"eBay Powerseller and Website Success Guide "

eBay Powerseller Success Tips.

eBay is a fantastic way of testing the demand for a new product relatively inexpensively.  More and more entrepreneurs and high street stores are moving to eBay as either their sole storefront or to generate more sales and increase exposure to the online community.  eBay is a place where you can start off selling one or two items to get a feel of how the system works, then when you get the eBay fever, there is generally no stopping you.  We have put together a comprehensive list of selling tips that will help you when selling on eBay .

There are over 10 Million registered eBay users in the Uk!

1. A picture IS worth 1000 words. eBay gives you the option of adding no pictures, one picture or a number of pictures to your auction.  Through experience listing an item with a photograph is usually the difference between selling it and not.  A poor picture could however have the opposite effect, photographs must be of good quality, show clearly what the item is and not be too large that it takes the viewers computer ages to download.

For successful eBay selling, make sure any products you list on eBay are accompanied by professional quality photographs.
Getting Started On eBay
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2. Do your eBay research. It is important to undertake some research when selling on eBay, before you list a particular product.  Take a look at current and completed auctions where there has been similar products for sale and see how the seller listed the item, what “Keywords” they used within their title to draw people to the auction, spend some time looking at the description and take a note of the category that the items were listed in.  Another important piece of information to gather is the end day and end time of the auctions – do they follow any pattern?  It may not have occurred to you but there are better days than others to sell your product and this is different for every category.  A great piece of software for serious sellers , that can give you all this information is a software product called hammertap

This is great for analyzing completed auctions and spying on your competitors as well as helping you  identify products that are hot, hot, hot on the ebay marketplace. Whilst this software does have need a couple of hours investment to learn how it analyses the market, this fantastic online market research tool is refreshingly easy to use and extremely useful for any serious eBay seller. It is a must if you want to have a successful online ebay business.  .

Try it out it comes with a 14 day free trial!

Researching your product will also help you gauge the interest for your product and help you determine how much your product might be worth as well as giving you an indication of what price to start your auction off at.

3. Learn all about shipping. Postage charges and shipping are costs which continue to increase, and this is something to bear in mind when deciding in the first instance what to sell on eBay – it may be that you decide to sell something that is small, light and has small shipping costs. However eBayer’s know that there will be a shipping cost incurred when purchasing a product (unless it is a digital product delivered by email eg an eBook where the shipping will tend to be zero!), and eBayer’s in general tend to be savvy when knowing when you are overcharging for your shipping!  It is important to give as accurate a figure as possible for shipping your item, even if you have to package the item up and take it to the post office before actually listing your item on eBay, it is worth it.  Overcharging on eBay can put potential buyers off and undercharging means that you lose.

Remember to be clear about your shipping details within the auction by specifying the method of shipping, whether it is next day, 48 hour shipping, whether there is insurance calculated within the shipping cost,etc. For heavier items you may want to state collection only.

 

4.Write a Good  eBay Description. The more accurate information that you can provide regarding your product the better.  Try and think what search terms the buyer may enter into the eBay search box for your particular item, try certain keywords yourself in the search facility and see what is brought up in the ebay search. The trick to writing a strong eBay listing is to combine a keyword specific, search engine friendly title and with specific details about the product that will attract buyers to your auction. Again certain software like hammertap provide you with detailed analysis of auctions and what keywords were used within the title and description of a particular completed auction. Don’t get too caught up with all this though, as long as your description is accurate and you have provided as much information as you can then when starting out enjoy the buying and selling experience of eBay.  Software is not essential and does not give you the magic answers to what sells and what doesn’t on eBay, it is a tool not to be used in isolation of others but can be useful.

5. Offer a full slate of payment options, including credit cards.  As an eBay seller it is important to be able to offer as many payment options as possible to prospective buyers.  As a seller you want to receive your payment quickly and as safely as possible. Paypal is one of the fastest and safest ways to send money online and is now owned by eBay, with over 80% of registered eBay users accepting Paypal as a payment option.  Paypal even processes debit and credit cards and is fully integrated with eBay, you can even use it as a savings account!

6. Focus on getting a positive feedback rating.  Feedback is important  when you're selling on eBay as it reassures buyers and makes them more comfortable doing business with you.   If you have a consistent record of positive feedback, prospective buyers will both bid more often and be will generally be inclined to pay higher prices.  It may be that you get started off selling low or middle of the range priced products and establish a consistent positive feedback rating before listing higher priced products.  It is not as critical for buyers to have a good feedback rating although some sellers do state within their auction that if you have a zero feedback rating then do not bother bidding!!  Generally if a buyer has a good feedback rating of around 50 plus then usually there are no issues with cheque payments and you can send the product upon receipt of the cheque, however if you like to be a little more cautious then it is prudent to mention in your auction something along the lines: “ we accept cheques (state currency), once this cheque payment has cleared at our bank which usually takes between 3-5 working days, we will dispatch the eBay item.

