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Turn Your eBay Experience Into Even More Profit

Everyone’s talking about eBay these days. With the frequency of the TV advertising campaigns increasing, and no sign of any sizable competitors the eBay empire is only going to get bigger.

Now personally as friends and family hear about eBay they normally come to me for advice, How do I use this feature?, How do I sell this item?, What am I doing wrong? Where do I start? And I’m not just talking about people unfamiliar with the net or e-commerce.

I have friends who work within the IT industry and they are the ones who call me most often! Computer technicians, Network consultants, even company directors of IT firms. It seems that over the years of selling on eBay surprisingly we’ve gained quite a rare skill.

People are slowly realizing that they can turn to eBay to make some extra cash and get rid of some unwanted junk at the same time. In the last few months I’ve helped friends and family sell cars, wedding dresses, suites, televisions, videos… I could go on but I’m guessing you may be familiar with a similar situation already.

In fact look though eBay now and see how long it takes you before you see a listing containing the following text

“This item is being sold on behalf of a friend so please contact her with any questions on:07500xxx000″

It won’t be too long before you find a similar statement.

So why not do it for a living or at least to make some extra cash. Officially eBay has a scheme called Trading Assistants and a directory of a Task on the eBay site.

As eBay itself says “Want to sell your stuff on eBay but don’t have the time? Let a Trading Assistant do it for you? Trading Assistants are experienced eBay Sellers who will sell your items on eBay for a fee.”

eBay has just four requirements in order to register as an official trading assistant. These are:

- You’ve sold four items within the last 30 days

- Feedback above 50

- 97% of your feedback should be positive

- eBay account in good standing

Looking at the list it’s not to hard to register as a trading assistant. As long as eBay have your billing method on file and you pay your fees on time, all the other requirements are easily obtainable.

In the US, there are hundreds of eBay Trading Assistant Drop off stores. These are stores where you drop off your item and they sell them on eBay for you typically charging up to 33% of the item value. Some even charge up to 50% of the value. In the UK there are just two drop off stores that are instantly findable. There may be others available but I couldn’t find them doing a quick search. I truly believe that in the UK these stores will start to open up and expand over the next few years. Now’s the time to get involved so register as a Trading Assistant today and start using eBay to its maximum potential.

EzineArticles Expert Author Mark Kenny

Mark Kenny is an online entrepreneur who specialises in developing turnkey websites including a new eBay Trading Assistants website. You can see this at: http://www.Trading-Web-Solutions.com

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Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters: 90% Discount!

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Get Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters at Salehoo wholesale directories and help your business. A Wholesale directory is extremely important for a business owner because he requires interacting with several wholesalers and manufacturers at a time for business purposes. Read on about Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters, Distributor For Wholesale Ky and how Salehoo Wholesalers can help. If you are confident that you can get more than $100 for the product you can start with a lower price but remember that if the product goes for less than what it costs you to fill the order you will lose money. More on Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters and Plastic Syrup Jugs And Bottles Wholesale at Salehoo wholesalers. And also see more about Wholesale Jewelry By The Dozen

Most mortgage lenders have both wholesale and retail departments. Mortgage brokers prefer to obtain wholesale rates and then mark up these rates by adding points, presenting the borrowers with quotes that are similar to what borrowers could obtain directly from a retail lender. Mortgage brokers are free to set whatever prices they want, and have different methods for marking up wholesale rates. Read on about Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters and Plastic Syrup Jugs And Bottles Wholesale. It is important because with one item you can enter a market with dozens of participants while with another you can be one of the first explorers. More on Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters and Distributor For Wholesale Ky at our Wholesale Review website. Find out more about Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters and how Salehoo directory can help you start your own business from home. Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters, Chances are good that it went through the wholesale process unless it was made by hand and given directly to you from that person that made it.

Get: Wholesale Black Light Fabric Posters at Salehoo wholesale directories, and get a head start in your own startup business. The only way to thrive in your startup business is to get quality products cheaply, and from 100%, weekly verified wholesale suppliers from all over the world.
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Royal Memorabilia - Right Category Equals Maximum Profits

In this third and final article, I will discuss why listing your item of royal memorabilia on eBay or any other online auction site requires some careful thought.

The correct choice of category is vital. The greater the exposure to your ideal buyers, the more bids you will attract and the higher the price. It literally pays to do some research to make sure you choose the best categories.

