Students Of Success

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

One of the reasons for the popularity and success of eBay is the fact that it is very simple to both buy and sell items through the online auction site. It has been estimated that this year 30 million sales worth $20 billion will be made so it is obvious that most people have few problems with the process. However, there is little doubt that some purchasers are paying more for items than they need to. I have identified five tips to help you ensure that even if all your purchases are not bargains they at least represent value for money.

1. Do your Research.

How many of you’re eBay purchases are planned and how many are impulse buys? If you intend to buy a costly item such as a digital camera, DVD recorder or other medium priced item it pays to carry out some research. Decide exactly which model or models you want. If you can visit local shops that sell the items you are interested in. Find out what features the models you are interested in offer and mostly importantly find the best prices available. You can then go onto the Internet and search the non-auction sites to find the best prices available for the product. Having done this

you are now ready to start browsing eBay.

2. Do not rush in.

The majority of bids are made in the last few hours of an auction so there is little to gain by putting in a bid early. In fact by putting in a bid at an early stage you can inadvertently draw other peoples attention to the auction. The more bids an auction attracts the higher the final bid price will be. Click on the “Watch this Auction” but do not actually put in a bid until thee last few hours.

3. Set yourself a top price.

If you have done your research correctly you will know exactly the value of the item you are bidding on. Make up your mind what you top bid is going to be and stick to it. Sometimes when you find yourself bidding against someone else there is a tendency to try to win the auction at almost any cost. Whatever you do don’t fall into this trap once the bidding reaches your preset limit walk away.

4. Make sure you know everything.

When you make a bid on eBay you are relying on a great extent to the description and photograph that the seller has supplied. Many times though due to inexperience or just plain laziness the seller does not include all the information that you need. In this case do not be afraid to use the “Ask the Seller a Question “” feature to send an e-mail with any further questions you may have Quite often a listing with a poor description will not fetch as good a price as one with a more detailed one. This can sometimes give you the opportunity to snap up a bargain providing that you can get the information you need before you place your bid. While we are on this subject I am surprised at the number of people who place a bid without first checking on what the shipping or postage charges are. You should always be sure you know exactly what the total cost of the item would be if your bid is successful.

5. Avoid the rush hour.

Research shows that Sunday afternoon and early evening are the time that is the busiest on eBay. The quietest appear to be early on Monday and Tuesday mornings. It follows that with less people viewing you could expect the final sales price to be lower. I have picked up some bargains by getting up early on a Monday or Tuesday morning and using the “going, going gone” feature to find auctions due to finish within the hour.It can be a case that the early bird really does catch the worm.

Dave Bromley is a prolific writer on subjects related to eBay.
He is the aauthor of audio/video “How to make big money on eBay” and other publications. To register for his 6 part mini course and monthly newsletter visit http://www.ukauctionline.co.uk

When everything’s settled after the seller has posted a product in eBay, there’s only one thing that needs to be accomplished: payment mode.

When selling something, the most important thing a seller must consider is how he or she shall be paid. This is a very risky decision since a lot of fraudulent activities in eBay involve payment.

PAYPAL

This is the most common way of paying a seller on eBay.

PayPal is an online business that facilitates the transaction of transferring a monetary amount between a merchant account and an online buyer. Because it is electronic, it is basically a paperless transaction.

It was in October 2002 when PayPal was purchased by eBay. Before, PayPal was just a choice of most eBay users, whether it’s a buyer or a seller. The other choices that time involves eBay’s subordinate, BillPoint.

However, due to a relative percentage of PayPal, being the most widely used mode of payment by almost fifty percent of eBay buyers and sellers, eBay had eventually phased out BillPoint and concentrate more on PayPal.

Right now, there is another company that is in the same line of business like PayPal. This competitor is known as BidPay. There had been reports that a number of eBay buyers and sellers resort to this kind of payment scheme.

ESCROW

For high-priced items, eBay recommends that the method of payment should be with an eBay approved escrow service like the one that can be found at www.escrow.com

Buyers and sellers should take note that there are fake escrow companies lurking in eBay. Hence, it’s important to detect if the escrow company that the buyer and the seller deals with is approved by eBay.

