Students Of Success

As the editor of ebay-guides, one of the largest article requests I get is for fixing damaged feedback. Now don’t read anything nefarious into this request; there are hundreds of reasons why someone may receive bad feedback. There is little doubt feedback is very important for both buyers and sellers. A rating in the high 80’s or low 90’s and you can almost forget about doing anything on ebay. While most negative feedback is well deserved, there are those out there who will use it to make threats or demand concessions. The “give me what I want or else,” scenario seems to be the most prevalent. Should someone be able to hold your rating hostage? Certainly not, and the purpose of this article is to show you how to overcome a malicious feedback.

An unfortunate problem when you have a global marketplace like ebay, is the guaranteed number of bad apples. Ebay does their best to weed these individuals out, but they can’t get everyone. Every once and a while someone will order an item and it will arrive in the mail damaged, or worse, not even close to what was paid for. Contacting the seller to resolve the issue then results in the threat of negative feedback, and an all caps attack on an otherwise perfect feedback rating. Basically, the seller is employing a method I like to call “mutually assured destruction.” In the same way it has prevented nuclear war, it will often allow sellers to get away with things they should not be getting away with. You say “bad seller” he says “you never even paid for the product, or, AVOID AT ALL COSTS.” It is a no win situation. Or is it?

The fear of receiving negative feedback not only sours users on ebay, but it also helps that bad seller stay in business. Instead of avoiding the bad feedback experience, embrace it. Turn on the flamethrower and blast the seller, and when you get hit with retaliatory feedback, bury it. How? Simple. Buy positive feedback. While ebay would prefer you don’t, and they take enormous steps to stop people selling it, there are really no fallouts to buying it. So how much does it cost? About .01 cent. Surprised? Many people are. Yet day in and day out millions of positive feedback are purchased for one penny each.

If you find yourself in need of fixing a negative feedback left by another vindictive ebayer, simply do a search for “.01 cent ebook or .01 recipe.” This should bring up several thousand auctions; more than enough for you to bury that negative feedback.

Don’t abuse the system, as buying too much feedback can be just as bad as selling it. Buying 25-50 positive feedbacks over a day or two should cause no problem for you as a buyer. I’ve employed this method in the past, testing it as both a buyer and a seller with no problems. As a final note, I suggest buying from sellers who have marked their auctions as private. There is no point in fixing your feedback if anyone can click on the most recent received and see they are all .01 cent buys.

For small Internet retailers, drop-shipping is one of the best innovations since sliced bread. How else can a start-up offer a wide variety of products and convince customers that they have a fully-stocked warehouse—while investing virtually nothing in inventory or warehousing? Before you jump right onto the drop-shipping bandwagon, however, there are some pitfalls to avoid.

While a quality drop-shipper is truly a dream come true for the Internet retailer, there are plenty of painful pitfalls to avoid. Things can get embarrassing and costly in a hurry when a drop-shipper:

• sends products out late
• forgets to process your orders
• sends out poorly packaged products
• double-bills your credit card for orders on a regular basis
• provides cheaply made products and/or shoddy workmanship.

A Matter of Credibility

In addition to the above drawbacks, many customers are not very impressed when they find out you retail drop-shipped products. This is especially the case with the rustic log furniture I sell on the web. Many phone customers ask if we make the products ourselves, or are “merely” drop-shipping.

They are relieved and impressed when they find that we manufacturer, finish or pack most of the log furniture we sell at our warehouse. We sell to a lot of people with expensive vacation homes, and quality is of utmost importance. It’s always easier to testify to the quality of furniture when you have seen it yourself, and we are able to offer a more unique line by going to Amish suppliers whose products aren’t sold elsewhere on the Internet.

Advantages of Drop-Shipping

With this said, there are still some sizeable advantages to drop-shipping. As the volume of our orders grows, it becomes more and more difficult to package all of that furniture. Fortunately for us, our largest supplier is only two miles away and we have a pretty good deal going: we finish all the log furniture they want finished, and they drop-ship the unfinished furniture. So they make it, we finish it.