On eBay.co.uk you will find an extensive ‘Royalty’ section located within the Collectibles category. This should be your first port of call. Other sections also used for royal items, again within the Collectibles section, are Decorative Items, Paper & Ephemera, Photographic Images, Autographs, and Ornaments / Plates.

The situation is a little different on eBay.com. There isn’t a ‘Royalty’ section as such but royal items are often found for sale in the following categories: Porcelain and Glass, Dolls and Bears, Stamps and Coins, Antiques and Art and finally Books, Comics and Magazines.

Also, within the ‘Royalty’ section on eBay.co.uk, there are various subsections devoted to a particular monarch. This is very useful as it enables you to target your potential buyers. At the time of writing, Elizabeth II, Princess Diana and George VI were the top three personages in terms of the number of active auctions. Obviously, this can vary at any one time.

If your item is in the low - medium value range then it’s better to list it in the ‘Royal’ section. However, if your item is expected to fetch £100 plus then it’s good advice to list in the relevant product category or sub-section, e.g. porcelain, glass or china. Limited edition items, especially with proof of authenticity, always fetch higher bids outside the ‘Royalty’ section.

Here are some useful tips to consider when creating your listing. They should help you get the very best prices for your items.

The first essential for anything you are selling is a lively, well-written listing with at least two photographs. This should always attract a fair share of buyer attention and, hopefully, higher bids.

But I also mention below some specific information you should always provide when dealing in royal memorabilia:

1. Clearly state the name of the royal associated with your item, e.g. Queen Victoria, Princess Diana etc.

2. State exactly what you are selling. Sounds obvious but you’d be surprised how vague some sellers can be. Also, if your item was originally made as a purely collector’s piece, as opposed to functional use, then mention this fact. You’re likely to get higher bids.

3. Is there a date associated with your item? If so, make sure you mention it.

4. Describe its condition as accurately as you can. Honesty is always the best policy.

5. And finally, if you can offer evidence of authenticity then do so. This will only serve to enhance the value of your item.

Also bear in mind that most serious collectors tend to buy by periods, specific royals or dynasties.

So, when beginning your listing, it is good advice to use keywords that focus on the specific royal rather than the item type. For example, “Queen Elizabeth Coronation Mug, 1953″ is likely to attract greater interest than “Mug Commemorating the Coronation 1953.”

Another way to maximise your profits is to buy in one country and then sell in another. Buyers in the US will pay more for British royal memorabilia. And if you have an item related to a specific country, Spain for example, then list it for potential Spanish buyers if possible. You should get a better result.

If you deal in fairly low value items, e.g. stamps, coins, royal photographs, then acquire several and sell them as sets. You’ll earn more money this way.

If you’re a fanatic about collecting royal memorabilia then you’re more likely to have a sense of what items just might appreciate in the future. If you’re gifted in this way then follow your hunches and buy now while prices are low in the hope of making a future profit.

Finally, here are several websites that could be useful.

www.royalty.nu
A place to visit for general information regarding the world’s royal dynasties. You’ll also find details of some of the commemorative items that have been produced over the decades.

www.royalarchive.com
This is a collection of news reports about the royals. Some other useful information too.

www.royal.gov.uk
This is the official site for the British monarchy.

Royal memorabilia is a fascinating niche interest. It not only improves your sense of history but you can also discover some unique and beautiful objects.

Good hunting!

After 30 years of business experience, online auctions and information marketing have now become my passion. I’m still learning and I’m happy to help others if I can.

Now, if you’re looking for the most profitable way to start your own eBay business then the following link will definitely be of interest.

This is a proven business system (I use it and I know that it works) that you can follow at your own pace and you don’t need massive capital to get started. It was created by a hardworking mum with a lot of perseverence and intelligence!!

For further details: http://ebayprofits.salesplease.com

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Taming The Ebay Search Engine.

If you know what you’re doing, you can quickly find what you’re looking for on eBay - and the more you know about how buyers find you, the easier you’ll find it to be found. Here are a few golden searching rules.

Be specific: If you’re searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you’ll get further searching for ‘harry potter rowling philosopher’s stone first edition’ than you will searching for ‘harry potter’. You’ll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It’s a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can’t spell. Whatever you’re looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - you might find a few items here that have slipped through the cracks.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe an item, for example searching for both ‘TV’ and ‘television’, or for ‘phone’, ‘mobile’ and ‘cellphone’. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you’ll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD, you should click the ‘CDs’ category to look at results in that category only. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don’t care about?

