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.
In this issue I aim to give you real value for money.
How about several eBay related products at zero cost?
Such items are quite hard to find...
I'm frequently approached by product owners asking me to promote their products to you, my reader.
My policy is that I will consider any product - providing two conditions are met.
The first is that the product must be eBay specific. I will not promote anything unless it has a clear use on or with eBay.
The second condition I apply is that I want to see/try the product first, before I consider introducing it t you.
So, if you're a product owner, please don't approach me with it unless it is eBay related and unless you're prepared to enable me to see/try it first.
Having said that, take a look at the special section in this issue with several freebies which I've carefully selected as being useful to you in your eBay business.
Look forward to speaking with you again.
Inspirational Quote of the Day
"The results you achieve will be in direct proportion to the effort you apply." Denis Waitley
News and Views
1. Get $15 Free From PayPal
Here is a very unusual offer. Pay Pal wants to give you $15.
Let me qualify that.
Pay Pal wants to give you $15 provided you are US or Canadian based.
If you are, and you have a PayPal account and use it before 31st March to make a purchase valued at $30 or over, you can qualify for a refund of $15.
All you have to do is to register for the offer, make a qualifying purchase (for example from an eBay auction), and you'll get your $15 refunded back to your PayPal account by 28th May, 2007.
You can read more about this offer, and register for it here.
2. Here's a Guy Who is Flying High
As you will know, I've always maintained that you can sell just about anything on eBay. Here's another very creative example!
What about DVDs containing amateur footage of aircraft featuring such exciting events as taking off, landing, taxying down the runway?
That is what this seller is doing, and making a comfortable income with it. Here's one of the seller's current auctions:
When you get to the auction page, you should also check out this guys other auctions.
Anyone got a camcorder they can lend me?
3. How to Make Your Auction Stand Out From the Rest
Just imagine if you could get a TV presenter extolling the virtues of your auction item right in the middle of your auction page?
Well, now you can. With SitePal, you generate your own script, and you select which animated character you would like to speak your words on your behalf.
This is a fantastic facility and won Small Business Technology Magazine's "Product to Watch" Award in 2006.
You can try it out on this demonstration page. I must warn you, be careful what you type in. There is no censor, the character will speak every syllable!
But it is fun!
Just click once to start. And then type what you want in the box!
4. Professional Presentation = More Sales
Do you sell ebooks or software on eBay? If so, this could be for you...
Studies show that a customer arriving at a sales page takes less than a minute to decide whether or not to buy from you.
With less than 60 seconds to influence someone about your offer, you need to make a big impact in a short amount of time.
Professional ebook covers and software boxes have been proven to be one of the best ways to do this. Unfortunately creating eCovers can be expensive to outsource, and time consuming to do yourself.
Here is an excellent product which can give any ebook, software product or website a hot, fresh, new look in minutes. You get professional ebook covers, software box covers and website header templates, all of which you can change to include the words you want.
Take a look yourself, and see if this might help you improve the look of digital products you sell on eBay.
I am launching Brian McGregor's Auction Inner Circle soon.
The Auction Inner Circle will be a place where you can get your hands on lots of eBay resources, all exclusive to Auction Inner Circle members.
The great news is that subscribers to my newsletter will automatically become free members of my Auction Inner Circle.
Watch this space!
7. Deleted by Accident
One of the worst feelings is when you delete a file by mistake. Depending on what application you're in, such files cannot be recovered once you've emptied them from the Recycle Bin.
I've come across a really useful software program which enables you to recover files which you have deleted by accident.
You will find most such file recovery products cost $67, $97 or even $197. This does it for only $27.
Many eBay sellers are making money by selling ebooks on eBay.
There are several benefits to ebooks, such as the automated delivery, high profit margin and no physical shipping.
However, the ebook market on eBay does have downsides. For example you can suffer from too much competition. What this means is that you often find sellers on eBay offer ebooks at ridiculously low prices. Plus, not everybody on eBay understands what ebooks are. Many people prefer buying tangible products.
There are a couple of ways in which you can alleviate these problems. One is by selling unique ebooks, where nobody else can offer the same item and thus you avoid price implosion caused by too much competition.
Another tactic is to sell in high volume. It might be OK to make $0.99 per ebook sale, providing you're selling a few hundred a day or week.
If an interested potential purchaser doesn't understand the concept of ebooks, they won't even bother to bid or buy.
There is an alternative solution which you might like to consider.
There is no doubt that physical books have a higher perceived value than ebooks, which means you can usually command a higher price.
If you have ebooks which you've written yourself, or for which you have resell rights, why not convert your ebook into a physical book?
This can now be achieved very easily. Listen to this for a system...
You submit a text file of your ebook.
You select a cover from a large range of pre-prepared templates.
You decide whether you want a hardback or softback book.
You set the price you want to charge for your book.
And all of this is free.
Once you've taken these decisions, your physical book can be ordered in single quantities. You have no commitment to buy any copies of your book.
They will also deliver your physical book direct to your end customer.
The company that offers all of this is www.lulu.com
In summary, you convert an ebook into a book, you auction your book, collect your payment, place an order on lulu and send them payment, and they deliver to your buyer.
It's the ultimate dropship system...
PLUS you could have zero competition on eBay!
Would you like to take look at one of my own ebooks which I had them convert into a physical book? It's all about growing garden roses.
Don't Lose Out Through This Change of eBay Policy
eBay have "sneaked" out a change of policy which you might not have noticed.
You may know that if you list on ebay.co.uk, your auction will also appear in the default search results on ebay.com.
The change is that eBay are currently testing whereby ebay.co.uk listings no longer appear on ebay.com.
What this means is that ebay.com buyers will be getting less choice, in that UK auction items will not appear in USA eBay default results.
Also, ebay.co.uk sellers lose the exposure on ebay.com that was previously standard for their auctions.
It seems that the reverse is not happening. By this I mean that if you list on ebay.com, then your auction will still appear on the default search results for both USA and UK eBay.
If you're a UK based seller, and USA is your primary market, all you have to do is list your auctions directly on ebay.com. Simply go to www.ebay.com, login with your ebay ID and password and you can create auctions directly on ebay.com. Your auctions will appear on both USA and UK eBay.
If you're a UK based seller, and USA is not your primary market, then you should continue to list on ebay.co.uk but bear in mind that you will not receive any exposure on ebay.com.
Here are a bunch of tools which you may find helpful in your day to day activity on eBay.
The great news is that they're all free.....
1. Dealfinder
If you're looking for bargains on eBay, try Dealfinder. This online tool lets you find items which items have zero bids, less than 4 hours left, no reserve price, free or fixed rate shipping and a total price that includes shipping costs.
It's well known that one of the best ways to locate bargains on eBay is to seek out auctions where the seller has made spelling errors in the auction title. The consequence of such errors can be that the auction is not returned very often in searches and thus attracts few bids. Here's an excellent misspelling tool which runs online. I tried "panasonic" and was pleasantly surprised by the results:
eBay recently introduced a method whereby sellers of digital products could have their products delivered automatically with eBay's help. This ebook explains how to use eBay's Digital Delivery Service. You can download it from here:
This useful software product gives you the most popular search terms used by searchers on eBay. In addition , it enables you to determine which will be the most effective category in which to place your item for sale. You can download Auction Category Master from here:
