Make Money Online

Listing tools automate the process of adding listings to eBay, to stop you having to go through the ‘Sell Your Item’ process every time. There is a surprising amount of choice out there when it comes to eBay listing tools, to the point where you might not know what to choose. Here’s an overview of what’s useful and what’s not.

Turbo Lister.

Turbo Lister is a free download from eBay, and allows you to sell on eBay without ever having to actually visit the site. You can write descriptions, save them and list them over and over again – if you want to, you can even do most of your eBay work offline, and just go online for a few seconds to upload it.

You can list in bulk and schedule your listings to start any time. Since this is eBay’s officially supported program, you’re guaranteed that upgrades to eBay’s site will never break it and leave you out in the cold. Personally, though, I find the design quite bad – it’s not really that much easier than just going through eBay directly.

Blackthorne.

Also from eBay, this is what used to be called the ‘Seller’s Assistant’. It’s a downloadable program, but it’s more powerful than Turbo Lister is. It lets you do everything in bulk: listing, re-listing, and even feedback. You can export your sales data to an accounting program, and track your auctions while they’re still going on. You only have to enter things like payment choices and shipping details once, and they’re saved forever.

So where’s the disadvantage? It costs $9.99 per month, or $24.99 for the pro version, which also lets you print shipping labels in bulk and manage an inventory.

Andale Lister.

If you want to try something that’s not been made by eBay, Andale’s lister is still web-based, but aims to streamline the process.

You can create ‘profiles’ with different selections for your auctions. For example, you could create a ‘Normal’ profile that doesn’t include any of the listing upgrades, a ‘Promote’ profile that includes Bold and Highlight, and a ‘Super Promote’ profile that buys Bold, Highlight and Featured Plus. This makes it easier to choose the set of options you want for each item.

It’s all about saving things you’ve done. Each time you upload a picture, it gets added to a ‘Picture Library’ for you to use again, and you can store an inventory and choose from it to create a listing. You also get nicer-looking templates than eBay provide.

Of course, if eBay had their act together then this is what their own process would be like – but they’re happy for third-parties to make money doing the work instead of upgrading their own site. Andale Lister can cost anywhere between 20c and 4c per listing, as you get discounts for volume.

Now that you’re listing in bulk, you can spend more time trying to attract people to come and bid on your auctions. But how should you be doing your marketing? In the next email, we’ll go through some of the options available to you.

One of your most important marketing assets is your Keyword List. But are you giving your Keyword List the attention it deserves? Is your Keyword List getting a little shaggy around the edges? Are your keywords becoming old and out of date? Is your Keyword List not behaving at its best, possibly due to neglect?

To properly care for your Keyword List you need to understand its different needs and functions. We can divide the list into several broad categories.

1) Master Keyword List – this list has all the keywords that you can come up with for your particular need. All other lists are taken from this Master List.

2) Pay-Per-Click List – this is a subset of the Master List and will vary depending on how you are using PPC and which search engines you are buying positions in.

3) Tag List – this subset of the Master List helps you fill in those Meta Tag fields. Although many search engines are not currently paying much attention to Meta Tags, that could change at any time and the search engines will not let us know if or when they begin watching Meta Tags again. So the safe bet is to still keep these tags properly populated.

4) Web Site List – this is another subset of the Master List and is more targeted than the PPC list. This list also helps you write powerful content on your site. And don’t forget to refer to this list when setting up the Alt tags for your images (you are using Alt tags aren’t you?).

5) Email List – Are you using keywords in your email? You should be. Keywords are not only used to help people find your site in search engines, but they are words people are actively searching for. Your marketing should be addressing their needs, and your keyword list shows you what they are looking for. Just like creating copy on a web page, use the keyword list to target your email campaigns as well.

So how do you go about creating the Master Keyword list? You first have to decide what you need from your keywords. Most likely you will have a product or service that will dictate the broad category for the list. As an example I will use Nikon Camera as my starting point. Maybe I have a site that specializes in information about Nikons, or I have a store that sells Nikon Cameras, or maybe I sell software that would complement a Nikon Camera. These questions and more will begin to focus your keyword search.

Start by building a basic list using this approach, you don’t need to capitalize, leave everything lowercase.

nikon, nikon camera, nikon information, nikon sales, nikon software

Put down the basic keywords that spring into your head when thinking about your subject. This does not need to be an exhaustive list, just a starting point.

We now need to expand on this list by using tools freely available on the internet. My personal favorite is on Overture.com in their Resource Center. They have a valuable little tool called the Keyword Selector Tool. This tool will give you a list of keyword searches on Overture over a one month period. Simply type in your keyword and hit the button. You will get a list of keywords including the keyword you typed in and the number of searches performed on the keyword.

A search for “Nikon” came back with 100 keyword possibilities. Depending on your original keyword search you may have to clean this list up a bit before using it. For instance one of the keywords was “Nikon rifle scopes”, not what I need so I will delete that one. I usually copy the information from this web page and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet where I can manipulate it as I like. Each month you may get a different set of keywords on Overture, so don’t just do this one time and forget it. Keep on checking back to add more keywords to your list.

Another valuable tool is over on Google. (https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox)
You can also find this tool in the Tools section of Google Adwords. This is used like the Overture tool, simply type in your keyword and click on Get More Keywords. This search gave me 225 possible keywords, many of which I will clean out. A nice feature of the Adwords tool is that it allows you to download the list as a CSV file for use in Excel or another program.

There are many other sources for keyword lists. A good place to start is on Search Engine Watch at http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041

Don’t forget specialized sites like eBay. They have a banner ad program named eBay Keywords where you can find suggestions for keywords to use with banner ads on eBay. http://ebay.admarketplace.net

And finally pay attention to the log files for your web site. You will have a list of searches people used to find your site. This is a very targeted list of keywords that were actually successful in driving traffic to your site.

Now that you have a huge list of keywords you are ready to create your Master Keyword List. Place all these keywords into a spreadsheet and clean out the inappropriate keywords (like “Nikon Binoculars”). Then arrange in order from most relevant to least relevant.

You need to weed this Master List down for your PPC campaign. You may find that the keywords near the top of your list are the most expensive and that the ones in the middle may have a better cost to sales ratio. But the more keywords you can use on PPC, the broader your exposure.

The top 25 should work well for your Meta Tag list. Depending on your needs you may need to remove duplicate words. Try to limit any individual word to 5 uses or less (example: don’t use “nikon” more than 5 times).

The top 10 keywords are your sales words for your web site and email campaigns since these are the most tightly focused keywords in the list.

Don’t forget that the needs of your list will be changing as the market place shifts. Every month or so do a new search for keywords to keep your keyword list up to date. Trim out the words that are either no longer appropriate or effective. Be sure to keep an eye on your log files. Keep your sub-lists current. And give your Keyword List the care and attention it needs to live a long and active life.

And finally, if only 4 people purchase some training off of my site due to the keywords in this article I can finally get that Nikon Camera that I have been wanting.

