Internets Was Yes!

Internets Was Yes! is the new Boing Boing

Thank you for stumbling upon my blog. This blog was originally started to make money with google adsense while helping eBay sellers. It has sense gone mostly dormant.

Now I am focusing all of my blogging energy juices on a new more general/fun blog. Please check it out and tell your friends.

Internets Was Yes:

Exploring a Series of Tubes.

The Smurfs Are Back! New Smurf Movie 2009

The word on the street is that there is going to be a new Smurf Movie in 2009. Rumor has it, it may be part of a trilogy. The Smurf Movie may also be in 3D (though it is unlikely the characters will be).

Well, I know what you are asking, "Why are you bringing up the Smurf Movie? What do Smurfs have to do with eBay?"

Well eBay friends I will tell you. This post is a trend watch, and I am guessing that The Smurfs will be the hot new trend.

I am assuming this will be similar to the Transformer trend of the past. I am sure there will be a lot of marketing to promote the New Smurf movie in the next year, so now is the time for you to take action.

I recommend that while you are out at garage sales, or if you see any cool smurf items on the internet, or have any at home, that you hang on to them until the movie comes out.

I Sense a high demand for smurf items on the horizon, so keep your eyes peeled and get ready to jump on the Smurf Movie Bandwagon.

eBay News and Information: Links for Mar 1

Rob Pergoraro of the Washington Post wants to hear how you feel about the recent eBay changes.

Reuters reports that eBay Sees Growing Risks in Coming Years.

"If these changes cause sellers to move their business away from our sites or otherwise fail to improve gross merchandise volume or the number of successful listings, our operating results and profitability will be harmed," eBay said.

According to AuctionBytes, eBay may introduce a split screen to display auction results.

eBay may have found a solution that will make both auction and fixed-price buyers and sellers happier: a split-screen results page that shows auction listings on one side and fixed-price listings on the other.

eBay Numbers were Reported to be inflated according to pheebay.com.

An apparent glitch on eBay has meant tens of thousands of listings appeared on the eBay.com website without the ability for anyone to buy or bid on the items.

As per normal with eBay, the conspiracy theories are already circulating about inflated listing numbers to disguise the boycott impact and artificial stats to satisfy Wall Street analysts.

Learn How To Sell on eBay

There are lots of new eBay customers out there who want to learn how to sell on eBay. If this describes you, and you want to learn how to sell on eBay in a quick and easy way, I have a book to recommend for you!

I just read Skip McGrath's book the, New Basic Seller's Guide to eBay. Skip Has been in the eBay trenches for a very long time, and does a very good job of simplifying the eBay selling system in a way that your grandma could understand.

If you would like to learn how to sell on eBay but do not want to buy a book, I recommend that you dig around in the archives of this website, the eBay Selling Guide, or take a look at Lizard Wisdom, or TameBay.

There is a lot of great information out there if you want to learn how to sell on eBay, you just have to make sure to be skeptical of your sources.

eBay News: eBay Boycott Causes Auction listings to drop 13%

From USA Today:

Auction listings on eBay.com dropped some 13% since the strike started Feb. 18
to about 13 million items, according to third-party tracking sites such as
dealscart.com and medved.net.

This quote misrepresents the actual effectivness of the eBay boycott. Ebay, did in fact drop 13% since Feb. 18. But if you look at the beggining of February there were about 13 million auction listings to start with. Thus, this small time frame only captures a small spike and valley in the graph. It does not actually represent how eBay is doing as a whole throught the month of February.

This is another case of the Media skewing the numbers for a story.

eBay reports that it has seen no difference in the ammount of auctions listed since the boycott began.

eBay News: Forbes says dump eBay stock

From Forbes.com

One name the gurus no longer want in their portfolios: eBay (nasdaq: EBAY). Analysts who favor the stock point out that eBay is the No. 1 global e-commerce brand, with a presence in nearly 40 markets. And the company likes to give back to its shareholders: eBay has repurchased $3.2 billion worth of stock since July 2006 and may repurchase another $2.8 billion under current authorizations.

