77 Tips and Tools for Selling on The New eBay

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You can make your text bold by typing at the beginning of the bold text and where you want it to end.

Go to: http://www.davesite.com for a simple and free online tutorial on how to do HTML.

29. Create attractive backgrounds for your auctions

Go to: http://www.grsites.com/textures to get free background textures for your auction item descriptions. Over 6000 backgrounds are available at no cost.

30. If you are going to be in this business – you need to know the vocabulary.

Net Lingo at http://www.netlingo.com is a free site that teaches you all the terms and lingo of the world wide web and various online services.

31. Get a professional auction education

* Attend eBay Live (The next conference is in Orlando 2010).
* Attend the online eBay workshops (Look on the announcement board for the schedules)
* Use the various eBay online tutorials
* Print out the eBay help files and place them in a 3-ring notebook for easy reference.
* Print this document out (77 tips) out and put it in the same notebook.
* Buy some of the great eBay training books from The Auction Seller’s Resource Bookshop

32. Incorporate to Protect yourself from liability

Not many people get sued selling stuff on eBay, but it can happen. If you incorporate, the corporation can shield you from most lawsuits. In fact once a lawyer learn that you are incorporated and you don’t keep assets in the corporation, a lot of times they will not bother suing because they know your assets are protected. There are also lots of tax benefits to incorporating even if your eBay income is fairly small.

I used a company called LegalZoom.com. They did an excellent job –very personal service and very quick. Best of all they did it right. Some of the online incorporating services are really shoddy and they don’t tailor the corporation to what you are doing.

33. Learn how to buy at government auctions

Don’t pay for this information. Here is a link to our site where everything you need to bid on government auctions is free: www.skipmcgrath.com/auction_sr/gvnmtauctions.shtml

Government auctions can be a great place to find bargains – but proceed with caution. Make sure you thoroughly inspect anything before you buy it.

34. Package your eBay shipments professionally

No one likes to receive his or her “treasure” in a battered shoe box or an old cereal box. Take the time to pack your sales carefully. Invest in bubble pak, peanuts, tissue paper and so on. Re-read tip number 45 for how to save money on these supplies.
35 Know your fees before you sell

Here is a great little free tool for eBay sellers. It is an online calculator that calculates eBay and PayPal fees to help you decide the best price and format to list an item on eBay. If you are running an eBay business this is a great little tool to help you figure out the best price to start and item and the most efficient selling format.

Here is the link: http://www.newlifeauctions.com/calc.html

36. Sell Liquidation Closeouts

Clothing, accessories, electronics, household goods, toys and sporting goods are some of the hottest sellers on eBay. It can be very hard to source these products new from the distributors. But many eBay sellers make excellent profits buying these products from Liquidation and Surplus Dealers. One of the largest and easiest to deal with is Liquidation.com. They use an auction format similar to eBay. One word of caution, check the shipping before bidding. Click here to see the wholesale auctions at Liquidation.com

37. Set your starting bid low to attract hits

Do you have a good item that you KNOW will sell well? Start it off at a very low price. This will get you healthy early bidding. You want a large group around the item; some will be competitive bidders – people who will pay extra just for the thrill of winning.

You’ll usually get more for your item than someone who priced their item higher, because your auction has more bidders watching.

38. Write complete auction item descriptions

Make your item description as complete as possible. Include all relevant details: condition, size, weight, age, collectability, any short-comings or defects, etc.

What you think is not important – may be very important to someone else. Describe your item’s condition, talk about its benefits and uses and keep writing until you run out of something to say.

39. Have a written sales, payment and delivery policy to protect yourself and avoid misunderstandings

Spell out everything you do. How much do you charge for shipping? How will you ship the item? What is your policy on insurance? Do you use escrow for expensive items? When do you post feedback? Do you hold checks until they clear?

The more information you give a buyer the better the buying and selling experience will be for both parties -but don’t forget to make it sound friendly. You don’t want your auctions to sound like a bunch of rules written by a junior high school principal.

