• Welcome from Brian McGregor 
• Inspirational Quote of the Day
• News and Views
• Tips to Increase Your eBay Sales
• Which Type of eBay Seller are You?
• Ending an Auction Early
• A Gift from Me to You
• Someone's auctioning what? Unusual items currently available
• Back to Newsletter Archive

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.

Just about half way through 2006 and it's time for me to take stock of the progress I've made in this first 6 months.

With this newsletter being such an important part of my internet life, it's great to report that we've reached a significant milestone.

We've just passed the 10,000 subscriber mark!

As the newsletter is a joy to produce, it's pleasing to see its continued growth in popularity. I sincerely hope it is providing useful information for you in your eBay activities.

If there are any eBay topics you would wish to have covered, please contact me and let me know.

Oh well...

Here's to the next target!

I look forward to speaking with you again.

1. Want to know what eBay is thinking?

Did you know eBay have a blog run by their employees?

I came across it by accident the other day. Some of it is boring, but there are some fascinating bits too!

You'll find it here.


2. Would You Like Free Advertising For Your eBay Auctions?

If you have knowledge of a product or service, did you realise you are qualified to write a guide or review about it?

Why would you wish to do this?

Well, you can get your guide or review published by eBay in its new Reviews and Guides section. And, if it's any good, you'll get a useful number of visitors to read your opinion.

More importantly, you can have links directly to your auctions.

When I researched this topic, I found some of these guides had been viewed by thousands of eBayers! This sounds to me like superbly targeted traffic you can induce to click over to our auctions.

Here are the pages you need:

Reviews and Guides - eBay.co.uk
Reviews and Guides - eBay.com


3. Is This The Future of eBay?

There is a company called Cooqy.

They have produced an alternative to the normal eBay search result screens.

What makes this so different is that it is all based on Flash technology. In other words, they can do much more with the results than the static eBay screen allows.

For example, you can click on a Map key, and a map appears before your eyes with the locations of each of the auctions in your search results.

Cooqy works on eBay UK, USA, Australia, Canada and India.

I've installed it, and it looks really cool.

It's totally free, and you can get Cooqy from here.


4. Keeping Those Balls in the Air

When we work with eBay and other internet activities as we all do, it sometimes feel that we're juggling lots of balls.

Well here is a superb video showing a REAL juggler in action.

Relax and enjoy this juggling spectacular.


5. Finding Bargains on eBay

If you're looking for bargains on eBay, you may be interested in this new tool.

SearchDigger is a software product that will locate exactly what you're looking for on eBay, based on a range of parameters which you enter through its smart screen.

SearchDigger operates on eBay UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

There are far too many features to list them all, so please read about SearchDigger here.


6. Want to Increase Your eBay Sales at No Cost?

Mistrust is a real issue on the internet, and I include eBay in that!

As we know too well, the fraudsters are rife, ruining auctions and causing panic amongst some ecommerce users.

It's great to be able to offer you a method of tackling this issue today.

Here is a way in which you can show your auction and website visitors that they can trust you.

The Fair Trade Authority enables you to show to your visitors that you are a trusted seller. By displaying their logo on your auctions and your websites, you are telling everyone that you can be trusted in your business dealings.

Unlike most services of this nature, the Fair Trade Authority go through a checking process before you are allowed to use their logo. This includes a telephone conversation, in which they call you and verify that you are who you say you are.

I've been through the process, it's simple and painless.

You can see the Fair Trade Authority logo on one of my websites.

The Fair Trade Authority claim that being a registered partner can increase your sales by 400%. So it's well worth considering.

Best of all, it's a totally free service.

Take a look here at the Fair Trade Authority.

You’ve got a potential bidder to click through to your auction. They’re reading your auction description now.

They’re obviously interested in what you’re selling, or they wouldn’t have located your auction. But what more can you do to tip them over from being a viewer into a bidder?

Here are some steps you can take to achieve that objective…

1. Improve your pictures

In spending time to writing your auction description, don’t forget the importance of pictures. Make sure any images you use are of high quality. There’s nothing worse than a blurry, badly sized photo. You don’t want to look like an amateur. A buyer might assume that if you can’t be bothered to produce good images, maybe other aspects may equally slipshod.

2. Add an About me page

Be aware that some of your visitors will click through to your About me page. It’s one of the ways in which they can check you out before bidding. By having an About me page in which you discuss yourself and your business, you contribute to the necessary assurance which an eBayer needs before they will bid on your item. Incidentally, you can also use your About me page to display special deals, and to enable people to subscribe to your mailing list so that you can email them subsequently with offers and updates.

3. Use SquareTrade

Signing up at SquareTrade and displaying their logo on your auctions shows that you are committed to having disputes resolved speedily and professionally. You may have noticed how many PowerSellers use the Square Trade logo. A free method of showing that you are a seller who can be trusted is to join the Fair Trade Authority program. This scheme is free, and it enables you to use the Fair Trade Authority logo in your eBay auctions providing you meet their validation requirements.

4. Show Terms and Conditions

It’s always advisable to have the ‘small print’ clearly visible on all your auctions. This would include details such as shipping times and prices, refund policy and any other business practices you might have. This may not result in a sale, but it will prevent some people from leaving your auction description page after being unable to find an answer to questions about Ts & Cs.

5. Show off your feedback

Show some of your feedback on your auction description page. Copy and paste a selection of the feedback comments you’re most proud. In addition, if you have 100% positive feedback, be sure to mention that too within your auction description.

