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Hello and welcome.

And a particularly warm welcome to you if you are a new subscriber. It's great to have you as part of the family taking my eBay newsletter.

In the last newsletter I mentioned two new angles I was trying with my own auctions on eBay. The news is that it seems one angle works, and the other doesn't!

It was great news that one idea went well. But I must admit I'm a little disappointed that the second looks like it's going to be a dud!

Ah well. It's back to the drawing board for angle two.

But when I think about it, this result really reinforces what I mentioned in the last newsletter. And that was to emphasise how you could test new ideas extremely quickly on eBay.

If I was in a "normal" business, testing a new product or idea on the market would take me months. And it would cost me too!

With eBay, here I am telling you about an idea I had about 3 weeks ago. I created an offer based on this idea, listed it on eBay and had virtually instant feedback telling me that what I created wasn't saleable in its current format. I can now choose to drop the idea, or to modify it and try again.

Me being me, I'm going to try some changes in the idea.

But the real point I'd like to make here is that you can use eBay as a instant test bed for any product.

Try eBay with something different today. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Good luck in all your eBay buying and eBay selling.

Speak to you again soon.

Brian
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1. Making Your Auctions Better

If you're not producing your auction descriptions by using HTML, then your auctions probably aren't doing as well as they could.

When I first used eBay, I looked in envy at those fabulous auctions which had great layouts with colours, backgrounds and pictures. So, I learned a little HTML which meant at least I knew how to make text bold, or a particular colour.

The breakthrough for me came when I started using Dreamweaver. This is a piece of software which lets you create a web page "in front of your eyes". They call this wysiwyg - What You See Is What You Get. Designing a web page is therefore very easy.

The beauty of Dreamweaver is that, as you're designing and creating the web page, Dreamweaver is automatically generating the HTML code. When you've finished with the design, you just copy and paste the HTML code into the eBay auction description box. And, voila, auctions instantly look more professional.

Unfortunately, Dreamweaver is quite expensive. We're talking hundreds of dollars.

Recently, however, I came across an excellent wysiwyg HTML editor which is free.

It's called NVU - pronounced N-View, it stands for new view.

If you want to create HTML based auction pages, NVU might a good place to start.

You can find out more about NVU here.


2. A New Team On The Block!

It's great to hear of UK eBayers who have put their experiences to good use in seeking to help other UK members.

I was contacted recently by Justin Ormerod, a UK eBay Platinum PowerSeller. He and fellow UK eBayer James Clark - a freelance writer - have just announced their ebook, "eBay: The Inside Story".

I have read the ebook, and believe it would prove extremely helpful to eBay members, particularly those who operate primarily on UK eBay.

It is a great reference source for those who are in their early career in eBay buying and selling. But it also covers pretty advanced techniques, like how to take advantage of misspellings, dropshipping and wholesale sourcing. Most eBay buyers and sellers will find something new in the ebook.

All in all, a welcome addition from Justin and James for the benefit of UK eBayers.

For all the information on "eBay: The Inside Story", click here.


3. And So It Goes On

Regular readers will know I have the occasional moan about how you can find yourself being swindled on eBay.

One of the simplest ways in which fraudsters operate is via escrow companies.

An escrow company is essentially a middle-man. The idea is that both parties are protected in that the escrow company holds on to the buyer's payment until the seller's goods have arrived intact. The buyer informs the escrow company that the goods are fine, and then escrow company releases the money to the seller.

A super idea, particularly for high price items.

Unfortunately, 99% of escrow companies are fraudulent - yes, 99% - and they are part of the scam.

Fraudulent people using a fake escrow company in their scam can make money from victoms whether they are a seller or buyer. As a seller, the fraudster takes the money and never deliver the goods. As a buyer, they take the goods but the payment never gets to the seller.

Here is a live example of an escrow fraud in action. In this instance, the buyer is the fraudster and he is attempting to get a $17,000 diamond gemstone from the seller without paying for it.

You can see what happens here.


4. Did You Play Shops As A Child?

Most of us at some time or other during our childhood "owned" a shop. Or it might have been a Post Office!

Now, with eBay, it's very easy to set up your own shop, or store if you're in the USA.

You need to meet certain criteria, like number of feedbacks and number of items listed. But once you meet these, you can set up your shop/store front.

The benefits include extra exposure, cross-selling promotion from your normal listings to your shop and vice versa, longer listing time. On the other hand, it's not free. You need to make sure you can recover the cost of your shop/store through additional sales.

If you want to find out latest information about eBay shops/stores, take a look here:

eBay UK shop front
eBay USA store front


5. A Small Request

I wonder if you might be able to help?

