Yes, It's Absolutely True. I Made Over $25,000 on eBay in 1 month !
I Made $25,072.24 on eBay in just 1 month! This is completely true and I am going to show you how.
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Showing posts with label ebay strategies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebay strategies. Show all posts
You can earn extra money referring other to Ebay too.
The eBay Affiliate Program strives to make success of its members inevitable. The eBay Affiliate program has outlined some effective strategies and designed some effective tools to ensure you make money and have success. eBay's Affiliate program, is already a success for so many people, and has the benefit of experience to pass on to you. Once you become a member of the Affiliate Program you can be making money in no time flat.
The Program has recognized four models that their most successful affiliates utilize. These models increase traffic or maximize potential in a variety of ways: The first, the natural search, occurs when people go to search engines with a query in hopes of receiving relevant search information.
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL return listings from web sites that ranked the highest during the search process. Affiliate Program members who optimize this strategy incorporate eBay's helpful hints for natural searches. Indexed web sites with title pages and other rank-earning components earn more exposure, and increase their earnings with eBay.
The second model, the paid search model, increases hits with search engines because this model pays for placement. This model includes results that would appear in the "sponsored links" section. While these cost money, they are a cost-effective way to target interested leads.
The third model is Content websites. They place eBay ads on their website, and find added success when they choose to advertise for eBay in ways that also relate to their own content and aims.
The fourth model is opt-in newsletters. This option allows websites to broadcast additional information about their eBay Affiliate Program status to potential customers, and increase their customer base. To make the most of eBay, many websites choose to emulate one of the aforementioned models. These models are tried and true, and repeatedly spell success for eBay Affiliate Program members. These models are highly cost and time effective.
Cost and time effectiveness are highly important, as they ensure you are earning the maximum dollar for the effort you invest in your affiliate member status. The eBay Affiliate Program takes your time and effort seriously, and provides you with the necessary tools to maximize your success. Items such as the Keyword Tool, allow you to ensure your keywords are drawing the most attention.
eBay also provides you with options to track the hits your site inspired, statistics for the products and models that are performing best, and additional guidelines for best business practices. All of these options are free with the eBay Affiliate Program, and all of them will increase your earning potential with the programmed.
Everyone has something that they can sell on E-bat. The question is, howdo you go about doing so? Is the item you have E-bayable? Where do youlist it, and for how long? Thats what this how-to aims to explain.
1. FIND SOMETHING TO SELL
It must be an item that you enjoy selling. Of course it is always better if you seek items out that are not available widely to many people in the world. For starters you can purchase ANTIQUES, CD's, and CLOTHING at great prices, and then list them on eBay and watch the money start rolling in! If you have a tax ID number, you may even be able to purchase items wholesale and list them on eBay (we will show you a work around if you don’t have one later in this Guide.
2. TIMES TO LIST
You never want to list your items to end during the day, unless you end them on the weekend during the day. I have found that 7-day auctions work the best. If you are selling a very pricey item, you should list this item as a 10-day auction. You will pay a bit more $$$ but it is definitely worth it to allow as many people as possible to see your listing(s). I usually do a bit of listing everyday from 7pm until 9pm. You don't want to list your items too late.
The most exposure you will get will be during the last 4 hours of your auction. That is the busiest time for bidding on items. If you list too late in the evening, no one will be willing to stay up until the wee hours just to bid on your item! This is very important! If you start out listing on the weekends, Sunday is a good day. IF your listings end around 4pm many people will be home to watch your auctions end! This increases your chances on making much more money on your item(s).
3. TOOLS
I highly recommend investing in a digital camera. Film and processing are very expensive. If you plan on selling on eBay full time, the camera will pay for itself incredibly fast. We recommend shipping items via Priority Mail. I suggest you let the buyers pay for shipping. You want to make sure you quote their shipping price correctly. The post office has a list of prices according to weight. It is a good idea to get a list.
Another suggestion: Call the number on the priority boxes, they will send you what ever you need for free! TAPE, PREPRINTED ADRESSES LABELS, BOXES etc.! This is great because you should never have to pay for these items! The profit margin will decrease as you find yourself paying for these things here and there. I suggest shipping all of your items out at once, on one particular day. If you don't want to pay priority to pick up your items, I recommend shipping a few packages everyday. Otherwise it will be a lot of work and there is a chance you can get tired of this very easily! I try to make things as easy as possible! I figure my time is more valuable, and I can be listing more items in the time it would take to go to the post office.
4. LISTINGI don't recommend listing items as reserve auctions. I think it scares potential buyers away. Especially if someone is bidding and bidding, and after a while of seeing reserve not met yet, they are going to get bored and leave your auction. My theory is: If an item is valuable, people will find it!!!
I also suggest starting your auction price LOW!! Even if your item is worth $600.00, for a set of golf clubs. You can start the auction at $9.99. Then in your description you can state that the clubs are worth $600.00. This will get many people interested in your item; they will think they can get a great deal. This is where bidding wars can start!
Remember the more $$$ you start your auctions for the more fees you will have to pay to eBay! Trust me, if your item is valuable people will find it!! Make sure to put as many keywords in the title as you can! For example: you are selling a CD (wrong way) ALICIA KEYS CD (right way) Alicia Keys CD SEALED songs in A minor. This is what is going to help people find your auction!! It is crucial to helping people find you! I also suggest writing out the track listing in your description. People can do searches with words in descriptions as well! I highly suggest using words like RARE (of course it should really be RARE) WOW! L@@K, BEAUTIFUL. This really and truly makes a difference!
I always recommend selling your item with photos! This is very important. No photo usually = no sale! Make sure you list your item in the proper category, so people looking for this type of item will find it automatically. If you generalize your item too much, people may not find it easily.
5. A SERIOUS TRICK TO MAKING LOTS OF $$$$$
I have recently discovered the trick of listing one item in a featured auction. It is a bit pricey, and only should be done when you have many auctions listed. Also make sure you refer other people to your other auctions. If you have a popular item listed on a featured area, chances are all of your auctions will do better in the end. I have paid as much as one hundred dollars to list an item, and I even though I would normally sell that item for one hundred dollars, it made all of my other auctions shoot up to a higher selling point!
Another great trick! I recommend starting a mailing list. Keep all of your bidders and winners e-mail addresses on file and when you list other similar items; send out a mass e-mail telling them you have listed more items they might be interested in. NEVER EVER SEND SPAM e-mail. Make sure all of your potential customers want to be contacted when you have new items up for bid!
Third great trick! Example: Let's say you are selling a sports memorabilia item from the New England Patriots. I would go do a search on all of the fan websites for the New England Patriots. Then I would go to the guest book and write that you have great items from this team for sale on eBay and add your link to the guest book. Then people can paste that link into their browsers and visit your auctions! You won't believe what a big difference this makes!
6. PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE
Everything takes time. Once you get the hang of eBay, you will find your own tricks that work for you. It is all trial and error. Make sure you list a bunch of items at once. This will make all of your items more popular. Eventually you will begin to have repeat customers and your business will begin to grow. This is NOT an easy job; it takes hard work and investing time into your future. It definitely will pay off in the end!
7. BALANCE
Please remember to shop on eBay as well. Support your fellow eBayers. Purchase gifts and items for yourself on the site. Rememeber balance is key! If too many people sell on eBay and no one is buying, than we are all out of luck.
