A New Feature You Can Use To Increase Your eBay Profits

Until very recently, you had three ways to run an eBay listing for a single item.

You could either:

(a) Run an auction i.e. upload your item with a starting bid and leave it to the mercy of the bidders

(b) Decide how much the item was worth and list a Buy It Now (BIN) listing or

(c) Upload an auction but add an extra Buy It Now price to it so the auction finishes immediately if someone buys your item for the BIN price. If someone bids then the BIN option disappears.

However, eBay has now added a great new feature allowing potential bidders to Submit An Offer.

So, how can this be used to profit?

If you have read any of my previous posts you will know that I like to use BIN listings for almost all of my items.

There are two main reasons for this:

(1) Auctions are risky. eBay can be a very fickle place and one week an item may go for hundreds of pounds and the next it may go for pennies. Auctions depend on willing bidders, if there are very few willing bidders your item may be sniped at the last minute for next to nothing.

(2) Some users, those who know the value of the items I offer, are happy to buy at the price I determine as the BIN price. They buy and receive the item very quickly meaning that both parties are happy.

eBay has now added a new option allowing potential buyers to offer a price at which they are willing to buy.

This is great news for all eBay sellers. Now you can list an item with a high BIN price and ask potential buyers to offer their Best Price. If the price is acceptable, the seller can end the auction there and then and the buyer is obliged to buy the item at the price they offered.

Now, you no longer have to worry about your item being sold for next to nothing, you can invite offers and pick the winning bid!

For example:

Say you had a rare antique plate which you bought for £100. You know that the plate is worth £500 and you are not willing to auction it off for fear of it selling for pennies.

Because of this new ruling from eBay, you could list the plate with a Buy It Now price of £500 but also include the “Submit Best Offer” feature so interested parties can basically bid their highest bid.

If, during the duration of the listing, you do not receive the price you want, you do not need to sell it.

However, say 3 people submit their best offers, at £300, £350 and £400, you can pick the highest offer and sell to that person. Your item has now sold for 4 times what you paid for it and you are at no risk whatsoever of losing money.

The “Submit Best Offer” feature is like an auction where you can determine what the end price is. If no-one offers the price you want, let the listing expire and list it again. Wait for your best offer.

To use this new feature to its best ability I would set the BIN price to a little higher than what the item is worth. In the description, mark clearly that you are open to offers and steer the interested buyers to the Submit feature.

You never know, someone may just buy the item for the BIN price and save you a lot of work!

Ben Catt is an active eBay buyer and seller and runs an eBay Tips and Tricks website found at http://www.BenCatt.com.
He also runs a business opportunity information site - http://www.BizOppsUK.com

You’re looking for that perfect office chair for the conference room and you find a listing from a seller that says “Buy with Confidence” eBay Powerseller. You have only bought from eBay twice before and have no idea what this means. You figure with all of the online scams that you comes across, it is important to buy from someone with a good reputation. But what does it mean to be a “Powerseller”?

On the eBay website, an eBay Powerseller is defined as: “top sellers who sustain a consistent high volume of monthly sales and a high level of total Feedback….with 98% or better positive rating by other eBay users. These sellers rank among the most successful sellers in terms of product sales and customer satisfaction on eBay.”

When recognized as a Powerseller by eBay, you are granted access to the Powerseller logo on things such as business cards, letterheads, advertisements and on your online listings. This adds the guarantee for your buyers that you are a reputable seller with a high positive feedback rating. eBay has rules and regulations governing the Powerseller program and keeping your feedback at a high percentage of positive rating is required to stay in the Powerseller program for all new and existing program members.

When purchasing anything on eBay, a number one concern before purchasing tends to be related to security issues. The Powerseller logo can give the eBay Store or seller the added prestige of security for your purchase.

In order to maintain the Powerseller status, one also has to keep the monthly sales volume at an established level. There are also different levels of Powersellers, gold, silver, platinum, etc. to which one can aspire. These levels are also based on the monthly sales volume of the individual seller and are determined by eBay.

Powerseller status is not easy to reach on eBay and is thought of as a respected community honor to obtain. Since eBay sellers tend to think of their sales platform as a “community” as much as an auction network, having the Powerseller Status in front of your name as an eBay seller can add the reputation desired. Helping the buyer feel comfortable with purchasing from you instead of one of the many other online competitors, eBay Powersellers, more power to you.