There are steps you can take to make sure that you are getting a great deal on the items you obtain through eBay. These same steps will also help to shield you against fraud.

Start with the auction in question. Make sure that you read every word of the description and the auction details.

Pay special attention to what the description and auction details do not say. For example, is a guarantee mentioned? Is the item new? Is it authentic? Is there evidence of authenticity? Look for auctions that provide the right information, and just keep away from those that do not.

Who will pay the shipping and handling costs? Often, the buyer pays these costs, but sometimes, the seller tries to charge more than the actual shipping and handling costs are. Be careful of high shipping costs, especially for items that will be auctioned off at a very low price. Note when the item is supposed to ship after the bidding has ended.

Don’t make the mistake of bidding on an item merely because it is a &good deal.& It is only a good deal for you if the item is something that you really want or need. A lot of people simply bid for the sake of bidding – or winning – without having any real need for the item in question. Before bidding on items that you do want or need, it’s best to check prices around the Internet and the prices available from offline sources as well.

Learn more about the seller. What is their rating? Read their feedback page. Not learning more about the seller can be very costly. Sometimes scammers make their auctions sound like really great deals. Be cautious of prices that seem to be extremely low.

So you’ve done everything you can to keep your buyers happy – but still someone’s left you negative feedback! You don’t think it’s fair, either because you fixed the buyer’s problem, or they never gave you a fair chance to fix it. What can you do?

Communicate.

Tell the buyer that you don’t think that feedback was fair, and give them a list of the things you’ll do in exchange for them withdrawing it. You can offer refunds, replacements, or even to ‘compensate them for their time’ (that means bribe them), depending on how desperate you are. If they agree, you can go through the mutual withdrawal process detailed below.

Respond.

Leave a comment under the negative feedback explaining what happened – this at least minimises the damage it will do to your reputation if anyone looks at it. Remember that you can more-or-less write whatever you want, as there is no facility for the buyer to respond to your response – and anything you write will show up on their ‘Feedback Left for Others’ page! If you’re a little devious, you can make them look very bad.

Retaliate.

However much you’re not supposed to do it, you really shouldn’t let a buyer leave you negative feedback without leaving them a negative in return. Be polite and factual, saying something like “buyer did not give me a fair opportunity to fix their complaint” (note that this is one of the reasons why you should always leave feedback second, or not at all). This might not be the ‘nicest’ way to do business on eBay, but it’s the only realistic way to protect your flawless reputation.

Don’t be worried: retaliatory feedback is not against eBay’s rules, however much it should be. Anyway, you’re not just doing this for revenge – it’s essential for the next step.

Try for a Mutual Withdrawal.

Since the buyer probably won’t want a negative response or feedback comment on their record, you can do a simple “I’ll take away my negative if you take away yours” deal. This is called mutual feedback withdrawal, and the process can be started at this page: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MFWRequest.

This will cause eBay’s system to send an email to your buyer, asking them if they agree to withdraw their feedback in exchange for you withdrawing yours. You should get them to agree before you press the button, though, because you can only use it once per transaction.

Use Dispute Resolution.

You and the buyer can take your feedback dispute to SquareTrade, where you can both give your side and they will cancel feedback that they feel is unfair – they are far more responsive than eBay. Be aware that this costs about $20, but it has the advantage that if the buyer doesn’t respond to the process then their feedback will be removed automatically.

Of course, at some point you might find yourself with an even worse buyer than one that just leaves negative feedback – they might refuse to pay, or harass your other buyers. Our next email will tell you how to get in touch with eBay’s ‘Safe Harbor’ team, and what they can do for you.

Going full-time as an eBay seller is living the dream: making a real income, working from home, being your own boss and all the rest of it. It’s the promise of a million scams, and it’s finally come true – at least for some.

What they don’t tell you in the success stories, though, is that becoming a full-time eBay seller is by no means for everyone. You really, really ought to try it part-time before you even consider taking it up full-time, and even then, caution is advisable. Before you burn your suit, here’s a list of questions you should ask yourself.

How Much Do I Earn From eBay Now?

Work out how many hours a week you spend doing eBay-related things (be honest here), and divide it by the average amount of profit you make in a week. If you were doing full-time hours, would you earn as much as you earn now?

Do I Have a Good Job?

Think about what you might lose if you give up your job to focus on eBay. If you’re in a well-paid job with good promotion prospects then it’s well worth reconsidering: you might get a few years down the line and wish you’d stayed in your traditional job, as you’d probably be the CEO by now.

Would I Really Make Much More Money?

Unless you’re selling a large quantity of small goods, most of what you do on eBay will be waiting for auctions to end – and you can wait at work just as easily as you can at home. This is why whether you would make more money on eBay really depends on what kinds of items you’re selling – for low value items, going full-time could be a good move. For high-value ones, the chances are you’ll hit the limits of how much money you have to invest in inventory long before you hit the limits on your time.

Is my Home a Good Place to Work?

Quite apart from anything else, you might find that the dream of home working is more of a nightmare in reality. People can start to depend on you to get things done that need to be done during the day. If you have a wife and children then they can resent the fact that you’re in the house but refuse to have anything to do with them for large parts of the day. Giving in to any of these things and stopping work for a while will cause your profits to fall.

Can I Survive if it All Goes Wrong?

In the end, would you be able to get by if you had a month or two where you sold literally nothing? Or would you be desperately looking around for a job and cursing the day you ever discovered eBay? That’s the real test.

If you made it through all these questions, then I guess you’re cut out for the eBay life – and even if you didn’t, you’d be surprised just how far you can get part-time. In our next email, we’ll show you how to think like the eBay elite: the PowerSellers.

Stuff that is being bought and sold online these days mostly comes from eBay, this trading had attracted a lot of people that would like to sell their items for a good price. They come and go like hot pancakes, just juice up the deal by making them stand out. You can always make a difference by making honest deals and build up your reputation. Here are some free eBay selling tips that might help you sell those old figurines in the attic.

Write a simple description and do not clutter your auction with unneeded items like animated Gifs, and colored backgrounds. Remember, you are selling not entertaining.

If you are selling items such as DVDs, software and designer labels, make it clear that your items are genuine and not pirate copies or fakes. Letting them know what you sell for real makes them understand your product better, hence, having little trouble when the day ends. You might end up having a bad reputation if you are selling bootleg copies when you stated they are genuine.

Charge a flat rate for shipping, and mention the shipping costs prominently within your auction description. Let potential buyers know that you are prepared to ship overseas. This will greatly increase potential sales.

Check your spelling. Items won’t sell if potential buyers can’t find them because you’ve misspelled the item’s name. Write a title that accurately describes your item. Use manufacturers name and model number within the title if applicable. Write a detailed description that allows prospective bidders to make a decision about purchasing the item. A basic tip is the description can never be too long as long as it is describing the item.

