• Welcome from Brian McGregor 
• Inspirational Quote of the Day
• News and Views
• Don't Read This, Unless You're Over 30!
• How You can get £211 ($385) of Items for £7.50 ($14)
• Handling the Growth in Your eBay Business
• 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.

Wow! What a couple of weeks we've all been experiencing!

The death of Pope John Paul, the marriage of Charles and Camilla, the announcement of the UK General Election, the demise of the MG Rover Motor Company, the new series of Footballers Wives!!!

What this says to me is that nothing stands still. Life will always race ahead - with or without me and you!

The decision for us is whether we want to meander along, being careful not to rock the boat, settling for the status quo? Or, do we want to make a few waves, and try and change things?

For me, there's not a single doubt.

I hate not doing new things. I'm always willing to try new directions.

In the last two weeks, I've written to several newspapers and magazines with a proposal for an article series. I've launched two new angles in my own eBay selling. I've been researching an idea I have for a brand new product to sell on eBay.

In case you get the wrong impression, I'm no genius! I'm nothing special. I left school with 5 GCE O Levels. If you're too young to remember GCEs, it's 5 GCSE's in new money.

I left school at 16 and went straight into work. I had no further education at college or university.

But I always had curiosity. And desire for change. And that remains with me right up to this second!

So my message to you is to try any new ideas you have. We're all lucky in that the internet is a great place if you're inquisitive and determined to progress.

And there's absolutely nothing better than eBay to test new ideas and new products.

My recommendation is that we all try and make sure that by the time the next major world incident occurs, we've made some progress towards achieving our ambitions.

I know I will. How about you?

Good luck in all your eBay buying and eBay selling.

Speak to you again soon.

Brian
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1. Test Your Skill

If you think you have a steady hand, try this!

When you go onto this website, your mouse pointer turns into a little blue dot. Move the dot into the Start box, and click. Then, just by moving your mouse, steer the little blue dot to the goal. But be careful, if you move off the white area - you lose!

When you get to the goal, click your mouse and and you will get another maize to travel through.

If you stray off the white, take my word, you'll know about it! Click the browser refresh button to start over again.

Good luck. And be careful!

Click here to start.


2. Oh Dear! This Could be a Problem for us eBayers!

If you're an eBayer who lives in Ohio, you might be forgiven for thinking the State government doesn't like you.

What seems to be happening is that existing auction businesses are attempting to have regulations imposed onto eBay sellers. Their argument is that if you run auctions from physical premises, you have to be qualified and be licensed. Yet eBay sellers, undertaking similar activities, do so without any regulation or license.

There is quite a head of steam building up on this. eBay are trying to get it nipped in the bud, but already at least five other states are considering taking the Ohio route.

Where will it end? I don't know. But you can read what eBay is doing regarding this development here.


3. Complete Idiots Guide to Selling

Now I have to admit it, I copied the title above from somebody else!

I found it in eBay's forums, and I wondered if it might contain some useful information. And indeed it does!

The Complete Idiots Guide to Selling is a posting by an eBayer who gives about 35 tips to selling on eBay. Some of them come out of 'left field', which is probably why it appealed to me.

You can read the item here.

First of all I'd like to apologise to you if you're under 30. Not because you're under 30 - I'm dead jealous of THAT!!

But because this section is really designed for the crinklies and wrinklies - like myself. Having said that, hopefully it might bring a smile to your face whatever age you happen to be!

This has nothing to do with eBay, but I found reading it was 2 minutes well spent.

I hope you do too!!

The subject is survival. I mean the physical survival of those born in the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and the 70's.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles and no childproof plugs in electric sockets. When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

And hitch-hiking was normal.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no-one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play out all day. Our parents were happy as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No-one was able to reach us for most of the day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendos or X-boxes. No video games, no 299 channels on cable or satellite, no DVDs, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, tripped up and got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and we ate worms. Although we were warned what would happen, we didn't put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell. Or we just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who
didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law or back chatted a teacher was unheard of. They sided with the law and the teacher!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years has seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If YOU are a child of the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's - CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives 'for our own good'.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?

Have you heard of the Spinning Popup?

It's one of the most exciting innovations in internet marketing in recent months. And it can be used in your eBay auctions.

Ordinary popups are usually advertisements used to grab attention.

The spinning popup is a new manifestation of the pop-up advert.

It's much more attractive and eye catching than previous methods. Also, because of the way it has been developed, it isn't blocked by popup blocker software.

The means to create spinning popups is in great demand by internet webmasters everywhere.

And, the significance of spinning popups to us is that they can be used live within our eBay auction description pages by using a simple link to a demonstration page.

Recently, a brand new piece of software was launched called Spinning Popup Generator. This software enables anyone to easily create spinning popups.

Like all new software, however, Spinning Popup Generator isn't cheap.

It's priced at £14 ($27).

I was so impressed with it, that I've negotiated an arrangement whereby Spinning Popup Generator is being made available to my Keyword Pro subscribers.

Keyword Pro is a program which enables you to see in real-time the most popular search words on eBay. Using these keywords will make your auction titles much more effective, and drive more traffic to your auction page.

In the last edition of the newsletter, I made a special offer of 52% discount to the first 50 readers to subscribe to Keyword Pro. This meant you could join Keyword Pro for £7.50 ($14).

And now, Spinning Popup Generator is included in the Keyword Pro package.

In fact, Spinning Popup Generator is only one of the many items, valued at £211 ($365), for which you get Master Resale Rights as a Keyword Pro subscriber.

That's right. You can sell Spinning Popup Generator on eBay and keep all the profits. And when I say sell it, I mean SELL it. You can actually demonstrate spinning popups on your auction page!

To see spinning popups in action yourself, take a look at this sample.

If you want to get your hands on Spinning Popup Generator, you have two choices.

You can buy it here for £14 ($27).

Or, if there are places left on the Keyword Pro readers discount offer, you can get Spinning Popup Generator within Keyword Pro for £7.50 ($14).

To find out if there are still discounted licenses available for Keyword Pro, click here.

When our eBay business starts small, and then gradually begins to take off, we sometimes overlook how much time we commit to it.

It's great getting those early sales.

But when the volume of sales begins to ramp up, it definitely pays to consider implementing some time-saving services or software.

If you can find the time!

Speaking personally, I don't know what I'd do without three pieces of software - ShortKeys, Press-Manager and Promasoft.

If you haven't considered any software tools to help in your eBay productivity, there is a very useful section you should look at in eBay.

Through clever multi-choice questions, it leads you to the kind of software solutions which will help in your eBay operation.

Here's where you'll find those eBay pages:

UK eBay sellers, click here
USA eBay sellers, click here

One of the current hot topics is blogging.

If you have anything to do with internet marketing, you will be aware that blogs are one of the most search engine friendly websites you can create.

To many of us, blogs are a mystery.

With this new ebook by Doug Champigny, published in 2005, you will be able to find out how and why you might want to consider starting your own blog.

Why might you want to do this?

First of all, a blog is pretty easy to set up. It must be. I have one!

More importantly, you can promote your eBay auctions on your blog. In this way you will attract visitors to your auctions who wouldn't have found them in any other way.

Here is the link for you to download 'Becoming a Super Blogger'.

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

First, a contribution from Hilary:

I think a greenhouse can be quite cosy!

And, a few spotted by me:

DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!!

So that's what Paul McCartney was singing about?

A Penny for your thoughts!

And I thought these were the same two things

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