That means if somebody orders unfinished furniture, it can go directly from the factory. This might have made me nervous about quality control at one point, but I have developed a high degree of confidence in our log furniture manufacturer. In the five years I have been associated with them, they have never let me down. They fill orders with a high degree of quality and accuracy, which makes our job easy.

Choosing a Drop-Ship Partner

Unfortunately, not all drop-shipping companies are as reliable as the one I have found. This is why it pays to do your homework before choosing a drop-shipping company. If you align yourself with fly-by-night operations, your business will most likely suffer as a result. If you are wildly successful, which you no doubt hope to be, a small start-up may not be able to manufacturer or ship product fast enough to meet your needs. A drop-shipper that is unstable as a business may be happy to take your cash but fail to fill orders on a timely basis.

Any business who drop-ships your orders will affect your reputation as a company one way or another. As a result, it’s important to make sure any drop-shipping companies you partner with meet the high level of customer service and quality control standards you set for your business.

Copyright 2005 Log Cabin Rustics

Cari Haus is webmaster for http://www.logcabinrustics.com, an online retailer of quality log furniture.

Jeff, wanted to use eBay to supplement his income. He is an electrical engineer in the manufacturing sector; and we all know that manufacturing has been hit very hard for the last few years. His company was closing down a satellite operation; and Jeff noticed some old Allen Bradley electrical controllers in a container headed for the dumpster. He was given permission to retrieve these controllers, and he was hoping he could find a way to market them… or if, in fact, there would even be a market for them. It was worth a chance!

Jeff had never sold on eBay and he realized there was no sales history on the electronic parts he had acquired. Jeff used these steps (listed below)

Steps To Take If A Product Has No Sales History On eBay:

1. Set a high reserve. (A reserve is a price set by the seller, which needs to be met before a sale is made.) This protects you from selling an item too low when you don’t have any idea of its market value.

2. Take multiple pictures of the item.

3. Include pictures of any serial or model numbers or any unique markings.

4. Include as detailed description as possible.

5. Include in your description that you welcome email questions from bidders. to take when this situation occurs. He had no eBay feedback, he listed the items, and was able to sell them for over $4200. The bottom line is to get products and list them for sale with the techniques outlined above.

The important thing is to get your products up for sale on Ebay quickly. If you do not know where to set your price level use the steps outlined above.

Products do not sell unless the are put up for auction, This is common sense but many new Ebay sellers try and get all possible relevant data on the products they are selling which is not neccessary to sell on Ebay.

Tim Gilberg is able to provide information and insight from a unique
perspective - that of someone who is actually doing what others just
talk about. Ebay Power Seller Platinum Status was Attained by Tim Gilberg, which is one of the highest sales levels attained selling on eBay. Tim is active on Ebay and liquidation.com as well as consulting
and working with other Top ebay Power Seller’s to give you real life
in use insight, not theories. Visit Tim Gilberg at his website Make Money on eBay.

eBay is awesome and everyday more and more people are participating. So what if you want to become a successfull eBay seller? - Where do you start? Well here are some pointers for you that will have you going in the right direction.

First and most important Honesty and Reputation. Sure you can make some fast money on eBay but start getting negative feedback and the cash flow will vanish in a flash. If you want a growing sustainable income from your eBay activities then you must make sure you have a solid reputation as a reliable honest seller that delivers good value.

Let’s start with your listings - they should be uncluttered, easy to read, informative accurate and explicit. Buyers are not looking for fancy bells & whistles, mutlicoloured fonts and the like. Your listing should convey a sense of professionalism not be a show ground for your HTML or graphics skills.

Your item description should accurately reflect the item and its condition. If the item is damaged or incomplete then explain this. If you don’t then you will get negative feedback no doubt about it. A basic tip is the description can never be too long as long as it is describing the item.

If you’re selling a lot of items then you need to aim to keep your listing fees down. An easy way to do this is host your eBay pictures yourself. If you have already have a website then devote some of your hosting space to your listing pictures. For those that don’t have their own web site check to see if you have free space provided by your internet service provider. If you don’t have any free webspace you can use then consider buying your own domain name and web hosting. It doesn’t need to be expensive the very basic package is all you will need.

Make sure you list your item in the right categories to maximise your chances of getting lots of views. If your not sure what the best/right category is then see where the competition are lisitng their items.