Host your own pictures. By hosting your own pictures, you will save money, and, more importantly, be able to use as many pictures as you need to adequately show eBay bidders your item. This is the simplest thing to do, and yet 70 percent of eBay sellers ignore this simple tip.

Pay the extra fee to include a picture of your product. Make sure that it is a good quality image, with no background distractions. Optimize your pictures for the web is the best way to tune out the loading times of your image. Many sellers use the highest resolution settings on their cameras and generate huge files that download very slowly. Computer monitors only show 72DPI, any extra detail is just a waste of the bidder’s time.

List your item in the most appropriate category. Many buyers’ only search eBay by looking at listings within categories. If you are not in the right eBay category you will not be seen by lots of potential bidders and you item may end up selling for less than it’s worth.

Systemize your eBay selling. Using a system to sell on eBay will lower the amount of time spent selling each item, and insure you don’t forget any important activities.

Build your positive feedback. You can do this quickly by buying and selling several small value items. This will give potential buyers confidence in you.

Be honest. If your item is less than perfect, say so. This is more likely to generate a sale as potential buyers are more likely to trust you. Being honest should also help to protect your valuable positive feedback. I once made a tidy profit on some items that were originally free; I made it clear in the copy; the buyer was pleased and so was I.

Don’t set a high starting price. This will cost you more, and could put off potential buyers. Your item will find its correct value if you have listed it properly, but it may not reach its value until the last few minutes of the auction. Be realistic about shipping costs. If you charge too little, you risk your profit. It is possible to make a small profit from shipping, but if you charge too much, you will put off possible buyers

Time your auction to end on a weekend, this is when most potential customers will be available to buy your items, and should increase the final price you get. Take advantage of eBay promotional offers; look out for special days when you can advertise your items at a reduced cost.

Now, time to get started, remember, you can only build your reputation by having good trades, having to let strangers trust you is really nonsense these days but on eBay, they make sure your points are given credit. Follow these tips and you’re on your way to making good money.

If you know what you’re doing, you can quickly find what you’re looking for on eBay. Here are a few golden rules.

Be specific: If you’re searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you’ll get further searching for ‘harry potter rowling philosopher’s stone first edition’ than you will searching for ‘harry potter’. You’ll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It’s a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can’t spell. Whatever you’re looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings – the chances are that fewer people will find these items, and so they will be cheaper.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe your item, for example searching for both ‘TV’ and ‘television’, or for ‘phone’, ‘mobile’ and ‘cellphone’. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you’ll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD because you want to buy that CD, you should click the ‘CDs’ category to just look at results in that category. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don’t care about?

Don’t be afraid to browse: Once you’ve found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click ‘Browse’ and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay’s search engine is – a few symbols here and there and it’ll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say ‘anything can go here’. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for ‘car 195*’. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes (“”) then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for “Lord of the Rings” won’t give you any results that say, for example “Lord Robert Rings”.

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don’t want to appear in your search results. For example: “Pulp Fiction” –(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become ‘(TV,television)’, which would find items with either word.

So once you’ve found your bargain item, bid for it and won it, what if it all goes wrong? Don’t worry – eBay has a thorough dispute resolution procedure, and we’ll cover it in some depth in the next article, so you’ll be prepared if the worst happens.

Today, eBay is considered to be one of the most lucrative auction sites available in the Internet.

However, selling on eBay is not that easy, and the very first thing a seller should do is to find the ways on how he or she will get paid once the item is sold. And so, here are the different ways how a seller can be paid:

1. PayPal

PayPal is the most common and convenient way of sending and receiving money based on an eBay transaction. Here, the payment for the sold item is sent directly to the seller by means of an established bank account or a credit card.

2. Personal Check or Cashier&s Check

Sellers may choose this kind of option. However, the drawback of using this kind of payment method is that the seller still has to wait for a number of banking days before the check gets cleared.

3. Credit Cards

Sellers must have a merchant account to be able to accept payments from its buyers through credit cards. This is applicable only if the buyer will be paying directly to the seller. If the buyer still wants to use credit card but wants a safer transaction, he or she may opt to pay the seller through PayPal with the use of the credit card.

4. Bank to bank wire transfers

In this type of payment, the seller can be paid through a bank-to-bank transaction. Here, the buyer will transfer funds from his or her bank account to the seller’s bank account.

5. Money Orders/Bid pay

This is one of the recommended payment methods of eBay. This is considered safe because the seller or the buyer can track down the mailing address of the concerned person.

6. Escrow

This is strongly suggested for high-priced item transactions. The escrow service guarantees full protection while the transaction is not yet closed. Through this service, the seller has to wait for the confirmation that the buyer had received the product before receiving payment.

However, sellers and buyers should take extra precautions on dealing with escrow services. There are a lot of counterfeit escrow services lurking on eBay these days. It’s best to check if the escrow service was approved by eBay.

8. Cash

Sellers on eBay may receive payments through cash. However, this is a high-risk activity and offers no guaranteed protection.

8. Instant Cash Wire Transfers like western Union and Money Grams

Sellers may opt for this type of payment method. But, they should keep in mind eBay is strongly against this mode of payment and that insisting this to the buyer may result to suspension or termination of account.

As you might have already noticed there’s more to selling on eBay and the various other auction sites than just posting and auction and waiting for the money to arrive.

You only need to to look at the many many eBay items that go unsold every day. This article will help you learn to successfully sell on eBay and other auction sites by examining the different skills to you need to learn to be successful. We will use combined experience of many eBay sellers with years of success and we will list here many pointers and tools that will help you join their ranks.

Sell something you know and care about.

The to be very successful on eBay requires more than just following a few steps. The above average sellers more than just anonymously listing a few items for sale. The top sellers reflect a portion of themselves in each item they list. This helps put aside any uncertainties a buyer might have purchasing from a complete stranger. Thus the first lesson in becoming a top of eBay seller is to learn how to put to that little something of yourself into your auction listings.

Research, what the buyers in your field of interest are looking for.

What is the main difference between eBay sellers who sell, and those who run up bills listing items that they don’t get rid of? Those who are stuck with their stock look for items to sell that they want to sell, those who are very successful at selling looks items to sell that people want to buy!

Research is absolutely critical to being successful on eBay. You should utilise the Internet to its full extent to find the information necessary pertaining as to which heightens will be the best sellers. Good sources for finding this information are eBay itself, and the various forums dedicated to eBay buyers and sellers.

Make sure what you know how to meet your eBay buyers’ needs

You will need to learn how to obtain your products, be it through wholesalers or
importers or other means. How to deliver your products, be it self delivery, out
sourced delivery or drop shipping. Keep in mind the extra costs involved with the various forms of purchase and delivery.

Design your auctions to build relationships with your eBay buyers

Buyers would prefer to spend their money when they feel comfortable with the seller. You should therefore build up good relationships not only with your current customers that with any potential customers looking at your listings. Keep in mind that eBay keeps track your customer satisfaction through the feedback system. It is imperative that you build up an excellent feedback score.