But analysts also point out concerns, noting, for instance, that growth has slowed down in the company's two largest markets: the U.S. and Germany. EBay also has to deal with competition from rivals like Google (nasdaq: GOOG), Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO) and Amazon (nasdaq: AMZN), and the recently announced decision of well-respected CEO Meg Whitman to step down.

EBay's shares have slipped about 18% in the past 12 months, well off the October high of $39. The M100 decided it was time to bail.

eBay Changes: Meet the Seller

Are you ready for the new changes at eBay? Here is an example of one of them: Meet the Seller.

It appears that if you have a low star rating for shipping time, shipping price, item as described, or communication eBay will warn your potential bidders.

With this new auction format in the works, bidders will no longer have to click the feedback button to read your feedback. EBay will point out all of your faults for you.

If you sell on eBay, and you have less than a 4.5 on any star rating, I really suggest that you try to find out what the problem is and fix it. Otherwise, this type of change will obviously make your bidders think twice about buying an item from you.

The Importance of reporting Non-Paying Bidders

It is very important that all sellers with non-paying bidders file non-paying bidder alerts and final value fee credits 10 days later if payment is still not received.

Filing the FVFC has better results than leaving negative feedback - a buyer with three FVFC filed from three different sellers is suspended (usually) from using E Bay. Leaving negative feedback only gets a buyer suspended when their feedback number gets into the negatives (usually -3, but sometimes even that doesn't occur).

It is also important to file for the correct reason - that the buyer didn't pay. If they don't pay, don't file "mutually agreed to cancel the transaction" - that does NOT place a black mark against the buyer and allows the buyer to continue doing the same thing to other sellers.

If you review a buyers feedback and see they have more than three negatives for non-payment, you can assume that not all of the sellers file or know to file the FVFC.

Sellers must help each other by filing these forms to get these habitual non-payers off of E Bay.

Please read and use this link to file NPB's and FVFC on all non-paying bidders:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/bidders_nonpaying.html

Additionally, you will have your re-listing fees refunded as well if you file the NPB and FVFC, relist and the item sells.

Until E Bay starts restricting bidders with NPB's from bidding on other items, the only way we can help each other as sellers is to file the FVFC's to get these buyers suspended.

eBay News and Information: Links for Feb 24

LA Times: Ex-CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, is looking into what it takes to run for Governor of California. She reportedly has enough capital to finance her own campaign.

Newsday: eBay Strike is extended until March 9th. Some sellers and fewer buyers will prolong their boycott an extra week. Although eBay says, "There hasn't been any marked change in our daily listing volume, and we monitor that pretty closely."

Forbes: Experts at Wharton consider what Donahoe, the new CEO, should try to accomplish with eBay. One recommendation is that "eBay needs to better integrate its auctions with the fixed-price shopping convenience offered at sites like Amazon.com."

Online Auction Blog: Provides some examples of what PayPal scams look like, and how you can avoid them.

ByIndia.com: an Indian Internet search engine and social media site is now available on eBay. Starting bid is US $500,000.00. If you want a website ranked in the top 100 on Alexia in India, today is your lucky day!

How to get more people to find your eBay Auction

When doing a search on Google for an item, it is quite common to get eBay auctions to pop up in your search results. If you want to get your eBay Auction found on Google or other search engines, I recommend that you follow some of eBay's search term guidelines.

Use Keywords - Pick three to five keywords that relate closely to your item. Ask yourself what words people are likely to use in a search engine when looking for what you're selling. Once you have these keywords, use them appropriately in your listing title and item description.

Take Care with Titles - Your listing title is a key factor in natural search. Include the most important keywords or keyword phrases in your listing title.