If you are selling items such as DVDs, software and designer labels, make it clear that your items are genuine and not pirate copies or fakes. Aside from the legal issues selling fakes as genuine goods will hurt your reputation.

Don’t be tempted to set too high a starting price. Aside from pushing up your lisitng cost you will also turn away potential buyers hoping to bag a bargain. Far better to have a number of interested bidders as they can end up starting a bidding war that will drive your price up.

Don’t try to make profit on shipping & handling charges. Nothing puts me off from buying more than seeing inflated shipping & handling charges. Now this doesn’t mean you take a loss on S&H just be fair and reasonable. Also make sure your S&H information is clearly laid out so that potential buyers can easily see what to expect.

Your item title is vital. If you want lots of people to view your item then the 55 characters available for your title are all you have at your disposal to generate interest. Don’t waste them on special characters or non value words. Think of what you would type in to the eBay search bar if you were looking for the item.

Check your item title spelling. Items won’t sell if potential buyers can’t find them because you’ve misspelled the item’s title. Use manufacturers name and model number within the title if applicable.

Start your auction so that it ends during a ‘peak’ buying period. In general most would agree that Thur evening through to Sunday afternoon tend to be good times to have your auctions end.

Have a system - you want to minimise the time you spend preparing listings and getting them loaded to eBay so make use of automation tools. Turbo Lister which is free from eBay is a great tool for cutting out the repetative grind and making the job of getting listings uploaded simple once you have things set up. Other areas to automate are your emails to winning buyers and if you are selling digital items (eBooks, Software etc) you can automate the product delivery side of things as well.

Ok that’s enough for now. Not a definitive guide but hopefully it has given you somethings things to think about. There are mountains of material available online to help you further with your eBay activities some free some you have to pay for. If you want a load more free information then you will find a load of good articles here ==>http://www.need2knowabout.com/ebay.htm

Now, time for you to get started, remember, build yourself a good reputation.

Good luck.

Anne Milne
http://www.need2knowabout.com

Question: I went to three local thrift stores — a Goodwill and two Salvation Army stores. Of thousands of books, I found only two that were reliably profitable, both worth under $20. It didn’t seem very productive, it would have taken many hours of work to make $35.

Answer: First, I would say that trying to find good books for resale in a Goodwill/Salvation Army type of store is going to be difficult for a couple of reasons:

Number one, most of the books donated to these shops are usually are very popular (and therefore commonly available) titles. For example, you’ll see lots of romance books, and lots of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books at these shops, a lot of popular fiction. Nothing is wrong with these books, but they are so plentiful in the used market that the prices for them are very low because there isn’t enough demand after the book has been on the market a few years. So, for example, when an Amazon seller ends up with one of these books you see in abundant supply at thrift shops, and find that the book is selling for only 90 cents on Amazon, the seller prices theirs at 89 cents. Then the next person prices theirs at 88 cents, and so on. If there is not enough demand from the book buyers on Amazon to soak up these used copies being listed online, the price can go all the way down to 1 cent!

The other main reason it’s so hard to find valuable books in a thrift shop is that lots of used booksellers regularly go there to find books for resale. So the stock gets picked over very quickly. If there is not much turnover at the shop, with new inventory coming in from people donating books, pretty soon all the books that were worth decent money will end up in the hands of booksellers, and most of the stuff left on the shelves is junk.

Also, some of these types of thrift stores are beginning to sell some of the valuable donated books online themselves. They check the online price as soon as they get the books, and the valuable ones they sell themselves and keep all the proceeds, instead of allowing booksellers or collectors to snap them up at bargain prices. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, except that it makes it really hard for book buyers and collectors to find decent books in these types of stores.

Library sales are probably the best source of profitable books for online sellers. And that is precisely because the books available at a library sale haven’t been picked over before you see them. So you have a much better chance of finding some valuable books at a bargain price at a library sale.

See a real-time list of the most highly sought after used and collectible books.

Read more free articles on selling used books profitably online: http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/selling.htm

Steve Weber is author of “The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site” (ISBN 0977240606). Got a question for Steve? Send to: steve_weber@yahoo.com

You’re undoubtedly heard about people getting great deals on items they bought through eBay. If you’re a bit envious and ready to try your hand, here’s your chance to learn more.