40. Don’t get greedy and overcharge for shipping

Overcharging for shipping is one of the leading causes of negative feedback. and low DSR scores. You should only charge what it normally costs you to pack and ship. Buyers are sensitive in this area. They know when you are making a profit on shipping. You can charge a small premium to cover your cost of handling and shipping materials, but it should be reasonable. Always offer to combine shipping costs if a person buys more than one item. Explain your shipping policy in the item description.

There is a game some sellers play whereby they list a $5 item for 99-cents but the shipping is $7.99 when it only cost a dollar to ship. eBay will cancel your auction if they catch you doing this as it constitutes fee avoidance.

41. Always include the auction number in your emails

Always include the auction number with the end of auction notice and any request for payment. Place the number in the subject line so you can easily track emails. People often bid on several items and can get confused.

42. Start and end your auctions at the best times

Do you always start and end your auctions at the best times? Start and end your auctions at peak traffic periods when traffic is the heaviest.

I like my auctions to end on Sunday or Monday evenings between 5 and 7 PM (Pacific Time). Saturday and Sunday mornings are also good times. Believe it or not, Mondays during the lunch hour are very good also. Remember there can sometimes be a posting delay of up to two hours on eBay during the busy times. Also –don’t forget that eBay uses Pacific Time.

This is one of the best reasons to use an auction management service such as Vendio.com. You can create your auction and schedule it to launch at a specific time or day. eBay also has a scheduling utility but they charge you 10¢ every time you use it. Ten cents sounds like a small amount of money but it can add up over time.

43. What to do when you make a mistake in an auction?

If an auction has not received any bids you can revise it. Click on the link “revise auction” right below your username. If the auction has received bids, you can first cancel the bids and then cancel the auction.

If you go to My Account on your My eBay Page there is a link where you can email eBay and ask them to credit the listing fee. Just explain that you cancelled the auction, fixed the mistake and relisted it. Give them the old and the new item number and they will usually -but not always credit you the fee.

44. Why does eBay end auctions?

eBay will only end your auction if you violate the listing guidelines. First of all print out the guidelines and read them carefully. They are written to give eBay wide latitude. EBay rarely discovers a listing violation. They rely mostly on the community to report violations. (Yes, there are a lot of busybodies with too much time on their hands).

The most common violations are listing in the wrong category, key word spamming, putting a link to an outside web site in your auction description and featuring items that are not qualified for featuring, i.e. information products.

One way to get your auctions examined is to make a complaint about someone else’s auction. Whenever you make a complaint, eBay also examines all the ongoing auctions of the complainer. So unless your auctions are squeaky clean, think again about reporting someone else.

45. What to do when eBay ends an auction?

If you are guilty as sin – just forget it and get on with your life. It’s not the end of the world. If you feel you are wronged, then answer the “auction ended” email with a polite request for an explanation and/or tell your side of the story.

Please understand the eBay enforcement employees receive hundreds of angry emails a day. It is very easy for them to get “pissy” (excuse my language). A polite and sincere inquiry will often uncover valuable information. Your violation may have been a minor technicality, which can be easily corrected. They will rarely tell you this if you send them an angry or rude email.

46. Set up a web site and use eBay to drive business to it.

Every eBay seller should have a web site. Remember sales you make from your web site do not incur eBay fees. EBay has cracked down on sellers using auctions to drive hits to their web sites, but there are still some loopholes and techniques you can use without running afoul of eBay. These are explained in detail in The Complete eBay Marketing System. (I can’t give all my techniques away here!)

47. Learn how to promote your web site and/or eBay store

This tip is really an advertisement, but one that I think you can benefit from as I did.

