Category — ebay marketing

Selling on eBay can be tricky. There are a lot of small details that can make a big difference on whether the auction was a success or not. In addition to this, ebay charges sellers around 10% in listing and final value fees which quickly erodes any profits being generated. Silent Sales Machine is an eBook written by Jim Cockrum who cut his teach on eBay. In the eBook, Cockrum highlights all the little tricks and secrets that make the difference when you’re trying to build a successful business through eBay. Cockrum will show you how to minimize the eBay fees and maximize your profits.

Silent Sales Machine reveals strategies on how to profit from eBay and it has been a top selling book on this subject for some time. Cockrum explains that eBay is set up for eBay to make a profit and not necessarily the real sellers. His experience has taught him how to outsmart the online auction house and to help sellers beat the system.

His book will show you how to:

Minimize listing and final sales fees.
Draw more attention to your listings.
Offer various secondary offers to your products.
Attract buyers to your lead system for future contact.
How to use use keywords to improve search queries.
Creating titles that attract buyers.

The E-book will show sellers the ins and outs of product pricing and discuss the importance of giving your product the right name. It will also teach sellers how to grab the customers attention. Cockrum made his 6th update to Silent Sales Machine in 2010 and it now includes information on how to use Craigslist, YouTube and other effective internet marketing strategies.

The word on the street regarding Silent Sales Machine is quite positive and if you are new to eBay or have been disappointed in your earnings, then you should consider this book. Quite a bit of feedback came from people already selling on eBay, but looking for ways to become more successful. Some said that they would have quit selling on eBay if they had not implemented some of the strategies that they learned from Cockrum. The tips and strategies that you’ll receive will set you up to for eBay selling success. Cockrum will not only describe how to help reduce the listing and selling fees, but will show you how to retain customers, develop a relationship with them and sell to them in the future without even using eBay. His book is in its 6th edition and still selling well today. It can be purchased for a one-time cost of $24.95.

If you have never seen an eBay television or magazine advert, you might be wondering, What sells on eBay? Is my clutter worth cash? A core part of eBay’s marketing strategy has always been to encourage both serious and private sellers to sell on eBay. Those who earn a living off what they sell know how it works, but eBay has always been keen to target the occasional seller who just wants to have a clear out and to see if they can earn cash doing it.

We’d all like to find treasure down the back of the sofa, or a rare antique in the attic, and indeed some people do. This is a prospect not only suggested by eBay but by popular television programmes that follow private sellers who clear out unwanted items for cash. So, if you don’t want to be stalked by a television crew, eBay could be the best place for you to sell unwanted items, with some fetching more than you might have expected.

It is advisable to learn what you can about any items that you think could be worth a significant amount of money so that you can select the most appropriate starting or reserve price for your items.

Many people just want to clear out everyday items that someone else can use and do not expect a large sum of money; they just want to give it a go and hope for the best. This approach is a healthy one for eBay sellers and can yield some wonderful surprises.

As well as talking to people about what they have sold on eBay, you can browse eBay’s categories to see where your items fit. If the categories relevant to your items are listed, that’s an indication that others have gone before you to sell similar items and that yours may sell too.

Whatever you decide to list, be sure to have familiarised yourself with the rules of how to sell on eBay and try to conclude your transactions successfully by offering good communication and an efficient service to your buyers. 

Problem was, as eBay has quite rightly said, it allowed zillions of 1 cent ebook auctions to spring up, and a lot of them were pure garbage. (Funny, ebay saying that, as most of them were bought on ebay for 1 cent in the first place, then recycled.)

eBay says it was ‘feedback manipulation’ or something, people wanting quick transactions to build up some positive feedback.

So?

I don’t see the harm in getting to 5 or 10 feedbacks as cheaply and quickly as possible. In fact I do that with all new accounts, you can’t really do much until you get some good feedback going. And people who try and sustain this? They’re the ones who always seem to drop off the map, that kind of thing isn’t sustainable, you need at least a buck to cover your fees.

So as usual eBay has used a sledgehammer to get rid of a few pesky ants.