Exactly What Is An eBay?

It’s an online auction website, in fact the biggest one in the world. You know how an auction works — someone puts up something they want to sell and then buyers come along and place bids on it. The highest bid wins the item.

Being an online auction makes eBay a bit different, though. eBay accepts almost any item, no matter how small, and will then advertise it on their sites all over the world.

How Does Bidding On eBay Work?

Bidding on eBay is a little more complex than a normal auction. On eBay, you enter the maximum amount you are willing to pay for an item, and then eBay places the bids on your behalf. You could enter a maximum bid of $100 for something, and end up paying only $25, if that was sufficient to win.

The best introduction to eBay is to dive in and give it a try. First, you need to go to the eBay website for your country. If you don’t know the address, just go to www.ebay.com and you will find it. Once you have the front page of your country’s website, you should see a big box marked “esearch.” Just type into the box anything that you’d like to buy.

When you enter an item, say an opal ring, the website gives you a list of opal rings for sale, along with how much people are currently bidding for them, and the time when bidding ends for that item. Click on each of the listed items, and you can read the description. If you find an item you want, and are willing to pay more than the current highest bidder, then it’s time to enter the fray.

How Can I Buy What I Want?

On the item’s description page, scroll down to the bottom and type the maximum you are willing to pay into the box. Then click the “eplace bid” button. At this point you will need to sign in, or go through a quick registration process if you are new.

eBay will let you know if someone else’s maximum bid on that item is higher than yours, and you’ll have an opportunity to change your bid. Otherwise, you’re now the new highest bidder! You can sit back and wait until the end of the auction. Meanwhile, if someone else outbids you, eBay will notify you by email, and you can revise your bid.

Sounds like a fun shopping experience, doesn’t it? Well, if you’re ready, it’s time to jump into the eBay.

Visit Shop Ebay to learn more. Ron King is a full-time researcher, writer, and web developer, visit his website at Website

Copyright 2005 Ron King. This article may be reprinted if the resource box is left intact and the links live.

The following may be the most important information about
dropshipping you will find.

Dropshipping can be a great way to get started with your
online venture. Just be careful to make sure that you
know the quality of the product your supplier offers,
what their shipping policies are, and their reliability.

Your reputation is on the line with your customers, not
the dropshippers reputation. You must be able to stand
behind your product and service no matter what the source.

Make sure to order at least one of each of the items you
would sell via the dropshipper. This gives you several
things:

- It will show you the quality of the products. This is very
important. You don’t want to offer a product and have your
customer receive something that is low quality or obviously
not worth the money.

- It will show you what the packaging is like. How well is
the product protected during the shipping process? Is it
likely to break or arrive damaged due to inferior shipping or
packaging?

- You can see first hand who they shipped through and how long
it took for the item(s) to arrive.

There are many advantages to drop shipping.

1. When you are first starting out, capital may be an issue.
With dropshipping you can get around that by selling the
product first, collecting the money from your customer, buying
from the dropshipper, and keeping the profit. Although your
profit may not be as high as it would if you had purchased
the products in bulk beforehand, it is still a profit that
can get you started.

2. Another advantage is you don’t have to have products
stored around your house.

3. You don’t have to worry about being stuck with inventory
that you cannot sell. If a product doesn’t sell, you can
simply drop it from your offering and go on to other more
sell-able products.

4. You can find and sell more items since you don’t have
the limitations of on-hand inventory.

If you are considering dropshipping to get yourself
started you must also consider the *potential pitfalls*:

1. You will get a price break from a dropshipper, but it is
often not as low as you could get from other avenues. Be careful
to make sure that you have a product that is quality and the price
point for you is one that will ensure a profit for you when sold.
This is especially important if you will be selling via auctions.
Auctions tend to sell new products for 25-30% below retail. If
your price is not good enough, you could loose money on an
auction.

2. Make sure that the dropshipper gives you a good shipping and
handling fee. They have lots of shipping and get a very good
price on it themselves. If shipping and handling is high,
something is wrong.

