eBay is not just an auction and a marketplace. Often it can feel quite a lot like a game. Like any game, you can get ahead if you think strategically, using your head to outwit the other buyers and get the best price. Here are a few things you can try.
Shop in the Summer.
This is simple, but effective. Summer is the quiet season on eBay – almost everything sells for less. While everyone else is out enjoying the sun, invest a little time to find some real bargains.
Beat Them by a Few Cents.
Outbid people by a few cents instead of a few dollars – if they do not check back before the auction ends, then you will be the winner. To avoid people using this tactic on you, though, always bid strange, hard-to-guess amounts instead of round numbers.
Play Dirty.
If you know when the auction ends, you can get in there at the very last second and outbid your rivals. The chances are that they will not have the time to sit in front of the auction waiting for it to end – as a rule, he who stays wins. If someone else does retaliate at the end of the auction, though, try not to get carried away in those last few seconds and end up paying too much!
Take Risks.
This is a strategy for the braver eBay buyer. All of the advice you will see for eBay beginners tells you to buy items that have good pictures, clear descriptions, trustworthy sellers and all the rest. If you are brave, why not take a risk and do the exact opposite?
Many buyers will not want that item from the seller with a feedback rating of 5, no picture and a one-line description. If you take a calculated risk and bid anyway, you might be able to make a tiny bid and win by default. There are people on eBay who make their living from winning auctions like these, taking good pictures of the item, writing a good description and then reselling it at a huge profit. Be careful, though. Do this for long enough, and you will inevitably lose your money at some point. It is especially unwise to try it with very high-value items.
Avoid Bidding Wars.
There are few things on eBay that are so rare that you will only see them once and never again. There are usually quite a few sellers who have an item. What’s more, they will generally have more than one to sell, even if they have not listed them all at once. Always check your seller’s history to see whether they sell your item all the time – and if they do, then wait for the next one instead of bidding to the skies.
Now, there may come a time in your eBay life when you realise that you have screwed up your bid, and you wish there was an ‘undo’ button. Here’s the good news for you. There is!
The next posting will be all about withdrawing your eBay bids.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
* * * * *
Another viable and most recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?
Click here to find out more about drop shipping.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
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Your reputation as a buyer (or ‘feedback rating’) is the most important thing people see when they deal with you on eBay.
It is on the basis of this little number that they will decide whether they can trust you or not.
Each time you buy or sell something on eBay, people can leave feedback for you, and you can leave feedback for them. This feedback can be positive, negative, or neutral, along with a comment. Your feedback rating, then, is worked out using a very simple summary: the numbers of positive feedback comments people have left for you, minus the number of negative ones. This means that someone with a feedback rating of 28, for example, might have 30 positive ratings and 2 negative ones.
If you are a considerate buyer, then you should find that positive feedback will just appear next to your username, without you needing to do anything. If you want to help it along, though, there are a few things you can do.
Always leave feedback for others: People will feel an obligation to leave feedback for you if you leave it for them (eBay will send you an email after each transaction to offer you the opportunity). Take the time to write a positive comment about sellers who do what they should and the chances are they will do the same for you.
Pay promptly
Sellers love nothing more than to be paid promptly – paying as soon as the auction ends saves the seller all sorts of worry, especially if you pay by credit card or another electronic method. You will often find that your positive feedback appears within a few minutes of you paying if you pay as soon as the auction ends.
Don’t be a difficult customer
Understand that your seller might take a day or so to respond to you, and perhaps a few days to send your item – harassing them is nasty and unnecessary, and won’t get you good feedback.
Build relationships
If a seller sells a lot of a certain kind of thing you like, buy from them a few more times. They will be very happy to find a regular customer, and will go out of their way to leave positive feedback like ‘a joy to deal with as ever’. Also, they might offer you a few special deals!