Amy Lieberfarb has been in the office furniture and interior sales industry for 11 years and currently runs two online websites dedicated to Office Chairs and Furniture. Providing information on how to pick the right ergonomic chair and featuring hundreds of different chairs, the site is very informative.

http://stores.ebay.com/liebswholesale

Specializing in Office Furniture and Ergonomic Chairs.

http://www.liebswholesale.com

Please see her website or other expert articles for more information on ergonomics and proper positioning. Amy is an expert in most things office chairs and is an eBay Gold Level Powerseller with years of experience and great positive feedback from all of her loyal customer base.

Did you know that everyday there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of eBay auctions that have misspelled words in the titles and descriptions?

Auctions with misspelled information do not come up on the regular eBay search, so frequently these listings have no bids and can be scooped up at a bargain price. This means you can profit by locating these misspelled auctions before anyone else does!

If a seller is trying to sell “jewerly” instead of “jewelry” they are extremely likely to lose out on a ton of potential customers. If someone is an avid collector of “vintage costume jewelry” you can bet that the search term they use will be “jewelry” not “jewerly”.

Remember - “If you can’t spell it……you can’t sell it!”

The one and only way to seriously earn money on eBay is to take it into your own hands! Find deals whether it be locally or online.

You should know a great deal when you see one. If you have trouble recognizing a good deal from a bad deal you may not want to get into eBay selling at all.

That’s not a slam on you, that’s the reality. You have to be a “natural” when it comes to finding deals.

I want to share with you a really foolproof and definite way to make profits on eBay. Clever sellers purchase bargains on eBay all day long then turn around and re-sell those same items making a huge profit! This is a unique opportunity for those selling on eBay.

You can uncover these misspelled auctions by using a free eBay misspelling tool. Simply enter a keyword and the tool will search eBay for matches and display them for you.

For instance, typing in the word “jewelry” will return tons of active eBay listings with misspellings of the word that may mean profit for you.

At the time this article was written, there were 4774 active eBay listings with misspellings of the word “jewelry”.

Benefits Of Selling This Way:

No more shipping supplies to buy. You buy misspelled items, they are shipped to your house in boxes with packaging - do you understand where I’m going with this? You never have to pay for shipping supplies again. As soon as you receive the package, open it, inspect it, close it and re-label it!

Job security. With literally thousands of items per day being misspelled and listed…..even if 1,000 people were doing this, you would still never run out of opportunities and eBay has no spell check and never will!

Low investment. Try this method once and discover for yourself how easy it is. Buy something for $10 and re-sell it in days for $20. This happens ALL the time.

You should be able to pick up some true bargains with no one else bidding against you. Just bear in mind thousands of items on eBay are listed with misspelled descriptions and item names, from a single word to multiple words. These items often close with no bids on them as no-one can find them. Now you can uncover those hidden gems.

Teresa has been quietly making money online for 3 years. Discover her secrets and use the free eBay misspelling tool by visiting www.power-buys.com/spelling.php

Online auctions continue to grow in popularity as an easy and efficient way to make money on everything from unwanted household items to rare and expensive collectables and even to bulky items like cars.

Log on to eBay and you will see countless auctions on any item you can imagine. As eBay auctions grow in popularity, it becomes harder to make money with your auction because it often gets buried or overlooked with all the competing auctions in the same category. Therefore, to make money on your auction, it is important to set your auction apart and avoid common eBay auction mistakes. Here are 3 important mistakes that you must take note of:

1. Wrong product category or product category not specific enough. As it is relatively simple and inexpensive to auction an item, many sellers simply do not put in enough effort researching the market. The result is the auctions are put up in the wrong category. This would be tantamount to pitching your deal to the wrong market.

However, if you are marketing your product in traditional channels and paying money for your promotions, you are likely to do a lot more research and legwork. If you want to earn a serious income, then you should not treat your eBay auctions any differently.

To research, find the best eBay category to put your product auction in. If you are selling coins, eBay shoppers do not have the time to search all 38,000 plus auctions put up under the category of coins. You need to define your product category as specific as possible. You will then target the true eBay shoppers that are likely to be interested in your auction.

2. A blurred or ugly looking image. Be sure your eBay auction has a clear professional looking image. Pay heed to the saying “A picture speaks a thousand words”. Also, don’t forget to ensure that your image file size is not too large. If the image takes minutes to download, the typical eBay shopper is bound to skip your auction.

3. Incomplete and unclear product description. Be sure to give a detailed and precise description for your eBay auction item. For instance, you can give exact dimensions of the product or give specific details about the condition of the second hand item. An incomplete or unclear description is not likely to attract bidders for your item.