Don’t be afraid to browse: Once you’ve found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click ‘Browse’ and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay’s search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it’ll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say ‘anything can go here’. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for ‘car 195*’. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes (”") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for “Lord of the Rings” won’t give you any results that say, for example “Lord Robert Rings”.

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don’t want to appear in your search results. For example: “Pulp Fiction” -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become ‘(TV,television)’, which would find items with either word.

Don’t get too tied up learning the ways of the search engine, though: a surprising number of eBay users don’t search at all, preferring to look through eBay’s category system and save their favourites in their browser. The next email will show you how to make sure these people can find you too.

Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.

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Mine Gold From eBay

In this day and age, many people are turning to the internet to try and make their living or to just make some extra money and eBay is a great resource for those people to get started. Selling on eBay can be very lucrative if done the right way.

In this article, I am going to give you a few points about selling on eBay to hopefully make it easier for you to make money.

Open an eBay shop. An eBay shop can boost your sales by quite a bit. With a shop, customers can bookmark it so they come back again and buy again, customers can sign up for your eBay newsletter so you can notify them of certain products, the shops are included in search engines so there is even more chance of getting seen and you can promote your shop with every auction you make.

Study your competitors. If you can learn how the successful eBay sellers are running their business, you can copy them and be just as successful as they are. Watch how they write their listings, use the ebay features and what type of products are the top sellers.

Cross promote with other sellers that sell the same type of items as you. Contact certain sellers and ask them if they would like to cross promote with you. If they agree then you simply show a few of their items on your listings and they do the same for you.

Automate everything. You should automate the feedback process, the relisting of unsold items and if you sell digital products you should automate delivery of the product. This will show customers that you are a proffessional eBay seller and therefore they will be likely to deal with you again. There are many programs out there that will automate delivery of your digital items, just search google for one.

Writing guides and reports. You now have the opportunity to write guides and reports and have them shown on eBay. This can be a good way to generate traffic to your auctions as people will read your guide/report and hopefully visit your shop. If you write a good article that makes people interested then they will more than likely want to see what items you are selling.

Never stop learning. As you grow your business you should always be looking for ways to learn new things about the eBay marketplace. Look for different ways to improve your business. You should always be studying your competitors and keeping up with the top selling items. There are functions on eBay that will also help you find out what’s selling well.

Niall Mehaffey is an internet marketer and webmaster. If you would like to learn the real potential of eBay then click here ==>make money on ebay

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How To Cut Your eBay Fees By More Than 90%

Now, are you ready for the REAL TRUTH about selling on eBay?

It’s simple; don’t list too many items for sale using their auction format. Instead, set up one of their stores. The cost starts at just $9.99 per month.

Why is this a good idea?

Let’s do the math:

If you list an item for sale using the auction format, the cost is anywhere from $.35 on up to several dollars PER AUCTION. What’s worse is that the auctions are only good for 3, 5, 7, or 10 days.

BETTER WAY: Sell the item in your eBay store. The listing price is just 2 or 3 cents per item…and get this…They’re good for a FULL 30 days! For example, I recently sold a $500 item that I listed in my eBay store. The listing cost me a whopping 3 cents! The same item, if I’d sold it using the auction format, would have cost me several dollars!

Using eBay’s Auction format to list 500 items at a minimum of $.35 each = $175.00 (and these are only good for 7 days each so you’d have to list them 4 times each per month) $175 x 4 = $700.00

List the same 500 items in your eBay store @ just $.03 each = $15 + the $9.99 monthly store fee = $24.99 and they are listed for a full 30 days each!

You save $675.01 per month! HOLY SMOKES!

I’m sure you can clearly see the benefit here. Of course you will want to sell a few CHEAP items using the auction format to try to generate interest & drive customers to your eBay store where they will buy MORE from you. Make sure every auction listing contains a link to your eBay store & TELL THE CUSTOMER TO VISIT YOUR STORE. Sell 10 or so of your 3 or 4 or 5 dollar items as auctions…just enough to get some traffic to your store.

Now, what is it that the REALLY successful PowerSellers do?

They maximize the “back-end” sale.

What this means to you is that once a customer has bought from you, the hard part is over. Now having done business with you, they TRUST you to deliver the goods. You MUST & I REPEAT, MUST try to get that customer to buy again & again.

Never, ever, send a package to a customer without including a sales flyer, catalog or some other special offer in the package to try to entice them to make another purchase. Email them a special offer every week or so.

You NEED repeat customers. Going after the lone, one-time sale is a losing battle. You will not be successful unless you get them to buy again & again & do this with every person you deal with.