8. NEVER SHIP OUT AN ITEM UNTIL IT IS PAID FOR
I personally only accept online forms of payment because I find the longer I wait for payment, the more of a chance there maybe for someone to flake on paying for an auction. With online payments such as C2IT and PAYPAL, odds are you will be paid right away! It is very easy to sign up with these sites www.paypal.com or www.c2it.com. If you do choose to accept personal checks, make sure the check has cleared the bank before you ship the item. Accepting money orders is usually fine as well.
9. KEYWORDS
Finally the last great tip I have is to submit your auction page to search engines using keywords (This should be items you regularly sell on eBay) this way you can drive even more traffic to your auctions. You can then install a counter program such as Andale www.andale.com on your page. I recommend using a hidden counter, so others don't know how many hits you are receiving. This way you can track the tips that work for you with your products.
10. BE CLEAR CONCISE AND HONEST ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTIf the item has a tear, hole or dent, make sure to write that in your description. This will save you a lot of headaches later.
First of all, please do not be overwhelmed with the information you will find. There are a lot of links to thousands of wholesale companies. Take your time when you look around. You will be amazed. If you have questions about a company or their products, don't be afraid to call them. They need your business more than you need theirs. They will be happy to help you.
We highly recommend you write down your questions before you call a supplier so that you do not forget to ask them what is on your mind. Take your time when talking to them and do not let anyone talk you into buying something you do not want. When you see something you think you can sell, research it on eBay and see how the completed auctions went.
Make sure to look at both the auction price AND the shipping price as many eBay sellers bury profits in the s/h portion of the auction. After the auctions have ended, see which ones had the most bids, when they started, ended, and what category they were in. If you are using this information for offline sales, look around at other vendors and see if anyone else is selling the product and see if you can sell it for less and still make a profit.
Here is a big tip. If you go to a department store like Wal-Mart and see an item you would like to sell, pick it up, check out the packaging, and write down (or record if you have a voice memo recorder) who manufactures it (you can find out how to buy direct from the manufacturer by doing this). Go to the web and see if they are online. A great reference for finding a company online is: Network Solutions WHOIS database http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois
Get in contact with them and tell them you are considering them as a supplier and would like a price list. Don't be afraid to call or e-mail them. Be sure to represent yourself as a business and not just an individual. Be professional. It is really easy. Look around right now. Pick up some items in your home, just by looking at the labels, warranty information, or packaging, you can find out who manufactures & distributes it. If you can't get a phone number off a label or package, you can also try 1-800-555-1212, give the name of the company and get their phone number. When you talk to them, tell them you want a price list and would like to get set up as either a distributor, or retailer for them. If they are not in the 800 directory, you may be able to find them by looking at their warranty address information.
Just call directory assistance for the state they are located in and call them. It works like a charm. If the company only deals with "large" retailers, ask them for a list of their distributors and just keep calling their distributors until you find the one with the lowest prices. Sometimes it takes a little research but when you find what you are looking for it makes it all worth while!
HINT: If you do not have a tax id number, just enter your social security number in place of it (*big tip, you can do this with almost any wholesale company*).
They are the granddaddy of wholesale suppliers & you have seen their products all over eBay. We are giving you special access to their pricing website! Follow the link below. The login button is in the upper right-hand corner of the home page.
Want to save big money & buy at or below wholesale? Go to http://www.storepower.com. This is where you can get many of the same items you find in major department stores. Not off the wall junk items, but name brand quality products.
After you browse there a while & check them out, go to http://www.sumcomm.com . This site has a built in search engine you can use. They have direct links with over 45,000 products at wholesale pricing. Be sure to sign up for their free monthly catalog. It is full of suppliers, and if you do not find what you need there, it is probably not online. If your search pulls up more than 1 supplier of the same item, be sure to shop each company, they are flexible, and will normally go out of their way to keep from being undersold.
One of my favorite sites for name brand electronics (but not the only one) is http://www.hotbuy4u.com. The name of the company is Premier Products.
Once you get your feet wet, and want to make some international contacts, go to http://www.allproducts.com . This site will put you into contact with contacts from all over the world.
Looking for government repos, bankruptcy liquidations, US Marshals items, etc, go to http://www.bid4assets.com . They have all kinds of different items you can get dirt cheap!
These sources are fantastic!! They are going to be very helpful to you. We have never had any complaints on this guide and have had many customers thank us over and over for helping them get their online, or retail business started. We love to help whenever we are able.
Best wishes, and have fun!!
DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by My Ebay Secrets, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.
We know you'd pay just about any price to add that special item to your collection, but don't let anyone else know that!
Here are some tips on how to not overpay for items on
Don't jump right in and bid a huge amount as soon as the item is listed.
This lets others know that the item is worth something and makes them want it more.
Keep your excitement in check and don't even bid on the item until the very end.
If you are terrible at remembering auctions, you can bid in the beginning - but make the minimum bid only. (This way you'll be reminded with ebay's daily auction notices, or you can always do a search of what you bid on recently - even if you've been outbid.)
This makes other bidders think you only would have bought it if you got a great price.
Then leave the bidding alone until the very end! Nothing raises bids faster than competition.
Snipe - see our sniping section to find out how. Basically, bid at the very last minute and bid the very most you could stand.
Research the kind of items you collect or regularly buy.
Can you find it just as cheap at the corner store?
If there are usually six of these on any given day, wait for the one with the lowest price.
Look around before you bid. You may find the exact same thing for half the price.
When you go shopping on Ebay depends a lot on your own schedule. But, when you can find the best deals depends on other factors.
Obviously, you may have the internet just about to yourself at 1:00 in the morning. But, you may not have many auctions to bid on that are closing in that time slot. You are able to bid on any item you want (not just those near closing), but your bidding procedures should be different depending on how much you are willing to spend. There are many auctions closing around noontime, but the internet i.s s..o s...l...o...w then because so many people peek in during their lunch break. It could take you 6 to 10 minutes just to get a bid through, and that is after you finally get the page to load.
One method a lot of people use is to go browsing on a weekday morning or late in the evening on any day of the week. This gives them lots of speed so they can look in on many more auctions. When they see something interesting, they just bookmark it for later. That way, they can go back near the end of the auction to do some serious bidding (more on that is coming in a later chapter). There are many other times you can be assured of speeding through the internet: on a holiday; 7:00 to 9:00 on an important voting evening; while the most popular t.v. shows are on; Sunday mornings; any Saturday night (date night); while the Olympic gymnastics finals are on t.v.; etc.
There are two ways to speed up your internet shopping at any time you want......
If you know the name and description of what you are looking for, you can do your initial shopping without pictures. You can "turn off" the images through your browser. In Netscape, click on Edit on the top bar, then click on Preferences, then Advanced, then click on Automatically Load Images to uncheck the box. You can shop through hundreds of auctions without waiting for any images to load. If you get to an auction that looks like a great one, you can then click on Images (on the second bar from the top) to see these pictures only, and click on Images again to turn them back off and continue shopping.
Shopping at any time of the day or any day of the week is always slowest with a dial-up connection. And, most dial-up connections get lost often. Cable modem or DSL can make your shopping (and everything you do on the internet) at least 10 times faster - without disconnects. You only need to be disconnected just before bidding on something once to know how important your internet connection is. And, that is just an example from the point of buying. Sellers listing on ebay who use AOL simply cannot be having successful sales - their photos take forever to show up. Photos that just won't load or take SO long to load cause buyers to go on their merry way.