Promote your auctions to attract new buyers

You should learn how to promote your products on eBay through use of the inbuilt tools such as eBay stores, membership profiles and cross-referencing of various listings.

By following these pointers you will improve your selling results in no time at all. It’s all a matter of discipline and being realistic and with oneself.

You may know every Internet Giant, from Amazon, Yahoo, to AOL, Google, but not forget eBay. Only eBay is so close that home based business can make money online. It is the easiest way to make money online selling on eBay.

You may not realize it yet, but you are about to begin an exciting new lifestyle! The world of online auctions is not only a very profitable world, but it can also mean a lifestyle change unlike any you could’ve imagined just a few years ago.

eBay is now the world’s largest marketplace and the online auctions model which eBay first brings into business actually allows you the opportunity to make money online quickly. So why not use this to the advantage of your website and your business? By creating an easy-to-use eBay Store and listing some hot, in-demand items at a small discount from the price on your website, you can drive traffic from eBay back to your website as well as creating sales and revenue for your company through eBay. eBay Store’s monthly fees is nominal and can easily be paid off from the profit of just a few small sales. eBay Store is set up to where your item can be listed automatically saving your valuable time and making the maintenance of your eBay Store effortless.

Compare this with the majority of businesses out eBay, which may actually take a year or couples of years before they realize any real profits, you will feel satisfied. Is it amazing to make money online selling on eBay?
By simply understanding and knowing what you are doing, you can be very successful doing your online business to make money selling on eBay.

The traffic on eBay is massive, check out the figures for yourself at any source you trust. eBay has a staggering 10 million items on sale at any point in time. The site gets 1.5 billion auction page views each month. This is the key that makes it so easy for ordinary people to make money on eBay. It is simply a matter of taking your products to where the customers are waiting for it. But you need to know what you are doing. It all boils down to getting the formula to maximize your auction effectiveness.
You can be found by more eBay users by being as descriptive as possible in the Item Description and by using as many keywords as possible that describe your item and industry within the Item Title. Reports show that over 90% of searches on eBay are done using the search facility. What users do not know about eBay search facility is that by default it only searches the item titles – not the descriptions of the items.
Imagine building a website that got more than 10 million unique visitors per Day. Do you think you might be able to find a way to make money online selling on eBay? One of the greatest benefits of selling on eBay is this sheer volume of traffic that you automatically acquire as a registered seller of eBay.

eBay allows you to set up an account with only some basic personal information and a credit card for billing. There is typically no up-front investment required! Meanwhile, you can use PayPal as your tool to collect your money from selling on eBay. If you compare this to traditional business, you have to admit this is for your utility.
One of the main concerns that sellers have about trading on internet is: “How do I know that they are going to pay?” That is not a question at all. eBay and PayPal have protections for sellers and protect buyers also. One protection is “feedback”. This is simply a recorded “comment” (either positive, neutral or negative) left by both the buyer and seller after a transaction ends, telling future buyers and sellers how that particular transaction went.
Just imagine the facts that there are numerous of people making money online. The facts are that there are numerous of people who make money online selling on eBay. So why the next one is not you?

If you’ve a savvy businessperson, the chances are you’ve already taken a look at your competitors’ auctions. What you might not have realised is just how much you can learn if you know what you’re looking for.

To begin with, don’t bother looking at listings that haven’t ended yet – you don’t know what’s going to happen with them. Instead, use the advanced search page to search for listings that sold. Just go to the advanced search page, type in the keywords that you know will find your competitors’ items, tick ‘Completed listings only’ and set the minimum number of bids to 1. Set it to sort by ‘Price: highest first’.

This will show you auctions competing with yours that have recently finished, starting with the ones that sold for the most (ignore any with prices in red – they didn’t sell). Go through and take a look, paying special attention to the following points:

Titles. What information do the top sellers of your item put in their titles, and what do they leave out? If your titles are very different to theirs, it might be time for a rethink.

Descriptions. You’ll probably notice that the highest sellers haven’t just copied text from the company’s website or an Amazon.com review – they’ve gone to the trouble of writing a little about the item, and about themselves. Learn from their example.

Pictures. I can almost guarantee you that the listing will have very nice pictures – not catalogue quality, but good enough to see what you’re getting. With items of any significant cost, you’ll probably find more than one photo from different angles.

Style. Is it written conversationally, or in terse businesslike language? The way you should write entirely depends on what the market seems to like – and the market seems to like what the top sellers wrote.

Time. It’s pretty easy to ignore this as a factor without meaning to, but pay attention to when the top selling items’ auctions began and ended. This might give you a few clues about the best to catch buyers who will bid highly on your item, and then you can schedule your items accordingly.

Price. If your competitors are selling using Buy it Now, you can see what the maximum is that they’ve managed to sell for recently, and set your own Buy it Now price slightly below that.

Shipping. Look around to see the sweet spot for shipping. If you can figure out a way to get your shipping costs lower than the highest sellers, then this is a great opportunity to differentiate yourself in the market.

Once you see what works, you can start to emulate your competitors – of course you can’t just copy them completely, but you can structure your auction similarly and make sure it includes the same information.

If you want your items to do even better, then start stocking the items in your category that are the most in-demand. We’ll show you how to tell what’s selling and what’s not in our next email.

“Only the content of your website gives you promotional leg to stand on”

Everyone wants to make money on the web and so as you. This you can make only if you have a web presence and bring customers to your website and turn leads into sales. Your search engine ranking is the key to the amount of visitors, and the success of your website, finally. But… but… but… this is not an easy task. In the age of tough competition it’s difficult to achieve top ranking on the top search engines and for the top keywords.

Its good to a have website highly rich with animated pictures, graphics but if content of your website is not good then its really not worth to have that. Stunning visual design may do a great job of attracting visitors, but, if in the end, the substance isn’t there, all your effort was in vain.

Content is the most vital part of your website. No matter how good is the design or how fast your site, people visit for content, and that is what you should be giving them. There are so many sites around which have no real content, or are just plain boring with some animated pictures. Good content keeps not only your visitors interested and give you a good site but it can also help you to promote your website.

What I believe is, for any type of business, a plenty of well-written, informative, related content of your website is a prerequisite to infinite success. The more pages and words you have, the more chance you have or being on the top as a search result. You must have heard about Google, EBay, Yahoo, MSN, etc. Would you say that these sites have stunning designs and visual effects…Not at all!! These sites offer information first i.e. content. See, Google gives you one of the best search results; yahoo provides content, news, products, etc in abundance. You will be astonished by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web.

So how can you get high-quality content on your website? There are many ways to add content to your website:

Write Yourself

Writing yourself is the cheapest way of generating the content. But for this you need a good knowledge of your subject to be able to write effectively on it. If you have the skills and time to generate content then this is really the best route to take. You have to focus on your site’s purpose and find a way to balance the information in categories that help communicate your goals.

