While this manual is mainly intended for beginners, I recommend even you experienced sellers pay attention… It will serve as more than just a good refresher course for you… You’ll learn some key elements of The System that serve as a solid foundation for the rest of what you’ll be learning. This system is going to require some diligence on your part. Wait, don’t stop reading yet… I never promised that this was going to be a cake walk, because it’s not! I’m going to suggest some resources for the beginner, to get you familiar with the online auction process (eBay in particular), and so that you can equip yourself with the very basic knowledge you’ll need to take full advantage of my online auction selling system. Beginners should check out “eBay the Smart Way” by Joseph T. Sinclair available for $17.95 off of Amazon.com, or another good one, “Ebay For Dummies, 2nd Edition” available through Amazon.com for $15.99. Your assignment: get one or both of these books and read them through from cover to cover! When you’re through you’ll be prepared to get the most out of this course. At the very least skim through them and get familiar with the aspects of online auction buying and selling you are not familiar with. I also encourage both beginners and experts to simply spend time on eBay. Browse through the categories… See what is selling… for what price items are selling… chat with other members through the message boards… notice what type of products are being featured… watch for updates and new policies… In short, get to know eBay’s web site “like the back of your hand”. There are resources on eBay, some of which we’ll talk about later, resources and information that can dramatically affect your success as a seller. You’d be surprised how many people are out there selling on eBay that don’t know HALF of the resources they have at their disposal. And let me tell you, many are losing precious time and profits because of it. Eventually, you may want to familiarize yourself with the number 2 and 3 (behind eBay) online auction sites - “Yahoo Auctions” and Amazon.com’s auctions as you can add to your profits by multiplying your efforts using these other sites. One suggestion though… Master one auction site at a time… There are subtle differences, along with some major differences from site to site. Starting out by posting a product on multiple sites at once could be very confusing to the beginner.
“THE POWER IN A NAME - SELECTING YOUR USER ID”
Ebay is the first online auction site you should register with. To list Dutch auctions (an auction format for selling a quantity of identical items) on eBay sellers need to have a feedback rating of at least 50, and you need to have been a member for at least 60 days. Although not the only way, Dutch auctions serve as a powerful venue for making some of the biggest profits through online auction selling. If you bought this course off of eBay, you’re already registered! But if you bought this though a web site, or off-line, you should become a registered seller right now! When registering, one of the tasks you’ll need to complete is selecting what eBay calls a “User ID”. This may seem like a minor thing, and some may not give it a second thought, but your User ID is what your customers will come to know you by. Buyers can do searches based on your User ID alone… If you have a prospect, or a customer that has purchased from you before, they can find you and your current auctions just by doing a search on your User ID. Pick a name that will represent what types of products you plan on selling, OR, of you’re not sure yet, pick a more generic name (one that could apply to selling just about any product) that is preferably short - and most of all - memorable. Take your time in choosing your name, and have fun with it. There is no need for some fancy or “technical sounding” name. After all, a seller by the name of “PARROTHEAD88″ has the highest feedback rating on eBay, and is one of its most successful sellers! So don’t be afraid to choose a FUN name for a FUN business. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER IN A NAME! Entire books are written on the subject of name selection for businesses and products. Awhile back I heard about a book that went from collecting dust on the shelf to best seller status simply by changing the name of the book! The same principles that apply to this situation can mean increased sales for your online auction business. Try your best to select a name that you will use long term. The idea is to essentially “brand” yourself and select a name that you will hold onto and build recognition for. Most all businesses strive for name recognition. Your USER ID, as far as your eBay buyers are concerned, IS your business name. If you’re not happy with your name, you do have the option of changing it, but you will be erasing any recognition that you’ve already created for that name. And name recognition equals profit. If you already have a business name, enter that as your USER ID if possible. Then , of course, you can notify your customers that you now offer some (or all) of your products for auction on eBay.
Ebay gives you the option of using your email address as your user name. I do not recommend this for two reasons. For one, you’ll find that you might soon be receiving excess junk mail from spammers that will collect this email address off of eBay and add you to their bulk email lists. Second, people that are looking for your auctions by doing a special USER ID search may have trouble remembering the type of email service you use. PARROTHEAD88 is pretty easy to remember, but if PARROTHEAD88 had used his email address of parrothead88@microd.com, his customers might’ve had a tough time finding his auctions through the “Find Items By Seller” special search feature.