If the sky is the limit on something you really want, you may want to try to be the first bidder. If an item worth $20 is the one missing piece to complete your collection, you may feel like bidding $200 and not care if the bidding really goes that high. That kind of bidding almost guarantees that you will win the auction. We say almost because you run the risk of bringing extra attention to the auction that way. If two or three people want an item, the bids start going back and forth and the price goes up and up. Let's say the item you really need is a frog beanie baby. Many people who collect beanies will note that the auction has more bids than normal and peek in to see why. If your name is recognizable as a regular beanie baby collector, now their curiosity is really peaked. "If _______ is bidding on this frog, she must know something that I don't know...If ________ doesn't have this frog, it must really be rare!...I've got to get this frog!" Whoops.
If you want to get the best deal, you may want to wait till near the end of the auction. We will tell you in a later chapter just how to get the best deal whether you shop at the beginning, middle or end of an auction.
One other thing. The best time to go shopping is after you have done your research! Browse through many auctions to see how much that item normally sells for and in what condition it is normally available. If you have looked for weeks and never found one at all, you may be willing to spend much more when you finally find one being offered. You may find out that what you want is listed all the time and almost always in great condition, so you may not want to bid at all on one that is damaged or overpriced in comparison. Why do so many auctions have no bids at all? Maybe the opening bid is way too high. But, only an informed shopper would know the difference. Why does that wonderful item in perfect condition have no bids at all? Maybe the shoppers who did their research know that it is a brand new copy. If you don't care, bid away. If you do care, you need to be able to tell an original from a copy. Almost every copy will have obvious signs, you just need to know what they are. (If there are copies available in your item, it is not wise to bid on an item without a picture so you can see the item for yourself.) If you have the time and patience, you can do most of your research through the auction results. Sometimes you have to go to collector or antiques sites on the web to find answers. But, the best source of all is a reference book right by your side while you shop. Books are available on almost every collectible and are often very affordable. But, a $50 book is worth every penny if you could make a $200 mistake on just one wrong item.
You may think that you should list your items on Ebay on Saturday mornings because that is when you have the most free time or on Monday nights after 10:00 because the family is in bed and you finally have total concentration. You need to ask yourself just how many possible buyers will be at their computers at closing time. Especially when 10:00 p.m. on the West Coast is 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast. There are lots of possible buyers shopping at lunchtime during the week. But, because of the enormous amount of traffic at that time, you really cut down on the possibility of last-minute bidding if the bids are all in an internet traffic jam and can't get through at all.
The amount of bidders available at closing time is of utmost importance to your auction. Most of the bidding on any auction will occur in the first 24 hours (when it is listed as new) and on the last day (when is listed as ending today), with most people only looking at one of these two times. And, the bulk of the serious bidding will be in the last 5 minutes! An auction is truly at its best when two or more people fight over your item, and they may not be awake to do so at 1:00 in the morning.
When to list your items is best decided on actual sales histories of your particular items. Hardware and tools may get more male bidders who are looking on Saturday afternoon, and pokemon cards may get more attention from kids right after school. Etc. So, check the sales of completed items. You should be able to see a definite pattern for each type of item you plan to list. This is the first step.
If your item sells best on a weekday evening, now you need to see if there is also a second pattern. It sold best on Tuesday one week and Thursday the next week. Why? One big factor in evening sales now is "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" There are almost no bidders at their computers when this show is on television. This show happens to be moved around from week to week. On top of that, if it is on at 8:00 p.m., that means 8:00 p.m. on both coasts so West Coast seller has to work around 5:00 p.m. through 8:00 p.m., and the East Coast seller has to work around 8:00 p.m. through 11:00 p.m.
There are many more factors that come into play. Watch the weather forecasts for all parts of the country. If the East Coast is due for heavy rains, more possible bidders will be available at their computers instead of outside enjoying the spring or summer weather - and vice versa. If an area is in the middle of a terrible heat wave, they may be hiding inside at their computer instead of doing anything outside. Great weather is bad for sales. You may not want to have items close on Thanksgiving afternoon when most of the country is sitting down to a great meal - or in the evening on the day of a Presidential election. Contrary to this logic, Christmas morning may be a good time to have items close because many people don't have family with whom to share their day or they are not of a Christian faith. Those people would see this as a great time to sneak in a few bids. Other people may go shopping on Christmas afternoon to try to buy what they didn't receive for a gift!
Selling at the busiest time of the day will make your photos load slower. At any time, using a dial-up connection puts your auctions at risk since they will take longer to load. And, since most dial-up connections get lost often, there is always the chance that your photos will not load at all. When either happens, you will lose buyers. Some could bookmark your auction to try again later, but last-minute shoppers don't have time to come back. Cable modem or DSL will make everything you do on the internet at least 10 times faster - without disconnects. You only need to be have your photos not load during the last half hour of an auction once to know how important your internet connection is.
The real answer to when to list your items is it is totally relative….relative to as many factors as you can think of. You will need to do research on the past and try to foresee the future. Good luck on the latter.
Allow me to introduce you to...eBay's largest seller who is ALSO the future Mayor of NY! (and maybe President)
eBay's largest seller is (drum roll please): christopher1428! who goes by the moniker Chris Riggs for President.
Not what you were expecting, huh? You thought I was going to say buy.com or maybe a big auto dealer. Nope. Well, let me walk you through what is going on here and I promise you, it will blow your mind.
Chris consistently keeps about 200 listings live on eBay in his store at the $200-600 range which is probably what this art actually trades at in the real world. The genius move is Chris keeps 5-10 listings running of the same stuff he's selling at lower prices in the $10-30m range. For example:
Here's a green drizzle piece. This can be yours for $21m
Here's more of a comic kind of piece for... $21m (I bet you can get a bulk discount if you buy both)
You get the idea.
Now of course, if someone is going to goof off on eBay, they look for expensive stuff and buy it, and don't pay. I can 99.999999999% guarantee you that chris has never sold a $21m painting (meaning someone paid), but on eBay it's a regular occurrence for someone to 'commit to buy' one of these.
The UPIs are probably a pain for chris, but it does seem to drive a ton of traffic. A TON of traffic.
This has been going on for years....
I first noticed this (because of the top seller reports I maintain) that this wasn't really above board back in 2005 and thought it would be interesting to watch and see when/if eBay put a stop to it. Since then we've seen entire eBay regimes come and go, the feedback system changed constantly and new programs to raise the bar. We now have a money back guarantee and lots of other strides. But here's Chris, for 5 years now selling $21m paintings that nobody pays for. There's also a fair amount of blatant keyword spamming that he does, but I won't go into that.
My favorite part is that on many of the photos, Chris stealthily adds pictures that at first seem relevant (e.g. the first will be a close up), but then they degrade into party pictures and usually Chris or his friends are giving the finger. I'm sure after this eBay will take action, so I want to preserve some of these for posterity.
I've often wondered if this started out as a dare or a gag and they were shocked that a) the items weren't taken down and b) that people buy this stuff.
Whenever you see the top rated seller flag, that's me censoring out something in the photo you should go to eBay to see: (click these to enlarge) - remember, these are from LIVE eBay Listings! (as of 3/19/10)
(This last one is my favorite as it doesn't even have Chris in it (maybe that's his art back there), but check out the T-shirt on the guy on the left - the auction doesn't state if this offer is part of the auction or not - it seems to be $20 extra.)
Phew, that's enough of that - if you want more, Chris has a vibrant myspace page here.
What's your point?
