eBay-Basics-Course

4. Encourage an auction mentality. Don’t have a Buy it Now price, and make it very clear when it’s the last or only stock you’ll be getting in. Always refer to winning bidders as ‘winners’.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:00 AM

3. Post every day. Once you start shifting a high volume of items, go and post them every day – again, they’ll get there more quickly, making your customers very happy.

The best way to do this is if you have items small enough to drop in a postbox.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:54 PM

2. Post without payment. Don’t even wait for payment to clear !

That might sound risky, but it’ll mean that the buyers get their items more quickly – for small items, you might find it worth the occasional loss to give such quick service.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:47 PM

If you’ve got this far, you’ve got the basics of eBay. There are a few things left, though, that you might not have thought of trying.

Quite a few of these tips go against the advice many give for eBay selling – some are a little risky and some are just odd. They’re all worth a try, though, and I’m sure you’ll find at least some you want to keep using.

1. Keep more records. It might sound time consuming, but you’ll actually find it easier in the long run – less time spent trying to figure out which item that cheque you got this morning is for.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:41 PM

PayPal is introducing the new PayPal Plus Credit Card.

PayPal Plus is a new MasterCard that can be used online and offline, anywhere that MasterCard is accepted. Additionally, the PayPal Plus Credit Card features a rewards program free with your card that applies to all of your purchases. Wherever you make a card purchase - online or offline - you'll earn points towards eBay Reward Coupons.

learn more at Paypal Plus Credit Card.

# posted by benkhoo @ 10:08 AM

Using Market Research to $pot Products that $ell

This workshop will be held on Friday, June 2nd from 11:00 PT to 12:00 PT. Do you know what products to sell, when to sell them, and how to gain a competitive edge when selling on eBay? Please join Sara Taheri, Dave Frey, and Morgan Brooks, Brand Managers from eBay Certified Provider Terapeak, as they demonstrate how market research can help eBay sellers $pot Products that $ell. During the workshop, they will present a variety of examples and tips to show you how market research can be used to determine what products will sell in the marketplace.

Workshops are hosted in discussion threads on the Workshops Board. To get to the Workshops Board:

-Go to www.ebay.com
-Click on Community at the top of the page
-Click on "Workshops" in the "Events" section
-This will bring you to the threaded Workshops Board.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:47 AM

when sellers use the Shipping Calculator to show buyers their shipping costs, a "Calculate" link appears in the Shipping Costs column on search and listings pages.

It can take a buyer some time to click through those links when looking at several different items.

eBay is going to make this a lot easier.

It'll automatically do all the calculations for buyer as soon as he/she get to the search and listings page. Later this year, eBay will also extend this to the item page - once buyers sign in, all calculated shipping will be done whenever click into a new item page.

# posted by benkhoo @ 11:12 AM

See Fusion Search Marketing Inc. has launched two new services, one for shoppers, and one targeted at eBay sellers.

Find-Your-Item is a comparison-shopping engine allows shoppers to search over 15 million items by category, keyword or advanced search queries to find exactly what they are looking for online .

Click at : FyiAds

# posted by benkhoo @ 10:06 AM

99% of all eBay Stores are set up wrong - Is yours one of them? eBay Stores can be the most powerful e-commerce business solution.

Go to eBayStoreTips to get your Free Store report - "I Want To Be That 1% - 5 Quick eBay Store fixes"

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:18 AM

eBay is holding a 2-day promotion on optional listing features.

During the promotion, starting May 23, 2006, the Subtitle, Gift Services and
Listing Designer features will cost 1 cent on auction-style, fixed-price and ad format listings.

All other fees apply, see website for details and restrictions.

Read Details: General Announcements

# posted by benkhoo @ 8:39 AM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 12:06 PM

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

# posted by benkhoo @ 12:04 PM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 11:59 AM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 11:55 AM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 7:48 AM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 7:44 AM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 7:41 AM

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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 11:24 AM

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 10 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.

# posted by benkhoo @ 11:18 AM

PayPal launch a similar Dispute Resolution process to help sellers and buyers communicate to resolve problems when the item was paid for with PayPal.

For eBay members, this means that all Item Not Received disputes involving eBay items paid with PayPal will be directed to the new PayPal Dispute Resolution process, instead of being directed to the claim process, like they are today.

Please click here : Paypal Dispute Resolution Process to view full details.

# posted by benkhoo @ 7:42 AM

eBay is running a sweepstakes for users of its Turbo Lister listing tool during the month of May.

The "New Turbo Lister Revved Up! Sweepstakes" offers a chance to win a $5,000 Home Computing System or one of three hundred USB 128MB Flash Drives. For sweepstakes details and rules, visit the sweepstakes entry page.
and Promo.

# posted by benkhoo @ 8:50 AM

eBay announced that Chief Operating Officer Maynard Webb plans to retire from the company in August 2006.

Webb is responsible for corporate operations, including the legal, human resources, and corporate technology functions. Mike Jacobson, General Counsel, and Beth Axelrod, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, will report directly to eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

# posted by benkhoo @ 8:47 AM

The items were bad: You will have to accept that there are some items no-one wants – perhaps they were hyped to begin with, but now people had heard that they’re useless and stopped buying.

Before you come to this conclusion, though, check everything else you can, and check if anyone else is managing to sell it.

If you’re sure, try to return the items, and buy in some new stock.

Good luck to you all !

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:50 AM

No PayPal: Many buyers simply avoid any seller who doesn’t accept PayPal as a payment method – they can’t be bothered with the hassle of anything else.

Even if you don’t like PayPal, you should accept it if you want to business on eBay.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:46 AM

Nasty terms: Don’t write things all over your auction like “I will only accept returns in PERFECT condition” or “Serious bidders only, no timewasters!!”

This is entirely unnecessary and just makes you look difficult to deal with.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:44 AM

Negative feedback: If you got negative feedback on your last transaction, expect things to be slow for a while.

Try selling cheap things for a while to get your account back in good standing.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:42 AM

Too much for shipping: You might be expecting people to pay more for shipping than they’re prepared to.

Give them a few cheaper options that will take longer, or use cheaper materials.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:37 AM

Bad spelling and grammar: If your titles are spelled wrongly, then no-one will find your auctions.

If your descriptions are incoherent, then no-one will know what you’re talking about.

Always run your text through a spelling and grammar checker before you put it up on eBay.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:33 AM

You had a reserve: Reserve prices scare away buyers like you wouldn’t believe, not to mention costing a percentage of your final sale price. Avoid them like the plague.

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:30 AM

No picture: Most buyers are reluctant to bid on something without a picture, and that goes even more for high-value items. Think of it from the buyer’s point-of-view: would you want to bid on an item when you’ve no idea what it looks like ?

# posted by benkhoo @ 9:28 AM