Does anybody use Sellers Voice on their eBay auctions?

I have been wondering about Sellers Voice. I haven't really seen it in action but I am very interested in using it in my auctions. Any input that you might have on how it works would be great. See I'm still learning too. ;-)

New resource links

While I haven't started posting them yet, I have compiled a list of both free and pay for service resource links. I plan to add these to the right navagation bar until I come up with a better idea. Please let me know what you are interested in so I can have only the most useful links posted at any one time. Thanks and I hope to hear from you all soon!

Lord of the Rings Collector Sting Sword

Hi again,

I just wanted to share this listing with you, its a collectors edition sword from the movie "Lord of the Rings". This sword is a numbered, limited edition collectors item. Click the link below to check it out for yourself!

LOTR Sting Sword!

I still haven't received and listings from you guys. I can't help you promote your items without your help. Send me those comments with a link to your item and lets all make some money with eBay!

Promote your favorite eBay stores here!!

I was looking at some stores on eBay today and this one caught my eye.
http://stores.ebay.com/PassAlong-Digital-Music-Downloads

I am mentioning this store only because it is what eBay sellers should try to copy. It catches the eye, isn't a copy of all the other stores that you see on eBay. If you have a store you'd like to promote or one you want to suggest, feel free to post it here...just make sure that it is an eBay store.

Top 5 tips for selling on eBay

1) Research

This is the most important step in listing something for sale. If you list items that are being over sold your chance of making a sale your self is limited. Also, knowing the fair on-line price for an item is important to keep from over or under pricing an item.

2) Information.

Give as much information as you can for your items. Make it easy to read but also informative.

3) Include a Photograph.

Since your bidders can't see your item in person, pictures are the only way for them to get a feel for the quality and condition of your product. The more pictures you include, the better.

4) Follow Through.

Send the buyer an invoice for their item. Most people will only contact you for a total after they have waited for you to act first. This slow the process and could cost you repeat business.

5) Offer Good Customer Service.

Good customer service is the only way to not only bring back past customers, it is required for new ones as well. If you don't provide a good service to your customer, you'll receive a poor feedback rating and who wants to buy from a seller with neg. feedback? Not me!

I'm including some links to a couple of eBay resources, I plan on building both a free resource as well as a pay to use resource area soon so keep checking back. Until next time, have fun and be safe!

PowerSellers toolkit

Prospecting on eBay

eBay Live! A chance to meet and learn from top eBay sellers and developers!

Hi again!

I just wanted to let you all know about eBay live. This is a chance for eBay members to get together and talk about what is happening with eBay and learn how to improve both their own eBay sales model and learn about new and exciting features the eBay will offer. Some of the things that will take place are classes on different ways to become more successful selling on eBay, a speach by Meg Whitman the eBay CEO, eBay campus tour, and some 10th anniversary surprises. If you are in the San Jose, California area on June 23-25th, you should drop by and check it out. I wish I could go to meet other sellers and learn more tricks of the trade but there is just no way for me to get away this year. Let me know how it was and what you learned! To register for eBay live, click the following link to their information page. (Link)

Tips to get started selling on eBay Part 3

Hi again,

In this edition I'd like to talk a little bit about optional promotion items. In the last edition I touched on listing fees and a couple of listing options that I suggest for all items. Now I want to get in to some of the higher priced options that you might want to consider for higher dollar items or if you are a little more advanced and want to try a "Dutch" style auction. I will cover "Dutch" auctions in a later edition as I don't suggest them for beginners, nor will eBay allow a beginner to use this type of auction.

Optional fees are not for the beginner who is just experimenting. But after you
begin to feel at home with the auctions, experiment with the higher-priced
choices and see what happens...

1) Home Page Featured

Featured auctions aren't for the faint of heart. On eBay, it costs $99.95 to feature one item and $199.95 for dutch auctions. While it does increase the likelihood that your
item will sell, I don't suggest these options for beginners. If your items are featured, you are guaranteed to be in the featured section which can be accessed from the front page of the big sites. Overall, featured items have a much higher sale percentage than those that aren't. Your listing will be briefly featured on the home page of eBay where thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of potential customers, may see your items. eBay says you will most likely be on the front page but nothing is guaranteed.

2) Featured Plus!

On eBay, it costs $19.95 to appear in your category's Featured Item section
and in bidder's search results. Plus, your item may be selected for display in
another area -- your category index page Featured Items section.
If a customer types in the exact words that you have used in your listing, they will find your item. However, if the words aren't exact, it won't be featured.

3) Gallery Featured

This type of listing costs $19.95 on eBay. You need a picture in a JPEG (.jpg file) format to use the Gallery (140 x 140 pixels in size).

4) Boldface Title

A boldface title costs $1 on eBay and obviously it can bring more attention to your item.

5) Highlight Your Title

For $5, eBay will put a highlighted strip through your item listing.
Makes it a little easier to pick out from the other listings.

6) Hot, Hotter, Hottest!

This is a very valuable designation that cannot be bought. If your item receives 30 bids, it is placed in the hot category, and is placed at the very top of your category. This is what we all strive for in an item.

Well, thats all I have time for tonight. In the next few days I will post more tips and tricks for new sellers so please check back often. Don't forget to send me some comments to let me know what you want to learn more about. See you next time!

Tips to get started selling on eBay. Part 2

Hello again,

Welcome back! I hope that you found some of the info and links in part 1 interesting. Now we are going to talk about selecting the type of listing and some basic design ideas. If you only have single items to sell and are sourcing your items from home or local markets, I suggest you use either the "fixed price" format or the "auction" format as you really don't need to set up a store just yet. Stores are great because of the reduced listing prices and longer duration of the listing but they don't show up on the regular searches unless there are something like 10 or less auctions for that item. Auction and fixed price listing are almost exactly the same except in an auction, people place bids while fixed price lets people buy now without waiting for the auction to end. Auctions can have a "buy it now" option added but it will cost extra money so a lot of people don't like using that feature. eBay offers many listing upgrades that can help promote and sell your item but most just add fees to your listing cost and should be used sparingly. I suggest two options for EVERY listing and they are, pictures and gallery. Having a picture to show your item atracts attention and displaying it with the gallery option puts it on the search page so people get an idea of what your item is before they click on your listing. This attracts buyers that are interested in your item and not "window shoppers" that click just to see what the item is. I suggest that you review the fee list (link) before you decide what options to add to your listing so you know before hand how much these additional items cost. I suggest that you run your listing for 7 days to give more people a chance to view the listing even though you will find that most "hits" will come in the last couple of days of your listing. This happens because most people sort their search results by "items ending first" or "ending today" but it is always a good idea to have your listing out there for as long as possible.

Now we will touch on the design of your listing. I will save the fancy HTML and advanced listing ideas for a future edition. The two most important parts to each listing are :

1. The title
2. The description

The title is where you will not only capture the attention of the buyer so they click on your listing, it is also the one part of the listing the people search most. When people search for an item, eBay's search engine scans the headline only unless people click the option to search both title and description. I have found through tracking software I use that 90% or more of all the hits I get came from a title only search. Are you beginning to see how important it is yet? You only get a limited amount of space so fill it with keywords that people might type in to the search box and avoid the attempt to be cute by putting in funny symbols. Here are a few examples of what not to do.... "Great stuff!!!" "L@@K!!" or "Check this out!" Try to keep as many words related to the item as you can, like... "Pearl Harbor DVD Ben Affleck new in box" This title will be displayed with a search on any of the words in the listing. You can find some popular search terms at Auction Keywords. (link) In the description portion of the listing you will not only give details of the item and its condition, you should also use this area to try and "sell" your item. "Selling" your item is done by trying to convince the buyer that your item is something that the can't live without and that you are the only buyer that they should buy from. This is done by giving examples of how and when the item should be used, the improvement that it might have made in your life, the attractiveness of your home with this item in it..... The list goes on and on. The most important part of this process is to always show an interest in each and every item you are selling and make it sound interesting to your shoppers. I will give more examples in a future marketing edition that I am working on.

Well, its about time to close for now, I wanted to add a couple of links to give you some ideas on HTML programming for the details portion of your listing. These should help you understand the basics of page design and the language that powers it. You don't need anything fancy to sell on eBay but every little trick helps. Try some of these and let me know how they work for you.

1. One Hour HTML
2. OneTemplate
3. eBAy Search Profits!

This last link is for watching auctions, looking for good keywords to put in your title, and much more. This is a good tool to see what is hot at the moment and find out prices for the items you want to list.

eBay Auction Watcher!

I hope this helps get you started on the path to selling on eBay. Check back often because we post new info all of the time. Please leave comments to let us know if this is to basic or if we need to give more details, also, please feel free to ask any questions that you might have about the topics that we have covered or about any other topics you may have. Hope to hear from you soon and have a great day!

I want people's opinion on the San Francisco 49's

Hi again, while I wouldn't normally mention things like Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, or "The runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks on this page, I do want to know how people feel about the San Francisco 49's video. I am really starting to feel that people take themselves, and life, too seriously. I think people are too quick to get upset about many of the things that we see on T.V. or hear on the radio these days and its getting harder and harder to try and get a date, make a joke, or even use everyday phrases without making somebody mad at you. I know that I'm not out to hurt people's feelings when I talk and I get along with almost everybody unless they act like jerks to me or my family. I am sure that I have said things that people don't like but I feel that if you don't like what you hear, don't listen. I haven't seen all of the video yet but I think it was made with the idea that it would both inform and entertain its viewers. I doubt he was trying to be mean to any group of people and that he was just trying to take his examples of situations to the extreme to be light hearted about this subject and to drive the point home. I really am interested in what you think about this subject and political correctness in general.