Most Internet users are pretty familiar with buying things on eBay, often at a significant discount. On the selling side however, many people still hesitate to get involved. Don't be intimidated -- here are twelve tips that will help you get the most out of your eBay selling activities.
1. Do your research
It costs nothing to browse eBay, and that's part of the charm. But you can make that work for you as a seller: search for your item, not only to work out what to charge for it, but also to gauge interest. If an item is consistently listed with no bids, perhaps there's little demand, or sellers are asking too much. Can you undercut them and still make a profitable sale? It's also a good idea to see how different items are promoted; while it's a copyright infringement to steal someone else's listing description, there's nothing to stop you using the same basic ideas in yours.
2. Don't overspend on a listing
The first time you set up an eBay auction, you'll be met with a dazzling array of choices, all of which seem rather cheap. eBay will always charge you an insertion fee for listing your auction (currently starting at 30c for auctions with a starting reserve price under a dollar), as well as a final value fee, but everything else can look mighty tempting. Extra pictures for 25c each? Bold entry for $2 to really stand out? While there is nothing in principle wrong with extras, be wary of spending too much on them upfront. Bear in mind that eBay will charge you these fees even if your item fails to sell and, according to their current terms and conditions, this includes even if a buyer fails to pay you.
3. Choose your categories carefully
Again, this is a question of not overspending, especially if you're selling small items that aren't individually worth that much. Depending on how you initially describe it, eBay will, by default, suggest likely categories that your item may fit. The trap with category listings is that adding each additional one doubles your insertion fee. Note that it will also double your upgrade fees, for pictures and the like.
4. Use your own picture storage
Your first picture with eBay is free, but there's nothing stopping you using your own online picture storage instead. Why would you want to? Well, because eBay will charge you 25c for each additional picture. Hosting your own pictures will also give you absolute control over what's shown in a listing, including when you want to take photos down or change them. Don't use pictures hosted on sites out of your control, or you might receive a nasty surprise should someone change the content.
5. Buy it now?
The Buy It Now option lets you set a "price" for your goods, rather than relying on the auction price when the virtual hammer falls. It's a good way to quickly get exactly what you want for an item -- as long as you're realistic about its actual value. But it also adds a 10c premium to your listing, and it's a premium that vanishes the second anyone makes an actual bid on your item.
6. PayPal - How to get protected
PayPal Australia recently announced that sellers would, for the first time, enjoy some protection against dodgy buyers -- either those using stolen credit cards, or who claim goods were never sent. You do have to follow PayPal's guidelines very carefully to qualify, however. Specifically, you've got to send the goods using a completely trackable shipping method. Within Australia, this equates to registered post, and internationally, according to PayPal's service pages, this is "any international shipper that supports door-to-door tracking that is viewable online, such as UPS, FedEx or DHL". Of course, you'll have to get your buyer to agree to those shipping costs upfront, and make sure you keep your copies of the paperwork, too.
7. Ending auctions early
If you've got a desirable item, you're almost guaranteed to get one or more enquiries asking if you'll end the auction early and outside the eBay framework. Be very wary; while not every enquiry is going to be a scam, you're more than likely to be besieged by people trying to score a quick bargain if they sense you don't know the true value of an item, and, of course, you're dropping any kind of seller protection that eBay might offer you. Absolutely do NOT accept any kind of credit card payment or cheque for an out-of-eBay pitched auction like this -- they're too easily faked, stolen and/or reversed. We also suggest you refrain from shipping to Nigeria or other known scam hotspots where practical.
8. Hype, but don't overstate
In the business of selling, you want to make your goods as attractive as possible, and that means talking them up. Be wary, however, of over-hyping your item or deliberately leaving out any obvious functionality flaws that may come with second-hand goods. It's tempting to not mention the blue smoke that comes out of the back of your laptop if it's left on for more than ten seconds, but failure to accurately describe goods is a quick route to having a buyer dispute on your hands, especially where it's easily proven you were less than honest in your description.
