10 eBay Selling Secrets
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10 eBay Selling Secrets
When you first decide to sell your stuff on eBay for some extra money, there are several things that you must know prior to selling. You do want people to find your listings and you don't want to lose your shirt......you want to sell it.
Read through these 10 eBay Selling Secrets along with some extra eBay news and tips before you attempt your first listing so you don't start out as an "eBay Dummy".
Contents at a Glance
The #1 Secret For Getting Massive eBay Traffic!
Your Auction Title.
That's right, the #1 secret for getting the most traffic to your auction listing is your what you put in your auction title.
Your auction title is probably the most important feature when someone is searching on eBay.
What Makes the Auction Title So Important?
The keywords in your auction titles!
It is a well known fact that the majority of people that find an auction listing, find it through the keywords in the auction title. Most people will only search in the titles (by default) and will not select the option to "Search Title and Description".If you were to go to eBay and start looking at your competitors auction titles, you would find they are using keywords in their titles to attract buyers. Incorporating those important keywords into your auction titles is a surefire method for improving your auction traffic.
Your auction titles must contain the specific keywords that buyers are using in their searching in order for them to be able to find all your auctions. A high percentage of auctions fail because their listings were never found by the buyers.
I have seen this happen over and over again. When you take the best strategies, being used by your power seller competitors, in your own auction listings, you are literally very hard to beat!
#2 How To Advanced Search
Use the search tool.
Search eBay listings to find products that are similar to the products you want to sell. Be sure to look at completed listings, too. This will give you an idea of the going rate. Also, pay attention to time of day the items typically sell for the highest price.
How To Search Your Competition
If you don't have an account yet, you can create one now right here for free by clicking the eBay link below:
eBay
1.Click the "Advanced Search" link located at the top of most ebay
2.Enter your keywords and any other search information.
3.Select the Completed listings only check box.
4.Click the Search button.
Note: If you are not currently signed-in, you will be prompted to do so before you can see your search results.
Once your search has completed, you will usually see a rather large list where the price is given in either Green or Red text. The Green indicates that the product has sold and the amount that it sold for. The Red indicates that the item was not sold.
When you see that your competitor's have been selling a lot of products, it means that the seller is doing something right because of all the successful completed auctions.
Now you want to take a look at all those corresponding auction titles and descriptions and then incorporate the keywords into your auction titles.
The next step is to test your auctions. List your auctions under different categories with different keywords that are relevant to the product and to category you are listing it in to see which one performs better. Watch for a pattern so that you will know which one is the "keeper". It won't take you long at all to discover which category works best for you, and then you will be able to work that category more effectively to produce the maximum traffic and of course, earn more money.
The next secret....
Drum Roll....
Be sure to use plural words when testing your auction titles.
The majority of eBay
New eBay Ruling Banning the Sales of Digital Products
All eBay Sellers Should Read Immediately
eBay has just launched a new ruling that will ban the selling of digital products on their auction site. Please click on this link to read the official announcement. The last day will be 31 March 2008.
- New Policy Update: Digital Downloadable Goods in Classified Ads Format Only
- New Ruling Banning Digital Products on 31 March 2008.
- eBay Radio
- Listen to eBay Radio about the changes that are coming up. You will have to listen to 19 minutes into the radio program to hear about the digital product changes.
- Avril Harper's Free Reports
- Avril Harper is giving away free reports on how to turn the digital ban to your advantage.
5 June 2008 - The Latest eBay Changes
I just received this latest information from Jim Cockrum's Free Newsletter:
"eBay has recently started counting "neutral" feedback marks as negative for the purpose of calculating your feedback rating. In one swoop millions of accounts went from perfect to less than perfect.
First, the bright side of this eBay change is that if you can manage to keep your feedback high you'll REALLY stand out now.
It's now more important than ever that you educate your customers on the importance of good feedback.
Here are a couple ideas:
1. IMMEDIATELY leave feedback for all customers that buy from you. There is no benefit in waiting since you can no longer leave them neutral or negative feedback as a seller.
2. Next, in all "post sale" email and shipping correspondence with customers include a statement something like this (even BEFORE they pay):
That should help you keep your feedback scores in tact.
"eBay has recently started counting "neutral" feedback marks as negative for the purpose of calculating your feedback rating. In one swoop millions of accounts went from perfect to less than perfect.
First, the bright side of this eBay change is that if you can manage to keep your feedback high you'll REALLY stand out now.
It's now more important than ever that you educate your customers on the importance of good feedback.
Here are a couple ideas:
1. IMMEDIATELY leave feedback for all customers that buy from you. There is no benefit in waiting since you can no longer leave them neutral or negative feedback as a seller.
