• Welcome from Brian McGregor 
• Inspirational Quote of the Day
• News and Views
• Is eBay's Number Up?
• How to Make money Fast With eBay
• Hot Search Words on eBay
• A Gift from Me to You
• Someone's auctioning what? Unusual items currently available
• Finally
• My Products Catalogue
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Hello and welcome.

A particularly warm welcome to you if you're a new subscriber. It's good to have you as part of the family taking my eBay newsletter.

Quite often in this section, I unload my personal thoughts on you.

Today is no different!

It is likely that I will shortly be making some significant changes in my own eBay and internet businesses. This doesn't mean a downgrading of my involvement in eBay, or in my commitment to this newsletter. Far from it!

Like everyone, I have to apply my precious time in a way which is as efficient and productive as possible. But I also like to balance that with doing activities which I enjoy!

As the newsletter is a true enjoyment for me, you can rest assured this will continue as before - or even better if I can make it!

One of the consequences of the changes I'm making is that you could be presented with a significant opportunity. I'll be giving you more news of that aspect in the weeks ahead.

Talking of opportunity, in this newsletter I feature eBay's Quarter 2 results. Many of the financial pundits have said there's no way eBay can continue to grow in the way it has in the past ten years. Oh yeah? I suppose that's why they're pundits instead of being millionaire business owners!

The message for all of us is, just like eBay itself, we all have to develop and progress our own eBay and internet businesses. I remember reading somewhere, "If your business isn't growing, it will atrophy."

I have to admit I said "pardon?" when I saw atrophy! I had to look it up in a dictionary. Atrophy is the opposite of growing. It means to waste away, to wither or deteriorate - to get smaller.

So, keep applying your creative thought and actions to your eBay and internet business. Keep it growing. If you don't, it will you-know-what.

Look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Brian
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1. Think Again About Doing This

Whenever I send out the emails announcing the latest version of my newsletter, I can guarantee getting lots of auto responses along these lines:

"I am on holiday at the moment. I will be unable to look at your email until I return on Monday 99th of Month."

If you set up such a message, be very careful. Recently it has been found that spammers have been sending blank emails hoping to receive "I'm away on holiday" types of auto-reply. By analysing the information on the email, it may be possible for the spammer to locate the home or business address of some senders.

This intelligence gives the spammer, or their associates, the perfect opportunity to safely break in to the empty home or office.

If you're going to use an auto reply, it is advisable to make your message generic. Let the sender know their email has been received, and it will be attended to shortly. But don't give them specific dates. Naturally, the same holds true for telephone answering machines - in the office or at home.

Telling people you are going to be away from your home or office for a length of time is probably not a good idea.


2. Are You One of These?

In a survey published this month by ACNielsen International Research, more than 724,000 Americans report that eBay is their primary or secondary source of income.

In addition to these professional eBay sellers, another 1.5 million individuals said they supplement their income by selling on eBay.

The last time such a survey was conducted, in 2003, the study indicated that 430,000 Americans at that time were making some or all of their income selling on eBay.

So, it can be done!

3. But Not Everything is Plain Sailing!

You will no doubt have heard of the term fulfillment. In the internet world, a fulfillment house is a company who offer a service whereby they store your products, package them and send them out to your customers.

In effect, you outsource the physical storage and despatch elements of your business.

Some fulfillment houses also offer their services to eBay sellers.

I came across a very sad story recently which, at the time of writing, is still developing. It concerns a fulfillment house which bit off more than it could chew. In fact it is in the process of dying.

The owner of the business has taken the unusual decision to keep people informed of the demise of his business via a blog.

For more background, you can read the live inside story of the company going under, the blog is here.

UPDATE 2007 - The company has been taken over & is doing great! Take a look...

4. Let's Cut to the Chase

Occasionally in the newsletter I mention software products which plug gaps in eBay's own system.

One such gap was the ability to view only the negative feedback of an eBay member without having to wade through pages and pages of feedback entries manually.

Today, I'm pleased to report that eBay have introduced this feature to their system.

All you do is go to the feedback list of any eBay member. Directly underneath the Page Number, you'll see a new box which invites you to select a period you wish to review. Once you select this, the returned list has an option to display only the negatives.

It works great.

Is eBay's Numbers Up? It certainly is.

Let me clarify. I'm referring to eBay's Quarter 2 Results published last week.

This covers the three months of trading from 1st April to 30th June, 2005. Also included is the performance of PayPal, which is owned by eBay. And, how well eBay has done!

"eBay achieved remarkable results in Q2," said Meg Whitman, President and CEO of eBay. "Excellent momentum in the US and Germany, as well as at PayPal, all helped deliver an impressive jump in revenues and profits."