Send a thank-you note via postal mail or eMail to every customer & use that opportunity to SELL THEM SOMETHING ELSE.

Another tip:

Sell CONSUMABLE items. You know, stuff that people need to order fairly often. Like socks, t-shirts, work gloves, food items, towels & linens, printer ink cartridges, sell shipping materials to other eBay sellers. You will get REPEAT orders from these customers for months and even years to come.

Mike Nalbone is the creator of “The Wholesale Detective” http://www.nalbone.org/detective/ which is a complete resource for people seeking to utilize drop shipping to start or expand their own business.

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How to Set Up Your Ebay Account?

Go to www.ebay.com and you will find a menu at the top of the page reading something like this - home, pay, register, and site map. Click on register to be directed to the registration page. Registration page consists of three sections - personal details, id & password details and acceptance of terms & conditions section.

Personal details section asks for your first name, last name, street address, city/town, state, zip code, country, phone numbers and email address. It is advisable to create a new email id for your Ebay operations since you can expect lot of emails while being active on Ebay. You will be asked to retype your email address in the last box in this section. Ensure that you retype it, and not merely copy paste it from the above box. This will ensure correct email address being given to Ebay system. Creating a new email id for Ebay operations prevents your regular emails being mixed up with those from Ebay and allies.

Second section on the page demands selecting user id and password for the logging in purpose. Select an id of your choice or one suggested by Ebay. Then go on to select a password. Ensure that you have written down your password somewhere on your personal notes. The password should be minimum of six-character length. Ebay will then ask you a secret question like mother’s maiden name or pet’s name. Select the one that you can recall anytime, and provide the answer. This is provided for security purpose and case when you forget your id or password. Then select your birth details from the drop down menu.

In the last section, check on the box below ‘Terms of use and privacy’ indicating your agreement to terms of use (for a more detailed person, it is recommended to read the whole set of terms & conditions). Click continue button. That’s it. You will receive a mail from Ebay for confirmation. Click on the confirmation, and now you are registered on Ebay.

Donny Lowy runs http://www.closeoutexplosion.com an online wholesale and closeout business that supplies eBay sellers, retailers, and flea market vendors.

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8 Top Tips For Successful Art Auction Listings

Why is it that some artists seem to make easy money on eBay while
others struggle to break even? Seller A and seller B could be selling paintings of the same calibre, yet seller A turns a good profit year in year out and has Powerseller status, while seller B struggles to even make a profit at all. Often it has a lot to do with the look of their auction listings.

I have been selling my original artwork on eBay for 5 years now and boy was I green when I started off. I didn’t own a digital camera - I used an ordinary camera with film … you know that old stuff … I would take photos of my artwork, then tramp into town, wait three days for the film to be developed, then scan the prints into my computer. The quality of my photos were obviously pretty poor in those days.

I didn’t know anything about HTML, templates, how and when to list to get optimum benefit from my auctions. It’s a wonder I even got off the ground! But get off the ground I did - though dogged persistence and a willingness to learn, I went from selling paintings for a couple of pounds/dollars, to earning a good full time living. These days I am a Powerseller and often get hundreds for my paintings.

So, here are my top tips to make your art auctions stand out and
promote you from part - time pin money earner to top seller;

1; Think about KISS …. Keep It Simple Stupid! A listing that has lots of different colours, fonts, animated pictures, text in capitals can be very confusing for the reader. Don’t bombard people with too much information.

2; Be factual in your description. If your item has a fault - list it. This way a buyer knows exactly what he/she is getting and there will be no negative feedback later. I have sold paintings that had repairs where they had had small rips in them. I was honest in the fact that the paintings weren’t perfect, but my buyers were perfectly happy because they knew beforehand what they were buying.

3; Never be negative. Recently one artist who was struggling to sell anything at all (despite being a very good artist) complained how eBay just wasn’t working for him. After looking at his auctions I could see why! His listings were basic to say the least, but he could have gotten away with that. What was stopping any chance of him selling were the words at the end of his auction;

“The artist is unwilling to offer this item at a lower
starting price as to do so would be insulting.”

Potential buyers might look at this statement and think “well I wouldn’t want to insult anyone” or “well if you feel insulted, why list it?” and click away … to someone else’s paintings. Comments like this are far too negative.

4; When selling art, a picture paints a thousand words, as the saying goes. Try to make your pictures as high quality as possible. Include side views of your canvasses and possibly a room view. Don’t clutter your listing with pictures of other artwork you have for sale - it’s just confusing. If you have an eBay store, you will get automatic ‘cross promotion’ for several other items at the end of your auction anyway.