“WHAT TYPE OF INTERNET AND EMAIL SERVICES TO USE WITH YOUR ONLINE AUCTION BUSINESS”
Before you get heavily involved in your auction business you’ll want to be sure you have an Internet service that is dependable, and that you’re are comfortable with. Some free Internet services have certain limits that could affect your auction business, such as limits to how many email messages you can send and receive in a day, so check with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to determine if there are any limits of this nature before it’s too late! If you’re planning on making a full time business out of online auction selling, I would highly suggest you get set up with a good DSL or Cable modem service. A normal ISP charges around $20 per month for unlimited access, and many people have an extra, dedicated phone line for Internet access which tacks on an additional $20-25 a month. So for $5 to $10 more you can get DSL Internet service and save yourself a TON of time. You wouldn’t believe how time can add up waiting for web sites to load when using a standard 56K modem. You’re looking at a potential time savings of HOURS a day using a DLS or Cable service to access the web. That can add up to a full work week LOST every month just waiting for sites to load! How much more money could you have made if you had been listing auctions on eBay during this time rather than waiting on a slow modem? $50? $100? $500? It is my recommendation for serious online users of ANY kind to invest in a good DSL or Cable service. As far as selecting a good email service, something comparable to Microsoft’s Outlook Express will do just fine. As long as you have the ability to create multiple folders, which you I will show you how to use in organizing your auction related emails, your OK. If you want to spend a little extra money on one of the best email programs available, check out “Eudora” @ www.eudora.com. Eudora filtering features are excellent, and you’ll save some time from not having to weed through excessive junk email. If you don’t mind having some advertisements displayed on your screen, Eudora offers a free version of their email software as well!
“GETTING ORGANIZED WILL BOOST YOUR BOTTOM LINE”
I’m going to outline a basic email file/folder system that you can set up in just a few minutes to help organize your incoming auction related emails. I’ll explain the system briefly and then let you determine whether to use this as a loose reference in creating your own email filing system, or start out by creating the following folders for your email box and customizing or adding to them later if necessary. Note that the following folders are in addition to your “inbox”, “deleted items”, “saved messages”, and “sent items” folders… Folder 1) Customer Addresses/Info. For any customer related information that you’ll want to save, customer addresses, customer preferences, etc. 2) Auction Listing Confirmations Ebay and other online auctions sites send listing confirmation messages after you’ve listed one or more auctions on their site. 3) Monthly Auction Invoices Ebay and other online auction sites send monthly invoices showing listing fees, commissions, etc. Save these for income tax purposes. 4) Payment Received Notices You’ll receive a payment notification message from payment services such as Paypal and Billpoint every time a customer pays you for an item. This applies to credit card and electronic check payments.
I use an autoresponder address like paypal@ebookpak.com for my paypal account. This way every time I recieve a payment from someone I thank them for the payment and notify them that I’ll be sending their product out as soon as possible. This also adds them to my list… of course there is an unsubscribe link in ever email. **************************** 6) Successful Auctions (By Month) Exmple: Successful Auctions December 2002 Ebay and other online auction sites will send you an “end of auction” notice. File all the successful notices here. You may also want to create an “Unsuccessful Auctions” folder for future reference. 7) Supplier Invoices Depending on which product suppliers you use, you may receive invoices and statements by email that you can file here. 