I'm looking for some kind hearted animal lovers.

If you like animals, please take a look here.

eBay have just announced their results for the first quarter of 2005, ending 31st March. Also included was the performance of PayPal, which is owned by eBay.

“A record jump in registered users, record Gross Merchandise Volume, tremendous PayPal growth, and record net revenues all highlighted a wonderful quarter for eBay,” said Meg Whitman, President and CEO of eBay.

Steady on girl. It's only a company. eBay's not life or death!

I don't want to send you to sleep with too many figures, but here are some highlight numbers for the quarter which I found interesting:

> 400 million auction listings. Up 25% over the same quarter in 2004.

> $10.6 billion value of auctions sales. Up 32% over the same quarter in 2004.

> $1.03 billion Gross Profit. Up 36% over the same quarter in 2004.

> 147.1 million eBay members as at 31st March, 2005. Up 40% over number of members at 31st March, 2004.

> On average, 129,000 new members joined eBay each day in the three months to 31st March, 2005.

> $6.2 billion payments made via PayPal. Up 44% over the same quarter in 2004.

> 71.6 million PayPal accounts as at 31st March, 2005. Up 57% over number of accounts at 31st March, 2004.

Categories with more than $1 billion in auction sales:

eBay Motors - $12.9 billion
Consumer Electronics - $3.4 billion
Computers - $3.2 billion
Clothing & Accessories - $3.1 billion
Books/Movies/Music - $2.7 billion
Home & Garden - $2.2 billion
Collectibles - $2.2 billion
Sports - $1.9 billion
Toys - $1.7 billion
Jewelry & Watches - $1.6 billion
Business & Industrial - $1.4 billion
Cameras & Photo - $1.3 billion

If you would like to read the full report, you can download it from here.

Having had a dig at Meg Whitman, these are impressive numbers and a thriving eBay is good news for all of us buyers and sellers.

I am regularly contacted by readers seeking my assistance in relation to auctions they are running which haven't performed as well as they would have liked. Not enough viewers, not enough bidders, reserves not being met etc.

Whilst eBay is indeed a fantastic market, just listing an auction is no guarantee of success.

It can take some time to find out what works, and what doesn't.

Experienced eBay sellers know of the techniques and methods which can be applied to give any auction a much better chance of succeeding.

With that in mind, today I am offering what I believe to be a unique service.

If you supply me with the auction number of one of your completed auctions which didn't perform as well as you'd like, I will review it and provide you with my recommendations and suggestions as to how you could improve your auction.

Clearly there isn't enough time in the day for me to provide this service for every one of our thousands of readers. So the service will be limited to the first 10 readers who contact me.

In summary, I will review one of your completed auctions for free if you are one of the first 10 people to email me with your eBay auction number.

To exclude people who aren't newsletter readers from applying for this service, I will only accept auction numbers sent to this special email address: eBay10@workwinners.com.

Regular readers of the newsletter will know of the 52% discount offer which we've been running for you on Keyword Pro.

First of all, thank you to those who have taken up the program. I hope it's been getting you many more viewers to your auctions. And I also trust you've had the chance to download some of the products for which Keyword Pro gives you Master Resale Rights.

In particular I hope you've had the time to look at Spinning Popup Generator. This really is a software product in high current demand and to which, thanks to Keyword Pro, you now have Master Resale Rights.

Anyway, the real reason for mentioning Keyword Pro in this newsletter is to say that there are very few reduced priced licences left. At the start of this promotion to newsletter readers, I said that we would limit the offer to the first 50. Well, we're nearly there.

Based on the experience of the past two weeks, I would estimate that all 50 of the discounted licences will be taken up in the next day or two.

If you want to get Keyword Pro at the special price, you'll need to move fast.

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

If all the licences have gone, but you would still like to buy the Spinning Popup Generator, click here.

You may have read about public domain products.

When a book or document becomes out of copyright due to the passage of time, it is said to be in the public domain.

The interesting aspect of a book being in the public domain is that anyone can make use of it without requiring the permission of the original copyright owner.

There are a number of people making a lucrative income from eBay by re-packaging public domain information and selling it on eBay in the form of ebooks.

The person who seems to know more about profiting from public domain information is David Vallieres.

You can download David's ebook, 'How to Profit from Public Domain Information', by clicking here.

If you want to see the best Public Domain weapon available, you'll find it here.

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

If you're fed up with the election in the UK, this could be for you

I wonder what's in here? I see the P&P is £9. Hmmmmm

Wowee!!! I can hardly contain myself!

I wonder if this auction is by that plonker Rodney! What is 16 in Roman numerals?

An interesting way to raise money. Why didn't the NHS think of this?

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