Get the Most Out of Your Item Description - Your item's description is the most valuable tool for creating search engine-friendly listings. While your primary goal is to describe the item you are selling to your eBay audience, here are several ways to use your description to its fullest:

• Create Good Content: Describe your item the best you can and in as much detail as possible You should include approximately 200 words of visible text in your description, with the most important keyword phrases comprising 5 to 7% of the total. (In 200 words of text, you'll want to use your keywords 10 to 14 times.) Note that search engines only read a certain amount of information per page, so overdoing your description with non-relevant information isn't a good strategy.
• Avoid Keyword Spamming: Do not overuse keywords in an item description as it can reduce the effectiveness of content. Moreover, keyword spamming is a violation of eBay policy as well as an irritation to prospective buyers.
• Avoid Hidden Text: Do not add invisible copy; search engines will not read it.
• Vary Font Strength: Use bold headers and use a font size of 12 or 14 maximum.
• Include Links: Add links to other products, to your eBay Store, and so on. The words that are linked should be relevant to the destination. For example, "Visit my Store" or "See other items" are more effective than "Click here."
• Use Image Alt Tags: These are keywords associated with the images you use in your listing. If you do your own HTML, be sure to include alt tags. This provides yet another opportunity to optimize keywords or keyword phrases that both describe the image and are consistent with your content.

Source: Search Optimization

Get Repeat Business on eBay with Free Business Cards

If you want to get repeat business on eBay, have buyers bid on multiple items, and raise the average selling price and sell through rate of your eBay auctions, then you are going to need to implement some changes into your business.

One of the easiest things you can do to increase repeat business is to put a business card in with every package you send out.

I recommend making a business card with your eBay user ID on it, as well as your store's web page. This is a great way to get customers to easily remember you.

In order to get extra repeat business you might want to offer a coupon code that gives them a shipping discount on their next purchase.

Take control of your business card and get more repeat eBay customers. I use VistaPrint’s pre-designed templates to make easy and professional business cards. You can make them online in minutes, and if you go to their site right now you can get 250 full-color business cards for FREE!

Free eBay Consultation: heroptionsforyou

Dear Readers,
I am sorry that I have been neglecting my Free eBay Consultations. I promise I will work harder to make sure that I get to review at least two eBay Sellers auctions and stores per week. This may mean that it will take your store several weeks to get featured on the eBay Selling Guide, and Auction Help. However, if you would like to speed up this process and get your free eBay consultation in 72 hours, you can donate any amount to the eBay Selling Guide.
eMail me for more info.

Today's consultation will feature a store that sells men's and women's clothing, non-fiction books, and children's toys. It is run by Michelle, who seems to be...

Click here to Read The Complete eBay Consultation at Auction Help

Get Higher Auction Prices With Good Ad Copy

Do you want to get higher prices on your eBay listings? Do you feel that your items are selling for less than they should? Well it is time for you to work on your Ad Copy (Advertisement Copywriting).

Writing good ad copy is a process that takes time. You may have to restructure your auctions, and re-think how you write your descriptions. But, if you want higher auction prices and a larger sell through rate, it will be worth it to learn some basics of copywriting.

The first thing you need to do when copywriting is know who your audience is. Identify your target audience and then address their needs. When you are writing to your bidders you need to make your ad as personal as possible. Use pronouns like I and you, drop the we. Even if your ad reaches hundreds of people, you need the bidder to imagine that you are giving them one on one attention.

Secondly, you need to analyze your product/service, it helps to make a list. What features does your product have? Make a list and try to describe it thoroughly. For every feature that you come up with, try to think of a benefit that it will give your buyer.

Next, you need to take your list of features and benefits and use them in a ad copy formula. You need to structure your ad copy in your eBay auction, and there are two popular ways to do so. The first method is called AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The second is PAS (Problem, Agitate, Solution). These are they basic formulas for writing ad copy, and are pretty self explanatory.

When writing ad copy for your eBay auctions make sure to really sell the product. Grab the readers interest and make them want the product because of all of its great features. Use the bidders desire as a tool to get them to buy the item, tell them how it will make their life better, and how it will solve their problems. And lastly, use a call of action. Tell the bidder to buy it now in order to get this great product.

The last part is so important I will write it again. When writing good ad copy for your eBay auctions you need to tell the bidder to bid or buy your item now. Make it seem urgent, tell them they will not find a better deal anywhere else, tell them not to miss out on this unique product. You need to tell the bidder to buy the item, or else they will go elsewhere, and you will lose a lot of bids.

Three Free Products You Can Sell on eBay

Want something for free that you can sell on eBay? Well, you came to the right spot! I have been doing some research on items that you can get for free and sell on eBay. Today I have three free things that you can find on the internet and sell on eBay.

