• Welcome from Brian McGregor 
• Inspirational Quote of the Day
• News and Views
• Are You Getting Your Share From Selling on eBay?
• 10 Tips for Increasing Your eBay Response
• How to Make More From eBay Without Running an Auction
• A Gift from Me to You
• Someone's auctioning what? Unusual items currently available
• Finally
• My Products Catalogue
• Back to Newsletter Archive

ffffff

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 auction newsletter.

My partner's 22 year old son came round last night. He casually asked me how long he should wait for an item to be delivered he'd bought on eBay?

I told him that eBay recommended sellers and buyers should communicate with each other within 3 working days from the sale.

He bought this item on a Buy it Now basis on 3rd August. He's nothing from the seller since then. He'd paid with his credit card via PayPal, and emailed the seller asking when the item would arrive.

Having not heard from the seller, he emailed eBay expressing concern about this seller's lack of communication.

Since then, he's heard nothing. From anyone.

Oh dear, I thought, with alarm bells beginning to sound, "Was this an expensive item?"

It turns out to have been a £25 boxed DVD set. At least it wasn't a fortune - I said it to myself.

He knew the sellers eBay ID, so we looked him up through eBay's Advanced Search. The alarm bells get louder as we find the seller is no longer a registered user.

Of course, the seller could be away on summer holiday, but .....

1. No sales email from him

2. No reply to emails sent to him

3. eBay ID now in NARU status

It didn't look good.

So, we're presently working through the options. It isn't pleasant, it's messy and it's wasted time.

When you're buying or selling on eBay, it pays to be as careful as you can in any transaction.

Here is a list I created some time ago about safe trading on eBay. It might just help you.

I look forward to speaking with you again.

Brian
-----

1. Are eBay Store Owners Being Victimised?

You may be aware that eBay has announced fee increases for sellers who run an eBay Shop/Store.

If you run an eBay Shop/Store, it would be worthwhile checking out the impact of these "price changes", as eBay term them.

If you're UK based, here's a summary of the new prices for your eBay Shop.

You'll notice on this page that eBay UK have also chosen to introduce changed charges for for the Featured Plus! facility.

If you're USA based, here's a summary of the new prices for your eBay Store.

While you're calculating the impact if these changes, you might also wish to factor in that eBay are going to make your Shop/Store listings less visible in search returns!

Apparently, the changes to your Shop/Store business are fundamental to the well-being of eBay's business.

As eBay expresses it, "it is important we retain a healthy balance between listing formats on the eBay marketplace." It seems that eBay's business is now skewed so that it has too many Fixed Price/Buy it Now listings as compared to normal bid-based auctions.

eBay's solution to this problem is to penalise Shop and Store owners, which I find disappointing.

Surely it couldn't have been beyond the capabilities of the people at eBay to have created a positive resolution? For example, why not make it more attractive for sellers to create additional normal, bid-based auctions?

Ah well, it's their company.

We are merely customers.


2. What a Compliment

Have you heard of Dogpuss? It's a new website devoted to reviewing anything to do with eBay.

This includes passing comments on eBay experts.

What amazed me is that there are only 7 experts listed.

Yours truly is the only UK based expert listed and I am in excellent company. My own auction guru, Jim Cockrum, is there - naturally.

But so too are Tim Knox, Skip McGrath, Jason James and Mike Enos. All, in my mind, eBay giants!

As you know, it's great to see your name in print. Especially when it's in such auspicious company. And it's all down to you, my reader, who has helped to make this newsletter one of the most respected on the eBay circuit.

So, thanks to you.

If you really must see what they say about me, you can look on Dogpuss.


3. Videos You Won't Find At Blockbuster

One great improvement brought about by the increasing prevalence of broadband connections is the availability of online video.

One of the best ways in which video has been used on the internet is in education. And now, eBay has jumped on the video education bandwagon

There are 12 videos about various aspects of eBay selling and buying.

The videos are free, and you can find them here.


4. A Surprising Figure

When you're viewing a website which is of interest to you, do you ever click on the About Us link?

I know I do.

It's the link where you can find out things like who is behind the business, what there background is, how long they've been around etc.

MarketingSherpa is a research company operating in the corporate internet world, and they were conducting research into the effectiveness of About Us pages. And this is where our surprising figure comes in ....

What they found was that 5-7% of home page visitors click through to the About Us page. Plus, those who viewed that page converted (i.e. purchased) at a rate 30% higher than visitors who do not see that page.

Do you think this has any relevance to eBay?

I do.

Instead of an About Us page on a website, think of your About me page on eBay.

