• Welcome from Brian McGregor 
• Inspirational Quote of the Day
• News and Views
• How to Play eBay at its Own Game!
• Is This Just a Tremble, or the Start of a Crumble?
• Back to the Classroom?
• A Gift from Me to You
• Someone's auctioning what? Unusual items currently available
• Finally
• My Products Catalogue
• Back to Newsletter Archive

Hello and welcome.

And a special welcome to you if you're a new subscriber who has joined us in the last few days.

eBay is an incredible outfit. I know I can go on about fraud and the dangers of trading on eBay. But when it works, it really is something.

I received a digital radio as a present at Christmas. You may know that not all of the country gets good reception on these new digital radios. And of course I have to live near the back of beyond in the north east of England! Actually we're at the coast, in Whitley Bay. This is about as low as you can get before you're walking on water. I'm talking altitude here, not lifestyle!

Well, the digital radio doesn't work very well for us. So, as my partner's son was to be 21 in a couple of weeks, we thought it would be a good idea to sell the radio on eBay. Then we could put the proceeds towards the Paint Ball event that Simon and 12 of his mates wanted to do as part of his twenty first celebrations.

I'm glad to say eBay came up trumps. In fact it was better than that. We had three bidders who were local to us and who wanted to pick the radio up if they won!

Isn't it amazing that you can place an item for sale on eBay, hoping to find a buyer somewhere who will pay what you're looking for, only to have three people on your doorstep bidding against each other?

Anyway, the Paint Ball battle is this Saturday. I'm told these things can hurt! So, if the newsletter doesn't appear for its next edition, you'll know why. I'll be milking the wounded soldier bit. I wish I was 21 again!

I've just had a thought.

I hope the radio is working in its new home!

Good luck in all your eBay buying and eBay selling.

Speak to you again soon.

Brian
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1. Category Changes

During week commencing 14th March, 2005, eBay.co.uk are making changes to the categories used on the site.

The changes are to accommodate the growth which eBay.co.uk is experiencing and include expansion in several categories.

eBay have explained the changes more fully in this announcement.

It's worth checking out to ensure you have your items for sale listed in the most appropriate categories. The right category improves your chances of selling at the highest price.


2. Now, Let's Get into the Big Money!

eBay.co.uk are feeling really generous. They've just announced a competition in which they're giving away £100K worth of prizes.

The competition is split into 5 promotional periods. Within each period the competition will revolve around an individual category. If you buy or sell in that category during the appropriate promotional period, you qualify to enter.

If you're a competition fan, you might like to give this a go.

The competition runs from 10th March to 21st March, 2005.

You'll find all the details here.


3. eBay Strikes Again!

Some time ago I registered two domains - www.ebayformula.com and www.ebayformula.co.uk.

I bought these domain names as I intended to use them to promote my ebook 'The eBay Formula'. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

About two weeks after I bought the domains I received an email from eBay's legal department. They told me that my registration of these names had been noticed and I was not to use them. If I attempted to do so, they would bring the full might of the law down on me! They said that people could get confused that I was an official part of the eBay empire!

I know we Geordies can be hard - like going topless watching Newcastle United playing away against a Russian football team in Arctic temperatures.

But I thought it was probably sensible not to take on eBay!

So I relented. I still have the domains, but I daren't use them.

Well, two guys from this neck of the woods have sunk £10,000 of their savings in setting up a classified ad site. The idea is that you can advertise goods for sale at a price, and buyers can search for items to buy. It's just like newspaper classifieds, but online. There's no auction facility. No bidding or anything like that.

They made the mistake of registering their site as www.ne-bay.com and www.ne-bay.co.uk. Their logic was "ne" represented the north east. And bay represents Whitley Bay, where they live.

Guess who felt eBay's shepherd's crook around their neck? Yep. eBay don't like the idea of them using the domains they've bought, and have given the chaps two weeks to cease using them.

Incidentally, their site is currently live. This might be your last chance to see it. It's worth a visit just to see the Web Cams.

I have had many emails over the months from eBayers who have had their eBay accounts suspended.

Often this has been due to a misunderstanding, or a problem of which the account holder is completely unaware until they are told their account is in suspension.

If this happens, it means you can no longer log into eBay to buy or sell. Your account details are still there, but you are prevented from having access to them whilst the suspension is in force.

Now, this is an inconvenience if you're a regular buyer. But it could be a big problem if you're a seller and you rely upon your eBay earnings to help towards paying the household expenses.