EBay recommends that sellers, as well as buyers, should only contact eBay approved escrow companies like escrow.com for Canada, U’.S., and U.K. eBay users; escrowaustralia.com.au for eBay users in Australia; escrow-europia.com for eBay users in Spain and Italy; ebay.iloxx.de for German eBay users; and tripledeal.com for eBay users in France, Netherlands, and Belgium.

EBay strongly warns its buyers and sellers not to do transaction concerning wire transfers like the Western Union. This is a very unsafe mode of payment because it does not guarantee the concerned person that the process will be smooth.

So, it’s best for every seller and buyer on eBay to opt for the mentioned payment methods so as to be sure of an honest and reliable business transaction. Besides, eBay will protect the sellers and buyers if the transactions were made under these approved eBay mode of payment.

David Riewe is a Publisher and Online Marketer. Visit his eBay Blog to Discover 101 Ebay Auction Tips in this FREE ebook www.push-button-online-income.com/ebayblog

Wholesale clothing offers resellers high profit margins along with high volume sales, when done right.

Resellers, whether flea market vendors, eBay sellers, or dollar stores, will be faced with competition from online and offline retailers who can buy wholesale clothing at a lower price.

To outmaneuver this competition in the wholesale clothing business, resellers need to have a strategic plan in place.

Part one of their plan deals with finding the best sources for wholesale clothing at the lowest possible prices.

For this reason I would recommend resellers to stay away from drop shippers when looking for wholesale clothing.

Since the drop shipper is set up to offer his products to thousands of other resellers, you will not be able to compete based on price. All the resellers are paying the same price to the wholesale clothing drop shipper, so how can your prices be lower?

When looking to buy wholesale clothing you want to get as close to the source as possible.

Since you will not be able to buy brand name wholesale clothing for a lower price than major retailers can, you will want to look for lesser known wholesale clothing sellers.

For instance, ABC Clothing might not have the name recognition that FUBU enjoys, but you can show customers that the quality is the same, and as long as your prices are lower some customers should buy the wholesale clothing manufactured by ABC Clothing.

When you contact these companies looking for wholesale clothing ask them for their overstock, overrun, and closeout deals. You would be surprised at the wholesale clothing deals you can find from small manufacturers that are looking to move merchandise out.

You can find great wholesale clothing deals but it will take some solid leg work.

Donny Lowy is the CEO of http://www.closeoutexplosion.com, an online wholesale and closeout business, and http://www.wholesalecloseoutforum.com, an educational site for the wholesale and closeout business.

Drop shipping, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a system whereby you promote the products of a particular manufacturer, take orders directly, and the manufacturer/source handles all the inventory and fulfillment functions for you.

In a nutshell, here is the drop-ship system:

==>You generate and accept the order.

==>You take your profits out of the sale price.

==>You forward the order and the wholesale cost to the drop shipper.

==>The source factory ships directly to your customer.

The benefits of this arrangement are probably obvious:

* No inventory cost to you.

* Substantially higher profits to you over what most regular affiliate programs allow.

* The ability to quickly set-up inexpensive, highly targeted, niche or mini-sites to test and promote diverse products.

This process has been around for years and has been responsible for many highly successful mail order dealer relationships in the past. Many of the top catalogers and other direct response marketers, have been using this system to increase profits for decades. If you have ever ordered a high priced item from a mail order catalog and been told that the product was being shipped from the factory… then you have experienced drop shipping first hand.

Drop shipping is, I believe, a virgin un-tapped storehouse of profits for todays internet marketer.

On-line directories exist [http://www.dropshipprofits.com] which reveal essential contact information for drop shippers of over 2,000,000 products and 4,000 brands. Most legitimate drop ship sources will require that you have a state tax reseller number in order to approve you to sell their products and give you the wholesale pricing you are looking for.

Beware of any drop ship source which requires you to pay a fee in order to become a drop-ship dealer… or requires a membership. These are generally organizations which make their money selling “drop ship licenses”… and are, for the most part, scams. Legitimate drop shippers and factory sources never charge you any fees other than the actual wholesale cost & shipping costs of the products you sell.

Another caveat… always make sure that you have a written agreement with the source factory that you own the customer! The factory or drop ship source should agree in writing not to solicit your customers in any form. This is very important to you. Your customer list is one of your most important assets. If the factory you are dealing with balks at this request… use another source who will agree.