2. Next, in all "post sale" email and shipping correspondence with customers include a statement something like this (even BEFORE they pay):
We just left you positive feedback on eBay. Anything short of your 5 Star 100% positive feedback back to us considered to be a TOTAL FAILURE ON OUR PART because we want you 100% happy. If there is anything else we can do to earn your prompt 5 star 100% positive feedback please let us know at (email address). Here's a link to leave us PERFECT feedback once you are pleased with your experience:
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?LeaveFeedback2
That should help you keep your feedback scores in tact.
#3 Sell Something Unique
Even though it is possible to sell the same product that hundreds of other people are selling, it is a much simpler process to make money by selling your product if it is something different and unique. However, keep in mind that you don't want it to be so different, that nobody has ever heard of it, nor have a use for it. On the other hand things that are listed in the "weird stuff" category do sell.
You also don't want an item that is so common that buyers can pick one up anywhere. I have seen some idiots er, I mean uninformed people, trying to sell items from the dollar store with a starting bit of $9.99??? I guess if you like throwing money away, as listing is not free, have at it. (BTW the Dollar Store items did not sell, nor did they get a bid.)
You also don't want an item that is so common that buyers can pick one up anywhere. I have seen some idiots er, I mean uninformed people, trying to sell items from the dollar store with a starting bit of $9.99??? I guess if you like throwing money away, as listing is not free, have at it. (BTW the Dollar Store items did not sell, nor did they get a bid.)
#4 List Items Accurately
Know your product and list it honestly and correctly. Do the research of your item before you create a listing. Know exactly what you have, what it does, what it is used for, what it is called and most important, what condition it is in. In other words, don't say it is a coffee pot if it is actually a teapot. Don't say it is new if it is used.
Correctly identifying the product and its details can make a difference in the amount of money people are willing to pay for it.
Be honest about the products condition. Include photos of any defects the item may have.
Correctly identifying the product and its details can make a difference in the amount of money people are willing to pay for it.
Be honest about the products condition. Include photos of any defects the item may have.
Watch This Video to Price Items Correctly
Again, you will be researching your competition to list your items accurately. If you list them too high you won't get any bidders.
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Silent Sales Machine Hiding On eBay
To get access to my favorite free eBay success newsletter! Click Here!I definitely recommend that you sign up for Jim's FREE newsletter and invest in Jim's e-book. It is the best eBay book out there and all up dates to it are free. The last update I got was 2010 and there have been a lot of new things added because of all of the eBay changes this past year.
There are also strategies for promoting your business with eBay, even if you are not an eBay seller. Brilliant!
Sign Up Here You will be glad that you did.
Wanna save time with your email? Watch this cool video that Jim made on time management with your over full email in-box.
Silent Sales Machine eBay Tips
#5 Presenting Your Sale Properly
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
I have found it to be well worth it to either pay for the extra images or, the better way, use an image hosting service and then you can easily include as many images as as you want to show your item accurately. Don't go overboard though, use what is necessary to show all the angles and flaws, if any.
Do not use unnecessary words. Do not use words that could be misunderstood. Always use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation, so as not to create a misunderstanding with potential buyers. Write your descriptions as clear and precise as you can be.
Try to anticipate what a potential buyer might ask about the item and include it in the description. This will help to eliminate having to answer any questions by email, which can slow down the bidding and sale process.
Using the Right Camera
How To Get The Power Seller Challenge FREE
by John Thornhill
Get your own copy of the Free 90 Day Powerseller Challenge. This ebook has helped countless people get started making money on eBay. John gives thedetailed 'Step by Step' instructions. You can check out the sales page here, but DON'T BUY IT!:
The 90 Day Power Seller Challenge
Get It Free Here!
Answer To: Get the FREE 90 Day Power Seller Challenge"
#6 Start Your Items At A Low Price
First you have to decide on what the minimum price is that you would accept for your item. If you start your listing at $1.00, which is the new minimum price that you can list at, you will attract more bidders at the beginning of the auction. The next minimum price you would want to use for a higher priced item, is $9.99. $10 to $24.99, your listing fee goes up, and so on.
NO RESERVE
A reserve price is a set price that must be met before the item will be sold. If the reserve price is not met, then the seller is not obliged to sell the item. An example would be if you have an reserve of $20, and your item sells for $13.99 you do not have to complete the sale & release the item. eBay will list it again for free, but if it does sell the second time around they will take their fees.
