiding them through the process of sending you payment for the item your are selling. Just make sure you have the money in hand before you send the item.

eBay prefers that you use PayPal to send and receive your payments. PayPal is very safe and secure and you will get your money instantly so it’s a good idea to use them. It’s also free to create an account with PayPal.

You can create your free PayPal account here: PayPal.com

As soon as you have received the payment, all you have left to do is pack up the item and send it to your buyer. If you’re not sure of the best way to get this done, just take your item to your local post office and they can help you. Use the buyers address from the confirmation email that eBay sent you and write it on the package. That’s it, you’ve made your first successful sale on eBay!

Ebay Revenue

You Can Make a Fortune on ebay

There are a number of things you need to make money on the Internet, but the most important is finding the products. Think about it, having a good product will make you money if people sees it.

Just knowing that targeted visitors are the most important part of making money will do us no good unless we take action. How are we going to take action& We get going, going to where the targeted traffic is, and the traffic is at ebay. Would you be amazed if I told you over million folks spend time at ebay a month.

Ok we have solved one of the main problems with making money, we now know where we can get targeted visitors, but don’t be fooled thinking it will be a piece of cake just because we overcame the main problem. You see we are not the only ones that know where the traffic is, so we are going to have a lot of competition.

What can we do about the competition& I would just send them an email and ask them to stop selling so I could sell my products and make a lot of money. Now if that doesn’t work there are a few more ways we can beat the competition. It might be easier if I just list them below.

Since most visitors use the search tool to find a product on ebay we would want to be certain we were using the right keywords we could come up with that describes the goods we are selling.

We would also want to take our time and make sure we sort our product in the correct categories.

If we can find a distinct product with little opposition that would be great, but we will need to be careful with this,
because if no body is selling it, it could be because there is little request for it.

If we find a good that we can buy at a reduce price than our competition then we could distribute it at a lower price than the competition.

I think we have a nice idea how to sell on ebay, but we need a product to sell. If you are new to ebay you could get started by selling goods you have around the house. That is how I started, I did a research on ebay to see what products were selling and what they were selling for. If there was a high demand for it and I had one, I would take a picture of the product and offer it up for auction. You would be surprised at some of the objects people will buy.

Seasonal Selling On Ebay.

When you sell on eBay, it’s important to know how to take advantage of the kinds of markets you encounter in the different seasons. As a rule, the summer months are slow and the winter period is fast, but there’s more to it than that.

It Depends What You’re Selling.

Your sales won’t necessarily be slower in the summer than in winter – they might just be different. If you’re selling sports equipment, for example, you’ll probably find that surfing gear sells in summer while skiing gear sells in winter. You should make sure you are aware of any seasonal variations there will be in your particular market, and plan in advance to take advantage of them.

Selling in Peak Season.

The holiday season is eBay’s peak, and the best time to be selling on eBay – the December rush is relatively short, but if you play it right then you could make half your year’s profit over those few days.

In the holidays, people are looking for presents, and eBay run more advertising than usual targeted towards buyers, not sellers. Target your auctions more towards new users than experienced ones, writing easy-to-understand descriptions. If you have any items that are in demand, try listing some at auction and some with high But it Now prices, to see what works best.

The chances are you’ll be surprised when the Buy it Now auctions go almost instantly and the auctions rack up bids like nobody’s business. It is important to remember, however, that most of these buyers will only buy from you once.

Selling Off-peak.

For the rest of the year, the market is far slower. Don’t worry though – you can still make money. It’s a little like being a stockbroker: you can make money whether the market is good or bad, if you know what you’re doing.

Remember that your target market is a little more ‘expert’: you’re mostly selling to people who know what they’re buying, and know what they want to pay. Cater to this by providing a service suitable for these customers. Show that you know what you’re selling and sell things consistently and you’ll have people coming back again and again.

Here’s one extra tip that you might try. If you know of items that have a consistent value, it might be worth buying up as many as you can cheaply in the summer, storing them for half a year, and selling them during the winter rush. If you’re willing to give over a little space for storage, you can make a lot of profit for little effort. After all, you don’t even have to take the items out of the packaging the last seller put them in.

If you’ve tried searching for a few more eBay tips using the big search engines like Google and Yahoo, then you might have come across someone offering to sell you all the secrets of eBay success for a ‘low, low price’. In the next email, I’ll let you in on their little secrets for free.