Supplier Product Updates/Info. You will be signing up for supplier updates, newsletters, new product announcements, etc. and will want to file those emails in this folder. 9) Urgent This is your most important folder! Initially you’ll want to file every email that requires an “action to be performed” in this folder. For example, let’s say you’ve received a payment received or payment confirmation letter from Paypal in your inbox. You now need to “take action” by getting that product shipped off to your customer. Following my email filing system, this email would go into the Urgent folder until you’ve shipped the item. You’d then file it for possible future reference in its final resting place - the Payment Received Notices folder. On the other hand, a supplier invoice could go directly into the Supplier Invoices folder because no action is required. This really is a neat system because you can see at a glance what tasks you need to address by simply checking your Urgent folder. If you choose not to use this system, come up with something else. You can set up an organized system for your emails in minutes and it will potentially save you a TON of time. You do NOT want to rely on just your inbox or you’ll end up with somewhat of a confusing, time consuming mess! You should routinely go through your folders and clear them out by deleting old files that are no longer needed. Be cautious when it comes to doing this though, as you’ll want to hold on to invoice files and similar files until tax time rolls around. Now that your email is organized, you’re going to want to set up a folder/filing system on your computer for the rest of your auction related resources and information. Dedicate a main folder to your online auction business and name the folder after your USER ID or auction business name. Under this main folder, create sub-folders for auction ads, auction pictures, product suppliers and info., customer information or your customer database, business/company information, online auction resources and info., and a miscellaneous folder. Again, this filing system is something that will get you off to a good start, but you may want to make modifications and additions to better suit your needs. I haven’t gone into great detail describing the desktop filing system, as I feel it’s pretty self explanatory. As you’re creating new auction ads, saving product pictures, adding to your customer database, adding to your list of suppliers, and so on, simply file the information under the proper folder or sub-folder. In addition to the folders I went over, I (personally) also have a “hot product ads” folder for products and ads that I’ve noticed to be particularly successful. You’re going to realize after completing this course that you’ll have the ability to find just about any product that you can imagine at wholesale or below pricing. Therefore, when you see a product that’s doing well on eBay or any other site, check your sources and find out where to get a hold of it for the best price. I’m going to go over the equipment needed for the job rather quickly as this kind of information is included in the books I recommended earlier to you beginners out there. Here’s an example of an adequate computer system: a PC with at least a 266MHz processor, 32 megs of RAM, a 2.1GB hard-drive, a CD-ROM drive, a 56K modem, a color printer and monitor, and windows 95 or above. You can get by with less, and more would of course be better… But you’ll do just fine with this type of computer. Also very helpful but not absolutely necessary right away… A scanner, a digital camera, a CD “burner”, a fax machine, and a business phone and phone line. Although this equipment is not needed right away, you can find most of these items at a very reasonable price right off of eBay, and I’m going to assume that as a serious seller you’ll eventually invest in all of them. By the way, I highly recommend an extremely comfortable chair as I’m getting quite sore while I sit here. There is no replacement for a fax machine once you start making a lot of orders for products and supplies, but you may get by for a while with a computer fax service such as that offered by eFax.com. When it comes to getting a 2nd phone line installed for your business, you may want to consider NOT mentioning that it will be primarily used for business, as they may charge you a hefty extra fee. My second home phone line was installed as a dedicated Internet line, and the charge is a little over $20 a month… I use this line for both business and Internet purposes, and I have my business phone hooked up to this line with a voice mail message and the whole works. Here’s a little side note… This is something obvious, but often overlooked. Always keep a sharp eye on your overhead costs, doing everything you can to keep them as low as possible. Don’t get excited about the prospect of a new gadget or an exciting new service until you’ve carefully analyzed it… With each decision you make, such as whether to go for the higher cost of DSL or not, determine how that decision will affect your bottom line. If the extra monthly expense will increase your profits, do it, and vice versa. Some other office equipment and supplies you’ll want to get asap… A computer desk, a 2 or 3 droor file cabinet along with a hanging file folder system and a box of plain manilla folders, a bulletin board, a stapler, plenty of printer paper, writing utensils, paper clips, white out (your business could fail miserably without it), several notebooks, three ring binders, folders with pockets, post it notes (again, your business could fail without them), a CD rack for your CD- ROMS and software, and a book shelf for the business related books that I know you’re going to compile! Again, you can get by with less and you may eventually want more, but these are some good basics to have. Be sure to check out eBay when looking for great prices on these items! In addition to your computer and email filing systems, you’re going to need to organize your “physical” files as well. Let me look in my own file cabinet here for a minute and see what we’ve got… I keep a “Company Information” folder and keep things such as my business registration information, a copy of my certificate of assumed name, my domain name registration info., etc. Then I have an “eBay General Info.” folder in which I keep eBay fee and commission info., Billpoint information, and so forth. Next I keep an “Auction Orders To Fullfill” folder which is similar to my “Urgent” email folder, but for non electronic payments such as checks and money orders received. And of course if I’ve got an “Auction Orders To Fulfill” folder I need an “Auction Orders Completed” folder right? I keep an “Auction Master Copies” folder for blank supplier order forms, fax cover sheets and such. Next I have a folder for “Supplier Invoices” from suppliers that send statements or invoices by mail. At the end of the year I put these together with the invoices that have been emailed to me. I keep additional, separate folders for “eBay Invoices”, and “General Invoices/Pay Stubs”. I have a folder for “Wholesale/Product Info.”, in which I keep wholesale catalogs, hot lists, new product updates, and similar information. And of course, you’ll need a folder for “Bank Statements” for your business checking account statements. In the next droor of your file cabinet you may want to store your checks, a monthly bookkeeping pad to keep track of your cash paid out and cash received as you go along, and your general office supplies.
“STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS”
At this point you may be wondering about some of the things I’ve mentioned, namely business checking accounts and bookkeeping pads. Don’t be scared off by this… Starting your own “official” business is a lot easier than you may think, and will cost you very little. You ARE required to report the income that you’ll be receiving from you online business. You’ll save yourself some hair pulling down the road by opening a separate checking account for your business, keeping your auction income and expenses separate from your personal checking and/or savings account. In addition, there are some very nice tax benefits to owning your own business. Follow these steps to make your online auction business official: Since the rules and requirements vary slightly from state to state, start out by calling your local county and state government offices, describe what you would like to do, and write down the requirements as they are explained to you. Basically, you’ll need to select a business name and you’ll possibly need to file a certificate of assumed name with the Secretary of State’s Office. This is simply getting your business name on record so that the business owner’s name and location can be referenced. There is usually a small fee for filing your business name. Unless you’re absolutely positive what type of business you’d like to specialize in, you may want to consider a “generic” name - a name that could be applied to just about any type of business, product, or service that you may want to specialize in. For example, selecting a name such as “Bob’s Pillow Factory” may make it difficult for you to purchase wholesale electronics merchandise if you should ever decide to. Also, you’ll be required to describe the type of business that you’ll be performing, but you can be generic in this area too. I listed my online auction business as being a supplier of retail and wholesale general merchandise and information. This pretty much covers my bases for whatever I might want to purchase from a potential supplier. The next step is to obtain a state tax identification number and register for authorization to collect and remit state sales and use tax. This is done through your State Department of Revenue. This simply allows you to collect and remit sales tax from the customers located within your state. Customers outside your state are not required to pay sales tax to you. You should be able to call in, give your business name and social security number, and obtain a tax id number right over the phone in minutes. Just a note… If a wholesaler or supplier asks you for you a “tax resale” number, they’re referring to your tax identification number. You’ll be sent a “proof of business registration” letter by your state which will include your tax ID number. You’ll want to file this in your “Company Information” folder! In addition to these two simple requirements, your state or county may have additional business licensing requirements… This typically depends on what type of merchandise you intend to sell, for example, a liquor retailer requiring a liquor license. Finally, take your new business name and registration info. over to your bank and open your business checking account. Chances are you’ll be able to open a “free business checking” account! Sign up for online account services, and obtain a business debit/check card to allow for reduced check writing. Maintaining the accounting aspects of your business are pretty simple. You be required to send a check to your state for the sales tax you’ve collected every three months or once a year, so keep track of the amount of sales tax you’ve collected. And use software such as “QuickBooks” to keep track of your business income and expenses, or a monthly bookkeeping pad as I mentioned before. A bookkeeping pad is sufficient at first but sooner or later you’ll want to get some business accounting software to save yourself some time. Be sure to keep your business checkbook up to date as well!
“WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE IN BUSINESS!”
In my opinion opening your own business is beneficial to just about anyone - even those that don’t intend to profit off of it. As I mentioned before, there are potential tax benefits, but in addition to that you’ll have the ability to BUY MERCHANDISE AT WHOLESALE PRICES! You’ll potentially be able to save yourself $1,000’s a year just by avoiding retail prices and buying directly from wholesalers. You can find everyday things such as batteries, paper towels, light bulbs, cleaning supplies, kitchen utensils, tools, toys, gifts… basically whatever you have a need for, you’ll have the ability to buy at 50% or more off retail price!