Sellers will not generally be reluctant to sell to buyers without much of a reputation, simply because it is the buyer who takes most of the risk in a transaction. It is worth remembering, however, that transactions where you are the seller and where you are the buyer are counted towards the same feedback total – so if you ever want to start selling, being a good buyer is especially worthwhile.
On eBay, people pay far more attention to sellers’ ratings than they do to buyers’ – most sellers cannot be bothered to check their buyers’ feedback, while bad feedback on a seller can (and should) be a dealbreaker. When you are buying, then you need to worry more about the seller’s reputation than you do about your own, and that is why the next email will be all about sellers’ feedback ratings.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
Once you have drawn the buyers in with your title, the next thing to do is to tell them all about your item with the description. But just what should you write in your description?
At its heart, your item description is an ad. Without making it too obvious, you should be writing sales copy. You’re trying to get buyers excited about your products, and that is usually hard – but on eBay, if you have the right thing to sell and give enough details, the buyers almost excite themselves.
Technical Details.
Include every technical detail you know, including the item’s manufacturer, its condition, how big it is, where and when it was made, its history, and anything else special about it. Do not be too boring, though! The best descriptions are written in friendly, conversational language, and show a real knowledge of the item. Whatever you do, make sure you tell the truth!
Remember that most of the people who will be buying your item will be just as knowledgeable about it as you are, if not more – this is their hobby, and they are experts. Do not feel like you need to explain the basics of the item! Just go into as much technical detail as you can. As a rule, do not write anything in the description if you do not know what it means, as the chances are someone will, and if you have got it slightly wrong then you will look like you do not know what you are talking about.
Interesting Details.
You might find that you enjoy writing a few things about how you got the item, why you are selling it, and whom you think might like it. This is not strictly necessary, but it gives your auctions some character and a personal touch, and can make people more likely to trust you. People might wonder what you are doing selling 500 CDs all at once, and if you tell them the reason, then they will feel reassured that nothing dodgy is going on. If you are selling them because you are having a baby and you need the space, just say so.
Write as Much as You Can.
Leave nothing out of your description, even if that seems to you like it makes it cumbersomely long. There is no way you can be too thorough! Someone, somewhere will appreciate that you took the time to write the extra information.
Do not assume that anyone who wants extra information will email you to ask a question. Many buyers are shy and will not do it. Think of questions that buyers might have and add the answers to your description, as people generally tend to ask the same questions over and over again.
Each time a buyer does email you with a question, you should both answer their question and update your description so that it will include the answer next time. If people ask questions that are answered in the description, try putting these parts of the auction on a line alone, or in bold, to make them easier to notice.
In the next posting, we will focus on increasing the number of buyers who respond to your auctions.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
* * * * *
Another viable and most recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?
Click here to find out more about drop shipping.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
Most of the people who make money from eBay do not actually make all of that money on eBay. There are all sorts of ways you can use eBay to give your existing businesses a helping hand.
The Supply Side.
If you have any leftover stock or used items from another business you run, then why not sell them on eBay? You can make this a regular thing, using it to get rid of things that will not sell for the premium you ask for in a shop, or items that are no longer in demand in the town or city where your business is based.
You can really make a lot of money this way, if you know what you are doing. Of course, you will already have to be an expert in the items you are about to sell, as you use them in your business, and you do know that the items are of high enough quality to be sellable. This is a whole new market for your old inventory!
However, it is not only the selling aspect. Bear in mind that your good eBay reputation will make you a great buyer! If there is ever anything you want to get for your business, the chances are you will be able to get it on eBay for a discount.
The Sales Side.
Here is where the true power of eBay lies. eBay give you an ‘About Me’ page, where you can write anything you like and link anywhere you like. This means that you can get traffic to your business’ website by linking to your website from your About Me page and linking to your About Me page from each auction.
To create an About Me page, just click on ‘Community’ on the toolbar, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click ‘Create an About Me page’. You then get the option to either enter your own HTML or let eBay guide you through the process. All you need to do is write a little about your website, link to it, and you are done. You will notice that more people start to come to your site straight away.