Selling Childrens Items On Ebay

Selling for a profit on eBay is easy when you have kids. People are earning hundreds of dollars a month by selling kid related items. Here are some general ideas to help you get started.

Kids Items You Can Sell

Clothes, toys and videos are good money makers on eBay.

Go to eBay and look up a “lot” of size six girl&s cloths. You will find they are expensive! The average price for a lot of 20 good conditioned clothes is about $35.00.

When your kids grow out of their seasonal clothes do not throw them out. Bundle them into different lots by category. For example bundle girls dresses separate from girls play clothes, but only do that if you have at least six of each different type.

Lots of any item sell better than single items unless the item is unique or high priced. For example, a hand embroidered dress that you paid a lot for would sell better by itself instead of bundled with other basic dresses.

The next item to lookup on eBay is toys. Most toys in good condition will sell for a lot of money. One idea that works well is to buy hot items in October at Wal-Mart or Toys-R-Us and sell them on eBay. Busy people are willing to pay extra for the convenience of getting the items delivered to their home.
For example, last year a Mega Power Ranger came out in stores around October and sold at Wal-Mart for about $45.00. The same item sold on eBay for up to $65.00 plus shipping. The Yellow Power Ranger is yet another example where the store price was about $6.00, while the same item was selling on eBay for about $20.00.

Have your children ever received duplicate birthday or Christmas presents? You can sell those on eBay also. Look at the eBay listings for items of interest to see if selling on eBay is worth more than returning the item to the store.

Kid&s videos and DVDs are also good money-makers. Bundle about three of these together, and you can usually make about $7.00-$12.00 per bundle. Bundle more and the money goes up. Disney movies in hard cases can go for a higher amount. This also works for other types of movies as well.

Save those McDonalds toys. Some Kids Meals toys sell high. Take the new Star Wars toys from Burger King…very collectible. You will find them selling on eBay from $1.00 to $5.00, not including shipping.

Ebay has a whole section devoted to dolls and bears. If your daughter doesn’t want her collectible dolls anymore sell them on eBay.

Kids Crafts You Can Sell

Around the holidays, especially, have your children place their hand in paint and make a print on some quality paper. Add a holiday related poem and you have a great craft to sell on eBay.

Have your kids make gift jars with ready made mixes. For example, hot chocolate mixes in a jar with a plastic spoon tied to it with a ribbon. Dip the end of the spoon with white chocolate.

Baby Items You Can Sell

Used baby items are very profitable. Baby items cost a lot of money, especially in their first year. Any “gently” used items are generally good sellers on eBay.

If you have baby coupons that you will never use, sell them on eBay! Left over diapers and formula sell well also. A lot of 35 used cloth diapers usually sells for around $38.00 plus shipping. Four Fuzzi Bunz diapers (cloth diapers with hemp inserts) can sell for as much as $40.00.

There you have it. Plenty of ideas for selling those leftover kids items on eBay…and you can even make a nice profit while you are at it!

eBay Training Courtesy of LearnKey

As we all know, eBay is the world’s largest trading community. eBay has millions of transactions conducted daily. Knowing how to find your niche on eBay entails several eBay training so that you’ll know how to make money on eBay and build a store on eBay

Making Money on eBay training and Build a store on eBay training are brought to us by Learnkey. We will have an overview here of these eBay training courses for us to know what&s
more applicable and bring us on the road to success for our own eBay selling business.

In Making Money on eBay training course you’ll learn the keys to online auction success. Adam Hersh, an expert instructorfor eBay trainings reveals bidding tips and pricing strategies. He also unveils how to title, describe, photograph and present your items which is guaranteed to fetch top bids.

Here in Making Money on eBay training, you’ll also learn how to authenticate items and securely settle transactions to protect yourself from fraud. This course&s conclusion let’s you understand the concepts of confidently buying and selling on eBay.

In Building a Store on eBay training, the introduction delves and explains that many small business owners are reaching a marketplace of millions of potential customers by building online storefronts on eBay.

By building a storefront on eBay, you suddenly face the tremendous responsibility of inventory, pricing, packaging, auctioning, etc. In the Building a Store on eBay training course from LearnKey, you’ll quickly learn the critical steps to set up and operate your own successful eBay store.