“YOUR POLICIES”
When it comes to payment, follow this general rule: The easier it is for your customers to pay you, the more money you’ll make! This means accepting as many forms of payment as possible. “Paypal” is still the number one form of payment on eBay, so you’ll want to put it at the top of your list for payment services to sign up for. You’ll want to sign up for Paypal’s “Premier” or “Business” account since there are limits to Paypal “Personal” accounts. Next in line I’d recommend eBay’s Billpoint payment service, which is becoming increasingly popular with eBay users. Both Paypal and Billpoint will allow you to accept various credit cards and electronic check payments. Both Paypal and Billpoint have an “Instant Purchase” option, allowing your customers the ability to pay instantly after the auction ends, as long as you’ve provided the necessary shipping and tax information for them to do so. State the fact that you accept credit cards and electronic checks in your auction ad. Regardless of the horror stories you’ve heard about personal checks, you’ll want to accept them. Quite a few potential customers may pass on your offer if you choose not to accept personal checks. The fact is, purposeful bad checks are pretty rare, especially on eBay. You’ll want to consider waiting for personal checks to clear before shipping an order out… I recommend doing this for checks over the amount of $20-30, UNLESS the bidder/buyer has a good feedback record. With a positive feedback record you can be pretty confident the check is good. State your policies on personal checks in your auction ad. You’ll also want to state in your ad that you accept money orders and cashiers checks. For high priced items, you’ll want to consider offering payment through an escrow service, as this can make your bidder considerably more comfortable with the purchase. If applicable, include this information in the body of your ad. If you decide that you’ll be accepting international orders, my suggestion is to accept only Copyright (C) eBookPak.com 15/10/2004
[Photo] How To Create an Automated … Page 6 of 9 International Money Orders in US dollars. You can choose to accept credit cards as well, but transactions dealing with non-US credit cards and non-US shipping addresses carry a significantly higher risk of fraud. Billpoint.com’s help section has some good guidelines to follow in preventing credit card fraud. I also recommend stating in your ad that “payment must be received no later than 10 days after the close of the auction“. 7 to 10 days is a reasonable amount of time for both you and your customer. The exception to this rule would be international orders. Include several lines about your satisfaction guarantee or return policy… A 30 day money back guarantee is the most common guarantee, and should be reasonable for both you and your customer. Indicate that the customer will receive a prompt refund provided the merchandise is returned in the condition it was received… I would recommend offering a refund for the cost of the item less shipping, unless the return is the result of an error YOU made, such as sending the wrong size or color item. You can be certain that you’ll receive more business by offering your potential customers a guarantee and making it known that you offer a guarantee in the body of your ad. Be sure to make your guarantee stand out. A gaurantee is one of the keys to a “killer” ad, which we’ll be talking about more in a later chapter. When it comes to shipping information, I like to indicate a fixed price in the body of an ad. This fixed price should include the cost of shipment, handling, packaging materials, and insurance if applicable. Setting a fixed price simplifies things, expedites the payment process, and allows you to take advantage of the Instant Purchase option offered by Paypal and eBay. In your after auction instructions or in the body of the ad you may want to add that for shipments to Alaska, Hawaii, or Canada (if applicable) an additional shipping charge will apply… Ask the bidder to send address information so that you can then contact them with the total purchase price along with the revised shipping charge. The same would apply to other countries you ship to. By the way, offering a reduced shipping charge or “shipping discount” on additional items purchased is an excellent way to create extra sales. Add something like “shipping for the first unit is $11.95 and only $5.00 each additional unit ordered. Another tip - mention that you’ll ship directly to your customer’s “gift recipient” for no extra charge. You might state it in the following way… “This is one of our most popular gift items, and we’ll ship directly to your gift recipient for no extra charge!” Another profit boosting technique that you may want to file away somewhere in that amazing brain of yours is this… If you’ve got a relatively small, lightweight product - software is the perfect example - you might try listing it at just a penny (or for a small fee) and then mark up your shipping & handling price to include a small profit. This is a technique that they’ve used with great success on infomercials for quite a while, and it works great for online auctions as well. Try something like this in your ad: “So why are we virtually giving these away!? Simple! We know that once you’ve tried this amazing product, chances are you’re going to come back for more of our many other fine products!” So you see that even with something as mundane as shipping information, you can create extra profits by the way that the information is worded and offered. What’s exciting to me is just the fact that mere words are so POWERFUL! The right words stir up