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* Exploiting AOL and other online services
* Free and low-cost online classified ads that produce sales
* Dominating your market with affiliate/reseller/ associate programs
* Newsgroup promotions
* Snowballing your profits with Auto-responders
* How and when to promote yourself on bulletin boards
* Getting links from high traffic sites
* Sales strategies
* Writing killer ad copy
* Banner ads (tips and tricks)
* Profiting with discussion lists and newsletters
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48. Brand your business

If you go on the eBay search engine and type in eBay store design, you will find a number of eBay sellers who will design an eBay store for your with branding and matching auction templates. This will give all of your listings a similar look and feel and help brand your business so people can find you again. If you want a professional company to do this for you, check out www.frooition.com.

49. Over-communicate with your buyers

When an auction ends, send your buyers an immediate email congratulating them and providing clear payment instructions. Send them another email when you ship the item (this really impresses buyers). Send them a follow-up email to see if everything went okay. This email should include the link where they can post feedback.

50. Be careful using the Reserve Price Auction (RPA)

No one likes a reserve. Most people understand the necessity for it, but there are a large percentage of users who will simply not bid on RPA. If you know something will sell, then price it slightly lower than the minimum you will take.

If you are selling a very expensive item, certainly place a reserve on it, but let the potential bidders know what the reserve is. It doesn’t have to be a secret. The point of a reserve is to protect you against something selling too cheaply. Being open about your reserve can actually help you get bids.

51. Increase bids by making your auctions readable

Use a short opening paragraph that promises something – and then deliver on the promise. Describe the product – but also write about its benefits and/or how it is used. If you have personally used the product, describe your experience.

Short sentences are more readable than long ones. If you write a long sentence, follow it with a short one. Keep your paragraphs to less than 3 or 4 lines. Boldface important words or phrases. Include attention-getters: questions, news items, a guarantee or a promise. Ask for the bid at the end of the description. Use active verbs and enthusiastic language.

52. Use Bold, and Highlight to increase visibility

These features cost a little so they are not appropriate for low cost items unless you are using a Dutch auction – but it has been proved that they increase both hits and bids.

53. Use a hit counter to track your auction

The most important thing to know about an item that did not sell is: Did it not get hits, or did it get hits and did not get bids? If you are getting hits and not bids, then you know there is demand and interest in the item, but there is something wrong with your price or your description. If you are not getting hits, then there is either no demand or interest in the item or your headline stinks.

eBay offers a hit counter option when you list your auction. You should always use it. If you use an auction management service like Vendio or Auctiva, they also offer a free hit counter.

54. Always use a regional listing

There are some people who only/prefer to buy from their local regions. When you pick a region, it doesn’t limit your auction to a region, it just tells sellers from that area that you are nearby. There is no charge to use a regional listing.

55. Use Second Chance Offers

eBay has a feature called Second Chance Offer where you can offer your product to the second best bidder if their bid was high enough to you to make money. This can be very profitable to those who are selling multiple items of identical merchandise.

56. Build a mailing list of your customers

If you followed my advice to specialize, then you will be building a base of customers who buy your type or category of product. Once someone bids on your auction, or sends you an email with a question, then you – not eBay, own that email address and you can communicate with that person in the future.

Whenever you are launching an auction, send your existing customers an email letting them know. (Not every little auction – but for special hard to find items). Because someone actually purchased something from you, you now own that customer so it is not against eBay’s regulations to market to them directly through email or from your web site.

57. Re-listing Strategies

Did your auction fail? No bids, no hits? You can still re-list for free. Before you hit the re-list button lets look at what happened.

Was the item over-priced? Was it in the correct category? Do you need a better headline or description? Is there any demand for the product you are selling?

You can relist one time for free if an item doesn’t sell. If you keep relisting and the item doesn’t sell, you are burning up eBay fees. If others are selling your same item, and you are not -go back and reexamine what you are doing.

I use Vendio to manage my auctions and they have an automatic relisting service.

58. Experiment for success

Don’t be afraid to try something new. Just be careful, you don’t throw a lot of money into something that isn’t yet proven. Try new products, new categories, new sources, new headlines, and so on. eBay is no where near being a mature marketplace. It is still growing and evolving. The rules change weekly. Don’t be afraid to be a pioneer -just use a little caution when it comes to spending large amounts of money.