Erica Wadley, the expert instructor for this topic, has created an eBay store that has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products while generating more than 99% positive customer feedback. She takes you step-by-step through the process, such that at the conclusion of this eBay training course you have a clear understanding how to easily build and manage your own eBay store.

eBay SuccessKit
Learnkey hands out this eBay Success Kit, as part of the two-part eBay training course. The eBay Success Kit includes everything you’ll need to know about starting and operating a profitable eBay business.

This kit contains two complete LearnKey video courses on DVD – Making Money on eBay and Building a Store on eBay along with the workbooks you’ll be needing. With this kit you’ll learn step-by-step how to run a successful eBay business from experts who have done it!

eBay is the world’s largest trading community with millions of transactions conducted daily, it is necessary that we go and have a piece of the eBay pie.

Want to have a complete overview of this eBay training courses?

eBay Training Course Outline
Session 1
Section A: Online Auctioning Keys to Success Adam Hersh Online Auction Sites eBay Auctions Other Market Places
Section B: eBay’s Site Home Page Exploring Categories Searching Buying Auction Items Placing Bids
Section C: Auction Items Event Auctions Charity Auctions Memorabilia Big Ticket Items Prohibited Items
Section D: Listing Auctions Creating a Sell Item Advertising Real Estate Choose Category Suggested Categories Category Strategies Titling Items Abbreviation Create Title
Section E: Auction Description Details Purchase Conditions Appearances Description Text HTML Text Controls Reuse Scheduling
Section F: Pricing Price Options Fees Starting Price Reserves/Low Prices Buy It Now
Section G: Auction Features Private Auctions Pictures Picture Layouts Listing Upgrades Counters Payment Methods Shipping Feature Statics Session 2
Section A: After the Auction Follow up Shipping Non-paying Bidders Bidder Management 2nd Chance Offer Relisting Payment Services
Section B: Feedback Core of eBay Responding Getting Feedback Feedback Violations
Section C: eBay Services Benefits Conveniences Promotions Services Tab Buying/Selling Tools Trade with Confidence Authenticate Items ID Verify
Section D: eBay Stores Benefits Store Levels Featured Store Anchor Store Store Section
Section E: Auction Management Marketplace Integration Inventory Management Image Management Sale Management Storefront/Checkout Tools Order Management Preferred Solution Provider
Section F: Powersellers eBay Recognition Levels Benefits Maintaining Status
Section G: Trading Assistants Requirements Finding Clients Fees Limits
Section H: eBay Life eBay Community eBay Plans

Making money on eBay Training – eBay Training, Course 2 Sessions – 4 Hours of Training

eBay Training Instructor – Expert Adam Hersh has sold more than 50,000 items on eBay and other auction sites. He was the first named eBay trading assistant. He has sold more items, received more positive comments. He&d been an eBay member longer than any other trading assistant in New York City. His business has been featured already on several publications, including Smart Money, Readers Digest, and Business Week. He was selected as eBay’s collectible seller of the month in September 2003, and featured in the Collectibles Sellers Newsflash.

Make eBay training through Learnkey count. It will also be a good opportunity for you to attend more eBay training and help you become successful in the eBay business.

10 Safety Tips For Buying On eBay

eBay has become a household name for shoppers. A lot the buyers on eBay are not regular internet shoppers but they still shop on eBay. Such is the power of eBay giving simplicity of shopping and top bargains. From time to time, there is some fraud on eBay about fake fashion items, event tickets that do not exist, some expensive electronic items that do not exist.

eBay does its best to intervene and resolve such disputes. As a shopper, you can follow these 10 safety tips to avoid being conned.

1. Check the seller’s feedback. Positive feedback rating of over 95% is good. If there are many recent negative feedbacks, then this is not a good indication. Also, read all the negative feedbacks. Are these negative feedbacks reasonable? What type of response does the seller have for these feedbacks? Does the seller’s defense sound reasonable? Sometimes new members who buy items on eBay are paranoid and they leave a negative feedback in a haste so make sure if the seller has defended himself/ herself in a reasonable manner. If there are too many complaints of the same nature, then it is probably true.

2. The sellers must have some kind of identification or recognition seal like Paypal verified, or Square trade or a Powerseller seal on the auctions. Such sellers are more reliable. This is especially a good check when you buying an expensive item.

3. Ask seller a question before bidding on the item. Responsible sellers reply promptly to questions. Also, if the seller actually has the item, he/ she maybe able to answer a valid question otherwise not.

4. If you are buying something expensive, then get the contact information of the seller at http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQtZvbQQsofindtypeZ9. You have to login to your eBay account and send a request. You can get the seller’s address and phone number. In doing this, your address and phone number will also be emailed to the seller.

5. The items must have pictures unless it is a service that is sold on eBay. If there is no picture, then the items is probably not there. Almost all sellers will put at least one picture of the item. Let’s assume that the item is there but the seller has been lazy in not putting the picture in the auction ad. Would you like to deal with someone who is so careless? It just shows that the item may not be in good condition, maybe defective or broken.

6. Check description of the item. Research other websites for the same item. Some of the shopping websites to research would be shopping.yahoo.com, overture.com and shopping.msn.com. These sites are adequate for researching items and get the description that you need. The eBay description should match item description on other sites.

7. Research prices for the item on sale. If the item on sale is Gucci handbags, then search for this model of handbag on shopping.yahoo.com. If it retails for $800 on Yahoo and seller on eBay is selling a brand new one for $90, then this item may not be authentic! Large wholesaler are able to sell items for around 50% of retail but something like an original Gucci handbag, it is unlikely that a seller would let go for $90 because these items sell like crazy. Just a note on fraud items – a lot of fraud eBay occurs on fashion items. This is very unfortunate and eBay has taken a lot of steps to eliminate fraud.

8. If the seller has not mentioned any shipping and handling terms, then ask before bidding. There are many auction ads, where the seller mentions that shipping and handling will mentioned to the winning bidder. Surprisingly, there are bids on that item! If you start bidding on the item, then it means that you agreed to the terms and condition of the sellers and there is less room for you to dispute later so ask for the clear instruction on shipping and handling.

9. Reliable sellers have clear description on their refund policy. If it is not there, then ask the seller for it. If the seller has no refund policy, then do not bid on the item. If the there is no refund policy in the auction description, then make sure you get the refund policy in an email from the seller. In this way, you have a document of the refund policy.

10. Do a search for the sellers past items on eBay. Check to see if the seller has sold similar items in the past. To search on the past auctions, go to the Advanced Search page. Here click on the items by seller link and type in the sellers ID and check the box for Include Completed listing. It is always good to check this especially if you are considering buying something expensive.

The Five Things You Must Do Before Buying On Ebay

As a consumer, you will find many great deals on items that you want and need through eBay auctions. Many people visit eBay on a daily basis looking for auctions for items that they may be interested in – simply because eBay auctions are so much fun!

However, before you start buying on eBay, there are some steps that you need to take. Here are five things you must do before buying on eBay.

1. You can’t buy anything without registering first.

Registration is free and only takes a few minutes. You will be asked for credit card information, and this is required before you will be able to bid on auctions. Your email address must be confirmed before your account will become active, so make sure that you use the correct email address.

You will be given the option to sign up for a Paypal account, if you don’t already have one, and you should strongly consider doing so. Signing up with Paypal is free, and many auctions will require you to have a Paypal account.

2. Once you have completed the registration process, you are ready to start bidding on auctions.

However, don’t jump in right away. Navigate around the site a bit, and get a feel for things first. Some unscrupulous sellers try to take advantage of new eBay users, and you must be wary of them.

Start by searching for the items that you are interested in. Using the category list, click on the categories that you feel that you are interested in, and start looking at the open auctions in those categories. You should find the items that you are looking for quite easily.

3. Once you have found items that you want to bid on add the auction to your favorites – but don’t place your bid just yet.

Instead, go find old auctions for similar items. See how much those items sold for so that you know how high to bid. Research the item as best as you can. Determine what the item would cost if it were brand new, and what you should bid now on the used item, in the condition that it is in.

4. Learn more about the seller.

Remember, not everyone is honest. Avoid buying from sellers who have low reputations. The reputation system at eBay is an important tool for buyers. This will enable you to determine whether or not you can trust the person that you are buying from.

Read their feedback page. Read the seller’s &About Me& page. Get to know who you are dealing with a little bit better by communicating with the seller about the auction.

5. Place your bid.

Once you know what item you want and how much you should bid on it, you are ready to place your bid.