5; Don’t undersell yourself / under price your work. Who takes 5 to 10 pounds / dollars as an opening bid price seriously? Only very well known, well established artists with large fan bases can get away with starting a listing so low. Until you are established, don’t risk selling your art for pennies. You’ll
not even cover your listing fees, never mind make a profit.

6; Utilise keywords effectively. I saw a pencil drawing of a mum and baby Koala in a tree listed as “A mother’s Love Original Pencil Drawing” Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that anyone will search “a”, “mothers”, or “love”. Well maybe love …. but not in the context of an original drawing of an animal. The seller was wasting a lot of keyword space there. Better would have been something like “Original Contemporary Drawing Sketch
Koala Bear Bears” Doesn’t mean much as a sentence in itself, but it is packed with keywords, people might use to find that type of item.

7; Offer excellent customer service. I have always prided myself on the number of positive feedbacks I have attained over the years. On various eBay IDs I have well over 1000 unique positive feedbacks. This is money in the bank! A happy customer will come back again and again, and it is much easier to sell to an existing customer than to gain a new one. Keep your buyers happy and they will reward you with loyalty and repeat purchases.

8; Have a ‘ME’ page. With art buying, people like to know who they are buying from. They like to ‘get to know’ the artist. If you can offer a small biography and artists statement on your me page, your potential buyer can feel like they already know you. I have a bio, a photo of myself with my artwork and a recent article that appeared in a regional arts and culture magazine. This allows buyers to see a friendly face - yours - and to feel
like they know a little about you and ‘where you’re at’ before they buy.

I hope these tips help you a with your eBay art career. There’s loads more I could add, but eBay is a real learning curve. Often success comes simply though experience and trying different thing until you find something that works for you. The above tips, however, will get you off to a good start to becoming a successful eBay art seller.

Gail Miller is a professional artist whose wild funky artwork
is a visual feast of line, colour and fun. Visit her brand new
updated website at http://www.gailmiller.com or her
eBay store at http://stores.ebay.co.uk/painttillyoufaint

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Photos on my eBay Auctions: How Do I Add Them?

On another forum I’m involved with, someone’s asked a great question: I want to
sell products on eBay, but I
want to include photographs with my items. How do I do that? What kind of camera
do I need, and what settings should I use?

The first step is to buy a digital camera. You can use a film camera, get the prints
developed and then scan them in, but you can now buy an entry-level digital camera
for the same price as a low-end scanner, and it’s a lot easier to use!

A few example cameras that have a good reputation, from Amazon: A very
inexpensive camera - on sale currently - is the Digital Concepts VGA Camera (currently $49), and if you want to
get a known brand, as I’d recommend, then you can’t go wrong with the Fujifilm FinePix 1400 (about $70), the Kodak DC215 (about $60), or the slightly more
expensive
Epson PhotoPC 750Z (about $100).

Getting good results from a digital camera isn’t trivial, however, particularly if you’re
trying to take a picture of a book, statue, CD cover or item of clothing. That’s where
it’s nice to be able to take fifty pictures, download them all to your computer, and
pick the best one of the lot. Unlike film photography, this won’t cost you a nickel.
Just time…

A general tip for taking good product shots is to have lots of light. If
you’re in a room with ceiling lights, turn ‘em all on. If you have floor lamps, move
them over and point them directly on the item. In addition, use a neutral color
blanket or sheet as a background for the item: you don’t want to distract potential
buyers with your household clutter. Then hold your camera very, very steady
(consider having it on a chair or, ideally, a tripod) and slowly click the button to take
the shot. If your shots are blurry, try moving back a foot or so and taking another
photograph.

Once you’ve taken a product photograph you like (and don’t be discouraged if it
seems hard. There are professional photographers who specialize in product and
catalog photography and it’s quite an art!) then crop it tightly so that the
photograph is about the product and as little else as possible. If you’re using a
blanket as a background, for example, it should only be visible on the edges of the
photograph. Bidders will appreciate a product photo that reveals a lot of detail
about the product and nothing else.

Finally, within your photo editor (Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Graphic Converter,
iPhoto, whatever), make sure that the final image resolution is 75dpi, not 300dpi,
then resize the image down to a maximum width of 400 pixels and a maximum
height of 300 pixels: and do it with “keep image proportions” enabled so that you
don’t distort the photo. Save it as a JPEG, not a GIF, since it will keep the
nuances of color much better.