There are thousands of people who swear by this technique to drive traffic from eBay to their website. With a little persuasive sales copy on your site, they say, you can sell directly to buyers, cutting out the eBay middleman. Additionally, all the traffic you will get will be targeted, as the people who click through were interested in your auction to begin with.
This can be a really powerful technique, even for affiliate marketers, especially if you have already got an e-commerce site. Even if you have not got one, you might find it worthwhile to set up a website that does nothing but list your eBay inventory with a few dollars off each item, with a PayPal ‘Buy Now’ button for each item. Then simply make the link to your About Me page read ‘Visit my website for even more bargains!’, and you are done.
Now that you have seen how to drive visitors to your website, maybe you would like a little help getting your auction in front of buyers.
The next posting will show you the secrets of taming the eBay search engine.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
* * * * *
Another viable and most recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?
Click here to find out more about drop shipping.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke
So what is a PowerSeller?
PowerSellers are the people on eBay who have made it, recognisable by the little ‘PowerSeller’ badge next to their name. You have probably seen these people around – and to succeed on eBay, you must think the way they do.
How does People Get the Right to Call Themselves PowerSellers?
eBay gets to decide who can be a PowerSeller and who cannot, and they have strict requirements. To get in at the minimum PowerSeller level, you must have a feedback rating of at least 100 (minimum 98% positive) and sell at least $1,000 worth of items every month for three months in a row. There are different levels of PowerSeller membership as you sell items of greater value: $1,000 total is bronze, $3,000 is silver, $10,000 is gold, $25,000 is platinum and $125,000 is titanium.
If PowerSellers ever fail to meet the required amount of sales, or their feedback falls below 98% positive, then they lose their PowerSeller status. In short, the only people who get to be PowerSellers on eBay are the people who have been successful for a quite a while, and are on track to stay that way.
The Shop and the Marketplace.
This is the most important part of understanding how PowerSellers think. They do not see what they are doing as being some random bazaar, or a hobby. Instead, they see themselves running a business.
Put it like this. If you run a stall in a marketplace, the odds are that you have a general area of business, but you mostly just sell whatever you can get your hands on that week. If your dodgy buddy got his hands of a job lot of something at a discount, then that is what you will be selling. This might be fun – and when you have a good week, you will have a really good week – but it is no way running a real business long-term.
PowerSellers think far more like shop owners. They sell the same things again and again, every week – regular stock for regular customers. They do ‘boring’ business things like keep inventories and budgets. They know what they are going to be selling, how much they buy it for and how much they expect to sell for. Just like a real shop, there can sometimes be hard times, but their income is stable and their business is slowly growing
The best advice I can give you in thinking like a PowerSeller is, please do not take long-term risks for short-term gains. Look after your reputation, manage your selling properly, provide good customer service and the rewards will come to you in due course. And eventually you will get a little badge next to your name that makes people trust you more!
One possibility that you might have realised so far is what eBay can do for any other businesses you might already have. Remember, millions of people visit eBay every day – why keep everything separate when you are starting to tap into that kind of power? In a future posting, I will show you a few ways how you can use eBay to grow your other business areas.
The next posting will show you a few ways you can use eBay to grow your other businesses.
* * * * *
If you seriously thinking of earning, not losing BIG money on eBay, I definitely recommend a very successful product how to market eBay(R) auctions
eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches -
as a successful eBay Seller, you will need it!
Take Action – Click Here to Download “eBay Fortune , The Definitive Roadmap To Auction Riches”
* * * * *
Another viable and most recommendable option, when starting up an eBay business, is to make use of the drop shipping concept, which you can read about in the post – eBay and Drop shipping – What Is It All About?
Click here to find out more about drop shipping.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Stay tuned,
Christer
BTW
Do you also remember to FOLLOW ME on Twitter?
If you find the information useful, don’t hesitate to Tweet or email the post to your friends and colleagues and set up a link on your own blog!
http://twitter.com/christerfolke