As long as this kind of stuff is happening on eBay (and believe me, this is far from an isolated incident), eBay won't officially have solved their trust problems. All of the other changes are good and positive forward momentum, but they are lipstick on a pig (as we say here in NC) when you have flagrant things like this going on right under eBay's nose for the last 5+ yrs.
These changes were announced in late January and go live in March 30.
In this post we'll provide a unique view of the economic (fees) impacts of SR10.1. First, we'll look at the fixed-price listing changes (stores and fp30) and then the auction changes in detail. Then we'll look at three new strategies for sellers to consider going into 3/30. Finally, we'll save editorial thoughts for the end. Fixed-price changes
Historically, eBay has had two fixed-price formats:
Store Inventory Format (SIF in eBay-speak) – A fixed-price listing that does NOT show up in the eBay core search engine, but does show up in a seller's store. SIF items are $.03-$.10 depending on the category and back-end loaded FVF with 12%/8% with the tier break at $25.
30-day Fixed Price (FP30)- A newer addition to eBay, this is essentially a SIF item that does show up in the core search engine. FP30 is $.35 to list and has a tiered FVF starting at 12% for most categories.
For the SR10.1 release, eBay is making these fixed-price changes:
SIF is going away and (this is important and missed by many sellers) – your existing SIF items will be automatically converted to FP30 going forward.
FP30's listing fees are going up from $.35 to $.50, but you now have the ability to 'buy down' the insertion fee by paying for monthly store subscriptions. At the highest store tier, the FP30 listing fee is as low as $.03.
We've received a lot of questions about this topic, so let's dig into it a little.
Here is how the store tiers work:
Before March 30 (old pricing) – FP30 is $.35 to list
After March 30:
No store – FP30 is $.50
Basic store – $15.95/month, FP30 is $.20
Premium store – $49.95/month, FP30 is $.05
Anchor store – $299.95/month, FP30 is $.03
There's obviously some math to think about here and we've run some scenarios to show you the best tier for various listing volumes as illustrated here:
The highlighted areas illustrate that if you list:
> 50 items/month you should be in the Basic plan.
> 230 items/month and it's time to upgrade to the Premium plan.
> 12,500 items/month – welcome to the Anchor plan.
Auction economic changes
Good ole' auction format is getting a price overhaul that significantly lowers the insertion fee (especially for lower start prices) and bumps up the FVF. Also, like FP30, having a store yields a discount.
Here's a chart that shows the changes from one view:
The biggest change in auctions that everyone should be aware of is that before the price change, the FVF for $25-$50 was 3.5%. After the changes, eBay has changed that to 8.75% which is a more than doubling. Sellers that auction items in this level should be extremely aware of the economic impact of that change. (for example, many $1 no-reserve sellers of video games, DVDs and some electronics will see a significant FVF increase here.
Economic changes cheat sheet
Remember that regardless of format, if you are a top-rated seller (eTRS) you can earn a 20% reduction in FVF fees. If you are an 'Above Standard Seller' (ASS), then you do not receive that reduction.
We've looked at the fees from several angles and found this BEFORE (left column) and AFTER (right format) format: (click to enlarge and print out as a handy cheat sheet)
If you have any more questions about the fees, feel free to post them in comments. Also eBay has some great resources available:
Strategy 1 – Go ahead and pick your store tier today
eBay has generously allowed for sellers to go ahead and pick their store tier and not incur the fee until April. Historically when there are 'BIG' eBay changes, sellers that anticipate and take advantage of the changes can have a competitive advantage.
A couple of tips:
Remember your store items should be considered as well. If you normally have 500 FP30 and 1000 store, you should figure out how many store items (see strategy 3) you plan on converting and make your calculation from that total number.
Remember the 50, 230 and 12,500 break points for the store tiers
To keep your eBay sales where they are today you may need to surge your listings, so make sure you consider this in your calculations (see strategy 2)
Strategy 2 – Prepare for what a flood of listings will do to your eBay business
Old-timer eBayers remember when eBay decided one day in the Cobb/Whitman regime to put all of the store listings in the core search engine. It's commonly known as the 'store in core debacle'. Now a lot has improved and changed at eBay so I don't think we're heading for a crash and burn scenario. But, our data indicates that we are going to see a significant surge in fp30 listings (we are already seeing this three weeks before) across the marketplace.
We're advising sellers to run some 'stress test' secenarios:
What if we see a surge in listings of 2-4X?
Remember, one view is listings are going from .35 to .03 – nearly 'free' – we could see as much as a 10X surge.
Will your items be found?
What should you do to compensate? Some suggestions:
Surge as well – do you have inventory you haven't been listing on eBay? This could be a great time to try it to support a surge (adjust your store tier accordingly)
If you've moved 100% fixed price, consider adding auctions back to the mix – we don't anticipate a surge there, so you may actually have more visibility
Consider shorter FP durations – we have seen some sellers already having success with FP7. Many sellers forget this is still available and creates a sense of urgency with buyers.
Strategy 3 – Don't look at your store inventory performance and assume under-performers will not work in the FP30 format.
We've talked to some sellers that I believe are looking at things the wrong way. They are looking at SIF listings and for those that don't hit a conversion rate threshold. Remember that SIF items are not seen in core search. So when they convert to fp30 and are in core search, you should see a natural bump in conversion rate (well, we don't know what the surge will do, but generally this is the case).
In other words, don't do an apples and oranges comparison here and under-shoot on items that probably will work in FP30 once search traffic is added to the equation.
Editorial comments on the economic changes
From the 30,000-ft view, I think these changes are very positive. eBay is moving closer to the Amazon economic model which puts more of the risk on the marketplace and not the seller. The result is going to be more selection on eBay which is always a good thing.
I worry that the auction fee changes are going to accelerate the demise of that format, with perhaps the surge of listings helping there a little as sellers have to do some auction for visibility.
Finally, if you haven't caught on, I'm really, really, REALLY worried about the eBay search engine implications. Before these changes sellers are extremely frustrated with BM and the inability to understand why their listings aren't showing up. A 2-10X surge is going to make this problem worse. Regular buyers know that the search engine experience on eBay is still, well, really bad and full of spam-y junk. eBay has made some good first steps, but I fear they won't be enough for the April surge.
Also, someone mentioned in comments, what does this mean for the small seller. I honestly don't know. If eBay could nail the search engine, then I think that unique smaller seller inventory would continue to do well.
Exactly. And in addition to that the CD's also have what I like to call hidden jewels on them. They have affiliate links on them of course. And I make about one sale per week minimum from those affiliate links. I made one again today. I made one yesterday. Just from those CD's.
People are searching through, they find that link, the products are good, I screen them, and in most cases I use them myself, and I put an affiliate link on there and the next thing you know someone else is also using it. Secondary sales. I think I mentioned that in my newsletter.
What type of person would you say buys your CD?
There are those who buy it in order to start a business. There are those who buy it because it's got information on it on how to find people, and how to find information -- like spy software, and there are those who buy it because it's got games and fun stuff on it. It covers the whole gambit, it's just an absolute ton of information.
The thing that I'm selling my advertising on is "Making Money On eBay -- How profitable it can be, and here's how you do it". You can literally take my same CD and sell it as "Do you want to learn how to be an online spy?". And if you look there are other people selling "The Online Spy" -- it is the exact same software and it's the exact same CD in all likelihood.
So let's talk about the day-to-day running of your business, and for example let's take this CD of yours. How many copies of that do you sell -- do you list one a day, do Dutch auctions...?
Well what I do is I do a Dutch auction and I count up the number that I have remaining in stock and I place the Dutch auction for that number remaining. I do list it as if I'm completely, totally selling out, which there is a possibility because honestly if I see that too many people are selling it then I'm not longer going to sell that particular CD and move onto one of my others.
But I work at the Fire Department one day on, two days off, I time out my auctions where they always close when I'm off duty. Because I've found that if an auction closes people want instant gratification.
And that's another mistake that a lot of rookies make when they get on eBay ... they forget that people are paying hard earned money for something that is sight-unseen from someone who is sight unseen. It's a lot of trust involved.
And if you send an email to that person who you just sent your money to by PayPal and they don't respond right away you start getting nervous -- "Oh my gosh, did I just get taken?". So by being off duty and online, I can make certain that when they send that email I get it, and within a couple of minutes most of the time I can reply, makes them feel really comfortable, and once again you end up with a satisfied customer.
So for your Dutch auction, you start them all at 99 cents?
On the Dutch auctions they all sell at the exact same price, and if you look it's sort of strange how this CD is doing ... it sells for 1 penny and I charge $4.99 for the shipping, handling, and CD processing.
What I tell all the people I teach as far as eBay is concerned, as far as markup, you want to use the standard 42% markup minimum, you know make sure you cover all the advertising costs, that you cover your shipping, to make sure that it's worth your time and effort. For the CD processing, there's a company that I contract with, they make all of my CD's and they cost between -- depending on how much you buy they cost between $1 and $4 per CD. I'm able to buy so many now, that they cost on the low end of that.
So they make copies with all the software? Do they label it too?
They sure do. They have the label and the whole nine yards so that when the CD comes to me it's actually ready to ship. It's very, very professional. It's computer stamped, and they actually offered to do my logo on there and I said "that's too much". I really didn't want that.
They do an awesome job and they have extremely good quality control. I know when I shipped out my CD's everything that's supposed to be on there is on there, and accessible and the stuff that's not supposed to be on there isn't. They don't mark the CD with their marking's either which is another important factor. Because it's my product, not their's.
Exactly. So since you're selling them quite cheaply at $5, are you looking to make money through sheer quantity, or do you have a longer term plan?
Basically, in this particular case, it's only one of many items that I'm selling. I have 14 web sites online now. Of those 14, two of those are actually selling for me, and several of them are actually getting lots of traffic. My biggest money-maker of late besides eBay, has actually been hosting. I provide hosting services.
Which web address is that?
ULSO.com. That's my home site as a matter of fact. I pretty much base everything else from ULSO. And it's strange how things have worked out ... because it all happened in very little time ... I went from being an online internet novice to carrying lots of domains, several of which are doing quite well.
Gnuday gets around 20,000 hits per month. That's 20,000 quality hits, that's not trash hits, it is making sales. Both the eBooks that are on there sell and the CD's.
I would never ever tell anyone that it's easy to make money online, that would be an outright lie, it takes work, it takes effort, it takes knowledge, but once you figure out how to write an ad, and once you figure out how to get people to come to your sites, if you've got a quality product, and you back it up, people will buy it.
So let's take one of your sites Gnuday.com. When did you start the site ... how did you promote it, and how do you continue to promote it?
I actually started the site less than 6 months ago, believe it or not. Basically, the idea came to me as far as this site was concerned originally I was going to sell some of the things that I was selling on eBay, on that site. I ended up leaning much more towards informational products on it.
Once I started promoting the site, the first thing I'd do is set up metatags. And I make sure that I've got a really good description on there so the search engine spiders are going to be able to find it. I'm by far, nowhere near a search engine expert, but I can say that if you search for certain terms, my sites are on there. My sites are on Google and Yahoo. I do get hits from those search engines.
You're ranked quite high in them are you?
I honestly don't know how high, but I've had people who have emailed me and told me that they found me both through the search engines and I know if you search for certain names, I pop up.
Anyway, I start doing ezine advertising. Newsletters. Basically, I track the newsletter ads very, very closely so now I've got a nice list compiled of which newsletters are really good to run ads in and it's all logarithmic. Once you start getting hits to a site it seems like they never stop coming.
The hard part is getting it started in the first place. I haven't placed an ad for Auction Hints in six months or more, because I focused a lot of attention on Gnuday and Auction Hints still gets 8,000 hits per month. I have people signing up for my newsletter 3, 4, 5 per day every single day, and that's without one ad.
Now the next thing that I do also, and you're aware of this, I post answers in the forums. And in each case when I post an answer I make certain that I put a signature file at the end. It's a subtle advertisement. Hopefully the post that I put in there doesn't make it sound like I'm an idiot, it builds enough credibility that someone says "Hey, I'd like to see what this guy's site is all about".
Well, I have noticed that you're one of the more regular posters and your posts are really interesting. Because you share some of your business -- what's happened in your business, what's worked for you. So I think it interests a lot of people.
That could be because in addition to being a paramedic, I also am an instructor at a local community college and I think sometimes that that pops out in me as far as the activities that I take on, online.
Something that I hadn't mentioned up to this point, which just occurred to me, the person who wants to get started in eBay, they have absolutely no earthly idea how to get started, or what to do, I urge that they look around their own home, they have got to have something laying around they no longer use, they no longer want, they can turn that item or those items into cash.
And it's just a simple matter of looking on eBay to see if it's already selling, looking at the ad that is already selling it, getting an idea of how to write the ad, and sort of mimicking what others are doing.
Certainly not copying that but that is one thing that several of my family members have done. I talked them through what amounts to an online garage sale. And they sold all kinds of stuff. You name it: old golf clubs, collectables, coins, jewelry, the list goes on and on and on.
You mentioned earlier that you do a lot of hunting around for bargains and wholesalers. Is that an ongoing process?
It's a constant ongoing process. If you're not constantly looking for new stuff to sell, then you're going to end up being stagnant and you're going to get left behind.
That is probably the hardest thing to do. Even those people who have found their niche in online sales, are going to end up trying to constantly find new suppliers. Because the fact is you can always find a better price.
When I first started selling the software: I sold children's software specifically, for a long time and I found that I could get 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% savings simply by shopping and comparing. And not going constantly to the same supplier.
And so literally, what you find you end up doing is building what amounts to a list of suppliers and when you need an item or you see a market you contact those suppliers, find out the best that they can do, and then you go with the lowest price. It's a simple common sense approach.
And those suppliers, do they drop-ship, or do they send it to you?
Oh no, I stock it myself and most of the time what I do is any stock that's sitting on the shelf is gathering dust so the goal is to buy as limited amount as you possibly can. And still get a reasonable price. And then move it out fast.
Actually someone else I spoke with -- Jim Straw told me how he structures his drop-ship program, that people buy from him at 40% of the cost so you're basically getting a 60% discount. So let's say the product sells for $10, and you're buying it for $4, and you were selling it on eBay, what price would you choose to start at?
Actually I would have to research the particular item to see what price it would sell at. The reason that I don't do a lot of drop-shipping, actually I can honestly say I don't do any right now, is because of the fact that on eBay people are looking for bargains. And there's so little markup on most items that the little bit of profit that the drop-shipper is going to make, often wipes out the profit that you would have made.
And that's one of the frustrating things about eBay is that you do sort of have to plan on having an inventory at some point. But there are drop-shipping companies out there that you can make a little bit of money on.
I've sold "As Seen On TV" items for a short period of time. And those "As Seen On TV" items ended up doing fairly well. I could actually sell 10 - 20 items per week fairly easily. But the problem was all of the hard work that went into the advertising and the cost, I wasn't really making a whole lot because I had to pay the drop-shipper.