It's difficult to argue against Meg. The raw numbers are impressive.

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

> 440.1 million listings in Q2, 2005. Up 32% over Q2, 2004.

> $10.9 billion value of auctions sales in Q2, 2005. Up 36% over Q2, 2004.

> $1.08 billion Gross Profit in Q2, 2005. Up 40% over Q2, 2004.

> 157.3 million eBay members as at 30 June, 2005. Up 38% as at 30 June, 2004.

> On average, 112,000 new members joined eBay each day throughout Q2, 2005.

> $6.5 billion PayPal payments in Q2, 2005. Up 49% over Q2, 2004.

> 78.9 million PayPal accounts as at 30 June, 2005. Up 56% as at 30 June, 2004.

Categories with more than $1 billion in annualised auction sales:

eBay Motors - $14.3 billion
Consumer Electronics - $3.5 billion
Clothing & Accessories - $3.3 billion
Consumer Electronics - $3.2 billion
Computers - $2.9 billion
Home & Garden - $2.5 billion
Books/Movies/Music - $2.4 billion
Collectibles - $2.2 billion
Sports - $1.8 billion
Toys - $1.6 billion
Business & Industrial - $1.5 billion
Jewelry & Watches - $1.5 billion
Cameras & Photo - $1.3 billion

All of this is great news for us!

The eBay market place is thriving, and we should all be able to thrive with it.

If you'd like to read the full report, you'll can view it from here.

I guess you might have seen those adverts where people offer to show you how to make oodles of money online. I know I have.

You might have tried things yourself, but not yet come up with a solution that works for you.

Well, here is a formula to make some quick money online. It may not be a fortune, but it costs you nothing and it should help to pay the bills.

In brief, with this formula you'll be finding out the most popular searches being made on Google. Then you'll generate a short report on that subject. And then you'll sell the report on eBay - hopefully many times over.

Here's the formula:

1. Visit http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html and see what are the hot searches at this moment in time.

2. Select one of them, ideally one in which you are interested or at least curious about.

3. Research that topic online, and gather information on the subject. This will be the basis for your e-report. What you need to do is develop something which will be wanted by people searching for this topic. (Some examples are shown later)

4. List your e-report on eBay. And keep re-listing it as long as it is selling.

5. Do it again, with another subject.

What you're doing here is riding on the crest of a wave of public interest, and this is a tried and tested way of making money!

I know of one person who produced a report with questions and answers about the film, "The Passion of the Christ". The report came out around Easter to coincide with the launch of the movie when there was a frenzy of interest in it and in Mel Gibson.

Another timely report was produced based on the Donald Trump TV program "The Apprentice". It was called "You're fired!", and did great business especially when the program became highly popular.

A top 10 gainer this week on Google Zeitgeist is Emma Watson. For the oldies amongst us, Emma is a star of Harry Potter films. You could compile a directory of the main websites showing pictures of her. Or you could create an Emma Watson cookbook, beauty tips, joke book or anything else depending on what your web searching turns up. Or you could be contentious, and produce a report on "Why I Hate Emma Watson!".

I hope you get the idea.

Your report can simply be a Word document, which you attach to an email to your eBay buyers.

Now I know that not everyone reading this will act on the idea. But those who do have a good chance of making some quick eBay money!

A company called Terapeak conducted a highly interesting and useful survey earlier in July.

To compile their hot-items list, Terapeak took the current 2,500 top searches from eBay Keywords (buy.ebay.com), a list of highly popular terms that people search for on eBay, and tested it within all 22,000 eBay categories. There were 2.5 million search-term to category matches. These were then cut down to the 58 matches shown below that had a minimum of 500 Successful Listings (listings that ended with a sale) and an 80% plus sell-through rate.

Note that some search term appear more than once in the list. This is because they occurred in more than one category.

(You can decode the Category Number here.)

Here are the results:

If you want to discuss any of this, please don't call me. I'm no mathematician!

This is where you can find the guys responsible for the list.

And now for something completely different!

Usually I bring you gifts which are aimed at helping you to develop your eBay and internet buysiness.

This time, we're in the garden.

Assuming we get some sunshine before the summer is out, here's a great ebook which takes barbecues to the next level.

If you want your next BBQ to rival the professionals, this gives you the inside track.

Download "BBQ Magic" from here.

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

I think this qualifies as an unusual ebay auction.

Does anyone else think this looks like a specimen? Or maybe honey?

I guess this guy's a budding Richard Branson

What a great item to sell on an auction site

Talk about putting your best foot forward!

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