9. Answer all questions, even the obvious ones
eBay's a global marketplace and while you may write the most stunningly clear auction descriptions in the world, be prepared for plenty of less-than-stunning questions about your goods. While it may be annoying answering the same questions endlessly -- and for some queries it's well worth publishing the answer on your auction page to save some pain -- it's still worth answering every single query. With its international nature, not every buyer will have the same native language as you, which can add to confusion. Moreover, whether or not the buyer understands your description makes no difference to the value of their money, and every answer you give could lead to more auction cash for you.
10. Sort out shipping costs
What to charge for shipping is a bone of contention for both buyers and sellers, but as a seller you can do a little homework upfront to make things easier. Pre-Package your item (where practical), measure it and weigh it. eBay provides simple shipping calculation tools, but you can also check these against Australia Post's own postage calculator.
11. Know your resolution steps upfront
It's worthwhile keeping track of eBay's resolution policies for disputes if you're planning to sell on a regular basis. These change from time to time and are region specific. Just because your aunt in Chicago gets a certain type of seller protection, doesn't mean that you will.
12. PayPal - Sell smartly, withdraw smartly
PayPal charges a premium for Credit Card payments (to recover costs that the providers charge them), and passes those costs on to you in the form of the premier and business accounts. If you're only selling off a few items, it's worth stating that you won't accept credit-card funded Paypal payments, as eBay/Paypal will take 30c plus between 1.1 and 2.4 percent for every transaction going through a premier account -- even if they weren't credit card funded to begin with. From a merchant's perspective that may well be a cost of doing business, but if you're just doing a virtual garage sale, it's effectively giving money away.
If you are selling lots of low-cost items and accepting money through PayPal, it's also well worth letting it accrue until you've got more than AU$150 in balance before withdrawing it. Paypal charges a $1 premium for transferring balances under $150 to Australian bank accounts.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
eBay Auction Tools - save time and enhance your listings
EBay sellers have a number of online auction tools at their disposal when they use the options on eBay’s own platform to list and sell online. Still, some want to stand out from the competition and millions of item listings on eBay.
One way to enhance your eBay business is to invest in third-party eBay tools — tools you can use on eBay that are not developed by, or included in, eBay’s own online selling platform.
When you use these tools, you are not giving up anything in terms of running your business. You can choose to keep using eBay’s tools, but at the same time you can use third-party services so you can work with a unique mix of eBay tools to help you grow your eBay business.
Auctiva offers a free 30-day trial and four account plans to suit any eBay seller. If you run a small eBay business, you can invest $2.95 per month for 14 listings up to $19.95 per month on an unlimited plan that includes the stand-alone Auctiva Commerce Store.
BiggerBids services for eBay sellers include auction templates and image hosting accounts. The auction templates offered by BiggerBids are designed to save you time by storing the information that doesn't change from one auction to the next.
You can also make your listings stand out by using eye-catching templates that match your products, or you can choose seasonal themes. To use the service, you add the item information for a listing, upload and edit images, and then select a template that "wraps around" your information.
When you add information, you'll find that you can edit many areas within a BiggerBids' template. For example you can customize your auction title, description, shipping and payment details, auction policies and a number of other data fields.
The service also offers image hosting with a number of features, including bulk image uploads, watermarking tools to brand your eBay item images, image management tools, and an image-to-auction transfer that lets you associate images with the auctions in which they belong.
BiggerBids offers its services (unlimited auction templates and image hosting) to sellers at a flat rate of $8.95 per month.
InkFrog is another certified eBay solution provider that offers a full auction-management platform. Once you have created your account on inkFrog you can then use this service to handle all aspects of your eBay business and listing requirements. When you list an item on eBay, you use inkFrog's interface and also use the seller dashboard to customize eBay templates, manage all inventory tasks such as photo uploads, and to track your eBay sales and history.
The inkFrog auction service costs $9.99 per month flat fee for all services, and the company also offers a free 14-day trial.