All in all, the best exercise I can suggest is to visit your Ebay auction and honestly ask yourself if you would be even tempted to put in a bid for this product.

If the answer is no or even probably not, then change it. If you are passionate about your auction and take the time to make it professional, your auction is likely to stand out. Make the effort to do it right and you are likely to have successful auctions.

Evelyn Lim is an online publisher of a FREE newsletter aimed to help all aspiring home based business owners. She also hopes to equip her readers with skills on acquiring multiple sources of online income. To subscribe to her popular newsletter, please visit http://www.e-bizmap.com or her blog at http://www.EvelynLim.com .

In January 2004, rumors has it that the top affiliate at eBay earned over a million dollars. Now supposing this is not supposition and he, by all likelihood did earned that $1 million? Aren’t you just dying to know this top affiliate’s eBay secrets?

It will indeed be a big deal if at least 75% of the people all over the world stop their daily routine of cursing in alarm clocks, commuting to work and boring themselves rotten on their underpaid jobs.Having a knowledge of eBay secrets that would generate extra income for at least half this percentage might surely turn the world around.

Do you think you can really make extra income by learning eBay secrets? Let me tell you, that as of now, over 25,000 people depend on their income from online auctions in eBay, Google, Yahoo and more. Meanwhile part timers would number at about 250,000! Just think, presently, a quarter of a million people make out their extra income through online auctions.

So, it’s fairly a matter of decision really. Raise your hand if you’d like to join those who dare to unlock the eBay secrets and start their own the home-based business!

If you have already made your choice, give yourself a helping of several of the eBay secrets to sales success.

Products that are lying around your house or those that interest you aren’t just for collectibles. Small business owners now have a solution for slow-moving and overstocked merchandise. Several small business owners have already discovered that they can turn up nice profits on auction Web Sites.

Now here’s an ultimate eBay secret almost everyone is starting to be aware of recently. Try listing a few of your unwanted or excess inventory items on eBay - www.ebay.com. On eBay, many business owners have discovered that they can get full price, and sometimes fetch a higher price, by auctioning their wares.

Once you have registered in eBay as a seller, start learning the eBay secret on how to have a return on your time and investment.

Try these eBay secrets shared by experienced eBay sellers:

Write a descriptive title for your product

Turn up with more noticeable and interesting descriptions for your product. Instead of “Walk-in Cooler” put in “Excellent Walk-In Cooler”. “2 Year-Old Compressor, 2-Year Warranty”is also much better than “Used Compressor”. Having good titles is an eBay secret which will draw bidders’ attention. By having these catchy titles, chances are they will view additional details about your products.

Includjng lots of pictures to go along with your description

It is a popular eBay secret that a picture is worth a thousand words on eBay. By having clear, candid and all-angle photos of your product, you can a vote of trust from potential buyers. Whether your item is in “excellent” condition or “fair” condition, the extra pictures give buyers confidence in placing bids.

You can pay for the “Gallery” option in eBay. This allows you to include a picture with the title of your item. Having a thumbnail photo with your listing is a great eBay secret to be aware of. Most people don’t click an item listing that have no picture.

Determine shipping costs before selling

Its not only an eBay secret, it is better to be particular about shipping arrangements and expenses before selling your item. Buyers are wary of sellers who don’t include their shipping arrangements and costs outright.
If you failed to estimate shipping costs beforehand chances are you will be burdened with unexpected expenses.

Pack boxes after the auction.

Perhaps you may not have heard of this eBay secret before but buyers sometimes ask unexpected questions about your items. Thus, make sure you have satisfied your customers first so don’t touch the packing tape until your auction is over.

Use a seven- to 10-day auction and end it on a Sunday

Don’t you know that people seem to like to buy on Sundays? So this could be a well-shared eBay secret.

Do you think you have enough of eBay secrets for now? Start applying them in your eBay selling venture, then!

Want to know how to become an eBay power seller that can
make money the easy way? Go here now:
Power Ebay Sellers and get the lowdown for
newbies and advanced ebay sellers alike.

VeRO stands for Verified Rights owner. eBay has a program by which rights holders can stop the sale of infringing items.

Too often VeRO is used to control the secondary market by companies who do not wish their items sold on eBay.

Early in the 2000’s eBay actually verified that the individual claiming rights was the rights holder. Now anyone with a fax machine and a willingness to lie can shut down compeititor auctions.