So you tend to look more for Wholesalers?
Exactly. I look more for wholesalers, honestly of late, the greatest bargains that I have found have been at garage sales and at flea markets. My wife and I went to a garage sale a couple of weeks ago just before Christmas. I found an old leather case filled with a travel bar. It had three glass bottles, a liquor shaker, a stirrer, and just all the makings for a travel bar.
It was circa 1970 and the jet-setters used to use them. The woman had a price tag on it of $25, I offered her $5 and she took it. I put it on eBay, and it sold for $46 and the guy paid $12 for the shipping.
That's an instant turnaround of anyway you look at it, by the time I pay for the ad and everything, my gas and my time, of around $40. That's one item. He's extremely satisfied. He's going to use it for parties -- he's a big Buffalo Bills fan and he's taking it to football games.
I love going to the flea market. And to the garage sales. As I said, if it looks old, and it looks like there's any value, chances are it is. You don't have to be an antique expert, if you look at it and you say to yourself "Wow, if I dust that off, take a couple of good photos of it, describe it well in an ad", chances are there's somebody out there in the world, which is literally who you're dealing with, with eBay, you're not dealing with just your local garage sale market, you're dealing with the world. Someone out there probably wants it.
As you say you ship stuff all over the world ... fragile stuff too?
As it happens the travel bar was fragile, with 3 glass bottles in it. That's a piece of cake, because you just wrap it up in newspaper ... I put it in a nice string box, and shipped it out to them priority mail, as per his request, and that's what he paid for.
And no harm. There was absolutely no damage. He even let me know it arrived safely. I shipped a camera just last week. An old collectable camera that actually my wife found in a box of her grandmother's belongings after her grandmother passed away.
This box became my wife's and I asked "What are you going to do with that?". She said "Nothing". And it sold for $50. And it was an old beat up camera. It even had the original receipt and the original box.
People love that kind of collectable item. So that's exactly how I presented the ad as a matter of fact ... I said that "This was made in a simpler time when camera's weren't digital".
Let's say for example you were writing your ad for that, where did you come up with the text? Did you use the documents that came with the camera?
I read some of the documents that came with the camera and took the model, and basically what I do is I've got a template of an ad that I use. What I do is I actually base my work on that template. I've found it's a nice clean template that other people actually -- you can easily apply this template to literally any ad, and as a matter of fact what I'm doing right this moment, I'm going to go and bring up that ad ... so that I can tell you exactly what I wrote on it ...
So the whole process of putting together an ad ... how long would you say it takes?
It used to take me somewhere around 2 to 3 hours minimum. Basically I'm very fortunate now because honestly I can bang out an ad probably in about 18 - 20 minutes. Because I have this template that I base the ad on.
And I'm actually looking at it, I'm looking at the leather bar one that I brought up ... okay it says "Travel bar, leather bar kit" and right below that I had a photo and then I put in a little catchy saying that I made up "This is one bar that never closes".
And then I put a description: "Circa mid to late 1960's, these were actually quite fashionable for the jet-setters to throw a party on the run. The kit is highly collectable and is in near mint condition inside and out."
Then there's a couple more photos that are close-ups of the inside, then I put a description of what was actually in the kit: "leather case, 3 glass bottles, a faux silver tray", faux is a wonderful word too "faux" - a faux silver tray ... AKA plastic. "Comes with complete instructions for some great drinks".
And then I put the terms of the purchase to let them know exactly what they're bidding on and exactly what they're going to pay for the shipping and I have my email address there. And that is the exact same template that I use on each and every ad that I write.
It's got a little place for what I would call the headline, right below that I'll put a nice photo of the item. Below that I'll have some kind of a phrase that sort of describes it or perhaps embellishes upon the photo, trying to add to it ... like if it's picture of jewelry, I'll say something to the effect of "You can actually see in this photo how much this wonderful piece shines" or something like that.
And then I would go into extreme description including all the way down to what's included so that the person knows exactly what they're bidding on, and then I always put the terms of purchase on the ad ... that's an extremely important aspect, and I notice that a lot of people don't do that and then they wonder why customers end up being a little bit upset when they didn't realize that they needed to pay x number of dollars for shipping or that the person had a no return policy, or something like that. The terms of purchase spell it out. Small print so to speak.
So just from the example you read out, it sounds more like catalog copy, rather than a sales letter. Would you say that that was what you were going for?
Essentially yes. It's like you're putting it on an online catalog. It's factual and I go for a lot of pictures. It slows down how fast the ad loads -- yes. But a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. When they can actually see what they're bidding on, they're more likely to bid on it.
I use just about the same format in every single ad, but what I do is I will actually modify the ad to fit the product. If I'm selling something that is somewhat vague then I'll go into an extreme amount of detail and if I'm selling something where I'm up against a lot of competition, I'll go into even more detail, I would try to convince people "Why should they buy from me versus the 250 other people that are also selling the exact same product?"
The gentleman that lost his job and is asking for my assistance, he became very fortunate. It just so happened that as a fire fighter I knew what he was talking about -- he had a whole bunch of shields that he had found in the basement of this house that he had just bought.
And the shield is the front portion of the helmet that indicates the unit number and the station number and from his description these things were quite old. He was able to put those on eBay, and they sold for $200 - $500 a piece. They were 100 years old.
I told him "Put them on there with pictures and I'm not going to teach you at this point how to write an ad, but bottom line show the pictures, and let the item sell itself".
And that's exactly what it did, and he said in his ad ... he was very honest "I found this in my basement, I think it came from Lancaster Pennsylvania, it's probably about 100 years old, I don't honestly know, here's the photo, the rest is up to you, please bid".
And they did. He made a bundle in his first week. So if he could find more of them like that, he wouldn't need my help any more. That's the main thing that I go for: honestly and integrity.
You mentioned earlier that you used to link to your own sites from your listings, but eBay won't allow that any more...
They completely negated being able to do that. I understand eBay's position because eBay works very hard to get people to come to their sites and what they are essentially allowing was eBay's hard-earned customers to essentially click-through and leave.
So they said "No more -- we won't allow that any more". A wise way of getting around that, that I did for a while was I made my eBay ID actually the name of my web site. Check out my old ID it was GolfCFL.com. And that was the golf web site that I sold golf clubs from. It got a few hits.
The main thing was it's all a matter of what you're selling, and in that case I was selling golf clubs that were in high demand. And so it definitely transformed into lots of hits and lots of requests for clubs.
In one week, in August I did $3,500. That's why September 11th, oh boy. That really messed up the economy in the States. And this is something that's also interesting Louis, is the fact that September 11th has actually caused a boom in eBay sales in some facets. I would have thought that it would have wiped out eBay sales but in actuality it increased it because people were looking to save more money and people are looking to make more money so there's more people actually coming to eBay.
Yeah, I remember reading that often when people are laid off it's home businesses or home business opportunities that really boom ... and that it's often when lots of network marketing companies get more sign ups.
But unfortunately, it's only certain things. Obviously luxury items, like jewelry, I would imagine that those sales suffer tremendously while information products that teach people how to make money on line ended up with a boom.
And there again it's just a matter of knowing your market and figuring out exactly what the trends might be and trying to move with the market, as opposed to against it.
Would you say, that because of the eBay rule change, having your site and any affiliate sites you wish to list, on your About Me page is a good thing?