6. Add NR to your auction titles

It’s a fact that some buyers look for No Reserve auctions. They believe that they are more likely to pick up a bargain from such auctions. If you can offer your item without reserve, it is always useful to let buyers know by placing NR at the end of your auction title – being recognised shorthand for a No Reserve auction.

7. Remember - benefits not features

Ensure that your auction description conveys benefits and not just features. This is a classic sale s technique, and is used because it is effective. If you’re not sure of the difference, ‘cheap’ is a feature, ‘save money’ is a benefit.

8.  List more items

If you want more people to respond to your items, then simply list more items! This is particularly for you if you have more than one of the same item to offer. You could use a Dutch auction, or you could simply keep two or three auctions going at the same time, perhaps in different categories. The point is that the more auctions you have running on eBay, the more visitors you will achieve.

9. Accept different payment methods

To reach those last few buyers, accept payment methods that many sellers don’t offer. This could be cheques, postal orders, or even cash (at your buyers risk).

10. Test and then invest in upgrades

Don’t stand still with your auctions. Keep testing eBay promotion upgrades and see which are effective for you. There are a wide range of upgrades from pennies to pounds. Some categories are very busy, and you may find upgrades help to differentiate your auctions and get you more visitors and, hopefully, more sales.

I believe there are four types of sellers operating on eBay.

The distinction between each of these types is quite marked. And the type of seller you are to a large extent determines how successful you’re going to be and therefore has an impact on the amount of money you can potentially earn from eBay.

eBay Seller Type 1

Type one’s are basically eBay amateurs, or newbies. They run a few auctions and sell a few items. They may operate in a specialist niche, but they aren't interested in replicating their sales in other niches. They may well be happy at this level of eBay activity as they have no aspirations to develop their eBay involvement into a business, whether part or full-time.

eBay Seller Type 2

These eBayers are apparently successful. Many PowerSellers are Type two’s. What they do is buy lots of different physical products to sell on eBay. Their time is taken in purchasing products, receiving and storing goods, managing auctions, packaging items and shipping products.

They may be doing well financially, but they work long hours, are tied to their eBay and find it difficult to take a holiday.

eBay Seller Type 3

These are sellers who have found a way to be highly successful in a single category or niche, and they deal in volume. For example, they might sell DVDs or computer memory. They beat off competition from other sellers who offer similar or identical products, normally by aggressive pricing. Such sellers are often held out as the best examples of people making money out of eBay. They have significant turnover, and thousands or even hundreds of thousands of feedback. They can also have employees on their books.

Although successful financially, the truth is they are totally tied to eBay and, like type two’s, find it difficult to fit in a vacation.

eBay Seller Type 4

Type 4 sellers use eBay for what it is - an amazingly powerful marketing tool. For Type fours, eBay is a means to an end, and that end isn't running thousands of auctions concurrently. The end is to create an internet business of which eBay is one element.

Type fours are information sellers. But they are different to most information sellers out there in that what they offer is usually unique and often self-created.

Type fours know that eBay is great place to sell, but realise that it's an even better source of leads for other sales. They treat each visitor to their eBay auctions as prospects. These sellers will try and encourage each prospect to buy from their eBay auction, to visit their website where other items are for sale and to encourage the visitor to leave their email address so that more offers can be made to them in future.

Type four sellers see eBay as a building block, not the end of the line.

What type of eBay seller are you?

There are occasions when you would like to remove your auction off eBay before it has run its full course. You are allowed to close an auction early, however there are limited circumstances where eBay approve of this action.

If the item is no longer for sale - for example you might have sold it elsewhere, or it's been broken, or you've mislaid it - then you can go ahead and close your auction early. If you don't have the item to sell, then you should remove your auction.

These are the pages where you commence the removal process:

To remove your item from eBay.co.uk

To remove your item from eBay.com

Once you've entered your auction number, eBay will ask you to choose the reason which best reflect why you're closing your auction early. The option you almost certainly want ‘Cancel bids and end listing early’. If you opt for ‘Sell item to high bidder and end listing early’ your auction will cease, and your item will be sold to the highest bidder at the point of auction closure.

Bear in mind, however, that closing auctions early isn't really in the spirit of eBay, and you could also upset potential buyers and watchers.

If you're going to close down your auction, it's preferable to do this quickly i.e. well before the auction's end point. eBay frown upon sellers who remove auctions near their conclusion simply because they want to try the auction again and see if they can get a better price next time.

It may be, however, that what you really wanted to do is just change you auction. You may have thought that the only way to do this was to cancel the auction and set it up again with the amendments in place.

But did you know you can revise your listing in just about any way you wish and at any time, subject to a couple of exceptions?

You can change title, description, duration, change/add pictures, add listing upgrades - in fact, virtually anything to do with your auction.

The exceptions are that you can only amend auctions which have more than 12 hours left to run, and which have not received any bids at the time you make the alterations.

Closing your auction early is a legitimate function on eBay, but please make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.

James L Jones is always worth listening to regarding eBay.

If you haven't hear of James, he's a highly respected eBay guru who specialises in giving practical advice and ideas on making the most of eBay.

His latest report is no exception.

"12 Little Known, Niche eBay Markets You Can Profit From Now!" is another classic.

Just 12 pages long, within 5 minutes reading you are bound to find at least one idea you can take and use today in your eBay business.

Download your copy from here.

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

Looks like a bit of hot stuff!

Anybody you feel like firing this at?

Now that's just plain evil!

Mmmmmm. This is making my mouth water

All you need now, is a boat

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