There are two ways you can do this. Some sellers take bids on their auctions, with the item going to the highest bidder. Others choose to use the &Buy Now& feature, which means that they have a set reserve price that you must meet – but you are not in competition with other bidders. This is a typical option that sellers use when they have multiple identical items to sell, or when they sell brand new items on eBay using drop shippers.

If you are entering into an open live auction – where bids are placed and the highest bidder wins – you will need to watch the auction closely to ensure that you keep raising your bid to win the item. Just make sure that you don’t end up winning by paying way too much – unless it is a unique item that won’t be found elsewhere!

CopyRight Ian D. Major 2005

Looking To Buy Or Sell For Free?

OK, so you want to get into the business of online auctions. Maybe you want to sell, or maybe you are looking to buy. Either way, it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. Actually, it doesn’t have to cost you anything. That’s right! There are many free auction sites online to choose from.

You’ve heard of eBay (unless of course you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years), but there are alternative free auction sites online to choose from. For example, AuctionFire.com charges no listing fees and allows sellers to link to their auction page straight from their website for free. They have tons of item categories to choose from, whether you are a seller or a buyer, and claim to be open to new category suggestions. Similar in its item categories is Bid-Alot.com where buying and selling is free, though they require sellers who sign up for free account to provide credit card information. They also offer a how-to-trade guide for their beginners. Baymore.com offers pictures of their home page featured items as well as message boards for both buyers and sellers.

Other free auction sites include BuySellTrades.com which offers free listings, classifieds and trading, secure shopping and bidding, free store setup, community forums for buyers and sellers and even a chat community. BidMonkey.com also offers communities and even ChatMonkey IM. Users have the opportunity to earn Monkey Bucks and purchase items without paying anything but shipping. Also, sellers have the chance to be featured on the main page—a guarantee that everyone who logs in will see your name!

Whether you want to buy or sell, there are free auction sites out there for you with extra bonuses such as free store setups and community forums and chats to help you along your way.

12 Easy Ways to Maximize Your eBay Product Photos

It’s a fact. Clear, high-quality photos will greatly enhance your chances of selling your products on eBay. Here are 12 simple tips that will help you make the most of your eBay product photos.

1. You don’t need an expensive, high-resolution digital camera for your eBay photos. You just need a digital camera that will produce a 640×480 pixel image (which includes just about all digital cameras on the market.)

2. Before you buy a camera, handle it to feel how comfortable it is in your hands. Make sure the camera controls are logical, and that it’s easy to transfer photos from the camera to your computer. The camera should be able to focus within four inches or less.

3. When taking a photo for your eBay product, generally select the camera’s smallest photo size. If you are going to crop the image or upload it to eBay’s picture services, however, select at least a 1024 x 768 image size.

4. Disable your camera’s built-in flash when taking a photo. The built-in flash produces a glare on the photo and makes your products look two-dimensional.

5. Use your camera’s “Macro Focus” feature to take close-ups of your product. (“Macro Focus” is usually indicated by a tulip flower symbol.)

6. The key to effective product photography is lighting, and the key to effective lighting is control. You can control the strength, size, position, color and number of lights you use. And each of these controls changes how the subject looks. Review your camera’s manual to understand your camera’s “white balance” symbols ( i.e. a light bulb for indoor shots with incandescent lights, a sun symbol for outdoor photos, etc.) You’ll use the white balance control to get accurate colors. You can preset the white balance to match the type of light you’re using (daylight, shade, tungsten, fluorescent).

7. Use the “Exposure Control” (EV) to correct light and dark photos. A plus number lightens the image, a minus number darkens it.

8. Use a tripod when taking pictures of your product. The tripod stabilizes your camera and eliminates blurry photos.

9. Photograph your products at an angle.

10.Take more than one photo of each item. For example, if you are selling clothing, take one full-length photo; one photo of the tag showing size, fabric, content, brand; and one or more close-up photos showing the texture of fabric and any details or flaws.

11.Use photo-editing software to make final adjustments.

12.Host your pictures on your own website. You will save money and be able to use as many pictures as you need to adequately show eBay bidders your products. It’s simple, and yet 70 percent of eBay sellers don’t do it.

Adding high-quality product photos that enhance your eBay listings will greatly increase your sales. Try it today!

How To Use Ebay’s “Promotional Flyer” Tool.

If you have an eBay store, then you can print off promotional flyers for it for free.

You might have seen ones that other sellers have sent you – they’re basically lists of items available in their eBay stores, usually bearing this default message: “Thank you for your purchase! Please visit my eBay Store for more great items and friendly, reliable customer service.” If you know what you’re doing, though, you can really make your flyer stand out from the crowd.

How Do I Do That?

Go to ‘My eBay’, then ‘Manage Your Store’. Now click ‘Promotions’, and you’ll see the ‘Store Promotional Flyer’ option there for you to use. A flyer will be automatically created using the settings and items from your eBay store, and you can customise it however you want. Be sure to add a border, to make your flyer more attractive visually.

Once you’ve created a flyer, you can print it as many times as you need to – it will be updated each time you print it to show your latest items, so you should only print what you need that day.

What Can I Do With the Flyers?

Well, there are all sorts of uses for promotional flyers.

While you could go and hand them out on the street, that probably wouldn’t be especially effective. Most of the people who walk past you and take the flyer will have no interest in your product, and it’ll just be a waste of paper, ink and time. No, as with all marketing, there are better ways to target your flyers.

Put them in envelopes: if you’ve been putting business cards or compliment slips in your envelopes, use the flyers instead. It’s like sending out a mini-catalogue to your buyers, and including the right items on it might help you make a few backend sales.

In your shop: If you have a real shop or business, then you can hand flyers out to your customers to let them know that you also sell things on eBay.

At a rival’s shop: This is a bit of guerrilla marketing, but maybe you’re into that. You can try handing your flyers out outside a shop that sells your items. Be aware that this might get the shop’s owners a little upset if they see you, however – you should only give flyers to people leaving the shop, not entering it.

Send them to businesses: Look up the addresses of businesses in the area that might need what you’re selling, and send them flyers in the post.

Flyers give you another advantage: If someone types your store’s address as it appears on the flyer and then buys something, then you’ll get the 75% final value fee credit for advertising, without even having to pay anything for advertising!

Users who are inexperienced on eBay, though, can create a few problems for you – they might not quite know what they’re doing, and that’s never good. In the next email, we’ll cover how to report and handle eBay transaction problems.

The Easy Way To Make Sure You Never Overpay On eBay

Buying in any auction either on or offline can be an exciting experience. You see an item that you are interested in and you make a bid. But then someone else bids and you are no longer the high bid. Well, your bid was a bit low anyway so you might as well raise it a little and get control because there are only a few minutes to the end of the auction.

And so up and up go the bids until the end of the auction arrives. One of two things will have happened, you will either have won the item and paid way over the odds or you will breath a sigh of relief as someone else has the winning bid.

As sellers we love two or three people to be interested in our item and bid against each other. That is how items reach two or three times the amount we expected but as a buyer it can leave us a bit flat and not a little poorer.

There is absolutely no reason why this should happen to you. Bidding in the last few minutes of an auction can become frenzied and it is not the place for value for money seekers like us to be. And the good news is that we do not have to be.

These days I make all my bids by Proxy. It is very simple and straightforward and you will often pick up a bargain. What you do is decide what is the maximum price you are prepared to pay for any item. And this is a decision you make ideally a few hours before the end of the auction although you can bid as soon as the item is listed if you wish. Personally I do not like to attract too much attention to an auction by bidding early if I can avoid it. But sometimes it can be necessary if I am going to be away from a computer for a while.

Once you have decided on the amount you are prepared to pay enter that as your bid.

Now do not worry all that will happen is that your bid will be recorded at the level of the next bid increment. For example if the current bid was 99c and you were prepared to pay £3 the actual bid would be for just $1.04 a 5c increase on the previous bid. If someone else then bid yours would increase until someone bids more than your maximum bid.

In my experience I find that by using proxy bids I get about 50% of the items I bid on and often for much less than my maximum amount. One useful tip that I can give you is to never make your maximum bid a round number. For instance if you think $10 is about right bid $10.11 or even $10.51 because a lot of people will quit bidding when the item reaches a significant amount such as $10, $50 or $100 and those few extra can swing the auction in your favour.

Once you have placed your proxy bid you can just forget about it until the auction is over and then just check your e-mail for the congratulations or “the you have been outbid” message. Either way you can be sure that you have not paid over the odds for an eBay purchase.