Does this affect my business? Well, yeah. Am I out of business, well, no. It’s just another challenge, time to figure out how best to proceed with the task of making money. It sure was handy, having this automated system, (which quite frankly they should have charged for…), but maybe it’s the kick up the bum, however small, to get back into some other marketing methods.

If you’re familiar with me, you’ll know I only use eBay to find customers, I don’t consider myself to be in an eBay business, it’s a media, just like broadcast fax or email. So instead of sending out an ebook, try putting it on a CD ROM, print it out and mail it, a real physical product has far more percieved value than anything electronic, the internet’s just made it easier and cheaper to deliver information.

So here’s a prediction for you: Direct Mail, that white papery stuff people used to send out before email, is going to make a serious comeback. (Not that it ever went away, you can tell the most successful business owners in that they use ‘offline’ marketing as well as ‘online’.)

So when someone buys your report (sales letter) on eBay, print it out and send it to ‘em…IN THE MAIL! Get it in their hands, help them sit down with a cup of coffe and READ IT. I’m fairly young, and a bit of a computer geek, but even I can’t STAND reading too much stuff on a PC monitor. I ALWAYS print out ebooks and reports I want to read.

The newcomer to the eBay online auction website may find stories of huge wealth a little hard to believe. What is their secret of their overwhelming success? Many of us can’t help but look at these top power sellers and wonder what they know that we don’t.

What is the secret code they know that we don’t?

Some foundations of success aren’t secret at all – it still takes good old fashioned hard work and customer service to become a top seller on Ebay. There are some tips that are used by merchants that you can use as well.

Select your keywords carefully and they must be relevant to what you are selling on eBay. Web pages with plenty of relevant words will show up on web searches. Browsing other peoples’ websites and a little asking around will land you a bagful of killer terms that will work like magic. How do you know which terms buyers are searching for? There are programs (Keyword Pro and Ebay Pulse) that can search terms for you, run by professional people specializing in the field and it would be worthwhile enlisting their service. Add some of these terms to your own listings to increase views. The idea of the keywords is to make your product attractive to buy, therefore they must fulfill this function to the letter. Avoid spamming at all costs, it is not worth it and the consequences can be severe.

It is truly sad to note that there are some poor spellers on the internet and when selling products this is unforgivable. Fatfingers.com is a great site to check for the most regular misspelled words. For example, I searched for the term “scarf”. Sacrf’, sxarf’or other typos were displayed as possible misspelled words for the terms scarf. It is amazing to note that many items you can find at low prices are simply ignored and failed to be taken up just because they are listed with incorrect spelling. Sellers on eBay themselves will find out about these misspelled items and buy them at low process, to later sell them at higher prices. Ebay merchants should be aware of these weaknesses of misspelled items and take great pains to avoid them.

Data analysis is important not only for offline business but also for online business. You will be aware of fast moving selling items as well as the slow ones. Successful eBay merchants know when and which items to buy and sell at opportune times. There are a few software programs that analyze eBay’s data on market conditions. Hot Item Finder (www.hotitemfinder.com) is one such program. Data analyzers are there already to assist you save time and effort doing research yourself. You can also resort to a program called Auction Yen to help you in preparing your marketing strategy. Programs that show what customers really want is indispensable to merchants.

It’s vitally important to keep track of your inventory and auction listings. You can cash in on the expert knowledge and experience of using an eBay selling manager. This online tool helps sellers track and customize their listings, print shipping labels, and more. Saving time is important in eBay trading. Learn all you can from other successful eBay merchants and you will be prosperous. Learn from other peoples mistakes and implement the advice provided here if you are serious about earning a decent living as an ebay seller.

eBay is the grand daddy of online shopping and even though many changes have occurred over the years, it still continues to be one of the top sites on the web. If you already own an e-commerce site or plan on starting one, you should not overlook the power of eBay. It is considered one of the largest search engines when it comes to online products and has a reach of millions all over the world. Smart business owners have been integrating eBay with their own online store and doing it very successfully.

If you currently have an eBay store, but have not made the move to build your own e-commerce website separate of eBay, you are missing out on enormous growth potential. There are a couple of disadvantages of having an exclusive eBay store. The main disadvantage is that your entire business depends on eBay. Even a minor change in their regulation or policy can have a huge impact on your business. You are subject to both insertion fees and final value fees, and a lot of sellers have complained about the increasing rates. Finally, eBay is a marketplace with tons of competition. The typical eBay buyer is usually very price conscious and is always looking for a bargain. In order to stay competitive and turn that person into a buying customer, you have to ensure that your product prices are low. Attracting customers with low prices is a good method, but not if your entire business depends on it.

If you already have an e-commerce store, but do not have an eBay presence, you are losing out on a massive number of potential customers. It’s extremely hard to make your mark on the web when there’s so much competition everywhere, especially in the very beginning. You have to work on your store’s SEO, marketing to a targeted audience and spend big bucks on advertising across the web. Being on eBay allows you to get your products in front of people who are ready and willing to spend money. They are prepared to make a purchase and are simply browsing to find the products they need. If you can make the sale, you should use it as an opportunity to establish a relationship with this person so that he or she can buy from your again in the future. The great thing about eBay is that they are extremely well known and their buyers feel safe. If you give them the impression that you are a trusted seller, they will not have a problem purchasing from you again through your own e-commerce store.

There are many ways you can encourage eBay users to directly purchase products through your own ecommerce website. Doing so will help you build a bigger following and lower your costs by forgoing all those eBay fees. Another thing you can do is create links to redirect people off the eBay website. You are restricted from directly doing this on eBay’s product listing pages, but you can add any kind of outbound links on your ‘About Me’ page. You can even use HTML to build an amazing looking ‘About Me’ page with links to get people to visit your ecommerce store. If you want to get people who have found your products on eBay to check out your ‘About Me’ page, entice them with discounts or free shipping. You are allowed to link to other eBay pages on your product listing pages so make sure to include noticeable links to your ‘About Me’ page near the top of your listing. Images can also be used for the same purpose. Add watermarks of your store URL and add them to all of your product images. Make it appear distinguishable and more eBay users will be taken to your own website.

There are several other creative ways to introduce your e-commerce store to eBay customers. Email is another great method. You will need to correspond with eBay users via email so make sure to use an email that includes the domain of your online store. Don’t forget to add a signature on the footer of your emails with information regarding your e-commerce site and a direct link to it. After someone makes a purchase, make sure to include thank you cards or sticker logos with your online store URL printed on it. Provide coupons for future purchases through your online store or give them free shipping. That’s how you get a life-long customer out of a one time eBay purchase.

Look, eBay may not be the very first thing you thought of when you decided you needed more customers in your small business. Maybe you have a clothing store, a plumbing business, maybe you’re an interior decorator. With all these, with all businesses, you can easily use eBay to make more money.

How?

There are a few different, simple ways to do it. One is advertise your products or services directly on eBay. Or you could come up with some new product that is able to be sold on eBay.

Or you can approach eBay with a completely different mindset: Lead Generation.

The thing with eBay is, it’s become a media in itself. It’s a 40+ billion dollar company, all without selling a single physical product. Nah, we

just use the site to make money, and eBay takes a piece of that. And how do we use media? Generate leads.

Tried ‘fax broadcast’ a while ago. Had a few replies come in when I was just directing people to a 1800 toll free recorded message. But when I tried to sell ‘off the page’, tried to get them to order from a 1 page fax? Zero response. Asking the media to do too much.

Try a low priced product, an information product. I’d give away my information packs on eBay if I could, but you have to charge at least 1 cent.(Plus this qualifies the prospect better). Use ‘digital delivery’ to automate the process, if you want.

The best thing about these sales, it ain’t the 99 cents you make, it ain’t the feedback you get, it’s the prospect you get, a person, an email address, a street address, a real live person interested in what you have for sale.