Hire someone else to Write

If you do not feel confident enough of writing great content yourself, it’s better to hire a good writer to do it for you. But before choosing an appropriate copywriter, but he should possess Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) copywriting experience. As you have a website which is selling your business, and your main aim is to bring traffic to your website. So a person with an experience of SEM/SEO can only do wonders for your business.

Last but not the least, If you are running a business and want traffic then there must be more value in writing higher quality content than in redesigning your site or updating your technology. Just get your designing out of the way and let your visitors have what they want, information. I’m not trying to detract from visual design, information design or good technology. Each makes a huge difference in the quality of a web site, but the web site doesn’t stand a chance without content.

Trying to be help your buyers find your auctions can be a truly daunting task. Most people only search eBay by title, not by description, and that means that you only have those 55 characters of the title to cover all the possible search terms. That’s not easy. In this email, I’ll give you a few pointers.

Don’t bother with eBay clichés: There are plenty of eBay auction titles that say things like “Super rare camera wow look low price”. These are stupid things to put in your title, as no-one is going to search for them.

Think like a buyer: If you were looking for your item, then what exactly would you type into that box? If you think it’d help, try searching yourself to find someone else selling your item. What were the first things you thought of typing?

Think like other sellers: Keep an eye on which sellers are doing best with items like yours, and try to copy their title styles – if it works for them, it can work for you.

Be specific: You should be sure to write the item’s brand and specific model number in the title, as people will often search only for this information. Make sure that you also say exactly what the item is.

A Few Examples.

Here are a few examples of good titles. They’re real, and they’re on eBay right now, making their sellers money. So what makes them good?

“Dell Latitude Laptop P3 500mhz Notebook PC Computer”

If you know about computers, you’ll know instantly what this auction is selling. It has manufacturer (Dell) and product line (Latitude), followed by a few technical specifications (P3 500mhz is the processor speed). Notice also that the title includes the four words ‘laptop’, ‘notebook’, ‘PC’ and ‘computer’, as the seller wants people looking for any of those words to see his auction.

“OASIS Don’t Believe the Truth CD Album (New)”

This auction for a CD is well formatted: it gives the artist name in capital letters, followed by the album name. It then manages to include the two key words ‘CD’ and ‘album’, as well as the word ‘new’ – that means that anyone searching for ‘new oasis cd’, ‘oasis new album’ and so on will find this auction.

“1840 Penny Black stamp, certificate, four margins”

Here’s a slightly more obscure one, from the exciting world of stamp collecting. A penny black is one of the oldest and most famous stamps. It uses a few key words that collectors will consider important: ‘four margins’ indicates that the stamp has been cut out with some margins around it and so isn’t damaged, and ‘certificate’ tells you that the item has a certificate of authenticity – it’s a real penny black. Remember to use every bit of space to squeeze in as much important information as you can in the title.

So now that you’ve written a winning title, you need to start on a great description. The next email will show you how.

When you have a small home-based business, and are basically just starting out, there are many great ways to make a large leap ahead. One of these great methods is to sell online merchandise. An online store can be set up relatively easily and e-commerce has been proven to be quite successful. There are many sites online these days that make e-commerce an excellent decision for your business.

Microsoft now offers a great service known as Bcentral, and is offering great deals on server and hosting packages that run on a monthly scale, or basis. This is a great tool for the individual that is looking to delve into the e-commerce field. If you have an idea for a catalog, and need tools to get it up and running such as templates, and logo creators this could be your solution you’ve been waiting for. Not only will you receive the templates and the graphic creators, but also you will receive the quaint shopping cart in the top right hand side of the page. Having the opportunity to track and control orders and sales is made very easy as you will receive automated conformation through your e-mail. Being able to become a member in the PayPal system is also a good idea, as you can never have enough payment options attached to your site. This just increases your chances of sales. You will also be given the opportunity to keep track of customer traffic to your site as well. This makes for a very handy service indeed.

Another great service is provided by Ebay, the stores offer a very popular alternative and have a sliding fee scale to fit most businesses needs and budget. The basic service is for the smaller of the businesses that have a smaller volume of traffic. This does not mean that you will not have access to some great tools for your site,but you will not be able to keep track of the flow of traffic or sales with this service and there is a very limited directory, yet it is still a good service for someone who is just starting out. The next level of the ebay service will provide more for the business that may be needed as time goes on. It places your priorities in relation to the product you are trying to sell; knowing exactly what the consumer is looking for makes it easy for them to adjust your targeted areas. You will get some traffic reports and sales figures, but not many. The third and final level of the ebay store program is exactly where you want your business to be placed. This is the premier spot or the center stage. This is the place where the bulk of the strongest traffic will be located. This will give you a much stronger shot at making those sales.

eBay has quite an intricate and long-winded dispute resolution procedure. In this email, I’ll try to break each step down for you, so you can see what’s involved and how long it takes.

As an example, let’s go through what you would do if you paid for an item but didn’t receive it from the seller.

Before you open a dispute: Give the seller a chance to send the item before you get ahead of yourself and open a dispute. If you’re concerned about how long the item is taking to arrive, the first thing you should do is send a polite email to the seller saying that you haven’t received it and asking whether they have posted it. You should also check your own email address in eBay’s options, to make sure that the seller can reply to you. As a last resort before opening a dispute, you should try to call the seller on the number eBay has for them. You might have to pay long-distance charges for the call, but that’s better than dragging the auction through mediation for months.

Step 1 – You open an Item Not Received dispute: You can do this here: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?InrCreateDispute.

All you need to do is enter the item number and say that you did not receive the item.

Step 2 – eBay contacts the seller: eBay sends the seller an email that tells them that you’ve said you didn’t receive the item. Then can then choose to tell you one of three things: that your payment hasn’t cleared yet, that the item is in the post, or that they’ll give you your money back. The seller can also tell eBay that they would like to send you a message.

Step 3 – You talk to the seller: You try to work out what’s happened directly with the seller, sending messages back and forward. Hopefully they’ll agree to give you a refund for the sake of their feedback, or your item will turn up in the post during this time.

Step 4 – Closing the dispute: After 30 days (or 10 days if the seller didn’t respond), you have two options to close the dispute: either you were satisfied or you weren’t. If you weren’t satisfied, then you can claim under eBay’s purchase protection program for up to $200.

Independent Dispute Mediation.

If you don’t want to go through eBay’s own process, and especially if the auction was for a high-value item, then you can use a third-party mediator. eBay recommend SquareTrade, at http://www.squaretrade.com, who provide mediation to many websites where there are buyers and sellers. They will contact the seller on your behalf and then mediate as you negotiate what to do from there.

Sellers who are committed to going through SquareTrade’s mediation for any disputes can sign up to display the ‘SquareTrade seal’ on their auctions. This gives their buyers $250 fraud protection, and shows that their identity has been independently verified so they are who they say they are.

When your sellers aren’t in such good standing, though, you need to be careful to avoid being a victim of fraud. There are a few scams that you especially need to look out for – we’ll cover them in the next email.