59. Choosing a category

Ok, you have put a lot of thought into your product and completed the introspective phase of getting started. You are excited about your merchandise and ready to start selling it. The next step is to find your niche market; as applies to online auctions, this refers to the category you will list your item(s) in. Considering eBay has over 7,500 categories to choose from, this should be a relatively easy process. But there is one important strategic trick you should know.

Before listing your item in any category, follow these simple steps: First, browse through the eBay categories and write down the ones you feel are relevant to your product. You should be able to find at least 3-5 possible choices. Next, write down the number of auctions currently online in each of those categories (it will appear next to the category name). An average category has about 4,000, so if there are more than that you may conclude that the category is active, If there are less than 2000 you may consider it inactive. I consider categories with over 5,000 auctions to be popular and those with over 10,000 are most popular. Some categories have over 50,000 auctions going at any one time. Using this ranking system, rate the categories that you have chosen for your product.

I recommend listing in the most active categories only because they get the most traffic. If you put your product in an inactive section of eBay, you may get little or no bids, even if you feature it .Avoid categories with less than 1,000 auctions online unless your product is highly specialized to that category!

60. List in two categories

eBay has a new feature that allows you to list in two categories. There is a small extra fee – but any feature, highlight or bold fees are doubled. Here is an example: If you were selling a collectible, most collectible buyers also buy books and price guides to their collectibles. So list your collectible in the appropriate category and also list it in the Books>Non-fiction>collectibles and Price guides category.

61. Use good photos and images in your auctions

Digital cameras and scanners have become very cheap. My neighbor recently purchased a child’s digital camera at Toys-R-Us for under $50. It takes amazing photos and comes with basic image management software that lets you crop and rotate images, and performs some simple enhancements. If you are going to take a lot of photos, probably the best, all around auction camera is the Nikon 2100 or 3100. As Nikon has come out with newer models, these two models can be bought very inexpensively and they contain all the features an auction seller needs.

Keep your photos small – in a digital sense. Large image files take forever to load and your buyer will click off to another auction instead of getting a cup of coffee while your 300 K file downloads.

62. Take the time to take good photos

Here are some simple tips to take good digital photos:

* Clean up the area around the subject or use a backdrop
* Always use a tripod to make your photos sharp
* Avoid clutter in the photo
* Shoot outdoors on a cloudy day or in open shade. Don’t shoot in direct sunlight, as the contrast is too high
* Indirect window light is also excellent. I often shoot objects on a table next to a window with a white or gray sheet for a backdrop
* Get reasonably close to the object
* Show a close-up of any repairs or defects
* If relevant, show the product being used.
* If size is an issue, show some thing such as a coin or a ruler to to indicate dimensions.

My new book, Online Auction Photo Secrets is a complete manual on taking digital photos for auctions.

63. Learn the right way to drop ship

Let’s face it –many of the drop shipping companies who advertise on the web are scams –or if not scams they often don’t work. In my opinion it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to make money from these membership sites. You can spend a fortune in eBay listing fees trying to sell products that are priced too high to sell on eBay.

The best way to drop ship profitably is to work with a direct source such as a manufacturer or master distributor. Most general drop shipping companies are just middlemen who buy from distributors, mark up the product and sell it to you. The markup they are getting is the markup you need to make a profit.

Chris Malta, is the product sourcing editor for eBay Radio. He runs a program called the WorldWide Brands. The key word there is source. His directory is a web site list of actual manufacturers that have all been contacted by his staff and they have agreed to drop ship for eBay sellers.

You could probably find all of these same companies by going through the Thomas Directory –but that would take days and weeks. Chris has already done the work for you. I have used his directory to find several drop ship manufacturers that I now work profitably with. This is currently the only wholesale sourcing program I recommend other than my own that comes with my Wholesale Buying System.

64. Use Dutch auctions to increase your profits

If you are a Low Volume Seller, or if you sell products with a low dollar margin, you may need to run multiple Dutch auctions to make a good living on eBay.

A Dutch Auction is used when you have several identical items for sale. You set the minimum price you are willing to sell for, and specify the quantity for sale. Many bidders will bid on more than one item. The person who bids the lowest for the last available quantity sets the price for all winning bidders.

Here is an example: Recently, I had a dozen of the AFLAC talking plush ducks. I tried selling them for $10 without success. I then ran a Dutch auction with the starting price at $4.95. I got over 30 bids, some people bidding on as many as three ducks and the price was run up to over $14.00 each.

65. Learn to sell information products on eBay

People will pay good money for information they can use. If you can write reasonably well, and you have a topic you have some expertise in, you can probably write a reference guide or “how-to” manual and sell it on eBay and even on the web.

I recently saw one called How to Make $30 Hour Sharpening Knives. Another lady wrote a short e-book explaining how she sells children’s clothing on eBay.

You can create an e-book (or a printed book) on almost any topic: Pets, Finance, Bible Studies, Poetry, children’s stories, software, computer tips, making money with XYZ and so on. You can also compile information on antiques, collectibles, computer images, recipes, genealogy, etc. Search the non-fiction books category and the information products category on eBay to see what is selling then try to identify a unique niche for a new product or category.

In 2007 I came out with a new book called: How To Create and Sell Information Products on eBay. It is a printed manual with three bonus CDs and takes you through all of the steps to create and sell information products on eBay -and the internet. Don’t confuse this strategy with those people selling 99-cent eBooks on eBay -That is NOT what I am talking about. Click here to learn how you can make money on eBay with this strategy.

66. Buying at Costco, Sam’s Club and Outlet Malls to sell on eBay

Don’t laugh. A lot of eBay sellers make money this way. I recently went to Costco to buy a calling card (640 minutes for $19.95) and a pair of Avia running shoes, also for $19.95. These shoes normally retail for around $60.

When I got home I decided to go on eBay to see what the calling cards were selling for. I found the same MCI 640 minute calling cards selling on eBay for 24.95 + $3.50 shipping. (You can ship the cards for 52 cents in an oversized envelope). That is a total profit of $8.50 per card, or $850 per week if you sell a hundred cards (less eBay and PayPal fees of course).

I next decided to check out the shoes I bought. Sure enough, there were several pairs selling at prices between $29 and $39 pair on eBay, and yes, they had bids.

Just before Christmas, my wife spotted a Fitz & Floyd Santa cookie jar selling at Costco for 39.95. She had seen the same cookie jar in a high-end mail order catalog for over $100. We bought 10 of them and sold them on eBay for $69.00 each right before Christmas.

We have a friend who does flea markets and sidewalk shows. The day before a weekend market he always drops into the local Sam’s Club and buys anything he sees that might sell at a profit and buys them. A week before Easter he scored 20 beautiful Easter Baskets full of goodies for 19.95 that he got $35 each for at a street fair.

Tools are another good bargain. Costco and Sam’s Club always have great values on sets of tools, fire extinguishers, fire detectors and other like products. Last year Costco was selling a set of Hoffritz Bar-B-Q tools for $17.95. We have sold them repeatedly on eBay in Dutch auctions where they went for over $30 a set.

Another source of goods to sell is Wal-Mart. Watch for their sales where you can often get goods at excellent prices. My wife and I are doing the Atkins Diet program. The Atkins diet bars sell in the supermarket for $2.29 each, but we watch for the sales at Wal-Mart and buy several boxes at a time for about $15 for a box of twelve ($1.25 each). I have also seen people selling these on eBay for as much as $25 box.

If you live near an outlet mall, you should also check there for sales. I was in Jones New York looking for a gift for my mother when they were having a big sale. A Chinese lady from Vancouver, Canada came in and bought over $10,000 worth of clothes. I heard the clerk ask her what she was doing. She said she sells them on eBay and sells them to her friends in Canada. She was buying high-end blue blazers for $40 that retail in Jones New York stores for over $150.