If you are shut down by a VeRO member do not “guess” as to what you may have done wrong and relist your item. You can be shut down again and suspended. The first step is to contact the VeRO member and simply ask why you were shut down. Make sure you are in the right, be sure of the products you are selling. If you bought a LV purse for $25 and try to sell it on eBay as authentic you will get shut down, and you should.

Start an email folder and keep all correspondence with the VeRO member. Keep it professional. You never know when it will become a matter of record.

If however you are selling legit merchandise the you can afford to get in the VeRO member’s face. When they shut down your auction they use provisions of the DMCA. Ask the VeRO member if they know the penalties for misrepresentation under 17 U.S.C. 512(f)

You have the option of filing a counternotice if you can pry it out of eBays hands. That is tough, eBay doesn’t seem to want to get involved in the counternotice process. If the VeRO member claims trademark issues eBay will refuse to forward the counternotice at all. eBay will ask for proof of your identity when filing the counternotice. You don’t need to provide this. The DMCA does not require this nor does eBay bother to actually even “verify” the rights holder. Usually when they tell me to provide proof of identification I say no and tell them that if they don’t forward the counternotice I will file a complaint with the US Attorney for California.

I have had 17 VeRO takedowns, 14 cases settled in federal court, one expired counternotice and one case I lost when the judge ruled that it didn’t matter that the VeRO member was an attorney, training and expertise had no bearing and as long as he said “good faith belief” he didn’t have to prove it any further.

Never threaten the VeRO member with a lawsuit, that is all they need to take you into court. If however they threaten you, that’s all you need. The counternotice establishes jurisdication where you live, they have to come to you. I’ve been the reason that many lawyers have enjoyed an all expense paid trip to the wonderful state of Colorado.

Remember that eBay keeps score, you may decide it’s not worthwhile to fight the first VeRO takedown, or even the second. But then when you are suspended for the third then you have a problem. A lot of VeRO members are not used to people questioning them and getting in their face. Often they will back down and retract the takedown. That is important, make sure they copy you into the email to eBay.

Remember two important federal doctrines:

First Sale Doctrine - once the owner of a copyright item places the item in the stream of commerce by selling it he loses his exclusive statutory right to control it’s distribution. (copyright law)

Fair Use Doctine - you can use the trademarked name of the item you are selling - ie: you can use Coke if you are selling a coke item. (trademark law)

You can fight back, I’ve had contact with quite a few sellers who have fought back and gotten their records cleared, you can also.

Karen Dudnikov
eBay seller name tabberone

The activity chart is an ingenious way to find, in order, events happening in your community throughout the day. Plug in ‘www.noonernight.com’ on your computer or cell phone and retrieve lunch specials, happy hours, music and nightlife events.

Unlike newspapers with static ads, noonernight.com utilizes dynamic time updates.

To see upcoming events, simply enter a zip code and distance. The day and current time are highlighted in a bar graph form. Each event submitted spans the designated time. So planning a day or week can be done at a glance.

Not everyone can afford to advertise his or her events in the newspaper on a daily basis, which is why noonernight.com was developed. To let the public know what’s going on and when and where. A fantastic service for everyone to use.

Adding events is simple, fast, and free.

Noonernight.com is a great advertising and promotion tool that can be used to:

-Submit where your band is playing tonight.
-Advertise breakfast, lunch or dinner specials.
-Know about community events.
-Locate county fairs and festivals.
-List open houses.
and much more.

Log on to http://www.noonernight.com to see events in your area and add your event for free!

Leave the zip code entry field blank to view all submitted events.

Has this ever happened to you?

You’ve been watching an auction like a hawk, and your excited that you are one of the only bidders. You know you can sell this product on and that it will make you good money.

However, in the final half hour your auction gets swamped with bidders and you come to the sickening realisation that you have completely wasted your time.

Well, you’ll need to be a lot sharper than this when looking for a good deal. To be an effective Bargain Hunter, you’ll need to take these tips on board:

(1) Don’t get Emotionally Attached to One Auction

I admit that I’ve been affected by this disease …it’s quite common since most of us are very competitive, and hate to lose. To get your bargain you should analyse the deal
And make a quick decision on how much you are willing to pay.

It is impossible to win every bid, and it is essential to bid on as many as you can to stack the odds in your favour. You can use bidding software that will bid for you automatically and at the date and time of your choosing.

An effective Bargain Hunter spends most of his or her time finding good deals, and not getting emotionally
Attached to a deal that could fall through.

(2) Specialise in One Product Category … Initially.

This is essential.

Why?

Because if you specialise then you will know the products that you can buy for a steal and then sell on for a killing.
For example, if you concentrate on Digital Equipment, you may another sub-category of products that is completely off the radar of your competition, and that you can pick up at great prices.

Contrast this with a Bargain Hunter who jumps from one product category to another, never developing the depth of knowledge required to buy under valued products.

Once, and only once you know a category like the back of your hand should you …

(3) Research Other Product Areas of Interest

Now I know this may sound contradictory, but it isn’t. Follow step two first, and then do a little part time sleuthing. Spend and hour or two doing a bit of market research to find a good niche.

There are third party solutions provided by Amdale, Hammertap, and Terrapeak that you can use. Then, step by step, you can master a few categories and find much better deals. Over time it is good to have your fingers in many pies, because if one of your product specialties falls flat, you have another to back it up.

In conclusion, a Bargain Hunter should focus attention on one or two product areas. Bid on as many products as possible; use the law of averages in your favour - eventually you will succeed. Then expand in other catagories to make even more money, and increase your security.

David Jason helps people buy smarter on Ebay. To see more Articles like this then visit Bargain Hunter

The eBay market place continues to grow by leaps and bounds. There are now over 100 million registered users world wide. These means that any given time there are millions of consumers searching for merchandise on eBay.

This sizable demand also means that there is a demand on the part of eBay sellers who are looking to supply eBay shoppers with the items they are looking for.

I recently read that there are over 400,000 full time sellers on eBay.

This figure does not include all the incidental eBay sellers, meaning the people who periodically list items for sale, or temporary eBay sellers, the people who because of temporary situations look to start selling on eBay.

Based on these three types of eBay sellers, I would estimate that there are over a million people who will sell merchandise this year on eBay.

I am sure you would agree that the high number of sellers represents a substantial market for any wholesaler, manufacturer, importer, or distributor.

Another reason why you would want to wholesale to eBay sellers is because of the turn over that they have. Most eBay auctions are three days long, meaning that in many cases the merchandise will be sold and the eBay seller will now need more merchandise.

If you are convinced that it is a good idea to wholesale to eBay sellers you now need to know how to do it.

I recommend the following steps should be taken in order to wholesale to eBay sellers.

You need to investigate which products are in demand on eBay. If you find products that are in demand, then you will know which items eBay sellers will be interested in buying wholesale.

You should also research the closing prices of auctions on eBay. This way you will know how much the merchandise is sold for on eBay, and how much you can realistically wholesale the merchandise for.

Lastly, since you cannot contact eBay sellers directly, you need to get your wholesale business listed in directories and eBooks that eBay users use.

This way when eBay sellers search for wholesale suppliers, your wholesale business will come up.

Remember, in order for an eBay seller to know to contact you, he needs to know that you sell to eBay sellers. Always make that clear in all of your advertising.

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

As with all auction sites, eBay gets it’s fair share of non paying bidders. These are users that bid and win your auction, or even use the Buy-It-Now option but then simply disappear without paying.

Time Wasters, Competitors, & Users who forget they’ve even bidded all make up their share of non paying bidders. As eBay charges you a final sales fee on each item sold you really need to do all you can to minimize these sales.

Although if a member fails to pay for a product, you can follow eBays procedure to reclaim the final sales fee it still takes time - even then you will not be able to claim back the listing fee & will have to relist the items again to resell them.

So what can be done to prevent a large number of Non Paying Bidders?

Well eBay has a number of options you can use when listing goods to help prevent these incidents.

One of these options is “Immediate Payment Required”, which means anyone using the Buy-It-Now feature has to pay immediately otherwise the item is not sold and remains on eBay. If for some reason payment is not sent, the transaction is cancelled as if it never happened.

The second option you can use is called “Paypal account required”.

Most delays in payment happen because the winning bidder is new to eBay & has not yet opened a paypal account. So, by using this option unless the eBay member has a paypal account linked to their eBay account they are not able to bid.

Most importantly, you should use your listing to explain when payment is required, normally within a few days & how you expect users to pay. If like most users you only accept payment though paypal ask your bidders to ensure they have a paypal account open before bidding.

Hopefully these tips will reduce the number of Non Paying Bidders you receive to your auctions.

Mark Kenny operates an ad-revenue sharing independent eBay forum at http://ebusinessebooks.com/forum. For any eBay related comments or queries just visit our forum for support.