Good communication is the key to encouraging your auction buyers to leave you positive feedback. Such communication also helps avoid most negative feedback on eBay.

1. Good Communication Prevents Misunderstandings

Good communication helps to avoid misunderstandings. For example, if surface shipping takes six to eight weeks but the customer doesn’t know this, he may expect almost immediate delivery. When such quick delivery doesn’t materialize, he may feel that he has been cheated or that your service is slow and poor.

Thus, try to spell out delivery time frames and other details as much as possible. Is your refund policy clear? Is your product clearly and accurately described in your auction ad? Does your product&s quality meet or exceed the expectations created by your auction ad?

2. Prompt E-mail Response

If, for whatever reason, your e-mail response is slow, the customer may assume that you aren&t delivering on your promises. Prompt e-mail communication can help reassure the customer and gives evidence of good customer service.

3. Encourage Queries

Basically, state in your auctions: “If you have any questions about this auction, please e-mail me.” If a person is expecting instant delivery of an e-book but instead you send him the information via the postal service, he might be disappointed. Nip all such problems in the bud by encouraging your prospective buyers to ask questions.

4. Ask for Positive Feedback

How can you encourage buyers to leave positive feedback for you? Simply state that you’ll leave positive feedback for them after you’ve received theirs.

Since they are leaving the feedback first, they will hesitate to leave you negative feedback, knowing that you may respond in kind. If you leave positive feedback for the buyer first, they may never return the favour.

5. Reversing Negative Feedback

With good communication, you can often avoid receiving negative feedback. Try to do everything that is reasonable to make your customer happy.

However, what if you do receive negative feedback on one of your auctions? What can you do about it?

Under certain, very limited circumstances (such as an extortion attempt), eBay might reverse negative feedback unjustly given to you. In most cases, however, eBay will not reverse negative feedback.

You can use eBay’s “Mutual Feedback Withdrawal” procedure. This is where both the buyer and seller agree to withdraw negative feedback from each other. Thus, the negative feedback will be removed from both of your total scores (thus improving both feedback ratings).

The negative comments themselves won’t be removed by eBay. However, your comments left in response to a negative feedback will also stay to tell your side of the story.

Yes, good communication can lead to more positive feedback from your auctions. Such communication can also help you to avoid and even reverse negative feedback. So, by all means, promote positive feedback on eBay through good communication.

As a buyer you are trying to find bargains i.e listings with the best price (Buy It Now Items) or listings with the fewest bids (Auction Items). Generally these listing are the ones that get the least amount of visitors, and most of the time it is because of missing keywords (Product Serial, Manufacture Name…etc) in the title field. Thus, the key is finding listings that contain misspelled keywords or listings that are missing important keywords in the title field. Since the default eBay Search box only searches the title field, you can often increase your chances on finding deals by checking the “Search title and description” check box.

The next thing you will need to know is the “Art Of Gaging An Item Price on eBay”. A nifty way to find the going price for an item is by looking at the ended listings. To search for ended listings, simply click “Advanced Search” link found under the upper right hand search box. And then check the “Completed listings only” check box before beginning the search.

Always “Find Reserved Price Auctions”. You will be amazed at how many people just don’t bother bidding when they see the reserve price tag, most of times the reserve price is less then 10% of the item going rate which means huge savings. Remember however to place your bid in the last 10 seconds.

A nifty way to save cash on items is by offering sellers an end bid early option. The key here is that you will have to find recently listed item (less then 100 views) and from sellers with fewer than 50 feedbacks. Try to keep your initial offer to no lower then 10% of the regular eBay price (See Gaging Item Price).

If you are a pro on eBay then you will mostly likely only bid twice on an item. The first bid is optional and it meant to take the item out of the “Buy It Now”, since you will be more likely to win the item at a lower price through an auction. The second bid should come on the last 10 seconds of the auction, this maybe longer if you are on dial-up

You can tell a lot about your competition (fellow bidders) by looking at their previously won items to see their bidding pattern. You will be amazed at how many people keep their last bid to a whole dollar, meaning you only need to add a cent to snipe them in the last 10 seconds.

You will be more likely to win an item at a lower price on a weekday then a weekend. The reasoning is simple, less competition, most people with jobs will be unavailable or less likely to bid, and thus increasing the probability of winning the item at a lower price.

Did you know eBay occasionally issues Paypal coupons that could save you anywhere from (5 % -10 %) when paying for your eBay items.

You can save a lot from buying from sellers with little or no feedback. But again the key is knowing your seller so you don’t get burned. Here is what I do before I place a bid, first I email the seller, asking him/her about the condition of the item. If he/she replies back then I check the email headers to get the remote ip address, I then go to a WHOIS database and verify the location of the seller. If everything is OK so far, I contact the seller through telephone to verify the item, its condition…etc. Remember that eBay only covers up to $175, so it’s best to ask for insurance and always ask for shipping with tracking. Also I found its best to stick with Paypal as payment option.

As a buyer you need to be aware of the following points:

• Be suspicious of sellers with low rating.
• Be suspicious of sellers using stock pictures (pictures from manufacturers website).
• Sellers who use free email (Hotmail, GmailScience Articles, Yahoo..etc).
• Sellers who do not accept Paypal.
• Sellers who do not reply to email.
• Low rating sellers with 1 day listings.

If eBay’s figures are to believed only 6% of eBay sellers use the About Me page facility. If anyone doubts the effectiveness of an About Me page it is worth noting that over 30% of Power Sellers have one.

There are three ways that any seller can benefit from using this facility. First of all it is the only place on eBay where a seller can advertise theirs or anyone else’s web site. This can be a powerful way of directing traffic to your site, especially if your site is related to the niche or group of products that you are selling on eBay.

Even if you do not have a web site of your own you can generate income by directing visitors to an affiliate program that you have signed up for. You can actually place up to 3 links on your page so you could have one pointing towards your own web site and the other two to affiliate programs.

As well as providing links the main purpose of an About Me page is for you to tell potential bidders something about yourself and your business. It is a fact that most people prefer doing business with someone they know rather than a faceless stranger.
The About Me page gives you the opportunity to introduce yourself and you can even include photographs of yourself and your family.

You can also add either a complete list of the other items you have for sale on eBay or a list of your recent feedbacks and comments. These can help to inspire confidence, in bidders. If you do not already have an About Me page then you really should start thinking about getting one. There is no reason why you should not, eBay provide a very simple step-by-step tool to build your page. It’s easy there are no technical skills required. All you have to do is select a layout, add your information and then preview and save your page. When you’re finished, eBay will send you the Web site address (URL) to share with your friends.

Once you have built your and uploaded your page eBay will place an “me” icon next to your ID. However, do not just rely on this alone to get visitors to your About Me page. You should include a mention or link to your About Me page in all your listings. A sentence such as “To find out more about this seller visit their About Me page” or if you are familiar with HTML you could add an actual Click Here link.