67. Where to get help with your auction questions

Forums and message posts are one of the quickest and easiest ways to get help answering almost any question that might come up about selling on eBay and other auction sites.

The best – and most used forums on eBay are of course at eBay’s Community section. You can find the discussion boards broken down by subject at: http://pages.eBay.com/community/boards/index.html and there are several category-specific chat rooms at:

http://pages.eBay.com/community/chat/index.html

Another excellent link on eBay is The Answer Center at: http://pages.eBay.com/community/answercenter/index.html

There is an excellent independent forum on Auctionbytes.com at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/index.php

These forums are moderated by David and Ina Steiner and other experts they recruit. The posts are broken down by subject areas, including an excellent one on fraud.

http://www.AuctionClan.com is a fairly new membership site that offers forums for sellers and also does very low cost image hosting.

68. Bookmark these eBay links to save time

Set up a favorites folder marked eBay and place these links in it for easy and quick reference.

* Advanced Search page http://pages.eBay.com/search/items/search_adv.html

* Search eBay stores http://pages.eBay.com/search/items/search_stores.html

* Announcements and news: http://pages.eBay.com/search/items/search_stores.html

* Discussion Boards http://pages.eBay.com/community/boards/index.html

* Leave Feedback
http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/feedback.html

* Rules and policies http://pages.eBay.com/services/tsindex.html

* End my listing
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction&EndingMyAuction=&guest=1

* eBay Fees
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

69. What to do when someone doesn’t pay?

EBay has a defined procedure for bidders that don’t pay. Here are the steps:

First send an email requesting payment and warning the buyer you will file a non-payment complaint to eBay if they don’t pay within a specified time. If they still don’t pay, go to your My eBay Page and find the link to the dispute resolution center.

Follow the instructions there to make a claim and file a final value fee credit (to refund your fees)

eBay will contact the buyer and give them a warning (this often gets the buyer to pay) Any bidder that receives a third warning will be indefinitely suspended from eBay.

70. Make money selling things for others.

There are several Power Sellers that specialize in consignment sales. Simply put you find people who have something to sell – but do not have the time or knowledge to sell on eBay. You sell it for them and take a commission. Typically you can earn 10-15% on expensive items and up to 35% on lower cost items.

EBay has a program called Trading Assistant where you register to help other eBayers sell their goods. You can register HERE. My best selling book, How To Start & Run an eBay Consignment Business contains all of the contracts, forms and ads you need to become a successful trading assistant.

71. Turn your inventory over often

How many times you can turn your inventory over is the key to making high profits. Too many sellers get stuck with something that won’t sell at a profit and they keep re-listing and re-listing until some day it eventually sells. In the meantime, they could have sold the dog at cost, and put the money into something that will turn over rapidly. Rapid turnover and re-investing your money back into more products is one of the long-term keys to success on eBay.

72. How to get something for free on eBay

Check out the wholesale lots section on eBay. Often the same people who are selling individual items at auction are selling the same things in wholesale lots for a lot less money each, but you may have to buy 10 items to get the wholesale price. I recently saw an auction for home theater audio systems at $250 each wholesale in lots of 5. The same seller was selling them individually at $375. You could buy a lot of 5, keep one for yourself and sell the rest at $325 and make a small profit.

73. How to buy large wholesale lots with very little money

I often see goods going for incredible low wholesale prices, but you have to buy a very large quantity to get the great price. Here is where you need friends. Get a group of people together to share the cost of a wholesale lot. Once you get the items, put them up in smaller wholesale lots in Dutch auction. Here is an example: Last year the mini RC cars were hot sellers. Today they are all over eBay at $9.95 each. Most wholesale sites will sell you the cars for $4.25 in case lots of 24. But you can go to the importer and buy them for $2.50 each if you buy 10 cases. If you go in with a few friends, you could each buy two or three cases and sell the cars retail at a good markup or at a low wholesale price and turn them over very quickly.