7. How To Build a Positive Feedback Rating.

The feedback rating can be seen in brackets at the side of a sellers name.  It is important to both give and get good feedback. Dealing with issues or complaints early on in a transaction is essential if you stand any chance of getting a positive feedback rating from a buyer.  Describing your item correctly also ensures that upon receipt of the product the buyer is not dissatisfied and leaves immediate negative feedback.  Let the buyer know within your auction how they can reach you if they have a question and be professional at all times.

8. How To Build Feedback Quickly.

There is a simple, fast way to build good feedback and that is to buy some low cost purchases, it may be that you are looking to buy a few items on eBay anyway, so rather than going down to the local shops, shop on eBay. Don’t forget that you can also buy cosmetics, clothes, books, and lots of other interesting items you never dreamed you would need!!. This is an ideal way to familirise yourself with the buying and selling procedure on eBay.

Pay promptly for your purchases using PayPal and immediately post feedback for the seller as soon as you get the item. If the seller does not post feedback, send them a short email telling them that you posted feedback for them and you would appreciate them leaving feedback for you.

9. Take Time To Leave Feedback

It is very easy to forget all about Feedback, but it is the feedback ratings that give both the buyer and seller online credibility and reassures buyers that you are a respectable seller.  Therefore whether you are buying or selling get into the habit of  posting feedback quickly and leave specific comments. For example, “the item was as described and communication was professional.”, “the item is as described, looking forward to using the….”

This type of feedback is very helpful to future buyers and it tends to get you better feedback comments in return.

10. Avoiding Negative Feedback

It is important to communicate with your buyer throughout the buying process, sometimes you do get the odd buyer who cannot be satisfied and is quick to send you a bad email,  read the email, remove the emotion and take five minutes out before sending a return one!! Be objective and stick to the facts in your return email and generally you will be able to work it out with your buyer.  Some buyers however just cannot be satisfied and leave you negative feedback.  There is no point worrying about this, you cannot please everyone!  Your overall feedback rating will not be greatly affected by the odd negative comment here and there, and buyers will be able to see this from the feedback comments.  Leaving negative feedback for others may in turn give them the green light to leave you negative feedback, sometimes it just isn’t worth leaving negative feedback – go for neutral!

11.  Pay Promptly!

A great way to build positive feedback fast is to make sure that your transaction runs as smoothly as possible and one way to do that is to pay for your item quickly. This will keep the seller happy as he will not have to sent you payment reminders and you will also get your item sooner!

12.  Be Honest

Whether you are a buyer or seller of an item, if you make a mistake, be honest and let the other party know.  For example, if you forgot about the auction and are late sending a payment off, or you forgot to ship something you sold – be up front and honest. This avoids people becoming confrontational, as long as you stay in contact with people and let them know what is happening they are generally forgiving and appreciate being kept in the picture.  If you ignore them, the likelihood is you will be bad feedback!


13. Create an About Me page on eBay

eBay allows you to create a page that you can use to tell buyers a little more about yourself, your company and/or your products.  You can even include a photo on the page, talk about your hobbies, your family or anything else you would like to reveal to the eBay buyer about yourself.  The About Me page is a useful page where a person can get an idea of who you are, what you are about and whether you are worth doing business with!  This page is extremely useful as it is the one place on eBay where you are allowed to direct buyers to your own website off eBay.  The book below explains in great detail how to set up the About Me page using eBay’s strict guidelines, it is a must have read for those of you who want to build a list.

Buy Silent Sales Machine

 

 

The Silent Sales Machine is essential for anyone wanting to make a serious income on eBay.  The contents of the book are well written and easy to understand. There are excellent tips throughout this book which, even if you are new to eBay are easy to understand and implement.  There are hundreds on books about eBay online but what makes this book different is that it gives a no-nonsense- no frills but comprehensive book and is worth every penny.  Buy Your Book Now!

 

14. Searching Keywords

It is important to describe your item within your title and descriptions.  It is essential to include the exact name of your product within your title and auction description to improve your chances of your auction being found by potential eBay buyers. If you take a look through some of the listings you will see some sellers place  a tilde (~) or a star *  or “ next to their auction title to help get attention, if this is one method that you adopt then make sure that you put a space between the tilde (~) , star * or “”, or the word will not come up when a search is done.

eBay has a powerful search engine to find items take a look to see what items are selling and how much they are selling for – use it!

15. Hidden Treasure – Misspelled Words

Over 60% of eBay buyers use the search facility to find items on eBay.  If your main keywords are misspelled then your item will not come up in a search. For example if you are selling a Nikon Camera and you spell it Nikkon then the camera will not come up in the search if the buyer has used the search term “Nikon camera.”