If you are one of the 94% of sellers who are not currently using this free facility you are missing a golden opportunity to boost your online income. Don’t waste nay more time, go and check it out now.

One thing many eBay sellers neglect is to actually communicate with their buyers – not with some automated ‘suggestion’ system, but with actual person-to-person contact. If you can be friendly and sound nice, then you can make them think you’re doing them a favour while you make a few extra sales.

‘I Could Throw In…’

When you receive an order for an item that costs a lot for shipping and needs some kind of equipment, this is an ideal opportunity to make a ‘friendly’ extra sale. For example, if someone has just bought a computer, you could send an email like this:

“I’m just emailing you to ask if you’d like a mouse or a keyboard – since you’re buying a computer from me, I can throw in any accessories you want without charging any extra shipping. If you’re not interested though, then don’t worry about it – it was just a thought.”

Note how informal this email has to be. It can’t stink of sales, or the whole ‘communication’ thing will be ruined. Would you rather buy something extra from someone who says “you might as well, since you’re paying shipping anyway” or from someone who says something like “our valued customers will also love our GREAT DEALS on mice – check it out!” I know what my answer is.

Know Anyone Else?

Here’s a simple thing to try: when you thank your buyer, simply say that if they’re pleased with you then you’d really appreciate it if they could spread the word. Many eBay buyers feel like they’ve got a real bargain, and combining this with good customer service could be enough to make your customer go out and start writing down your eBay store’s address on pieces of paper for their friends. If you notice a lot of orders coming from the same town, then you’ll know that this technique is working.

Any Problems?

If you contact the buyer a few months down the line to ask if their product is still working fine, you might find that they’re having a problem you can fix, by sending a spare part or an upgrade. This is another opportunity to make a sale – not to mention helpful for them.

Anything to Sell?

If you’ve just sold them a brand new item, ask your buyer if they have an old one that they might like to trade in. They will often be delighted to take you up on your offer, since they were wondering how they were going to get rid of their old one anyway. Give them a fair price for it and offer to pay their postage and you won’t believe how happy they’ll be – and the chances are you can make a good profit on what they send you.

When everything is going to plan with your buyers, it’s nice to be able to spend a while every week leaving them all big chunks of positive feedback. But how do you make this feedback the best it can be? We’ll take a look at the dos and don’ts of leaving feedback for buyers in the next email.

Affiliate programs have been used by some of the most well known and profitable internet businesses to make their millions. Amazon.com and ebay.com are just two examples of websites that have used affiliate programs in a BIG WAY to make money online.

Affiliate programs are programs where you pay other people to grow your business. The idea is that you pay them a fraction of the profits you make from the sales they give you so that you are always in profit.

For example, some affiliate programs offer to pay affiliates $5 for every time they sell a copy of their $10 eBook through their special affiliate tracking link. As long as the product and the management cost less than $5 per eBook to maintain then you are still in profit and are gaining customers you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

With affiliate programs the advantage is that you will always make a profit from your investment in them if you do it right. If you pay your affiliates a commission per sale then you are only ever paying someone to benefit your business and at a profit. You will never be paying anyone to benefit your business and not get your investment back with a profit.

Other affiliate programs pay affiliates per hit to their website, and the fee is obviously smaller but the boss (that&s you!) still gets the biggest profit. The only risk with this method is that, while you may be getting traffic, you have to be sure that you can convert that into sales in order to make a profit.

You would be surprised just how many people there are out there that are very good at selling products or guiding traffic but cannot create their own. They need to sell YOUR unique and original products.

Many affiliates will be webmasters with websites with original content who simply enjoy maintaining them but would like to make enough money from them so that they maintain themselves.

Many affiliates will have read every handbook on marketing and making money from programs and will be working night and day to sell your product.

The only drawback is that you have no idea of what methods they may use or where your website may end up being promoted. However, this is a fairly calculated risk you take and in my opinion little harm can come of it.

I hope you have taken something from this article. It can definitely be used to grow any sort of web business and has been used in this way for a long time now.

You may also be surprised at how well this can increase your revenue as it has done for many giant e-businesses in the past.

Setting one up is as easy as a trip to clickbank.com where you can set all of the cash reward settings and just leave it. Automatically people will begin promoting your website for you and soon it will begin to grow far quicker than it could on its own.

Public domain is the world of knowledge that is freely available to the public. You can find literally tens of thousands of books free to download online from public domain. The vast majority of these books are usable commercially. This means that you can make a profit from these resources, leveraging the original author’s work for your own income. Once a copyright expires, the book becomes public domain. It is completely legal in most cases to resell these works for your own profit.

One easy way to make money with books you download from public domain is by selling them for use on PDAs and iPods. More and more people want to have books available to listen to on their PDAs and iPods. It makes commuting easier, it helps while standing in long lines, and it’s simply fun to
always have a book available to enjoy any where you happen to be. It is so incredibly easy to profit from public domain in this manner because the format most books are downloaded in is .txt. This is the same file type required for use in PDAs and iPods, so you do not need to convert the documents before selling them. This can be so much quicker and easier than creating a typical ebook in a format such as pdf.

Another great way to profit from public domain books is by creating audio ebooks. You can read public domain books out loud, recording them into your computer, and then convert the files to MP3. We all know how popular audio books are, and how popular downloading audio is, so put the two together and you have an unlimited audience of potential buyers. Think of how many high-school and college students had rather listen to the great classics than to have to read them. If it worked for Cliff’s Notes it can certainly work for you!

To make lots of money using public domain books, you can build your own web site, or even sell on ebay. If you can’t build a web site, or you do not want to build your own web site, you can easily outsource this task cheaply. You can also cheaply outsource having your downloaded public domain
books read out loud for conversion into an audio ebook. This is a very easily executable idea that you can start using right away to create an income steam.

I do have to give credit where credit is due. This idea came from the great marketing minds of Alex Mandossian and Armand Morin. They discussed this idea in detail, along with other great ideas, on their Big Seminar 7 preview
teleconference call. I felt that this particular idea was so easy and such a great moneymaker that it stood out above all the other ideas I heard listening to to call. Certainly there is a large market, so let’s all take this
great idea, run with it, and create great profits.

It’s surprisingly easy to kill your eBay business, if you’re not careful – sure, you can start over from scratch without it costing you anything, but do you really want to? Still, if you want your business to end up dead in the water, here are some simple ways to do it.

Lie about an item: Say it works fine when it sometimes doesn’t work. Say it’s in perfect condition when it has a scratch. Your customers will hate you!

Post whenever you feel like it: Make sure to leave your customers hanging around, wondering when their item is going to turn up. This makes sure they buy from someone else next time.

Let items end anytime: Few people will be around to care about your auction if it ends in the middle of the night. Why go to the trouble of working out whether auctions will end at a good time?

Don’t bother with email: Customers are just timewasters anyway. eBay businesses are supposed to run themselves! Never give informed responses to questions about your item.