This can bring your bricks and mortar business to the worldwide marketplace. So instead of relying on people passing by, or a $500 ad in the local paper, you can spend 30 cents to get prospects from around the world. Even if you simply come up with a short information pack, even if you just use current marketing materials, even if you pay a copywriter to make you up a professional package,

the important thing is to get the prospect, then you can email them, (no spamming of course), you can mail them your direct mail package, you

often get a phone number, just follow up with them with more of what they already want.

eBay: Richelle Parham

Chief Marketing Officer, eBay North America
Get the latest info on Richelle Parham via eBay Ink:
ebayinkblog.com/2010/10/15/breaking-richelle-parham-joins…

eBay Inc. and GSI Commerce Announce Settlement of Claims Regarding Proposed Acquisition
SAN JOSE, Calif. & KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) and GSI Commerce (NASDAQ: GSIC) announced today that the companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with GSI shareholders settling claims filed.

eBay Settles Suits Over GSI Acquisition
EBay said Monday it had agreed to settle lawsuits over its planned acquisition of GSI Commerce by making an additional payment to GSI shareholders and selling some assets to GSI CEO Michael Rubin.

EBay buys Magento to boost its e-commerce developer tools
In a move that could help eBay improve its tools for online store developers, it has acquired Magento, the maker of an open source e-commerce platform.

eBay sellers need to be subjected from time-to-time with free eBay business training. By availing of free eBay business training, the eBay sellers, whether part time or full time will get new updates on important things that will determine their success in Selling on eBay, and Other Online Auctions.

There’s the most remarkable free conference we learned about that focus on product acquisitions and selling online. The speaker, Craig Meyer, is the real deal.

If you have ever thought about running a business from your home, This free eBay business training conference by Meyer is a “don’t miss” hour and 1/2 live presentation. There is also the option to take the recorded version of the presentation at your own pace. The auction secrets you’ll learn will cut years off your eBay learning curve.

During the free eBay business training, Meyer took the time to distinguish the attendants of his conference and get them to share their personal experiences.

One of the students, Chris Twig, shared that he started only a year ago. Craig’s team located a product, negotiated terms, and is now successfully marketing his website. He now only sells products by the wholesale truckload, and his product is featured on QVC. He doesn’t even need to carry inventory anymore!

Thinking about how much people are earning on eBay? On free eBay business trainings, like the ones given by Craig Meyer. so I urge you to take the time to listen to Craig Meyer, a pro who walks-the-walk.

After Meeyer’s free eBay business training, he gives you an auction toolkit of the latest auction tools that will help you succeed on eBay and avoid all the common auction traps.

Once you come out of free eBay business training, your eyes will be opened up round for good sources and programs that’s designed to bolster your online auction campaigns.

You will know how to accquire programs like Fotokiss. Fotokiss is a program which helps you upload your photos and blow them up to make them stand out to customers. You won’t need expensive programs like photoshop. This software suite will help you blow your competition off the map.

And best yet, it’s all free! You are granted this as token of appreciation in your attendance to the free eBay business training event that focuses on making big money with eBay and the Internet.

Whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced seller, this free eBay business training is like a shoe, where one size fits all.  In a span of 90-minutes online presentation your mind is filled with newer ideas, a lot more resources and selling secrets you have not encountered before.
This free eBay business training is conducted from Mayer’s office right in the comfort of your home or office on your personal computer. All you need is a phone and computer with an internet connection.

When you come out of this free eBay business training conference you begin to imagine being an eBay Online Auction power-seller earning $5,000 to $10,000 a month. The training will give you the proper boost to know that anyone can do it with the right product niche. Thousands of regular people just like you and I are doing this right now and so can you!

What you will learn in the free eBay business trainings:
1. Secrets of creating ads

2. Carving a product niche with high profit margins!

3. Why you should not work with product consolidators!

4. Dealing with manufacturers to drop-ship directly
to your customers

5. Marketing only one or two products and sell multiples
of such over and over
6. The reasons you need a website and where you can get a free one.

7. Knowing a systematic approach to making big money using eBay and
the Internet.

Take advantage of free eBay business trainings whenever possible. Why take two or three years to learn what you can during free eBay business trainings online. It works if you make it work.

Most probabaly the first thing you’ll ever learn in these free eBay business trainings is your willingness to put up five to ten more hours a week into your business. You’ll also learn that in order to succeed to the heights of glory in the eBay business, you need to work smarter not harder!