3. Don’t pay a ‘fee’ to do business with anyone. You are giving
them business by buying product from them. If they want more
money for your having the privilege of doing business with them,
you know this is not a company that you want to even consider.

4. Find out how the dropshipper handles problems. If you have a
customer return, how will they handle it. What kind of support
will they give you.

5. Get references for the dropshipper. How long have they been
in business and what is their financial standing? Check the
Better Business Bureau. Google their company name to see if
there are any complaints or problems you might need to know
about before making the decision to do business with them.

If you are ready to make the dropshipping model your own,
jump right in. Take these points into consideration, but don’t
let anything stop you. Be as informed as you can though,
continue to learn and find out all you can about those you do
business with.

The road to success is not always a smooth one. Can you avoid
more of the pot holes, it makes the ride much more enjoyable?

Copyright (c) 2005, Melanie Burns — All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Melanie Burns has passion and dedication to assisting
You to make Your Internet Business a Success!
Join the weekly “Abundant Success Online” newsletter,
mailto:aso-subscribe@internet-business-how-to.com

(Permission to reprint this article in its entirety including byline, is expressing granted.)

Ebay tips. Part 1 Please remember this is only a small amount of info that is shown in our EBAY VIDEO TUTORIAL
This can be viewed at www.onlineebooks.net

Do you know what one of the biggest money makers on ebay is?
Do you know that is has nothing to do with the auction you are selling?

That’s right, can you think of it?
The answer is the about me page, that’s right. Let me say it again,
The About Me Page.

This one page is the key to making alot of extra money from ebay.
Every visitor to your auction is a customer.They come to your
auction, have a look at it, then they decide if it interests them, then they either
buy it or leave. Why not try to sell the visitor that is not interested in your item,
an item that they are interested in.
Now the best way to do this is to use the about me page.

The key is getting the visitor to the about me page, if they don’t want the item.
How are you going to do that ?
Ask yourself this: What is the best price for something ?
What is the number one clicked on advertising word ?
The answer is FREE. The best price for anything is FREE.

So how do you use this for the about me page.
Well the first thing you have on your auction is a little headline or statement
basically saying “Just for taking a look at our auction we are giving away …..
Click here to find out how to receive it” . Then have the link to your about me page.
This in my experience is the best way to getting traffic to your about me page.

Once you have the visitor on your about me page what do you do with them ?

Once they are on the page you are basically trying to sell them something more,
or get them to go to your web site for a different product.

How are you going to get them to read your add if they are looking for the free
product ?

A good way of doing this is have the free product at the bottom of the page with
a statement at the top stating “To get your free … please scroll down to the bottom
of the page”. This way they have to scroll past the ads and graphics and hopefully
something will grab there attention.

So let say the visitor doesn’t buy your auction , doesn’t go for your other products on your
about me page and just downloads the free product.
So what dp you have in return for all your work?
Nothing right ? No money, no sale……………… or do you have something ?

If you set it up correctly you will have something. Something that could be worth
alot of money. There email address !!!!!

In the video we go threw how you set this up so that it is fully automated.

If you are looking for more ebay tips Please Visit Online
Ebooks
Author Is Owner Of Article Search
Online . Please come and post your articles at our directory.

Is it an antique and is it worth anything?
Would you know?

At some point in our lives most of us are going to put in a position where we have to ask ourselves the question-
Which of my treasured possesions should I keep because they might be worth something and which can I throw away?

Would you know??

We start our own homes full of enthusiasm and with all the lovely clutter that makes up our lives and that of the family, but as time goes on, the children leave home, we decide to move to a smaller house or maybe we decide to live abroad. At that stage we have to decide what to keep and what to part with.

As an antique dealer for many years I’m often invited into homes to assist customers with just that question - or with a cry for HELP!!

Well, we all have items we wouldn’t part with for a million pounds, precious bits and pieces passed down from parents and little presents from partners, children and grandchildren. Then there’s the layer of semi-precious items that, to make a bit more room, we could part with. Put these to one side and we’ll come back to them later - our second best treasures.