That's definitely something that everyone should do when they join eBay, because in the first place it takes the mystery out of who you are, let's you tell a little bit more about yourself, and perhaps you can put a photo of yourself there, but in addition to that you can link to your eBay store or your own web site and that can definitely lead to more credibility and more sales.
You have an eBay store do you?
I don't have an eBay store, simply because I didn't want to try to justify that particular expense while I'm spending so much on eBay ads. And I rotate -- it would be difficult for me to have a store since I really don't center on one specific theme any longer, I sell literally anything that I go out and find at a flea market or a garage sale.
It would be hard to put those in store, but if I did once again get into the golf again, yes I was building an eBay store for the golf products I was selling. So bottom line is if you have a niche product that you sell specifically then I would definitely recommend that you build an eBay store and write an About Me page.
If I remember one of your posts from the Tony Blake board, you mention that you take pretty much any method of payment ... is that right?
Just about. I don't take American Express but every other form of payment - yes. And I don't hold an order specifically because when I look at the people who are buying online, they're looking for online instant gratification in most cases, so if they send me an electronic check, or if they use a credit card, to me they've paid, and I've only gotten for lack of a better term, in the four years I've been doing this, I've only got burned twice, so maybe I've been real lucky, but it's not hard to imagine that the easier you make it for someone to pay you, the more likely it is that they're going to buy from you because they realize "I can pay this guy using literally any form and I'm going to get that item that I wanted".
So do you actually have the ability to take credit cards by themselves as well?
Yes I do.
So you have a merchant account do you?
I have a merchant account set up through bank locally and in addition to that if a customer buys from me if they would like I can set them a special link that they can go into my shopping cart and literally pay me directly through the shopping cart, and as a matter of fact if you go to Gnuday.com if you click on any one of those links it will take you into my shopping cart. And you can pay using Visa, MasterCard, you can pay with an eCheck, you can pay via PayPal, it's just a really simple way of setting up a shopping cart.
I know that PayPal keeps growing -- would you say it's the most popular method of people paying for things on eBay?
It is by far -- my sales actually went up when I started accepting PayPal. I understand that there are those who are disgruntled with PayPal for whatever reason. I have yet to have any dealings with them as a seller, that was less than ideal.
As a buyer I would never recommend that you use them to buy anything that's not a solid object because they simply don't provide buyer protection, and I didn't know that until it was too late, I bought a series of ads as a matter of fact and the guy was not legit and PayPal didn't back me up, they backed that seller up, but I learned my lesson and I won't make that mistake again.
But I do put PayPal logos on each and every one of my auctions ads. As a matter of fact, out of the 78 that I sold the other day, nearly 60 have already paid, and out of those that paid 4 of them used BillPoint, and all of the others used PayPal so that tells you the mass percentage of people that are using PayPal.
And I remember you saying that to avoid any problems, what you do is download your PayPal balance to your bank account every day.
Daily. As a matter of fact today I did it twice. Because this morning when I got up there was another $44 in there from people who had paid overnight so I processed those orders, and this evening when I got home, there's another $40 from people who once again had paid during the day while I wasn't on the computer. And in both cases I went ahead and sent them to my account. There's a small fee for the transfer -- it's like 50 cents. To me it's worth the peace of mind knowing there's no funds in there to be frozen.
Of course. It's nice to come back to more money each time...
It is. There was a time when I just started out that was a rare occurrence, now I'm happy to say that -- and this is another huge piece of advice that I would give to anyone Louis is this is like the race between the Tortoise and the Hare.
Online marketing is not something to be rushed. If someone tells you "Oh by next week this time you'll be making $10,000 a week" stay away from them, they're probably lying to you.
The fact is though the longer that you stick it out and the more you learn the more likely you are to succeed. And now, I make in a week, what it used to take me a month to make online.
In relation to that ... something I'm curious about -- you said that you sell what's in stock, could you say how many auctions you have running at any one time?
Right now I've only got two, but right around Christmas I had 40. It depends on what I've got in stock and it also depends on what my wife has me doing on my days off! As a matter of fact I would have run more ads this week 'cos I do have some things in inventory here that I bought at garage sales that are just itching to be sold but I couldn't write the ads for them, because I had to clean out the garage.
But the good news is, in cleaning the garage, I found some more stuff out there that my wife would have thrown away and one mans junk is another mans treasure. I put it right into my inventory and I'll write ads for it too. I imagine if you want to check my advertising over the next week to ten days, you'll see that I have more ads on. I imagine that I'll probably run 20 to 30.
Generally speaking I usually run around 20 per week and now because I think it's a combination of what I'm selling and how I'm selling it most of the time just about every item I put on is selling. I'm really, really lucky.
Another of your posts that I saw on Tony Blake's board -- something really caught my eye, you mentioned "this morning I've processed 150 orders". It seems an awful lot of orders. I'm intrigued. How did you do that?
A lot of pre-setup work. What I recommend to those who are going to sell on eBay, you do the work up front. And then it's just a matter of copying and pasting. I had my post-sales emails completely set up. All I had to do is copy them and then basically eBay sends you an email that tells you exactly who all of your bidders were and you get their email address, and you click on their email address, and paste the email into that particular blank email and hit send.
It took me about 15 minutes to process all those invoices. It's simple copy and paste. It's kind of "Oh boy, am I going to make any mistakes here" because you do it so quickly, but after you've done it so many times you get used to it. It's just a matter of making sure you're set up beforehand.
I would equate it to being like an instructor -- when I first started teaching at the college here locally, it took me hours upon hours to set up for my classes because I had to prep for each and every class, but now that I've been doing it for 16 years I'm ready-prepped. So I go in there, and I open the book, and I lecture. I know what I'm going to say.
It's the same thing -- you do your prep work before the auction closes. Actually before you even post the auction. And then it's just a matter -- I've already got my post-sales letters set up and I just change the item, change the amount, and click on the person who bought it. It's all pretty much done in place.
You choose not to use a service like Auction Watch?
No, because they charge too much. The bottom line is I'm still a small business, and they're a wonderful service but you really have to be clearing a fairly decent amount consistently in order to justify that expense. I would much rather put that money, instead of putting it towards AuctionWatch I'd rather put it towards more advertising.
Do you use any auction specific software packages?
I used to use Robbin Tungett's Virtual Auction Ad Pro, and it is absolutely phenomenal. She is like the eBay Queen. This woman is just phenomenal.
I now use Front Page to write all of my ads, I found it's more versatile, but for anyone who's just starting out, I would highly recommend that they visit AuctionRiches.com ... that's Robbin's site, and take a look at her software because it does everything for you in assisting you in writing a decent ad.
And how do you post your auctions? Just manually through Explorer?
I'd rather use Netscape. For some reason Explorer -- another little tidbit of information for people now just getting started, Internet Explorer for some reason after you post your first ad tends to lock up. I don't know why. It's done it ever since I've been selling. I've found that Netscape doesn't so while I'll use Internet Explorer for 99% of my browsing, when I'm posting ads I'm using Netscape and it slides right through.
I can post, once I've got the ads I've already written, and I already have my headline written out also, so it's just a matter of copying and pasting it, I can post 30 ads in less than 30 minutes. And if you talk to the people who are literally selling thousands and thousands of items, they're probably doing the exact same thing.
So all these customers you've had over the years, how do you follow-up on them, what do you do with them after the sale?
That's an excellent question. I make certain as I said to send them that final email once again thanking them and reminding them that I'm still there, and I keep their email address in a data file and when I come up with another product that they might be interested in, I email them to remind them who I am and ask them if they might be interested in hearing about it.