Most people don't want to bid on reserved prices. Psychologically, they want the option of being able to win the auction at a lower price, even though they are willing to pay more if the bidding gets up there, in their minds they think they may get it for less. Even if you have something that is a very high dollar item, it is better to have the bidding start at a higher bid amount and pay the higher fee, than it is to put a reserve on the item.
NO RESERVE
A reserve price is a set price that must be met before the item will be sold. If the reserve price is not met, then the seller is not obliged to sell the item. An example would be if you have an reserve of $20, and your item sells for $13.99 you do not have to complete the sale & release the item. eBay will list it again for free, but if it does sell the second time around they will take their fees.
Most people don't want to bid on reserved prices. Psychologically, they want the option of being able to win the auction at a lower price, even though they are willing to pay more if the bidding gets up there, in their minds they think they may get it for less. Even if you have something that is a very high dollar item, it is better to have the bidding start at a higher bid amount and pay the higher fee, than it is to put a reserve on the item.
Find eBay Bargains With FREE Tools
Stop spending hours at a time searching all over the Internet for bargains. Use this FREE tool instead.
Download FREE here:
Auction Bargain Finder
#7 Cross Promotion
Three Things You Should Be Doing
If you are serious about selling for profit on eBay there are three things that you should be doing to cross promote your business and to establish credibility.
* SET UP AN EBAY STORE
* SET UP AN ABOUT ME PAGE
* LEAVE LINKS TO YOUR OTHER ITEMS
* SET UP AN EBAY STORE
* SET UP AN ABOUT ME PAGE
* LEAVE LINKS TO YOUR OTHER ITEMS
How to Keep Your eBay Listings In Constant View Seven Days a Week
By Avril Harper
It's important to be selling continuously on eBay, literally day by day, giving you constant stock turnover and regular daily profits. You do it by getting potential buyers to focus on your products over rival listings but you have very limited time to achieve your objective.
Most importantly, your products must appear in the first few pages of eBay's search listings whenever someone keys in words to describe items such as you are selling. But there is a big problem here.
The problem's down to eBay's listings appearing in reverse order, from those closest to ending, through to items only recently listed. Items listed on the first pages of any popular category will be those ending in the next few minutes or hours, and few people will search beyond the current day's listings.
To illustrate, imagine I want to buy some CDs, featuring Roy Orbison, for example, and Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, John Denver, and others. If I go online right now and key those names into eBay's search engine, I'll almost certainly have dozens of pages of suitable product listings to search through.
Given I definitely don't want to spend hours looking for CDs with so many similar items listed I'll probably order something from the first or second page and ignore the rest.
Now imagine you are selling those CDs, but you only list on Sundays, and today is Tuesday. Your listings have six more days to go before they'll appear on the first few pages so I almost certainly won't buy from you today.
By listing all your products the same day, they'll also all be selling the same day, so you're only going to reach page one of eBay's listings for an insignificant part of the week ahead. You are reaching just a tiny part of your target audience.
You circumvent the problem by listing all your products daily, which by implication means you have product listings ending daily, and consequently everything you sell features in the first few pages returned by eBay when someone searches for items such as you are selling.
Read the rest of the article here....
Most importantly, your products must appear in the first few pages of eBay's search listings whenever someone keys in words to describe items such as you are selling. But there is a big problem here.
The problem's down to eBay's listings appearing in reverse order, from those closest to ending, through to items only recently listed. Items listed on the first pages of any popular category will be those ending in the next few minutes or hours, and few people will search beyond the current day's listings.
To illustrate, imagine I want to buy some CDs, featuring Roy Orbison, for example, and Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, John Denver, and others. If I go online right now and key those names into eBay's search engine, I'll almost certainly have dozens of pages of suitable product listings to search through.
Given I definitely don't want to spend hours looking for CDs with so many similar items listed I'll probably order something from the first or second page and ignore the rest.
Now imagine you are selling those CDs, but you only list on Sundays, and today is Tuesday. Your listings have six more days to go before they'll appear on the first few pages so I almost certainly won't buy from you today.
By listing all your products the same day, they'll also all be selling the same day, so you're only going to reach page one of eBay's listings for an insignificant part of the week ahead. You are reaching just a tiny part of your target audience.
You circumvent the problem by listing all your products daily, which by implication means you have product listings ending daily, and consequently everything you sell features in the first few pages returned by eBay when someone searches for items such as you are selling.
Read the rest of the article here....
Second Chance Offers
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Thieves & Scammers
Unfortunately there are dishonest people on eBay. There are several ways to protect yourself from them. Start with building up your feedback scores first by selling less expensive items. Do not start your eBay selling career with high priced items. That is the quickest way to be taken advantage of. If you are a new seller selling an expensive item unethical buyers have been known to claim the item was not as described. Ebay has a 45 day return policy. They will return the item, only it won't be the item you sent. They will return something of a much lesser value.Join the community at the Answer Center. When you see someone has been scammed, be sure to add that buyer to your "Blocked Bitter" list so that they are blocked from bidding on any of your items. Also do this if you do have to file a dispute with a dishonest buyer. Add a signature confirmation to every item you ship out to be sure no one claims they did not receive their winning bid item.
John Thornhill's Planet SMS Monthly Mentorship
You Can Make Money and Became Successful in your own right.
Put Simply - If you are serious about earning a regular income, and you are committed to following in John's footsteps, but just need to be shown how,....
But in a Simple and Easy to follow manner.
Then join me today in PlanetSMS Digital Mentorship Monthly You will be pleasantly surprised at the low cost for high quality time.
Put Simply - If you are serious about earning a regular income, and you are committed to following in John's footsteps, but just need to be shown how,....
But in a Simple and Easy to follow manner.
Then join me today in PlanetSMS Digital Mentorship Monthly You will be pleasantly surprised at the low cost for high quality time.
Activa Store
Auctiva is a very popular eBay seller management tool that we (as creative eBay marketers) can really get excited about! You can visit it here:
www.auctiva.com/.
They have free auction templates, scrolling galleries to showcase your items, images, image hosting, online stores, just to name a few and they are all FREE.
This is such a great service for all eBay sellers! You can really design beautiful sites, stores and listings with their tools.
www.auctiva.com/.
They have free auction templates, scrolling galleries to showcase your items, images, image hosting, online stores, just to name a few and they are all FREE.
This is such a great service for all eBay sellers! You can really design beautiful sites, stores and listings with their tools.
Be Part Of The Elite Squidoo Community
Drive more traffic to your site by joining an elite group of like-minded Squidoo members.
Squidoo Directory
Great eBay E-books That I Highly Recommend!
These are excellent products that are "must haves" for your library. You will learn all the tips and tricks about selling on eBay. You can greatly improve your sales and learn how to run on auto-pilot.
Silent Sales Machine Hidden on eBay
The best book ever written about selling on eBay. more...2 points
eBay Selling
Ebay is a great place to start any business. It wi more...1 point
Free eBay Secrets
Shill bidding deal is a 21st century version of a more...1 point
Ebay Unlimited
0 points
Auction Profit Secrets
FREE 43 Page Report Reveals How Even Beginners Can more...0 points
Sale Hoo - Wholesale Drop Shipper List
Instant and Unlimited Access to 8,000 Pre-Screened more...0 points
Insider Secrets to an eBay Power Seller
Insider Secrets of an eBay Millionaire - Only $0.9 more...0 points
EBay Secret Selling Videos
1. If you have virgin ears don't watch the first video. If your ears were raped long ago, the 1st video will tell you how to get a FREE wholesale catalog.
2. Shows you where to find what people want.
3. How to research a product to sell
4. How to find cheap items to resell for profit
5. How to sell without stocking products
6. Set up a FREE affiliate eBay store
2. Shows you where to find what people want.
3. How to research a product to sell
4. How to find cheap items to resell for profit
5. How to sell without stocking products
6. Set up a FREE affiliate eBay store
curated content from YouTube
EBay Super Seller
Learn More About John Thornhill eBay Products
on another Squidoo lens:
Resale Rights Blueprint
Honesty.com
Use Honesty.com to help you find great bargains on eBay. Buy cheap then resell.
How to Sell on eBay
eBay "How Tos" on Amazon
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karmicchristian
Jan 17, 2012 @ 5:53 am | delete
- Wow! These are pretty handy tips and many which tend to get overlooked indeed!
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darciefrench
Nov 19, 2011 @ 2:10 pm | delete
- Fantastic page for ebay sellers - full of great tips, many thanks
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bikerministry
Jun 14, 2011 @ 7:50 pm | delete
- I open my eBay account a few times a year and sell there rather than a yard sale.
BTW we are Jim's parents. (pretty proud of him)
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artyfax Feb 7, 2011 @ 3:58 pm | delete
- I stopped selling on eBay because it no longer benefits someone selling small and varied amounts of unwanted stuff. The new rules on eBAy out me right off.
That said this is a very good "how to" for anyone who wants to start ( or needs to improve) a business on eBay. Very succintly put and quite detailed.
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soumenpaul
Oct 7, 2010 @ 11:48 am | delete
- very interesting selling tips you have mention in your lens...its very useful for me. Thanks
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Welcome! My name is June. I am a freelance writer authoring various articles and publications and have been making money online for 5 years.
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