16. Win That Auction! 

How many times have you seen an auction and not been able to take your eyes off the screen until the auction has ended – only to realize that you lost the auction anyway?  eBay has its own proxy bidding system, this allows you to enter your highest bid and the eBay system will keep on bidding for you using the minimum increment to win the auction.  The eBay system will only bid up to your maximum and then you will be out of the auction (unless you are the winning bidder!) Be sure to synchronize your time with the official eBay time or you could just miss the end of an auction.  There are several sniping services that work with the eBay system which means that you can enter your auction details and  the maximum amount you want to pay. The beauty of sniping programs is that you can set them up to snipe in the last few seconds of the auction, which means you get the edge over other bidders. Once you set your sniping bids up, you leave them to run and you can enjoy the rest of the day!! Again it will bid up to the maximum to win the auction or up to your maximum figure after which you are out of the auction. 

17. Increase Your Chances of Winning Even Further!

Rather than bid in even numbers, try bidding in odd numbers and you may well outbid someone by just a few pennies,  I won an auction earlier this week at £42.27, my max bid was £63.76, so I just got myself a bargain!

18. Familiarise yourself with eBay

When buying or selling on eBay make sure you know eBay’s policies, Online Rules and Policies it is important to spend time on message boards, finding your way around eBay and using the eBay help facility as much as possible. If there is an item that you are unusure as to whether you can list it or not check it out in eBay’s Help section, it if well worth taking the time to do this as if you do list something that is not allowed then eBay at the very least will remove your listing and any fees incurred will not be refunded!

19.. Make Sure The Item Is What You Want!

When you start to buy on eBay, especially if the item is being auctioned, it is extremely easy to get caught up in the excitement of the auction and buy something that really does not meet your requirements.  If the description of the items is a little unclear or upi have other questions regarding the item, then it is well worth the time to email the seller and ask questions about the item. Check out the seller’s feedback whilst you are waiting for a reply and check out active and completed listings to see if you are really getting the bargain that you thought you were.  If the seller doesn’t answer quickly and completely, that is a warning flag and you should be careful.

20. Get The Edge

Be selective in your search, if you are looking for an item where there are loads of the same item, watching every auction is not only time consuming but tedious.  If time is short either use the buy it now feature, or if you want a bargain look for auctions where the end time is usually in the early hours on the morning.  You stand much more of a chance bidding on these items when fewer people are watching the item, and remember you can be tucked up in bed, just use bidnapper to bid for you!

 

21. Know What Your Item Is Worth

If you have an item to sell or even if you are looking to buy an item and have no idea what to pay for it, then searching Completed Items (from the eBay search box) is the best way to determine an item’s worth or value. Go onto eBay’s Home page and click the category/subcategory that you want, on the left hand side the search facility will give you a whole list of options that you can search by, eg Buy It Now, Auction, Within a certain radius of where you live (this is ideal if you are looking to purchase a heavy item, say furniture and you do not want to pay the postage charge – you can collect the item in person if the item is located nearby) and a very useful item is searching completed items. You can see what items sold for (or did not sell for) to give you an idea of what to bid for your item or if you are selling an item a better indication of what to start your bidding off at.


 22. Specific Search

Using a phrase or even a single word for your search can return lots of auctions. One useful tip to narrow your search it to be specific, if you are looking for a Baby Backpack, just entering baby backpack would list many auctions. You can reduce the number of auctions by typing outdoor baby backpack or narrow your search even further by typing in a particular brand and or model. Vaude Premier Baby BackPack – the number of searches returned will be specific to your search.  If you are not sure of the brand that you want but know that you do not want say a “mothercare” backpack, in your search you can use the “-“ sign. 

So in the search box you would type Outdoor Baby Backpack – Mothercare.  There must be no space between the minus sign and Mothercare.

 23. Narrow your search even more.

If you are looking for auctions with certain phrases which go together in a particular order, for example lamp shades, by using quotation marks around “lamp shades” will return auction listings with words where the word shades immediately follow the word lamp.

 24. It is important to keep in touch with eBay.

If you are bidding on an auction eBay has a great service whereby it emails you when you are outbid on an item, however it you use bidnapper or similar software you will not have to worry about this.  As a seller it is important to respond promptly to any questions which you may have from buyers, this will ensure that more bids and more satisfied customers.

25. Watch Out For Spoof emails from eBay or Paypal

We receive lots of emails to our email account that look like genuine emails from eBay.  Whether they are real or not do not open them, everytime eBay sends you an email you also receive an email to your “My Messages” box within your eBay MY Page.  Therefore if you do receive an email check it on eBay in your “My eBay” page, if the email has come from eBay you will see it there and can open it safely.  If it is not then it is likely to be a spoof email.

If you receive an email from Paypal, again login in to your paypal account and click on the links within your paypal account to identify whether the email is spoof or not,  again you will be able to read any genuine email in your Paypal Account – again do not open in your email account!

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