• Welcome from Brian McGregor
• 1. Thought for the Day
• 2. Supply and Demand on eBay
• 3. Talking About eBay Searching
• 4. News & Views:
  Your eBay Account Has Been Suspended!
  Your View Requested
  Announcing the Demise of Yahoo Auctions
• 5. Someone's Auctioning What???
• Back to Newsletter Archive

When you're trying to decide what are the best products to sell on eBay, some of the eBay guru's approach the issue from the wrong end of the spectrum - in my humble opinion.

They tell you to find those eBay categories which have the most listings. Their logic is that categories which have the highest number of listings must contain the most popular products. Whilst such categories well have lots of products for sale, that is only looking at the supply side.

I would suggest that what you really want to know is what are people looking to buy and bid on. In other words the demand side of the equation. But can you find out what people are searching for in eBay?

The answer is yes. With eBay Pulse.

USA eBay - http://pulse.ebay.com/

UK eBay - http://pulse.ebay.co.uk/

Canada eBay - http://pulse.ebay.ca/

Australia eBay - http://pulse.ebay.com.au/

For other countries, the quickest way to find your eBay Pulse page is probably to go onto eBay's Site Map. The Site Map link is at the bottom of the home page - and you'll find the eBay Pulse link under More Ways to Find Items within the Site Map.

The beauty of eBay Pulse is that it shows you the most searched words on eBay by category and sub-category. In other words, these are the words input by searchers looking for items to buy. This information is priceless. You're being told what buyers are currently looking for.

Now that's highly valuable market intelligence - real information you can use to determine the best products to sell on eBay.

Talking about finding products to sell, I'm currently using a superb software program created by James Jones. He's just made some short videos that show you 5 different ways anyone can profit from what he calls micro under-the-radar niche markets. One of the videos is about making more money on eBay. It's a real eye-opener.

http://www.workwinners.com/nichefinder/

Did you know that eBay was currently experimenting (again!) with the way in which they decide which listings to return in response to a normal search?

As you probably know, eBay's standard search takes the word(s) input by the searcher and returns auctions which contain those keywords in their auction titles.

The change they are experimenting with involves item specifics. You'll know that in many categories when you're listing an item to sell you are invited to complete item specifics fields from drop-down boxes. I know many sellers just ignore this section of the seller's forms figuring that as all of the facts about their item is included in the auction description that it is a waste of time completing the item specifics.

Well, now there is a reason to make sure your item specifics are completed. It's because the search return experiment I mentioned takes into account the information contained in item specifics.

It's early days, and it's only an experiment. However, my advice to you is to get started and make sure you have items specifics fully completed for all the items you're selling on eBay. You can read more here:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200705031513002.html

Your eBay Account Has Been Suspended!

There's a debate going on at the AuctionBytes website about how to tackle eBay when they unfairly suspend a member's account. Whilst I have every sympathy with anyone who loses their eBay account in this way, there is something you can do BEFORE the event to protect yourselves. For what it's worth, here's my input:

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2007/6/1182798373.html#1182928391


Your View Requested

I'm using a new technique on the website for my ebook 'The eBay Formula':

http://www.more-auction-sales.com

I wonder if you could take a look and see if you think it works. I don't need to tell you what the technique is - it's instantly obvious.

The effect is called peelaway ads. If you're interested in using them on your own websites or Wordpress blogs, you can get all the information here:

http://www.workwinners.com/peelawayads/


Announcing the Demise of Yahoo Auctions

You may have noticed that Yahoo Auctions ceased trading from 16th June. What was started as an attempt to compete with eBay has died with a whimper.

Personally I think it is a shame. The more competition eBay has, the harder they have to try to please their members.

However, if you're looking for a free place to list items for sale, you can still post them on Google Base. It's a great place to get more exposure in Google search results, plus Google Base also makes it easy to import all your listings in bulk from eBay. Check it out here:

http://base.google.com/

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

I just wondered if the chinese meal container came with this? See photo number 4.

Want to let people know you're a hard guy? This could be for you.

Like the first daffodil of spring, here's another first sighting in 2007.

Don't look at this if you're easily offended!

How come I didn't see these. I only live 5 miles away!

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