You can use Page Mage, an eBay compatible application that we recently covered, to improve your selling page by listing items in a more interactive and engaging way. For example, you can embed video, show eBay image galleries, or add scrolling text to any eBay auction or fixed-price item listing when you use the Page Mage service.
Recently added features to this service support the option to publish eBay listings to a number of social networking sites and blogs.
Pricing starts at fifty cents per listing on the pay-as-you-go option, and up to $34.95 per month for 1,000 listings. Page Mage also offers new customers a 60-day free trial account.
One way to enhance your eBay business is to invest in third-party eBay tools — tools you can use on eBay that are not developed by, or included in, eBay’s own online selling platform.
When you use these tools, you are not giving up anything in terms of running your business. You can choose to keep using eBay’s tools, but at the same time you can use third-party services so you can work with a unique mix of eBay tools to help you grow your eBay business.
Tools to Publish eBay Listings
Auctiva is a certified eBay solution provider offering a full auction-management platform. The solution has a number of features to publish eBay listings, including bulk-listing tools, profiles to quickly add your most commonly used information, image hosting, tools to manage inventory and consignment, Auctiva eBay Stores, traffic counters, automatic customer e-mails, Auctiva secure checkout and more. In total Auctiva offers more than 15 features and most are options you won't find when using eBay’s own listing platform.Auctiva offers a free 30-day trial and four account plans to suit any eBay seller. If you run a small eBay business, you can invest $2.95 per month for 14 listings up to $19.95 per month on an unlimited plan that includes the stand-alone Auctiva Commerce Store.
BiggerBids services for eBay sellers include auction templates and image hosting accounts. The auction templates offered by BiggerBids are designed to save you time by storing the information that doesn't change from one auction to the next.
You can also make your listings stand out by using eye-catching templates that match your products, or you can choose seasonal themes. To use the service, you add the item information for a listing, upload and edit images, and then select a template that "wraps around" your information.
When you add information, you'll find that you can edit many areas within a BiggerBids' template. For example you can customize your auction title, description, shipping and payment details, auction policies and a number of other data fields.
The service also offers image hosting with a number of features, including bulk image uploads, watermarking tools to brand your eBay item images, image management tools, and an image-to-auction transfer that lets you associate images with the auctions in which they belong.
BiggerBids offers its services (unlimited auction templates and image hosting) to sellers at a flat rate of $8.95 per month.
InkFrog is another certified eBay solution provider that offers a full auction-management platform. Once you have created your account on inkFrog you can then use this service to handle all aspects of your eBay business and listing requirements. When you list an item on eBay, you use inkFrog's interface and also use the seller dashboard to customize eBay templates, manage all inventory tasks such as photo uploads, and to track your eBay sales and history.
The inkFrog auction service costs $9.99 per month flat fee for all services, and the company also offers a free 14-day trial.
You can use Page Mage, an eBay compatible application that we recently covered, to improve your selling page by listing items in a more interactive and engaging way. For example, you can embed video, show eBay image galleries, or add scrolling text to any eBay auction or fixed-price item listing when you use the Page Mage service.
Recently added features to this service support the option to publish eBay listings to a number of social networking sites and blogs.
Pricing starts at fifty cents per listing on the pay-as-you-go option, and up to $34.95 per month for 1,000 listings. Page Mage also offers new customers a 60-day free trial account.
Ten PowerSeller Tips To Top Profits!
1. Sell what your buyers want, not necessarily what you want or like. If you sell Beanie Babies because you love them, you may not make much money. Do research on the item before listing it. You will learn what is specific to that particular item and which keywords and descriptions to use to maximize your profit for that item. Here's an eBay secret which is an excellent way to do this. Ebay will tell you what buyers are looking for and what they want to buy! To do this, simply go to eBay seller central to tell you what the buyers are demanding and looking for. This report is about 35 - 50 pages. All you have to do is locate the products and give people what they want!
2. This is one of the oldest and most common selling tips around, but you'd be amazed at how many people still violate this simple but important tip. Make sure you use all 55 characters of your title that eBay allows. Maximize your potential for people to find your listing. Use keywords that come up a lot and place them strategically in the title. You also want to use synonymous terms in the title. For example, if you're selling Nintendo Wii, also use terms such as gaming system, gaming console and so forth. Your title would look like this: Nintendo Wii gaming system! Gaming console + 5 games!
Exclude junk words like L@@k!, NEAT! WOW! Etc. A great tip is you can go to pulse.ebay.com and you'll find the top 10 keywords people are typing in to find products. Make sure you use them if they're relevant to what you are selling!
3. Here is another most often overlooked eBay powerseller secrets. Although, it's not really a secret but it seems like one because no one really pays attention to it. That is to always remember that no matter what you are selling, people are BUYING security and confidence! People will buy on low prices but their decision TO BUY is based on giving them security and confidence! 83% of people who purchase through an eBay auction will skip over your listing if it does not have a photo so make sure you use a great photo. This is helping to ensure their trust and confidence in you. The items with the clear, crisp pictures will catch your eye. Online auctions are such a competitive marketplace that you MUST gain your visitors trust and confidence. If you don't they will go elsewhere to someone whom they do trust.
When taking pictures to gain your visitors trust, take the pictures as if you had no description. When you write your description, write it as if you had no picture and do not load your description with a bunch of rules and regulations and disclaimers of how difficult it is to buy from you! You would be amazed at how many online auction sellers do this. Have a great description and do not offend or yell at your visitor.
Also, here's a great auction selling tip. If you lower your prices all the time, you are attracting people who are buying on extremely low prices. There are people who will buy at higher prices because there is an underlying level of security and confidence in purchasing a higher priced item.
4. Know the value of the item you are selling. Use the eBay completed items section. This is a great way to find out what the true value of an item is. You can get great keyword ideas from other auction listings.
5. This is a common but often overlooked tip. Even though this is business 101, it can hinder your bottom line, this tip qualifies as one of top eBay Powerseller tips. It is to watch your seller fees closely. Fees can add up extremely quickly. If an item doesn't sell after 3 times, drop the price or stop trying to sell it altogether. This can be a personal decision a lot of the time. Think about if you can package or bundle the item with another item to increase the value of the other item. For instance, if you're listing a camcorder but you couldn't sell the carrying bag for it separately, package the bag to go with the camcorder and so forth.
6. Another common but important and simple strategy of all eBay auction tips is to offer free or discounted shipping. Make sure you make it known you can combine items and offer shipping discounts. This makes a big different for buyers and can boost your sales year round.
7. Here is a more advanced auction strategy tip. Watch eBay's general announcements page as well as other forums and message boards. Ebay's announcement page will tell you about promotions, category changes, new features etc. If you read it daily, you'll get an edge over your competitors. You can find out the new news and get the edge over your competitors to take advantage of new listing features, new categories, tips and any other piece of valuable information. You can also have this sent via RSS to you as well which means this information will be delivered to you.
8. If you sell the same item on a regular basis, analyze the conversion rates and selling prices on a regular basis. Always crunch the numbers and know your metrics. This will tell you about your market and knowing information in your market is a key. You can adjust your pricing, listing times and make any other adjustments that are necessary to maintain high profits.
9. Get a state resellers permit, resellers license etc. This will allow you to collect sales tax for your state. This is automated on eBay and Paypal. What this does is this allows you to buy wholesale anywhere. You can buy at wholesale price and not pay sales tax. This is very important. Also be sure to keep a separate bank account and a separate credit card for your business. This keeps your business and personal expenses separate which is a necessity.
10. Use a selling manager and auction resources such as Terapeak to help you to know your market better. Terapeak will give you free research information. It helps you know when to sell, how to price your items and know which keywords are best. You'll learn how to reduce your fees.
It is free to use and also offers advanced research tools to help you research other sellers. Learn what works! Find hot products, know the trends before your competition and gain the advantage! You'll get results in seconds with Terapeaks award winning market research tool!
Put these ten Powerseller tips into action to help you become a Power seller and watch your profits grow!
2. This is one of the oldest and most common selling tips around, but you'd be amazed at how many people still violate this simple but important tip. Make sure you use all 55 characters of your title that eBay allows. Maximize your potential for people to find your listing. Use keywords that come up a lot and place them strategically in the title. You also want to use synonymous terms in the title. For example, if you're selling Nintendo Wii, also use terms such as gaming system, gaming console and so forth. Your title would look like this: Nintendo Wii gaming system! Gaming console + 5 games!
Exclude junk words like L@@k!, NEAT! WOW! Etc. A great tip is you can go to pulse.ebay.com and you'll find the top 10 keywords people are typing in to find products. Make sure you use them if they're relevant to what you are selling!
3. Here is another most often overlooked eBay powerseller secrets. Although, it's not really a secret but it seems like one because no one really pays attention to it. That is to always remember that no matter what you are selling, people are BUYING security and confidence! People will buy on low prices but their decision TO BUY is based on giving them security and confidence! 83% of people who purchase through an eBay auction will skip over your listing if it does not have a photo so make sure you use a great photo. This is helping to ensure their trust and confidence in you. The items with the clear, crisp pictures will catch your eye. Online auctions are such a competitive marketplace that you MUST gain your visitors trust and confidence. If you don't they will go elsewhere to someone whom they do trust.
When taking pictures to gain your visitors trust, take the pictures as if you had no description. When you write your description, write it as if you had no picture and do not load your description with a bunch of rules and regulations and disclaimers of how difficult it is to buy from you! You would be amazed at how many online auction sellers do this. Have a great description and do not offend or yell at your visitor.
Also, here's a great auction selling tip. If you lower your prices all the time, you are attracting people who are buying on extremely low prices. There are people who will buy at higher prices because there is an underlying level of security and confidence in purchasing a higher priced item.
4. Know the value of the item you are selling. Use the eBay completed items section. This is a great way to find out what the true value of an item is. You can get great keyword ideas from other auction listings.
5. This is a common but often overlooked tip. Even though this is business 101, it can hinder your bottom line, this tip qualifies as one of top eBay Powerseller tips. It is to watch your seller fees closely. Fees can add up extremely quickly. If an item doesn't sell after 3 times, drop the price or stop trying to sell it altogether. This can be a personal decision a lot of the time. Think about if you can package or bundle the item with another item to increase the value of the other item. For instance, if you're listing a camcorder but you couldn't sell the carrying bag for it separately, package the bag to go with the camcorder and so forth.
6. Another common but important and simple strategy of all eBay auction tips is to offer free or discounted shipping. Make sure you make it known you can combine items and offer shipping discounts. This makes a big different for buyers and can boost your sales year round.
7. Here is a more advanced auction strategy tip. Watch eBay's general announcements page as well as other forums and message boards. Ebay's announcement page will tell you about promotions, category changes, new features etc. If you read it daily, you'll get an edge over your competitors. You can find out the new news and get the edge over your competitors to take advantage of new listing features, new categories, tips and any other piece of valuable information. You can also have this sent via RSS to you as well which means this information will be delivered to you.
8. If you sell the same item on a regular basis, analyze the conversion rates and selling prices on a regular basis. Always crunch the numbers and know your metrics. This will tell you about your market and knowing information in your market is a key. You can adjust your pricing, listing times and make any other adjustments that are necessary to maintain high profits.
10. Use a selling manager and auction resources such as Terapeak to help you to know your market better. Terapeak will give you free research information. It helps you know when to sell, how to price your items and know which keywords are best. You'll learn how to reduce your fees.
It is free to use and also offers advanced research tools to help you research other sellers. Learn what works! Find hot products, know the trends before your competition and gain the advantage! You'll get results in seconds with Terapeaks award winning market research tool!
Put these ten Powerseller tips into action to help you become a Power seller and watch your profits grow!
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