These are not going to make you a lot of extra money. But, if placed in your store, they will easily add some extra money to your PayPal account.

For all of these items I recommend running a week long 1 cent auction with text and links that refer the customer to your store to buy the item now. This way you will get a lot of traffic to your store items because bidders will be interested in your cheap auctions.

Here is the list of three things you can get for free and sell on eBay.

Coupons: Selling Coupons on eBay is very easy. Although, since it is easy a lot of people do it, and this results in a relatively low selling price. I am not going to do all of the work for you, but I suggest you look at fatwallet.com for the coupons (there are sooo many!), and then research eBay to see what kinds of coupons sell best.

Tips for selling coupons on eBay:

• Make sure that the coupons do not expire before your auction does (obvious?)
• Save the coupon as an image or PDF, and then email it, or have the bidder download it when they win. Do not just point to the actual site where you found it.

For the next two items, you can get a little higher selling price, but you are going to have to be able to download the items on demand, burn them onto a CD and ship them to your customer. The deal with these next products is that since they are free in the first place, you can only sell them on CD. Here you are providing a service for people who have slow internet connection and do not want to try to download huge files. Also, some people just do not know any better.

MP3 Audio Books: Selling MP3 Audio Books on eBay is a simple enough task. The majority of your time will be spent on downloading books that look like they sell well on eBay and then creating nice store listings for them. I say store because you are going to have to list a lot in order to sell a few every day.

Where to find Free Audio Books to Sell on eBay:
There are several sites where you can download free MP3 audio books to sell on eBay. A couple of them are: Free Classic Audio Books, and LibriVox.

Tips to Sell MP3 Audio Books on eBay

• If you have a DVD burner, that is great. I recommend that you get creative with your audio book package. I would try to sell individual titles as well as compilations by author or genre. For example, you could list something like "Alcott, Little Men, Little Women Audio Book Package."
• As with selling anything on eBay, you need to do some homework, find out what sells, and how to go about marketing it.
• To see what kind of audio books sell best I suggest that you use hammertap, it is a great program which lets you know what the top keywords are, and what sells best on eBay in every category.

Open Source Software : My last tip is to sell open source software on eBay. Selling free software is a great way to make some extra cash in your eBay store. There are a lot of different free programs that you can download, burn to a disc, and then sell. The best place to find a comprehensive list of these items is at Free Software Directory. I recommend selling a variety of different things from this site, such as image, video, and audio editing software. I also recommend trying to sell an alternative operating system like Linux, as well as the MS Works alternative, OpenOffice.

Tips for selling Open Source Software on eBay:

• Make sure you read the copyright information on each item before you attempt to sell it. I know that it is ok to sell OpenOffice on CD, but I am unsure about many of the others.
• It is a good idea to bundle software if you can fit it all on one CD, or DVD. Sell a photo editing program with OpenOffice, and maybe a website editor.
  

Now, if you are really serious about selling any of these free items on eBay it is going to take some effort to stand out. Since they are free, you are going to have to do some work to your auctions and images to make them really stand out. I recommend that you read the following posts to help make your auctions stand out:

How to Write an Ebay Auction Description that sells
importance of Pictures in eBay Auctions

USPS To Raise Prices in May

The USPS has created a yearly "Price Adjusting" Ritual. The USPS just announced that it is going to raise its prices on May 12. The price of a First Class Stamp is going to be raised to 42 cents.

But it does not stop there. The USPS will be "adjusting" all of their prices. Though they have not announced the rate increase for Priority or Express mail yet.

Here is a taste of some of the changes they are making now:

• Large envelope, 2 ounces, $1, up 3 cents.
• Certified mail, $2.70, up 5 cents.
• First-class international letter to Canada or Mexico, 72 cents, up 3 cents.
• First-class international letter to other countries, 94 cents, up 4 cents.

Let's hope that these increases are not as high as they were last year.

Good luck eBay Sellers, the Feedback and Fee Changes combined with raised shipping fees are not going to help anyone. Hopefully your transition into June will not be too bumpy.