But the ‘cupboard fillers’ are quite a different matter! How many teas services, lace cloths and glasses do we need? In fact, be really honest, when was the last time you set the table with a starched cloth and all the cutlery amd glassware matching?

Call me a slut, but I usually serve friends with tea in china beakers. Wine is poured into glasses that are dish-washer friendly and the crockery and cutlery is an interesting ……….. mish-mash. It’s the company and stimulating converstion that’s important I tell myself.

So what should we keep and what should we part with? We’ve carefully put our special treasures to one side and now we must invite the children in to look through the ’second best’ treasures.

Make sure they have a chance to refuse any bits you’re thinking of parting with. An old scruffy chair to your way of thinking might be a favourite to them and the comfy setting for many a bedtime story.

On a personal note after my mum died, my sister and I were clearing her things and we found an enamelled dish of little value. Ir was put on one side to give to the charity shop when my son asked if he could have ‘the money dish’. “Which money dish” I asked. “The one that gran always kept the pound coins in to give us when we visited”. Luckily the ‘money dish’ was passed on to a very happy grandson.

So now the children, and possibly the grandchildren, have had their pick. Time to decide what to do with the rest. Space might determine how thorough the pruning must be, but it’s worth knowing what you could sell and what you may have to give away.

Even antiques come and go ‘in fashion’. At the moment the style is minimalist. One carefully placed figurine, one item of polished glassware, not the over-the-top, not an inch of wall showing, style of the Victorians!

Anything that needs polishing, ie, copper, brass, silver and silver plated items are unpopular especially with the younger generation who manage to juggle a full-on family/working life. Equally, if it won’t go in the dishwasher, it’s a bit of a no-no!

So we’re narrowing the field of what we can easily sell.

Small, exquisite, exciting little pieces are desirable. It’s easy to get good prices for antique sewing items, silver thimbles, old needle holders, silk winders, buttons, even wooden cotton reels and pin cushions.

Another highly collectable area is - drinking! Old cork screws, bottle openers, wine and spirit labels, champagne taps, spirit measures and the pub water jugs for serving up with a glass of whisky.

Check through your drawers for old fountain pens and pencils and boys will be boys so hang on to any sporting memorabilia. Would you believe that a feather filled golf ball fetched £6,000 and old golf clubs, tennis rackets and snooker cues and balls are highly collectable.

Smoking acessories are politically incorrect, but old silver vesta cases, cigar cutters and interesting cigarette lighters can fetch a tidy sum.

Don’t neglect the children’s toy cupboard. Early tin toys, lead soldiers and more recently Star Wars and James Bond can raise much needed cash. Would you fancy parting with over £1,000 for a Victorian marble? Well it’s happened with a German end-of-the-day onionskin marble, so sift with care.

So there’s a few tips when planning a bit of a life laundry. Lots more advice to follow because I have a little corner of the shop at present where I’m selling vintage clothing, shoes, handbage and costume jewellery and it’s going down very well, especially with the younger age group.

Until then, happy spring cleaning!!

Loads of similar articles and a newsletter and resources for Antiques and Collectibles at:
http://www.architus.com

We run a small but beautifully formed General Antiques Shop which is situated in Kirkby Lonsdale In the Yorkshire Dales/Cumbria Border.

Looking to grow your Auction site business? Many people that would like to sell more than a few items on their auction site find it hard to expand without the help of automation. Here are some great ways to automate your auction site business in order to grow.

There are three major ways to automate your auction site business, listing software, payment processing software and shipping software. Combining these three types of software can create an excellent and efficient online auction business. Listing software helps the merchant with the tedious job of listing a dozen items or a thousand items each day. You can choose the date, time and other important values for each item that you list. Listing software can cut the time it takes listing exponentially.

Payment processing software helps walk your customers through payments of your items being sold. The payment processing software contacts your customers buy email, tells them how to pay for the item and then delivers payment information to your shipping software that can create easy shipping labels and helps the merchant control inventory and keep shipping costs at bay. So if you would like to grow your auction site business, check out these great software solutions. With the proper auction software, your business can grow immensely.

More informations are available at http://www.auctions-00.com and http://www.sales-00.info

Joel Dresse is the Webmaster of www.auctions-00.com, an informative website on auctions