And if you've dealt with eBay Customer Services before, you will know how exasperating it can be trying to conduct a conversation solely by email. Particularly when the emails you receive from eBay take no account of what you've told them, and they appear to be generated by computer.

If you've been suspended, or even if you haven't, my advice is to have a second eBay account up and running. You are allowed to have more than one eBay account - I have three.

The objective is to build up feedback on two (or more) eBay accounts. So if you should lose one account through suspension, you can carry on trading with the other. And you're not in the predicament of having to a new account starting off with zero feedback.

When creating a second account, there are a couple of considerations. First, eBay won't let you set up another account with identical details to an account they already have on file. So, you will need to slightly modify your name and/or address.

For example, use your full initials rather than a Christian name. Use a house name instead of a number. (eBay aren't going to send post to you, so mail isn't going to go astray).

Also, you can't create a new account quoting a credit card number which they already have on file. You will need to use a different credit or debit card.

All of this is harder to explain than to do. Just start completing the online form, and eBay will tell you where any piece of information isn't being accepted.

When you do get your new account set up, I have a report which shows you how to create feedback for it very quickly.

It's called 'The Feedback Accelerator'. You can download it from here.

With regard to eBay suspending your account, the motto has to be:-

Be Prepared!

It seems that consumers are less satisfied with eBay than they were.

The University of Michigan produce an annual Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). It is a closely watched barometer of consumers' brand perceptions, including those of online retailers.

The ACSI is conducted by the University's Ross School of Business. The e-commerce portion of the study is conducted in partnership with ForeSee Results, an online customer satisfaction management concern. The ACSI surveys visitors of measured Web sites, using a formula that weights aspects of the online experience according to what most influences customer satisfaction and behaviour.

The ACSI results show overall satisfaction with online retail brands fell 4.8% in the last year. This is the first decline since the category was added to the Index in 2000. It's also the largest drop among the four e-commerce subcategories tracked by the Index, which includes online auctions.

During the year, eBay's Index dropped 4.7% from 84 to 80.

"E-retail is undergoing a fundamental shift as some of the industry heavyweights move away from their core focus," said Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which commissioned the study. "Some of the best-known brands are changing business models and changing relationships with their customers. It's tough to do that without eroding satisfaction."

"eBay's decline in customer satisfaction is also the result of changes to its business model," Freed said. "Although still effectively an online auction site where individuals sell goods to other individuals, eBay has been ramping up the number of small businesses that sell goods on its site. That move puts eBay into more direct competition with companies such as Overstock.com, which recently added online auctions to its product offerings," he added.

"Diversification also puts companies such as eBay into growing competition with traditional retailers operating both on and offline," Freed said.

Having quoted eBay, they are not the only big player on the block which had a decline in the Index during 2004. Amazon dropped 4.5%, from 88 to 84.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked for advice by eBay sellers as to why their auctions weren't performing as well as they hoped.

If you've emailed me for my advice, you will know I try and answer fully, giving my recommendations on how to make your specific auction more effective.

Now, giving some of my ideas and thoughts to one person at a time is not very efficient. It isn't the best use of my time, nor indeed my knowledge.

I have been working for some time on creating a training course whereby I can transfer my knowledge in a structured way, but also where I am able to continue to provide personal consultancy on an individual's auctions.

So today I am launching The eBay Formula Online e-class.

This is a seven week course conducted entirely by email. Each week I provide a lesson, set an assignment, "mark" the assignment and provide ongoing personal consultancy to each course member.

To read about The eBay Formula e-class, please click here.

There's a limit to the number of attendees, so if you're interested it would be advisable to check out the e-class today.

Karol Gajda makes money on eBay the way I like to hear about. By doing as little one-off work as possible. Let me explain....

Probably the hardest "work" when selling on eBay is to create your auction. If you create an auction to sell one item, say some tools from your garage, then that is "one-off" work. You can't re-use your auction wording and images as you don't have the same item to sell again.

Karol has written a special report which explains how to avoid this situation, and make much more money on eBay.

To download Karol's Special Report, click here.

By the way Karol is a 'he' - his name is pronounced Karl.

Nothing surprises me when it comes to internet auctions. Amuse yourself with some of these beauties.

Thanks to John for this one:-

This is a lot of work for £1.

A couple I've spotted:-

I thought this was illegal on eBay.

I knew land was expensive, but it doesn't even have electricity.....

Do you think this is creative or illegal use of keywords in titles?

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry!

Disclaimer - I have no association with any of the sellers of the above items.