emotions - excitement and desire - causing people to do what you want them to - to take action and purchase your product. Later on I’m going to teach you exactly how to create “killer”, professional quality ads and sales letters for your auctions that will have a profound effect on your selling success. Be sure to include policy information in each of your ads. Try to make your policies as “universal” as possible… In other words, try to use the same set of policies for as many of your products as you can - if not all of them. Obviously you’ll need to edit information such as shipping & handling charges from product to product, but try and maintain the same underlying policies and guarantees for all of your products. I created a policy “outline”, if you will, that I can copy and paste into each of my ads, or simply use as a reference when entering policy information for an ad - and you may choose to do the same as you can save yourself some time this way. Here’s a basic example of how the policy section of one of my ads reads: ——————————————————————————– ———————– PAYMENT: Winning bidder(s) to include $4.95 for shipping, handling, and insurance (if applicable). Add $2.00 shipping for each additional unit ordered. I accept credit card payments via eBay’s Billpoint and Paypal, money orders and cashiers checks, and personal checks (which I must wait on to clear). Payment must be received within 10 days of auction close. GUARANTEE: You’re satisfaction is guaranteed! If you are not satisfied for any reason simply send back your order in the same condition it was received within 30 days of receipt and I will promptly refund your money! Thank you for bidding and be sure to check out my other auctions for more great deals!
IMAGE HOSTING AND HIT COUNTERS
You’re going to need a dependable service for image hosting and hit counters. One of the most popular, and most dependable image hosting services is provided by Honesty.com. Honesty will save your images for as long as you continue to use them - a feature that you’ll find you’re going to need. You’ll want to use hit counters to track the effectiveness of your one line description, among other things. If you’re not getting enough hits, you’ll need to start making changes. Changes may include such things as your auction title (or one line item description), the category your ad is placed in, “special feature” options, and the price of your item. Remember that when making changes to increase the effectiveness of your ad, only change one thing at a time! If you make more than one change at a time you’ll learn nothing! You won’t know which change improved your results. Making just one change at a time can test your patience, but it’ll be worth it and will reflect in your profits in the long run! (I’ll discuss these topics in greater depth later on in the course!) By the way, Honesty’s image hosting and hit counters are free, and work as well or better than paid image hosting services, so sign up today!
“THE FEEDBACK BOOSTER”
After becoming a member, one of your first missions as an eBay seller will be getting your feedback rating up to build your reputation and establish credibility with prospective buyers. Also, in order to conduct Dutch auctions, one of the most profitable forms of selling, eBay requires that you either become “verified” for a small fee, or have a feedback rating of at least 50 and have been registered for at least 60 days. I have a little method that you can use anytime you want to give your feedback a little boost! I call this method of rapid feedback improvement “The Feedback Booster”, and have even sold it successfully on eBay as an information product targeted to new sellers. Note: I wrote the “Feedback Booster” before eBay changed it’s policies and requirements on Dutch auction listings… However, I included it in the course because it contains a number of valuable tips and ideas that still apply… Here’s the Feedback Booster as it was e-mailed to my winning bidders… THE FEEDBACK BOOSTER! Greetings and thanks for the payment! If you’re ready to start making “real” money on eBay you’ll want to use this clever little system I developed to get your feedback rating up to 10 (or more) in a hurry! If you want to list auctions with a certain quantity of identical items, that is, if you want the ability to list Dutch auctions, you’ll need to have a feedback rating of at least 10, and you’ll need to have been a member of eBay for at least 60 days. The 60 day requirement I can’t help you with - you’ll just have to serve hard time! But when that’s over with, or better yet, before that’s over with, follow these instructions to not only get your feedback rating up, but to boost your credibility as a buyer and seller on eBay as well! Credibility is a very important thing to members of the eBay community, and is something you’ll want to establish if you want to take full advantage of the largest online trading community in the world! I used this system to “boost” my feedback rating from “1″ to over “10″ in just five days - and I bet you’ll do it even faster. So here it is… 1. While at the eBay home page, click on the “Search” link. The “Find Items” form will appear. 2. In the “Search Title” box enter an item description. (Suggestions “how to”, “plans”, “magazine”, “postcard”, “card”, “button”, “stamp”, “coin”, “sticker”… and other items that typically have a low selling price AND a low shipping price) 3. In the “Price Range” box enter “.10″ to “.25″ (price range of item you are searching for - you can experiment with different price ranges but the idea of course is to keep the price range as low as possible. I personally search “card” with a range of 10 cents to 50 cents.) 