Great. Now you have a photo ready to upload to eBay with your next auction! When
you’re entering the auction information, you’ll get to a step where it offers you the
chance to add a photograph, and that’s what you want to do. Click on “upload
photo” and pick your saved image, then it’ll automatically be sent to the eBay
servers along with your other auction information, and you’ll be well on your way to
becoming a true Powerseller!

When I add photographs to my eBay auctions, I use a rather more expensive
(about $2000) camera setup, a Nikon D100 digital with studio lighting and similar
gear. You can see some of my photographic work at Colorado Portraits.

EzineArticles Expert Author Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor has been involved with online auctions for almost a decade, including
having written the book “The eAuction Insider”. His latest projects are startup info and http://www.askdavetaylor.com/“>Ask Dave Taylor!.

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Professional eBay Auctions Reap the Profits for Sellers

eBay offer an unbelievable amount of traffic for ANYONE wanting to sell on their auction site, so much so that millions of items are listed on it everyday. So with all this competition how do you make sure that your listing doesn’t get lost amongst the rest and that customers keep coming back to you.

The answer is simple…. Professional Listings!

This covers all aspects of the transaction from the listing itself, how the customer is interacted with to how the item is packed and shipped. If you ignore any stage of the process then you are going to force your customers to go elsewhere. Your are offering a service to the customer, if they get bad service then they will go elsewhere and remember there are millions of items for sale on eBay so the customer doesn’t even have to try hard to go elsewhere.

Remember, Professional Listings will give you the edge over the rest and also the highest selling price and profit.

Split your auction process into the following stages and follow the below guidelines:

The listing itself has to be:

Correctly written, You have to grab the attention of the reader and hold it and a poorly written listing will do nothing but FORCE the customer onto the next listing available. Use your knowledge of the item and use the key words and phrases that will ‘push the buttons’ of the customer, if you were buying the item what would sell it to you? Look at other sellers listings and determine selling strengths and listing opportunities and develop on them, these are the people you want to stand out from after all. Above all use proper English (or your native language), do not use text speak and shortened ‘phrases’ and also capitalise properly as a listing completely in capitals is an instant invite to close the listing down.

Correctly formatted, eBay provide the following auction sections as standard, use them correctly and effectively to maximise your listing potential and ‘kerb appeal’.

Remember first impressions count!

Auction Title

This is the FIRST thing that your customers will see. Make it short, sharp, to the point and most of all DO NOT include silly characters and smiley faces in it as all that does is make you think that the auction seller is ‘just a kid’…NOT A VERY PROFESSIONAL IMAGE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS TO HAVE.

The default search on eBay only scans the title so you need all your keywords in there, so don’t waste the space on rubbish.

Auction Description

This is your opportunity to fully describe the item and as such needs to be as complete as is possible, the more information the customer has the more they know what they are buying and the more likely they are to form a professional image of you as a seller. i.e.. this seller gives a true indication of the item and doesn’t try to hide anything. Always include the strengths and weaknesses (faults) of the item as these are both SELLING POINTS. Strengths are obvious but weaknesses as a selling point, surely not! The more accurate the description the more the customer can trust you and will develop a professional image of you and more importantly keep coming back to your eBay auctions.

Think about what you are writing, does it fully describe what you are trying to? Words like ‘great condition’ and ‘like new’ are not good enough because different people interpret these in different ways so be specific and add extra detail to ensure that there are no crossed wires.

This information has to be correctly presented to the customer, the majority of eBay listings as simply just typed out in the editor ebay provides, which is perfectly acceptable but your listing will just appear in boring black and white. Remember the idea is to make your listing stand out and look professional and the simplest way to do this is to use HTML to format, add tables and images in order to liven up the listing, this is very simple to achieve and I offer some FREE to use templates here. Using templates will also help to develop a business identity for your auctions so that the customer can instantly recognise you

Within your listing also take the opportunity to cross promote your other auctions, it is free publicity which will encourage the customer to take a look and will generate greater sales opportunities from singular listings. Its as simple as adding a link to your other auctions on the listing page itself.

Include Pictures

Simply remember :

A PICTURE PAINTS A THOUSAND WORDS

All professional web sites use images and so should you, for a review of the importance of pictures go to the eBay picture guide.

Always give payment and shipping details

Would you buy something without knowing the full cost ?

No, neither will your customers. A truly professional listing will always detail shipping charges up front. Again use the principle of the more information you give the better.

Mike - webmaster at Online Auction Traders Resource

Visit ebay templates to use for FREE to develop your online business.

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