Building an eBay Brand - Consistency is Key

While doing my free eBay consultations I have noticed a pattern: many eBay sellers are not building a brand through consistency. I have seen a lot of sellers not using logos in their stores, or at the top of their auctions. Even more importantly, I have noticed a lack in auction template consistency. If you want a free logo, please just sign up here, and write "free logo" in the notes section.

The best thing you can do to brand your eBay store is to have ONE auction template. There are lots of places to find a free generic template on Google, or you can have someone build one for you.

The most important thing is that you use the same eBay template in all of your auctions. This is will save you time in listing, as you will not always have to add or edit all of your terms of sale.

The other benefit of using a template is that whenever someone goes to your auction it will look like all of your other auctions! This will make you look more professional, and will result in more repeat business, and more bidders buying multiple items.

eBay Coupon Codes - Get Cash Back!

eBay Promotions and coupon codes are few and far between. But there are some ways to get cash back on your eBay purchase without having a coupon. In fact, there is one very easy way to get cash back on all of your purchases without having to use a coupon code at all!

If you want to get cash back on all eBay purchases I recommend that you sign up for BigCrumbs.com It is a free service that pays you the highest overall cash back available at eBay , and you can also get cash back at 233 other online marketplaces. It also has a referral program where you can make money whenever your referrals buy something.

This is a service that I actually use, otherwise I would not be promoting it. I just want to let you in on the eBay savings when there are no eBay coupon codes to be found. So next time you are shopping on eBay be sure to consider BigCrumbs.com . It is easy, and you get your cash deposited to your Paypal account every month.

Free eBay Consultation: rgilbert15

Ron Gilbert signed up several days ago to have his free eBay consultation, but I have been putting it off because he appears to be on top of his game. Ron is a PowerSeller, has 4100+ Positive Feedback, and has 700+ items listed in his store. He is someone you should really be looking to as a great example of niche eBay selling.

I urge you to check out Ron's store and several of his auctions. His user name is...

Click here to Read The Complete eBay Consultation at Auction Help

Free eBay Consultation: mom2nick4ever

Nicolette left a note for me saying that she has only had a store for about a month. But let me tell you, this store is pretty far ahead of the curve. I recommend that you check it out! She mostly sells children's clothing, but also has some women's clothing scattered throughout.

Nicolette's eBay user name is mom2nick4ever, and her store is called Wish Upon a Child's Star.

The first suggestion that I would make is that Nicolette changes...

Click here to Read The Complete eBay Consultation at Auction Help

Free eBay Consultation: indiansteps

This free eBay consultation is supposed to serve two purposes. First of all, it is supposed to act as a case study in eBay selling. I am hoping that you will learn what types of things to do in your auctions and stores, as well as what sort of things you should try to avoid. Secondly, this free consultation is supposed to help the sellers by giving them personalized instruction on how they might improve or alter their selling techniques.

If you are interested in a free eBay consultation, please submit your information here.

Now it is time to get down to business. The second eBay seller I am going to give some tips to is Denise. She operates under the user name indiansteps, and her store is called: Denise's Bargain Bin.

Denise sells a variety of clothing and accessories for men, women, and babies. The majority of her items are gently used. Please check...

Click here to Read The Complete eBay Consultation at Auction Help

Free eBay Consultation: Our First Victim - Paulaloft

The experiment begins. Paula was brave enough to submit her eBay store: Paula's Loft of Bridal Treasures. Paula specializes in selling Wedding Gowns, bridal accessories, and prom dresses.

Paula currently has 84 store items, with the dresses starting at $39 and ranging up to $499. This is a nice spread of...

Click Here to Read the Complete eBay Consultation at Auction Help

Free eBay Consultation, Tips and traffic for your store.

I plan on starting a new feature on the blog where I do some free eBay auction/store consultation.

This is a feature completely unique to this blog. Nobody else on the internet is doing something like this for free. So, tell your friends and neighbors.

I will be providing free personalized tips to optimize your store and auctions as well as some positive reinforcement. In conjunction with this free service, I will post a link to your store, and maybe even some of your auctions so you can get more traffic (and maybe bids).