I would say if you have a strong About me page, and you ask visitors to your auction to view it, you may end up having a more successful auction.

Get your About me page re-vamped into a marketing page, and you should reap the rewards.

Why not take a look at my recent article about how to create your About me page?


5. And Why Not?

An elderly couple is enjoying an anniversary dinner together in a small tavern. The husband leans over and asks his wife, "Do you remember the first time we had sex together over fifty years ago? We went behind this tavern where you leaned against the fence and I made love to you.

"Yes," she says, I remember it well.

"Ok," he says, "How about taking a stroll round there again and we can do it for old time's sake.

"Oooooooh Henry, you devil, that sounds like a good idea," she answers.

There's a police officer sitting in the next booth listening to all this, and having a chuckle to himself. He thinks, "I've got to see these two old-timers having sex against a fence. I'll just keep an eye on them so there's no trouble." So, he follows them.

They walk haltingly along, leaning on each other for support, aided by walking sticks. Finally they get to the back of the tavern and make their way to the fence.

The old lady lifts her skirt, takes her knickers down and the old man drops his trousers. She turns around and as she hangs on to the fence, the old man moves in.

Suddenly they erupt into the most furious sex that the watching policeman has ever seen. They are bucking and jumping like eighteen-year-olds. This goes on for about forty minutes!

She's yelling, "Ohhh, God!"

He's hanging on to her hips for dear life.

This is the most athletic sex imaginable.

Finally, they both collapse panting on the ground.

The policeman is amazed. He thinks he has learned something about life that he didn't know. After about half an hour of lying on the ground recovering, the old couple struggle to their feet and put their clothes back on. The policeman, still watching, thinks, "That was truly amazing. The old guy was going like a train. I've got to ask them what their secret is."

As the couple pass, he says to them, "That was something else. You must have been having sex for about forty minutes. How do you manage it? You must have had a fantastic life together. Is there some sort of secret to it?"

The old man says, "Sure is. Fifty years ago that wasn't an electric fence!"

I’m often asked if eBay is genuinely a good way to make money on the internet.

People see adverts in the press and on the internet promising to show them how easy it is to make x thousands per month from selling on eBay and, not surprisingly, they feel sceptical about such claims.

And then eBay itself quotes that 460,000 members in the USA rely on eBay sales for their only or their major source of income.

So, what's the truth? Can you make real money selling on eBay?

I usually answer this question with one of my own. I ask the questioner if they’ve sold anything on eBay? They will often say yes, they have.

In reality, by making that sale what they’ve done is prove to themselves that eBay works. They may not have made much profit, or found it to be a difficult learning curve, but it has worked.

(Then of course they add that they’re not having much luck with item x, y or z. But that is a different issue altogether.)

Broadly I would say, yes, eBay is a great way to make money on the internet.

The only equivalent to eBay in the offline world I can think of is classified advertisements in newspapers. You create an ad, place it in the paper, and wait for the phone to ring.

However, in my mind, there is no comparison about the power of an eBay ad against a newspaper classified ad. It’s just no competition.

Your eBay auction is available for several days, 24 x 7. There’s no geographical limit to your eBay ad. If you’ve created a strong title, your auction could be seen by hundreds if not thousands of potential buyers. You can also take immediate payment by credit card, via PayPal. It costs you pennies to place your eBay ad. I could go on…

Your classified ad is usually printed in one edition of the newspaper. Once tomorrow comes, your advertisement is virtually obsolete – the newspaper has been replaced by the next edition. Many newspapers are local in nature, so your ad readers can only be people in that locality. Unless you are a business, you probably can’t take payment by credit card. It will usually cost you more than pennies to place your classified. (I know there are free ad papers now, but your potential buyers have to pay to see your ad, so the circulation is limited to those who fork out for the paper.)

The eBay auction platform is an incredible market place.

The only issue for me about selling on eBay, is how to make the best use of its amazing potential.

And that basically comes down to experience, and to gaining the knowledge of effective selling on eBay.

It doesn’t matter whether your eBay education is gained from books or ebooks, from training courses, from other members of your family, from colleagues at work, or, dare I say it, from newsletters like this one.

The bottom line is, if you need extra cash coming into the household, it would be well worth investing some of your time in becoming more skilled at selling on eBay.

One alternative, is to learn from someone who has done it.

Someone who has made hundreds of thousands on eBay.

Someone who has trained others in selling on eBay.

Someone who is handsome and genuine. Oh, alright, skip that last sentence!

If you're looking for help in selling on eBay, I will be announcing something very special soon.

It’s called my eBay Inner Circle.