Selling on Ebay is fun. And not only is it fun, but it’s also easy. It’s very easy for a new beginner to go from clueless to knowing how to sell successfully on Ebay in no time at all. But during this process of learning how to sell on Ebay, you should follow a few simple steps that will guide you on the road to success. Here’s the first step that you should follow:

STEP 1: Go into a niche

Niche marketing is the fastest way to make money in any business. And when it comes to Ebay, there’s no exception. You first want to identify the items that you’re passionate about, and also what’s currently hot and selling right now.

All of this market research will prove to be very valuable when you begin selling, as it will only result in multitudes of sales. Once you see a niche that can be highly profitable for you, you want to jump on this bandwagon and start selling right away.

STEP 2: Know who your competitors are

Before selling, you first want to identify who your rivals are. Knowing who your competition is a wise thing to do because you can emulate what they’re doing – especially if they’re selling success. But another reason you want to know who your competitors are is to see what they’re doing wrong, so you can avoid their mistakes also. Anything unsuccessful you don’t want to do, so it’s important to do your homework on your competitors also.

STEP 3: Sell hot products

You want to market and sell proven winners – and this goes back to step number 1. After you’ve identified a niche that you want to sell in, you want to find a supplier who can supply you with valuable goods at low prices. To find suppliers, simply go to Google and type in “ebay wholesale suppliers” or “ebay wholesalers”. You will find a ton of suppliers but you want some that are legit and that truly offer products at wholesale prices.

STEP 4: Don’t bet the farm

When starting out, you don’t have to invest a lot of money on your Ebay business. Start slow, and whatever doesn’t work, toss it out and proceed with the winners. Ebay is a great place for earning money online, but when starting out you don’t have to invest everything in order to make money.

STEP 5: Test, test, test

I can’t stress this point enough. Testing is important in any business, and Ebay is no exception. You want to test everything. Test your offer, test your prices, test your products, test your email campaigns, test your Ebay store design – test everything. You want to test so that you can only sell proven winners, and not spend time on the losers. This way you profit more while spending less.

Ebay is a fabulous start if you want to earn extra income online and I suggest you get started selling on Ebay today. After becoming successful with Ebay on a part-time basis, you may wish to go full-time and eventually quit your day job. But no matter what you do, when you get started on Ebay, follow these 5 steps and watch your Ebay profits soar! Good luck!

As an eBay seller, your goal most likely is to make some extra income by selling products on eBay. Unfortunately, there are millions of competitions who are interested in doing the same thing as you. However with the help of marketing, you still can make a good profit using eBay even with competitors.

Selling on eBay is like a retailer has an online store selling products online. Although listing your items on eBay will get your items enough exposure, we still can take a step farther to promote your auctions. There are many ways to advertise your eBay auctions for free.

One of the best ways to promote is by joining the eBay community, which also known as forum. Forum is always a good place to advertise your auction listing. When you are active in eBay community, your eBay name is your community screen name. This help to increase your name exposure to the community. In eBay community forum, whenever you reply a post or start a new post, leave a link to your main eBay webpage. The webpage is the page where shows all the items currently you put up on sale. This will make eBay community members curious and click your webpage. It is common for them to find something that catches their eye. Having conversations with eBay community members will help in your exposure too!

Another way is to promote your listing to the public forum which the forum topic is related to what you are selling. When you post the information of the items you need to have a short description and a link to increase your eBay exposure and the chances of closing a sale. Remember not to spam on forums, this will make your reputation bad.

The last way is signatures. This is where you can type whatever message you want and it will show whenever you make a post. This space is very good for promoting your auctions. So make use of this signature to help you increase chances of making sales. Before advertising on any forums, you need to check the forum’s policy and rules. If they allowed posting link, it is best to take advantage of this free powerful internet marketing method. Remember to add phrase that attract or promote them to your webpage or at the end of each eBay listings. A simple example will be like, “check out what other great deals I have in eBay auctions!”. Short and Sweet.

With all the above methods mentioned, you can easily increase the exposure of your listing and as well as increase the chances of making sale.

Check out my personal blog, http://leolinghome.com/ebay-dropshipping/, to find out how to earn pure profit without any investment.