Sell rubbish: Really, it’s just eBay. You can just sell any old tat from the market for a 200% profit. Let quality be someone else’s concern – I mean, really, what do they expect for that price?

Refuse to give discounts: You know what your items cost, you know what your profit margin is going to be, and you’re not going to negotiate. Remember that giving customers special deals might make them feel good and come back to you again.

Make your listings ugly: As many colours, flashing lights and animations as possible will really give those customers a headache. Write as much in CAPITALS!!!! as you can. Preferably big, red capitals. Be sure to use the fonts Impact and Comic Sans. For an extra special touch, see if you can figure out a way to add some music.

Don’t take photos: It’s such trouble, after all. If buyers are picky enough to actually want to see items before they bid on them, then screw ‘em, that’s what I say.

Write short descriptions: Be as brief as possible, and use lots of mysterious abbreviations. This obviously makes you look very cool. You can even just write the title again in the description box. Think of the effort you’ll save!

Use reserve auctions: Now, this is a fairly controversial final choice, but it really is one of the best ways to scare away your customers. They’ll see ‘reserve not yet met’, and click that ‘back’ button before you know it. Luckily, they can always bid in a normal auction for the item somewhere else.

Now that you know the ten ways to kill your eBay business, how about we explore what to do if you want to do the opposite, and make a success of it? The next email will give you ten steps to successful selling on eBay.

Once you’ve drawn the buyers in with your title, the next thing to do is to tell them all about your item with the description. But just what should you write in your description?

At its heart, your item description is an ad. Without making it too obvious, you should be writing sales copy. You’re trying to get buyers excited about your products, and that’s usually hard – but on eBay, if you have the right thing to sell and give enough details, the buyers almost excite themselves.

Technical Details.

Include every technical detail you know, including the item’s manufacturer, its condition, how big it is, where and when it was made, its history, and anything else special about it. Don’t be too boring, though: the best descriptions are written in friendly, conversational language, and show a real knowledge of the item. Whatever you do, make sure you tell the truth!

Remember that most of the people who’ll be buying your item will be just as knowledgeable about it as you are, if not more – this is their hobby, and they’re experts. Don’t feel like you need to explain the basics of the item: just go into as much technical detail as you can. As a rule, don’t write anything in the description if you don’t know what it means, as the chances are someone will, and if you’ve got it slightly wrong then you’ll look like you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Interesting Details.

You might find that you enjoy writing a few things about how you got the item, why you’re selling it, and who you think might like it. This isn’t strictly necessary, but it gives your auctions some character and a personal touch, and can make people more likely to trust you. People might wonder what you’re doing selling 500 CDs all at once, and if you tell them the reason, then they’ll feel reassured that nothing dodgy is going on. If you’re selling them because you’re having a baby and you need the space, just say so.

Write as Much as You Can.

Leave nothing out of your description, even if that seems to you like it makes it cumbersomely long. There is no way you can be too thorough: someone, somewhere will appreciate that you took the time to write the extra information.

Don’t assume that anyone who wants extra information will email you to ask a question: many buyers are shy and won’t do it. Think of questions that buyers might have and add the answers to your description, as people generally tend to ask the same questions over and over again.

Each time a buyer does email you with a question, you should both answer their question and update your description so that it will include the answer next time. If people ask questions that are answered in the description, try putting these parts of the auction on a line alone, or in bold, to make them easier to notice.

In the next email, we’ll focus on increasing the number of buyers who respond to your auctions.

Online Auctions are often called the “Entrepreneurs Dream’, because it is the easiest and the cheapest way to make money. And who doesn’t want to make money and grow rich? The online auction giant eBay has more than a million hits a year. And these are targeted customers. Unlike the regular auctions, in online auctions the customers are already there and they will come to you provide you go about it the right way. So how do you build your ezine subscription list with online auctions? Here are a few hints-

1. Decide who your targeted customers for your ezine are. For example if you are selling herbal health products, then customers who are interested in computers wont be looking at your site.
2. Choose the correct category for your products. To get an idea how to do this you can visit one the online auction sites. For example if you are selling leather belts, you can list it under apparel and accessories. Again, you have to list if it is for men or women.
3. Then you have to offer your item to the customers. To do this successfully you have to describe your product in a very positive and seductive way? How do you do this? List out the different colors of leather belts available, different sizes of belts. Offering a guarantee is also a sure way to make people know that you are genuine. You can also use positive feed back for previous customers who have bought the product from you.
4. A picture speaks a thousand words. So make sure you have good photographs of the product, so that customers can have n idea of the product that they are going to get.
5. Make sure that your product is listed with a very attractive headline. As the space for headlines is small in online auctions you have to express a lot with very few words.
6. Work in references and links throughout your sales copy to your ezine. Mention your ezine many times throughout your online auction site. Put your listing on some of the biggest online auction sites on the Internet. Some of the big online auction sites charge for a listing but it is free on smaller online auction sites.

Some of the online auction sites are listed below—

http://auctions.amazon.com

http://auctions.cnet.com

http://auctions.lycos.com

http://auctions.msn.com

http://auctions.yahoo.com

http://www.ebay.com

Once your ad is put up then it is time for you to put up your feet and relax. Your ad will create a steady stream of subscribers for your ezine.

Just about everybody knows someone who has sold something on eBay. If you don’t know what to do with something a common response is “Sell it on the Bay.” Internet auction sites are actually changing the face of e-commerce and small-business around the world. 30 million people visit eBay on any given day. And that is only eBay. There are many other auction sites that are quickly gaining in popularity including: http://Overstock.com, Yahoo auctions, and Bidville.

These auction sites provide sellers the opportunity to put up items for sale while charging a listing fee and a percentage of the selling price. People all of the world can find these products for sale at bargains.

Bargain hunters can find super deals at these auction sites and those interested in a business opportunity have an easy way to break into e-commerce. There has probably never been a better opportunity for people to get started in their own business with so little money up front. For example, on eBay a seller can set up an online store within only a few minutes and be selling from their own URL address for less than $20 a month. It is really that easy and the only problem an individual faces is finding things to sell.

It’s no easy task to find things to sell. Sourcing products requires consistent efforts. Some successful sellers find their products in their own attics, yard sales, clearance racks at large department stores, wholesale suppliers, liquidators, drop shippers and thrift shops. Drop shippers are a popular option among new sellers. This is because the seller does not have keep inventory and does not have to order products until they&re sold.

The main reason that eBay as well as other auction web sites provide the optimum opportunity for sellers to start an online business is because they already have traffic. One of the most difficult parts of starting online business is getting people to find your site. eBay has already solved this dilemma. The people are there and all you have to do is show up with something to sell.

Another reason why people can be successful starting a business through online auctions is because everyone is on a level playing ground. An individual working out of his living room can compete in the global marketplace against large well-funded companies. The resources and the tools that are available to sellers are the same whether you are an individual or corporation. If you’ll is dreamed of starting your own business they did know how to get started – now&s the time. Your first sale is probably sitting in a box in the garage.