The last thing I want to do is send them an unsolicited business email. I invite them to return my email if they are interested, if they do -- great, I send them the offer. If they don't, then I don't. I definitely don't throw away any email addresses of any past customer because they are another potential customer.
I've ended up with several sales from people I've already sold to by doing that. I have an eBay mailing list -- I actually have more than one depending if they bought software from me, or they bought the CD, and I use Worldmerge to send the mass mailing out, and the mass mailing, the first one that I do is basically an invitation saying "I've come up with another product, you were a former customer of mine, as I told you in a previous email I'll let you know if I came up with anything, the last thing I want to do is interfere with you or whatever you're doing these days, but I wanted to let you know about this offer. If you would like to know more about it please feel free to email me and I will personally email you".
In that case I do send a personal email to those who reply. That way it doesn't seem as if I'm something of a business machine just asking for more money. And I also like adding that personal touch because as I said earlier in our interview Louis, removing the mystery of who the person is behind the auction ad actually makes it a lot easier to sell because people will buy from someone who they trust a lot faster.
Okay, do you have your photo on your listings?
I don't put my photo in my listings, but I make sure I put contact information. I make it very easy for them to contact me. My email address is right there in every single ad that I run, many of the ads that I run actually have my name, as well as my post office box business address, and my phone number and I urge them, I invite them to email me if they have any questions. I even use that word "urge ... if you have any questions please email me" and it works.
Do you use any other contact methods like ICQ ... instant messaging?
I used to use ICQ and then I found that it made me vulnerable using a cable modem, so I took it off my computer because I got hacked, no more, it's not worth it, at one point I was using software that allowed me to actually interface while I was online I could leave a little thing on my web site that indicated that I was indeed online and if they clicked on it they could ask me a question live and in person. That worked out quite nicely, but I found that I couldn't get things done 'cos every time that I was online as soon as I logged on, I started getting questions.
That's it, unlike emails you can't choose when to respond.
Exactly. I tried to use ... and this is something else that I'm now focusing on is my time management, because I've found that I'm so excited about getting email from someone because I love chatting with people, I love answering the email, that I would actually stop writing an ad, I would stop scanning in photos, I would have all of this stuff all set up and right in the middle of writing an ad my email thing would ping, and next thing you know I'm answering the email.
I've got time management down now, and basically I set aside a certain time that I check my email and a certain time that I process orders and it seems to be working out. Actually I have to schedule myself almost as if you would as if you're working for someone. You work certain hours, and you do certain things during those hours, and that's another little tidbit of advice I would give anyone getting started is: make sure to put themselves on a schedule.
Time management is just as important, if not more important than money management because your time is valuable. You would have thought that I'd have learnt that one a long time ago!
It's too easy to be disorganized. I can vouch for that. I think we're kind of coming to the end of this interview ... so what would you suggest to someone who's either starting selling on eBay, or someone who's already selling on eBay but wants to sell more, or take it even full time?
eBay is definitely one thing you can get into online full time and yes it's going to take some time and effort and some learning but there is definitely money to be made. I could do it in all likelihood fulltime already honestly if I devoted more time but the fact is I've got so many years in the fire department I can't give up that retirement. That would be a very silly thing to do.
The big hint that I would give people that want to get started is learn as much as you can and just absorb the information that's out there ... Auction Hints, my eBook is a fairly decent eBook that tells all about eBay.
There's several other publications out there that will tell you exactly what you need to know as far as how to safely sell and buy in the online auction forum. In addition to that I would say start counting on something that you truly, truly love because if you have a passion for it, then you'll find it easier to sell it.
And I loved software absolutely, I still do, but unfortunately I got knocked out of that market but if you find a niche, for example a friend of mine that sells on eBay, she is very much into antiques and she does extremely well selling antique vases and she loves them. How could she help but sell them? Another friend of mine sells fishing equipment. Guess what his passion is?
It was just natural as a golfer -- I love the game of golf, and so for me to sell golfing equipment was awesome. I got to actually see the brand new golf stuff as it came out of the factory. "Wow -- look at this!". Find a niche. If you have urges to keep something yourself, then how hard can it be to sell it.
There's going to be other people out there that are going to want it. And don't overprice yourself, don't try to make a killing on one item, you're far better off selling ten of the same item, and making the profit over the long term because now you've got ten contacts.
Just be honest, and be available, and do unto others. The old ethic of "do unto others, as you have them do unto you" it definitely plays into online sales.
I'm happy to say that the people that I've dealt with, I don't know if I've just been very lucky or what but the people I've dealt with have been very, very honest, and had a lot of integrity, if they did write me a bad check it was an accident and they made up for it, and it's been just an extremely wonderful experience, and I don't regret any portion of it.
Especially now that I'm actually, it's taken some time, but now that I'm now making a nice secondary income. I could actually give up my teaching at the college, but I love that too much too. But I'm actually making as much on eBay, as I was at the college.
And as you say, you've got the system so automated, how much do you actually spend on it ... an hour a day?
It depends if it's a day I'm scheduled to post ads. If it's a day that I'm posting ads then I go over the ad with a fine tooth comb to make sure I didn't add something in there that was dumb. You know you're tired, you're writing 30 ads, and you could absolutely put the wrong description or something. And people will hold you to it. And they expect the item to be exactly what's advertised.
And once I've done that, by the time I've posted, probably maybe 2 hours, 3 hours, and that's maybe twice a week. And then every other day it's about an hour on eBay, and then I spend several hours reading online forums and posting, which is a great form of advertising, but in addition to that it's an awesome way to meet people, like yourself, and end up learning even more about online marketing.
And it's also another passion ... it's almost like a hobby, because you really enjoy reading a lot of the posts because some of those people are just so intelligent and in addition to that you like seeing the fighting too ... it's almost like a soap opera. You gotta laugh at some of the posts.
I'm constantly looking at new and better ways of improving things. I just registered EzineAdResults.com and as a matter of fact the gentleman that's working on it with me is in the UK and he and I are working diligently to put together a nice info-package on how to advertise successfully in newsletters.
That's basically another thing that I'm working on that's sort of behind the scenes, so you constantly keep learning and moving forward. And as a matter of fact my plan is once the product is 100% completed I will be marketing it on eBay. Just one more thing that we market.
There are people on eBay that sell certain types of items exclusively, and they continue doing it, and they do quite well. I envy them in some ways, but in other ways honestly I enjoy selling a diverse measure of items because there's little side businesses that end up popping up.
Once you get very decent at selling on eBay, as a matter of fact I've got a gentleman today that contacted me about selling one of his golf clubs for him. It's a used golf club. It will probably sell for around $100 on eBay, and he'll give me 20% of the sales price. I've already got golf club ads written, all I've got to do is take a photo of his and then I'll put it on and he'll pay the ad cost by the way, and I'll sell his golf club. That's another potential business. I hadn't really thought about it, until he mentioned it to me.
Okay, thanks very much Jim. In conclusion, anything you would like to say ... any final points?
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this. I still consider myself a little guy, who's a fire fighter paramedic first, and online seller second. But eBay has definitely made a difference in my life, I make money on eBay. Others can certainly make money on eBay also.
It affords people opportunities that most online endeavors simply don't because they're too difficult. eBay is simple. It's a very, very good place to start. And it's inexpensive. It's fun, and they have made it as safe as they possibly can as long as you add your own common sense to the measures that eBay has taken then it's a perfectly safe place to also to buy and to sell.