4. In the “Sort By” box enter “Items Ending First”. 5. Click on search. 6. If no items are found, try a different a different “Search Title”. 7. Browse through the list of items that appear and look for the following… -Items with no bids on them. -Items that you want! -Or, items that NOBODY would likely want (better chance of being the winning bidder!) -Dutch Auctions (will usually guarantee you a winning bid) -Auctions that are ending soon. -Auctions that allow payment via credit card (quick transaction) -Sellers with a high rating! Optional - bid on about 20 items to increase your chances of getting at least 10 winning bids + positive feedback ratings (If you get more - great!) *Watch out for… High shipping and handling charges! (Some people don’t list shipping costs. Beware! E-mail them to find out shipping costs first or skip the auction altogether.) Avoid auctions that only allow payment via money order/cashiers check. (Unless you want to pay the bank fee for sending this type of payment!) Remember, it costs a minimum of $.25 to SELL an item on eBay too. But by BUYING a very inexpensive item (the main goal of this system) you are actually guaranteed to GET something for your money and quickly increase your feedback rating in the process. So, how do you ensure that you get positive feedback from a seller? Simple. Send payment RIGHT AWAY! Also, ASK for the seller to leave feedback! Make sure to include the auction item # and your ebay user I.D. with payment. This will make it easy for the seller to give you feedback. Sellers are more likely to leave feedback than buyers because if they are at all serious they care about their reputation… And their reputation, of course, is established by making buyers happy. Sellers are aware of the simple fact that leaving positive feedback makes for a satisfied customer! Furthermore, it’s a trade off… If a seller leaves positive feedback on a buyer, the buyer is more inclined to leave positive feedback on the seller! Simple stuff. (This is the main reason you want to look for established sellers, or sellers with a high rating already. They’ll want to continue to establish their feedback and credibility!) Feedback is feedback! When viewing feedback ratings, generally people don’t really care or pay much attention to whether the transaction was a sale or a purchase. And to achieve Dutch auction status (a feedback rating of 10) or to get to that next “star”, it doesn’t matter what kind of feedback it is anyway. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: You may want to include a little reminder note with your payment to post positive feedback, i.e. “I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a minute to post positive feedback on me as I will do the same for you. Thank you!” (Include item # and your user I.D. in note.) Good luck and I hope you can use this system to give your feedback a BOOST! The Feedback Booster sold quite well for $2.00 per report/person. (I also included a bonus along with the report which I called “The Top Ten Online Auction Selling Tips”. I didn’t mention the bonus in my auction ad - rather I “surprised” my winning bidders with it!) You may wonder - is it even worth the hassle for only $2.00? Sure it is! I add to my customer list, which is potentially worth far more than $2.00, and for simply emailing the report to my winning bidders it’s easy cash that can ad up quickly! Imagine 20, or 30, or even 50 little information reports being listed on eBay at $2.00 ea… Let’s say you ran 3 day auctions for your information reports like I did… And we’ll say you have 30 different information reports to list… Chances are you can list each individual report at least several times in different categories. If not, eBay allows you to list up to 10 of the same item even if it’s in the same category. So you could take advantage of listing identical reports in the same category by spacing out the individual listing times by a couple hours or more. This does several things… Your auctions will begin and end at different times and will be exposed to different people than if they were listed one right after the other. It will also space out each listing so there’s an increased chance that more people will see the item… Not everyone browses a category page by page, rather they skip ahead or pick random pages to view… Rather than having all ten listings on the same page you could one listing on ten pages! In situations like this is where those hit counters will really come in handy too. If you’ve got 10 different listings for the same item, why not try different one line descriptions to see which is the most effective? But getting back to our discussion… You’ve got 30 reports that you can list at $2.00 each. Let’s say you list each of those reports 5 times (either in different categories and/or multiple listings in the same category). That’s 150 listings, and at $2.00 profit per listing, that’s a potential of $300 dollars profit less expenses. If each one of those 150 listings is a Dutch auction, you’re profit potential is limitless! But in the real world you’re not going to sell 100% of the items you list - not on eBay - not anywhere. But with online auctions you will experience far higher percentages than with other venues… Take traditional mail order, for example, where 3% would be considered a great return on a bulk load of sales packages that you sent out to a targeted customer list. I’ve experienced a 50-75% or greater return on some of my online auction listings! (In the chapter on “Lucrative Listing” you’ll learn in further detail how to calculate sales percentages, and how to “play the numbers game” with your auction listings!)