Buying at wholesale and finding wholesalers is very difficult. I know. I had to learn the hard way. Two years ago I wrote a 100 page (printed) book called The Wholesale Buying System that covers almost everything you need to know about how, what and where to buy wholesale to sell on eBay or your web site. The instruction manual comes with password access to a web site that lists hundreds of wholesale sources for eBay sellers and special search engines to help you locate thousands of wholesale products. We have sold over 5,000 copies of the manual to date.

74. Know – and understand, your costs

It is very easy to sell a lot of goods at auction and not have any money left at the end of the month. If you are going to be successful, it is critical that you track and have good visibility into your cost structure.

Here are some of the costs you should be tracking:

* Product cost (including inbound shipping).
* Listing and reserve fees
* Feature fees
* Final Value fee (if the item sells).
* Auction Management Service (if you use one).
* Credit card or PayPal service fees
* Internet service or DSL fees
* Shipping costs and materials

Quicken is a very good program for tracking costs and has a sub-set for running a business in the home. As you get more sophisticated, upgrade to Quick Books. The low-cost basic version is fine for most eBay sellers.

75. More on what to sell and finding a niche market on eBay

In the early days, you could sell just about anything on eBay and make money. Today, major corporations such as J. C. Penny, Bloomingdales, and Disney have moved onto eBay in a big way. It is still possible for small sellers to make big profits. The key is to specialize, seek out the offbeat and to find used items that are in demand.

While researching another article on eBay, I came across several unusual items for sale. Upon checking, I discovered many of these sellers were power sellers and some were shooting stars (feedback over 5,000).

Here are just a few of the unique items I came across: Used radio tubes, used (vintage) hi-fi equipment and parts, juggling supplies, used music and game CD’s, old board games (Monopoly, Scrabble, etc.), clown equipment and supplies, used tools, old garden tools and decorative items, used college textbooks, small appliances (blenders, pasta machines, irons, etc.) personalized children’s books, collectible fountain pens, new & used magic tricks and magic supplies, used bubble-pak and Styrofoam peanuts – the list goes on.

The point is you don’t have to sell the latest digital camera, Gucci shoes, or expensive diamond jewelry to make money on eBay. Most of the seller’s items listed above buy their goods from garage sales, thrift stores, flea markets, and closeout dealers.

76. More on writing power auction titles (headlines)

This subject, and the next item, is so important, I wanted to give you some further tips and strategies to work with. The auction title is your headline. Newspapers and magazines use headlines to attract readers to the story. Advertisers use headlines to pull readers into the sales copy. Remember your headline and your auction description is your front-line salesperson.

Sixty-five percent of eBay bidders find an item by searching. Make sure the item you are selling is described in the headline using a term someone would search for. Be sure to spell the name correctly.

* Use “Power Words” in your head line (see the article below)
* Use all capital letters in your headline to make it stand out
* Use the Bold Face and Highlight option if your price-point can afford the extra fee
* Use tildes “~ ” to set off your headline. (Caution: Make sure there is space between your tilde ~ and any searchable word or eBay’s search engine may not recognize it)
* Avoid goofy characters such as “L@@K,” “MUST C” and SAVE $$$$$$
* If you are not using a reserve price, say so with “No Reserve” or “NR”

Most of all, be sure your headline is credible and accurately describes what you are offering.

77. Last, but not least -have fun!!!

I think eBay is just the coolest thing to come along since the Wright Brothers proved powered flight was possible. EBay demonstrates just how powerful the internet can be in bringing people together, finding common interests and yes – you can make a little money.

Dive into the whole eBay experience. Buy, sell, chat, post on the message boards, go to live events, and buy an eBay T-shirt or hat. Most of all, when the bidding gets hot and furious, remember it’s just a piece of merchandise you are bidding on – it’s not the end of the world if someone beats you out.

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