Almost every conceivable type of product is available from a drop shipper willing to ship products in single units under your companies name. Pick your interest area… electronics, consumer products, agricultural & industrial products, office equipment & supplies, hobby gear, recreational / sporting goods, clothing, furniture, etc. The list of available products from drop shippers is almost endless.

The products actual source is invisible to the consumer. The seller (you) is able to build a database of customers that he/she owns and controls (by agreement with the manufacturer) and has all the direct marketing advantages that accompany that arrangement… while eliminating the need for maintaining expensive inventory.

This arrangement offers maximum flexibility and cost savings for the seller. If a product does not sell well online you can pull the advertising (web page or mini-site) instantly with very little cost to you outside of the actual time it took to build and test the web marketing effort. Or, since this type of page/mini-site is so inexpensive to maintain and host… you can simply leave the pages online and take whatever orders trickle through… while you move on to the testing and promotion of new drop ship products. A quick marketing test can be done on eBay or other auction site to determine if the product sells… and at what price.

The manufacturer benefits from this relationship by gaining a legion of active marketers promoting their products… at little or no cost (other than those small costs involved with supporting the marketer with online marketing materials like product images, sales materials, etc).

As a marketer you are looking for several key components in developing the drop-ship relationship with a source factory or distributor:

** High Quality Products

** Blanket Product Liability Insurance (if applicable)

** A clear guarantee and return policy

** High Quality Marketing Materials … product images (gifs, jpegs, etc.), selling copy, other suitable web graphics, etc.

** A Customer Service Department that will work with you to develop the best selling situation for you.

If you are a manufacturer seeking to expand distribution (or an inventor with a new product ) you will find the willingness to drop ship in single units will give you a strong competitive edge while you carve out increased market share at little cost.

If you are an online marketer interested in offering high profit products to your niche market (your website visitors) without incurring high front-end development or inventory costs… then drop shipping is for you.

Internet marketers are uniquely positioned to take profitable advantage of the drop ship arrangement and should give this system a serious look.

(c) Copyright 2005 Thom Reece

Thom Reece is CEO of Online Marketing Resource Center [http://www.E-ComProfits.com] and publisher of “Thom Reece’s Web Marketing Strategies & Techniques Newsletter”. You may subscribe free at: http://www.WMSTDirect.com, mailto:thom@e-comprofits.com

Buyers really like pictures. The more pictures you have, the more they’ll feel like buying their item from you, and not from your competitor. In fact, there are plenty of buyers who will literally leave your auction within 5 seconds of arriving if they don’t find a picture there waiting for them.

A little extra work on photography can pay off massively, especially if you’re working on slim profit margins. But why is it so effective?

It shows you’re serious. Sellers who take the time to take good pictures and present them carefully are surely more likely to go to the trouble of providing good customer service, and buyers know this, at least on a subconscious level. If you can’t even be bothered to take a photo and upload it to eBay, are you really going to pack their item properly? Are you going to post it on time?

It makes them trust you. Your buyers will feel more comfortable that you actually have the item if they can see that you have your own photo of it. It also reassures the buyers that your item isn’t a beaten up and broken piece of rubbish.

It makes your auction stand out. When your picture is displayed on the search results screen, people can see your item right there instead of having to read your title. People prefer to work visually, and are more likely to pay attention to a result with a picture.

But if you want the benefits of the response pictures can bring, then what should you do? Here are a few simple tips to make your pictures better.

Bombard them with images. eBay might want you to pay for the privilege of adding more than one picture to an auction, but if you have your own web hosting then you can do it for free. Just take as many pictures as you want, upload them to your webspace, and then add them to the auction using HTML.

You might not know how to do this, but it’s very simple. Just write this in your description each time you want to insert a picture:

Take better pictures. Use an image-editing program to touch up your pictures. There are plenty of choices – Ifranview (http://www.ifranview.com) is good, and free. Adjust things like brightness and contrast to make sure that buyers get the best view of your items.

Improve picture quality. Get a good camera, and pay attention to technique and composition when you take the photos. Don’t just throw them on your bed and take photos. If you’re not sure of yourself when it comes to photography, an empty, lightly coloured table against a white or nearly-white wall is always a good place to put things when you take photos of them.

Another good way to get more people to respond to your auctions is to find the best price points, including starting prices, Buy it Now prices and shipping. The next email will give you a few pricing strategies.

Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.