The eBay Inner Circle will be a private club within which members will have all of my eBay knowledge, techniques and systems at their disposal.

It will be like having me look over your shoulder at every stage of your eBay auction business, advising you on what will work best, what to do next and what to avoid.

So, if your auctions aren’t selling,

or you’re not making as much money as you want from eBay,

or you aren’t getting enough visitors to your auctions,

or you’re not sure which listing features to use,

or you don’t know how to design auction pages,

or you want to reduce your eBay fees......

Watch this space for the announcement of my eBay Inner Circle.

It's coming soon.

Guest Article by
Michael Sherriff

So you’ve got the buyer in front of your auction, and they’ve read the description. They’re must be interested, or they wouldn’t be looking… but just how can you push them over that line and make them leave a bid? Read on for some tips.

Improve your picture:
In all that description writing, you might have missed the vital importance of your item’s picture. A picture with bad lighting or an intrusive background looks amateurish and won’t make anyone want to buy from you.

Add an About Me page:
You’ll be surprised how much you can reassure bidders just by creating an About Me page and putting a little bit about yourself on your business on there. You can also have a few special offers there for people who bother to look at the page, and let people subscribe to your mailing list so that you can email them updates.

Use SquareTrade:
Signing up at SquareTrade and displaying their logo on your auctions shows that you are committed to have them resolve any disputes that arise. You always see this on PowerSellers auctions – it makes you look more professional.

Write terms and conditions:
Have the ‘small print’ clearly visible on all your auctions, giving details of things like shipping times and prices, your refund policy, and any other business practices you might have. This helps build confidence with buyers.

Show off your feedback:
Copy and paste a selection of the feedback comments you’re most proud of to each item’s description page, instead of making bidders go and look for it. If you have 100% positive feedback, be sure to write that on every auction too.

Add NR to your titles:
If you have extra space in a title, put ‘NR’ (no reserve) on the end. Bidders prefer auctions that don’t have a reserve price, and doing this lets them see that yours don’t.

Benefits not features:
Make sure your description focuses on the benefits that your item can give to the customer, not just its features. This is a classic sales technique. If you have trouble with this, remember: ‘cheap’ is a feature, ‘save money’ is a benefit.

List more items:
If you want more people to respond to your items, then list more items! You might find you have better like listing items at the same time, instead of one-by-one. There’s no need to use a Dutch auction – you can just keep two or three auctions going at once for an item you have more than one of in stock.

Accept unusual payment methods:
To reach those last few buyers, accept payment methods that many sellers don’t, like cheques.

Buy some upgrades:
The best upgrade is the most expensive one, which makes your item appear first in search results. In crowded categories, you might find that this is worth the money.

Once you’ve got some buyers, you want to keep them coming back to you.

--------------------------------
Copyright 2006 Auction Affiliate Secrets. All Rights Reserved.

Author Michael Sherriff is responsible for the release of many best selling ebooks on the internet. Covering subjects from Credit Repair in the UK to his latest ebook which looks at how to make money from eBay's affiliate program even if you don't sell anything on eBay yourself.

http://auctionaffiliatesecrets.com
The Hidden Goldmine of eBay's Affiliate Program Revealed

In selling on eBay you’re starting point is to make your auctions the most effective that you can. And if you’ve multiple identical items to sell, spending quality time on creating your auctions will reward you many times over.

Now, and this is where it gets exciting, if you’ve already sold on eBay you’re already halfway to being able to make more than just the income from your auctions.

This is because you have that most precious of commodities – you have customers. People who have bought from you before.

Having existing customers is the lifeblood of many businesses.

Why do you think you receive so many communications through the post from organisations for whom you are a customer? From your bank, your mobile phone supplier, your credit card company, your insurance company, your loyalty card supplier, your supermarket, your car dealership etc etc?

It’s because those companies know that they’ve a better chance of selling to you, an existing customer, than to a new person who hasn’t bought from them in the past.

This is why the most sought after sales people are those who can win what are termed new name customers. Getting a new name customer is the toughest part of selling. Once a company gets a new name customer, that person has a lifetime sales value to the company which is usually far in excess of the initial purchase.

If we translate this into your eBay business, anyone who has bought from you is an existing customer. These are people who know you and trust you. And, other things being equal, will happily buy from you again.

You can legitimately email your past customers with offers of products or with details of your latest auctions, and expect to get a positive response. Of course, your offer should be related to the item they bought from you in the first place. Someone who has purchased a printer from you, may well be interested if you can supply discounted printer cartridges for that model. But who’s to know if they have any interest at all in your ebook on flower arranging? So, make your offer targeted.