YOU’RE FIRST AUCTION
If you’ve never sold anything through an online auction before, don’t try to do too much at first. A great way to test the waters is to go through your used stuff and get rid of some of the things you don’t need anymore. This is how many have started, and gotten “hooked” on online auctions in the first place. It really can be somewhat addictive… You’re getting envelopes of money in your mailbox for items you don’t even need anymore! I sold a video camera from 1984 that was given to me, and which had a broken microphone, for over $90! I sold an old model car that had been stored away for years at $40. I’d purchased the cars about six years before for $50 - only $10 less than what I’d bought it for! At one time my wife bought me a golf putter for my birthday that she’d purchased at a charity auction… She hadn’t known I already had a putter that worked great for me. So (with her approval of course) I sold the putter on eBay for more than she paid for it at the charity auction! So just selling off some of your used goods is a great way to get a feel for online auctions, a great way to clear out some space in your home, and a very good way to make some extra cash to reinvest in your growing online auction business! Unless you’re an antiques and/or collectibles expert, selling used goods isn’t the way you’re going to make a lot of money. This is not to say that fortunes can’t be made if you have the knowledge, it’s just not as easy for the average person to build a successful business on antiques and collectibles as it is on new merchandise. Let’s say you decide that garage sales are going to be your product source for online auctions - which is the case for some sellers. For each used item you find, you’re going to need to go through all the steps as you would for 100 (or any quantity) new “widgets” listed in a Dutch auction. You’ll need to take a picture of the product, upload the picture, write a product description, find out how much shipping will be, and so on. Again, this is a great way to learn the ropes, but it’s no way to make efficient use of your time and resources, and it will be very difficult trying to make your living off of selling garage sale, yard sale, and estate sale merchandise unless you have a very well trained eye for finding great deals on items that people will pay good money for - mainly antiques and collectibles. If that’s the route you’d like to go, not a problem… The system you’re learning can be applied to any product or service you can imagine, but the focus throughout will be on new products for the reasons I’ve explained. Here’s a little pointer for describing used items… Describe the item in as much detail as possible. If there is a problem with the item, make certain you mention it. I made it very clear in the description of the video camera I sold that the microphone was broken. Returns are a hassle, and you’ll save yourself some hassles simply by being as informative as you can about the item you’re selling. Remember, honesty is the best policy. There is no quicker, surer way to lose a customer than by being dishonest with them. Likewise, there is no better way to keep a customer coming back for more than by being honest and fair with them! There is one thing that I’ve noticed time and time again when dealing with mail order customers - at first, they do NOT completely trust you! Just because they’ve placed an order with you, and have sent you their hard earned money doesn’t mean they fully trust you yet. If a customer’s order is running a couple days behind the normal time of arrival, there is the chance you might be contacted by a slightly upset customer. Over 95% of the time the reason this person is upset is NOT because the package is a couple days late, but because they don’t know you, and have begun to wonder whether the package was really sent at all. In other words, they wonder if you’ve simply taken their money, having never intended to fulfill the order. This is a customer service issue. Simply reassuring your customer that the package is indeed on its way, and letting them know when you expect it to arrive, will more often than not take care of the problem. If necessary, you can back up your information with an item tracking number if you shipped the item through UPS or Federal Express. It’s experiences like this that you’re are going to have to learn to deal with and get used to if you’re just getting started. Here’s the best way to get going… List some auctions on eBay, let them run their course - 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, or whatever, and then fulfill the orders that you’ve received off of this first group of auction listings before listing any more auctions. This way you’ll have a taste for the whole “cycle” from beginning to end. I recommend completing this course AND my previously mentioned recommended reading material (for beginners) before listing your first auctions.
If you’ve ever considered starting an eBay business, then the free eBay Toolkit is a must.