All you have to do is sign up Here!

eBay Alternative: Finding Auction Sites like eBay

There has been quite a shake up in the eBay selling community. Now that eBay is implementing changes, unhappy sellers are trying to find an eBay alternative.

Unfortunately for its competitors, eBay has a very large stake in the online marketplace. However, there are some auction sites like eBay where you can sell your goods.

The two main alternatives to eBay I use are Amazon.com, and Craigslist.

• Amazon.com is a great place if you are selling books, music, DVDs, video games, or other electronics. It is very easy to use compared to eBay. All you have to do is find the item you want to sell, write a couple sentence description about its condition, and set your price. One of the best things about Amazon is that it is very straight forward, and you have to spend almost no time answering emails from buyers. This is my number 1 alternative to ebay!
• If you want to sell a small number of items on a personal level without having to deal with eBay fees, or PayPal holding your money, then I recommend Craigslist. It is very easy to use, you get paid in cash, and you don't have to ship anything. I like to use craigslist for all of my larger items.

There are several auction sites like eBay that are increasing in popularity as eBay sellers flee:

• Bidville is the second largest online auction site after eBay, and is a true eBay alternative. They do not charge you a listing fee, so you can list as many items as you like. They do charge a Final Value Fee, but it is low at 5% for items that sell for less than $25. If you love the auction format, but hate eBay, Bidville may be right for you.
  
• eCrater is the third largest online store front. They are very easy to deal with, everything is completely free, and they help you set up an online storefront in minutes that will connect to froogle.com
• Blujay is the fourth largest, but fastest growing online marketplace. The items posted their also show up on froogle, and it is free. Sellers on Blujay can post unlimited ads, 4 photos per ad, with up to 180 day listing periods all for free. And like eCrater, every blujay member gets an online webstore to showcase their items.

Just remember, when looking for an eBay alternative, make sure to do your research and find somewhere you can really be happy with. The best thing about eBay is the free traffic. With most of these other sites you are going to have to work harder to get eyeballs on your listings.

If you have any experience with these eBay alternatives, or use other auction sites like eBay, please let us know about your experience.

New Niche for eBay: It is time to go GREEN

In the last three years there has been a large increase in the amount of companies that are projecting a "greener" image to promote a friendlier, pro-environment outlook. Some of them are obviously just using the term "green" to seem like a less evil corporation, even though they still exploit workers, and the environment.

Anyway, I have not noticed a parallel shifted toward "greenness" on eBay. It seems that sellers are not taking advantage of one marketing ploy they can rightfully claim.

What I am saying is, you should go Green on your eBay advertisements. Most of the small sellers find their goods at the Goodwill, and they should capitalize on this. It should not be, "yuck I got it used." It should be, "Awesome, I saved this from a landfill, I'm making it available for someone who really wants it, and I'm going to sell it for a profit."

There are a lot of ways to take advantage of the Green Movement. You can use a statement in your eBay ad that says, "we use recycled materials to package your product." Recycled meaning that you use packaging supplies from craigslist that were just going to be dumped otherwise.

You should tell your potential bidders that they are doing the right thing by purchasing from you because there is nothing more environmentally friendly than buying used goods. Talk about how they are saving things from landfills by buying used, and creating less waste and demand for new items.

There are many ways to go "green" on eBay. In addition to advertising your recycling practices, you can find a niche in selling new items, like clothing, that have been made in an environmentally friendly way.

If you sell shoes, you can market them as vegan or eco-friendly if they do not contain any animal products (and hopefully are not made out of PVC).

Be creative, and let the green revolution become a profit booster. Support it, and it will support you!

Changes to eBay's Gallery Pictures

Now that eBay has made the Gallery pictures free, it is going to be a little harder to stand out from the crowd based on the sole fact that you have a gallery picture, while others do not. I am not saying that all people will use the gallery, but I am guessing the majority will.

However, if you want your gallery pictures to stand out, there is a step you can take to make sure your gallery picture draws the most attention.

I am sure that you have noticed that there are some gallery pictures that look larger than others. When sellers just upload regular pictures off of their camera, they are normally in a 400 x 600 pixel type format. Meaning, they are rectangular.