Between the lines of this approach, you can see that you need to build up a file of email addresses of your eBay buyers. If you sell more than one category of item, you could keep a list for each one. This enables you to target your offer emails more precisely to customers, giving you the best chance of a positive outcome.

Eventually, you could produce a monthly newsletter containing more offers and auctions. You only need 50 addresses or so to start a newsletter. And if you’re regularly selling on eBay, you’ll be surprised how quickly your email address list grows.

If you haven’t tried this before, get an email out today to a group of your previous customers. You don’t even have to make an offer in your first email. Just announce you’d like to keep in touch with them as a valued customer, and that you’ll be sending them some great offers in the future.

It really is just a matter of deciding to do it.

And then, doing it!

If you would like to create an automated system of making eBay sales, the gift this time shows you one way of achieving it.

"How to Create an Automated eBay Money Machine" is an ebook from George Chapin. George is well worth listening to. He completes about 400 eBay auctions per month, and it's all done automatically.

George's ebook takes you through step-by-step how to replicate his system for automated selling on eBay.

You can download "How to Create an Automated eBay Money Machine" from here.

Another excellent opportunity to make sales in one eBay's hottest categories can be found here.

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

I love the glasses!

Well, I've often said you can find anything on eBay.

Do you want to be a good samaritan?

She hasn't got a leg to stand on.

I guess it makes flying a kite, old hat.

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

You can check out my portfolio of products and services here:

"The eBay Formula"
My best selling ebook on how to sell successfully on eBay - time, after time, after time.
www.workwinners.com/rd01.htm

Your own eBay digital product sales business
A superb offer to have your own digital product sales business on eBay, from Platinum PowerSeller Justin Ormerod.
www.workwinners.com/emediadirect

Keyword Pro
Put the most popular keywords on eBay into your titles and watch your auctions explode! Special Offer for Newsletter Readers!!!
www.workwinners.com/nlr1202.htm

First Page on Google
How to get massive free traffic to your websites by getting on Google's first page.
www.first-page-on-google.com

Easy Niche Products
The ultimate niche product membership. At least 3 brand new digital products to sell every month.
www.easynicheproduct.com

Article Park
For loads of free articles on all aspects of buying and selling on eBay.
www.article-park.com

Broadband speed without changing your existing modem and ISP!
Up to 256k speed instantly with this incredible software for less than 7p per day.
www.workwinners.com/nlr1002.htm

How to grow your own beautiful rose garden.
www.garden-rose.com

How to start an investment club for fun and for profit.
www.start-investment-club.com

"UK Dropshipping Sources"
Twenty six genuine UK dropship companies.
www.workwinners.com/rd02.htm

Get your own website selling information and sources of dropshipping.
http://trading-web-solutions.com/workwinners/dropshipww.htm

"Sourcing DVDs, CDs and Videos at Trade Prices"
Where and how to buy DVDs, CDs and Videos at trade prices, and how to sell for profit.
www.workwinners.com/rd03.htm

"Sourcing and Selling Electrical Products for Big Profits"
Where and how to buy Widescreen TVs, DVD players and VCR players at trade prices, and how to sell for profit.
www.workwinners.com/rd04.htm

"Sourcing Maternity Clothing and Baby Needs at Trade Prices"
Where and how to buy at trade prices.
www.workwinners.com/rd05.htm

"Sourcing and Selling Jewellery for Big Profits"
Where and how to buy jewellery at trade prices, and how to sell for profit.
www.workwinners.com/rd06.htm

"Sourcing Mobile Phone Accessories at Trade Prices"
Where and how to buy mobile phone accessories at trade prices, and how to sell for profit.
www.workwinners.com/rd07.htm

"The Streetwise Buyer's Guide to Radar Detectors"
Don't buy a Radar Detector system until you read this.
www.workwinners.com/rd08.htm

Get your own ecommerce website selling watches, fully stocked, with items dropshipped by suppliers direct to your customer. Special Price offer to newsletter readers.
www.workwinners.com/nlr1110.htm

Finally, a book well worth reading. In 'The eBay Book', long time eBay user David Belbin, explains how eBay.co.uk works and how to get the most out of it, whether you are a buyer or seller. Step-by-step, he takes you through the key features of the site, advises on bidding and selling tactics, explains how to minimise the fees you pay and why feedback is so important. He explores the best ways to pay for goods, and what to do if your transactions go wrong. This hugely readable book also contains a
wealth of case studies covering a wide variety of eBay users. It's available at Amazon here:
www.workwinners.com/nlr809.htm

You can see my websites here: