• Welcome from Brian McGregor
• 1. Thought for the Day
• 2. Sit up at the Back of the Class!
• 3. Make Money on eBay Without Selling Anything on eBay
• 4. PowerSeller Ambitions?
• 5. A Gift From Me to You
• 6. News & Views:
  The Nielsen Premier League
  Could you Launch the Next eBay?
  A Woolworth Legacy
  Make Money Outside of eBay
  Is your Private Data for sale on eBay?
  Just call me Danny Boyle!
• 7. Someone's Auctioning What???
• Back to Newsletter Archive
  

Do your friends, family and colleagues a favour, and share this eBay Auction Newsletter with them. Why not email them a copy NOW?

Or tell them to grab their own copy free from:
http://www.auctioninnercircle.com

Mary Pickford

There's an old saying that goes something along the lines of "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

This is clearly unfair on those who offer any kind of education.

Well, if you know how to "do" eBay, have you ever thought about teaching it to others?

You may be aware that there are eBay Education Specialists around who have eBay's official sanction to train other in eBay. But did you know that you can apply to become an eBay Education Specialist?

eBay's training program for prospective Education Specialists is managed by a company called PowerU. You can read about their service at http://www.poweru.net/ebay/. If you're in the UK, their site is http://www.espunitedkingdom.com/ebay/

The process begins with signing up. During the signup process you'll need to enter your eBay ID so they can verify your eligibility.

Then, you receive your "The Basics of Selling on eBay" Welcome Package. This includes an Instructor Manual, Student Manual and Instructor Presentation CD).

The next stage is that you take an online course. This is basically a test, to make sure you have the appropriate level of eBay knowledge in order for you to teach others.

Once you've passed the test you will receive your certificate, the official "Education Specialist trained by eBay" logo and also student materials. In addition, you will be able to list your classes in the eBay class directory on the PowerU website.

Plus, you will also be eligible to participate in more advanced curriculum such as Beyond the Basics, Giving Works, eBay Stores, and the Business Consultant Program.

Here's a thought. Go onto the appropriate PowerU website, click on the Instructor Directory link and enter your Post Code/Zip Code. You will be able to see if there are any eBay Education Specialists in your area. If there aren't, there could be an interesting business opportunity for you to offer official eBay training in your locale.

You could prove that those who can, both do and teach!

And you could be at the start of an interesting new way to bring in extra money.

Guest Article by Skip McGrath

Thousands of sellers make thousands of dollars a month selling their products on eBay. What's not as well known is the number of people who are making thousands of dollars every month from eBay WITHOUT selling on eBay.

eBay offers one of the most generous affiliate programs on the Internet. It is called the eBay Partner Program and it is a great way to make money on eBay.

To get started, you first need to join the affiliate program. Go to the bottom of any country site eBay home page and click on the link that says Affiliates. This will take you to a page that explains the program, how you get paid and how to join. It doesn't cost you anything. Be patient the whole process takes a couple of days. And be sure and check you spam filter if you don't see a confirming email from eBay with instructions to complete the process.

Making money on eBay is easy with the affiliate program but there are some steps you need to go through. eBay has plenty of tools to help you make money. And there are several third party tools to help you. These cost some money but not that much and can repay their value several times over.

How do I make money on eBay with this program?

You start by creating a blog or a website that you use to direct traffic to eBay. eBay pays for two actions: Registration and when someone you've referred bids and buys.

A great way to get started is with a product from eBay seller, Mike Enos. Mike has launched an instant niche maker website builder. This is a tool that instantly builds little niche websites linked to your eBay affiliate code and several other affiliate sites as well. You don't need any technical knowledge. The program is called Instant Niche Maker. Click on this link http://www.instantnichemaker.com/160.html and you can get a 5-day trial for just $4.95.

(Note from Editor - Build A Niche Site is system specifically built to create web sites for eBay affiliates which automatically incorporate your eBay links. You can find out more at
http://www.workwinners.com/buildnichestore/)

Once you've built your site or blog, then you need to market. You can market it by just creating content with free articles. This will help search engines find you. And you can buy keywords - but stay away from the really expensive one. Look for little niche keywords

You can also use free classified ad sites like Craig's List, US Freeads and Kijiji.

Are there really any people making money on eBay with this program?

Apparently there are. Most months I make around $300-$400. My best month with the program was just over $700, but I haven't really promoted it that much. Basically I am just grabbing some traffic from people who find my website or blog. But there are some people making really big money with the program.

A large affiliate blog did a survey of 300 eBay affiliates last year. By far, most of the affiliates reported making less than $300 a month, but about 9% were making over $2500 a month and the top 1% were making over $10,000 a month. I met a couple of these super affiliates at eBay Live last year. What it all came down to was how much they worked at it. One guy I spoke with has 5 blogs and two websites. He religiously spends three hours a day adding content to his blogs and another three or four hours a week on his two websites. He told me he averages around $7-8,000 a month from the program and his blogs generate another $2000 + from the Google AdSense program. That's not too bad for essentially a 20-hour week.

When I met with the eBay folks who run the partner network at eBay Live in Chicago, they told me there were 14 super affiliates who make over $500,000 a year with the eBay partner program. I honestly don't know how they do that and what their secrets are but I guess it proves that you really can make good money with the eBay affiliate program.

How much will I get paid?

eBay has some of the most generous affiliate commissions on the web and how much you earn depends on how much quality traffic you drive every month - the more you drive, the more you earn. The payment plan is a little too long to explain here, but here is a link where you can read about it.

( Note from Editor - If you're UK based, your affiliate commissions are outlined here )

How do I get paid?

Getting paid is very straight forward on the eBay Partner Network. You will be paid monthly on around the 18th of each month. eBay offers two methods of payment - you can choose either Direct Deposit or PayPal. Both options are free and note that for PayPal you will not have to pay the regular fee for receiving money.

Tools

eBay and others provide some great tools to help you make money with the eBay affiliate program:

* Link Generator - The link generator allows you to create a trackable link to any of eBay's millions of web pages and is great for all types of business models. By using this tool to direct visitors to relevant pages you can significantly increase conversion rates.

* PhpBay - PhpBay is a product that allows you to create links from a WordPress Blog to drive people to the eBay affiliate program. This is one of those things that looks a little complicated at first but is really simple once you get into it. More information here

* Creatives - One of the simplest methods of advertising eBay is by placing the eBay logo onto your website. The eBay Partner Network provides high-performing creatives to maximize the amount of commission you receive.

* Editor Kit - You can add relevant, real-time eBay listings to your websites in just seconds with the Editor Kit. This tool has been proven to produce much higher click through rates than traditional banners. For example, if you have a website or a blog about digital photography, you can add eBay listings of cameras for sale on eBay.

* RSS Feed Generator - The RSS Feed Generator is an easy way for affiliates to generate RSS feeds showing dynamic eBay content that include trackable links to items. The RSS Feed Generator has been embedded into eBay Advanced Search and allows affiliates to create feeds that meet predefined search criteria.

* API - If you are a website developer or really tech-savvy, you can use eBay's API (Application Programming Interface) to access eBay's listings database. This enables you to gather information and present it to your users in a customized format that you define. You can build desktop applications, custom integrations for shopping comparison sites or create other innovative applications.

If you still don't know what an eBay PowerSeller is, maybe its time you should.

eBay PowerSellers are sellers who have reached a certain level of sales performance and have maintained a high number of positive feedback. An eBay PowerSeller is recognisable by the little 'PowerSeller' badge that's attached to their names.

It's probable that you've seen these people around, probably even dealt with them. They are the epitome of success in the eBay scene. They are even treated as celebrities.

eBay decides who should be bestowed the recognition of being an eBay PowerSeller. They have set up strict requirements on how to identify the coveted title of eBay PowerSeller.

In order to pass up into the minimum eBay PowerSeller level, the bronze, an eBay seller must have a feedback rating of at least 100 (minimum 98% positive) and the quota of sales is at least $1,000 worth of items every month for three months in a row.

Here are the monthly targets equating to the different levels of PowerSeller:

$1,000 is bronze
$3,000 is silver
$10,000 is gold
$25,000 is platinum
$125,000 is titanium

If you're UK based, then these are the monthly sales level criteria:

£750 is bronze
£1,500 is silver
£6,000 is gold
£15,000 is platinum
£95,000 is titanium

Once you become an eBay PowerSeller member, you need to maintain it. eBay PowerSellers are in danger of losing their much coveted status if they fail to meet the required amount of sales and positive feedback. To put it simply, the people who get to become eBay PowerSellers are people who have been constantly successful and have started in eBay quite awhile, and are very determined to stay that way.

It's possible for anyone of us to become an eBay PowerSeller. If you are determined enough to succeed on eBay, then you must start reforming your thinking, and think the way these eBay PowerSellers do.

Know and understand how an eBay PowerSeller thinks about their shop and the marketplace.

This is the most important aspect in understanding how eBay PowerSellers think. First, they don't view what they're doing as some kind of random bazaar where anything goes. They don't even think of it as a hobby, where you get some fun out of earning some money. An ambitious PowerSeller considers what they're doing as a business - and a serious, risk-taking, stake holding business, at that.

Let's take for example running a stall in a marketplace. Once you put up a stall, the chances are that you have a general area of business, but mostly you just sell whatever product you can come up with that's worth selling or anything that happens to be available. Whatever the source and any product that are wholly available, you put up for sale. This may be quite fun for a while. If you strike lucky on a particular week, then you can declare that you really had a good week - sizeable profits and all. But this kind of haphazard selling is no way to run a real business for a long term basis.

Most PowerSellers won't run their eBay business in this fashion. They are more structured in their approach. They specialize on a certain product and lock on to a target market. Every week, they sell the same things again and again. This means that they put up regular stock of the same product for regular customers. They keep tabs tightly on things that matter in the business, like keeping inventories and sales records.

A PowerSeller knows specifically what they're going to be selling, exactly how much they buy it for and for how much they'll sell the items. Just like any other business, they will have their ups and downs, but a PowerSeller aims to keep on improving. Slowly but surely is the name of the game.

Be serious and focused, look after your reputation, manage your selling properly and provide great customer service. Your rewards will come.

With this approach, you'll soon get that little badge next to your eBay name that reads, eBay PowerSeller.

The Nielsen Premier League

According to Nielsen Research, the name “ebay” was searched for a whopping 19.3 million times in January, with “walmart” coming in a distant second with almost 6.1 million searches and “amazon” third with just over 5.2 million searches.

These were the top retailer names searched for in January 2009, according to data from Nielsen Online’s MegaView Search Custom Data. The MegaView Search data is based on tallies from 58 search engines.

Here are the top 20 retailer names searched in January:

1) ebay, 19,321,000
2) walmart, 6,061,000
3) amazon, 5,227,000
4) best buy, 4,058,000
5) target, 3,742,000
6) netflix, 3,067,000
7) circuit city, 2,990,000
8) home depot, 2,790,000
9) sears, 2,020,000
10) lowes, 2,005,000
11) office depot, 1,700,000
12) macys, 1,452,000
13) costco, 1,395,000
14) staples, 1,351,000
15) qvc, 1,283,000
16) walgreens, 1,247,000
17) barnes and noble, 1,120,000
18) kohls, 955,000
19) kmart, 947,000
20) office max, 927,000


Could you Launch the Next eBay?

If you've ever thought of launching your own Auction Website like eBay, then this eBay Clone Auction website script could fit the bill.

You can see a demonstration here:
http://www.webdevelopmenthouse.com/ebay-clone

If you want to look in the "back office", go here:
http://www.webdevelopmenthouse.com/ebay-clone/admin

login id: admin
password: admin

It would be very difficult to compete head-on with eBay, but there will always be a place for niche auction sites, which concentrate on a limited, specialist product area.

Who knows where this might lead?

A Woolworth Legacy

A bag of Woolworth's pick 'n' mix sweets from the store in Petts Wood, Kent, England, sold on eBay for £14,500 (more than $20,000).

The store was one of many Woolworths' premises which closed due to the company hitting hard times.

Ed Adams, the store manager, grabbed the mixture - the last bag of pic 'n' mix.

Proceeds from the sale are to go to the Retail Trust, a non-profit organisation helping store workers.

Here's hoping the staff find alternative jobs soon.

Make Money Outside of eBay

If you have any internet marketing experience, there is an undoubted demand for these skills by the hundreds of small businesses in your area that are struggling to survive in the recession.

Most of them have little knowledge of the power of the internet, and of email marketing in particular. You can help them, and make money for yourself.

Here's some information on how you can do it...

http://offlineconsultanttoolkit.com/?e=octsuccess

Is your Private Data for sale on eBay?

A New York computer forensics firm said that 40 of 100 hard disk drives it recently purchased in bulk orders on eBay contained personal information, including corporate financial data, DNS server information, and personal e-mail and photos.

"We were surprised with the percentage of disks that we found data on," said Kessler International CEO Michael Kessler. "We expected most of the drives to be wiped -- to find one or two disks with data. But 40 drives out of 100 is a lot."

Kessler's engineers had to use special forensics software to retrieve data from some of the hard drives. In other cases, however, sensitive information had not even been overwritten or erased by the sellers.

All of which reminds me how vulnerable we can all be. If you're concerned about people getting at the data on your PC, you might light to consider this;
http://www.auctioninnercircle.com/spyware_removal_videos/

Just call me Danny Boyle!

Have you ever seen those videos with cool graphics and music in the background? I'm sure you thought that you needed to be a technology geek to figure it out. It turns out that you don't need any skill to make a great looking video.

There is a website out there that can help you convert a few pictures into a great looking 30 second video. Surprise and amaze your friends with professional looking videos.
http://www.animoto.com

What's that? Who's Danny Boyle?

He's just won the Oscar as Best Director, for his movie "Slumdog Millionaire".

Nothing surprises me when it comes to internet auctions. Amuse yourself with some of these beauties in our regular trawl through eBay's auctions.

Here are some auctions I've spotted as I trawled eBay recently:-

Perhaps not exactly right for the church fete!

I'm sure I saw this on Dragon's Den.

Don't you wish you understood art?

Think Ryanair might charge for these next?


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