In order to get the largest picture available on the searches, you are going to have to crop your picture to be a square. When it is a square it will completely fill out the space that eBay provides for your gallery picture, and it will look larger than the majority of your competition!

When cropping your picture into a square, you can also put a small border around the edge to make it pop out even more than the competition.

For example, the green border stands out the most:



Also, now that everyone has a gallery picture added to their description, it might be worth it to spring for the extra subtitle to really set your auction apart from the others.

This may take extra work and money, but it will be worth it when you are getting more bids than your competition.

Good luck.

What Sells on eBay? Children's Series Books like Animorphs

Children's Series books like Animorphs are another thing to keep an eye out for while you are at Garage sales looking for items to sell on eBay. There are two reasons why these are great:

1. You can find them at most Garage sales in the Suburbs
2. You can buy them for cheap and resell them for a good profit.

When I say you can buy them for cheap, I am talking five to ten cents per book. When you find them at a garage sale, offer to buy them all for a nickel a piece. After that, you can always go a little higher depending on the series.

Here is a list of several good children's book series to look out for:

• Animorphs by K.A. Applegate, Published by Scholastic. Series includes 54 books with 10 Companion books. Books resell for about $1 per book, if series is complete, up to $2.50 per book.
• Box Car Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner, Series includes 113 books. Re-Published by Scholastic. Newer books resell for $1 per book, Original series for much more.
• Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, Published by Scholastic. Series includes 9 books and counting. Books sell for at least $2 a book, more if newer books are included.
• Goosebumps by R.L. Stine, Original Series includes 62 books, Goosebumps series 2000 includes 24 books. Published by Scholastic. Resell for about $1 per book.
• Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park. Series includes 27 books. These resell for about $2 per book.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of books to sell on eBay. This is only a primer. You should do some research yourself, and make sure these are actually viable options, make a list of how much you would be willing to sell per book, etc...

Unlike selling other things on eBay, it is best not to split these up into smaller lots. But to try to sell them all together. The more complete the set, the higher your price will be. If you have an almost complete set, it might be worth it to buy the missing book on Amazon.

Happy hunting.

More Thoughts about eBays New Feedback System

In the long run, it seems like the new change in feedback is making eBay work a lot more like Amazon.com. It is similar in that the feedback does not count toward your score after 1 year, and that you can not give bidders negative feedback.

What everyone is afraid of is that this is going to make it so that you can not retaliate against bad bidders. But at Amazon it is normal for great sellers to have about 97% - 99% positive feedback rating. Everyone comes across a bad bidder, it is a universal experience.

The feedback changes won't just affect some sellers, they will affect all sellers. The only way these random negative feedbacks will negatively affect you is if your only way of keeping 100% positive feedback is to hold feedback hostage (giving negative tit for tat).

However, if you have good selling practices, and work hard with your customer service, you should not experience any problems. A great seller might get some bad feedback, but a bad seller will get a lot of bad feedback, and will be forced out of the competition!

This is actually a good thing, as sellers that try to please their customers will shine (even with a lower than 100% feedback rating).

Remember, now all of the honest sellers will be getting unwarranted and impossible to avoid negative feedback, so even though you might get a negative feedback you will not be able to respond to, you will still be on a level playing field!

Good luck, focus on customer service, and you will be fine.

How to save money shipping eBay and Amazon orders: Thermal Printers

As your eBay business grows you are going to want to save time and money any way you can. One great way to do this is to change your shipping practices. No more writing out labels by hand, or cutting out "labels" from your ink jet printer. Now it is time to get serious!

In order to save money shipping your products from eBay, Amazon, or any home business you have, you need to use a thermal printer!

You need to realize that the ink, paper, tape, and time spent affixing "labels" to your package really adds up. If you are tired of spending money on these items, it is time to consider purchasing a thermal printer. They burn the shipping information onto your label so you don't have to buy ink. You can get the labels for free from UPS and FedEx, and all you have to do is peel it of and slap it on your package.

It could not look more professional.

So, that is quite the sales pitch I just gave you. I just want you to know that I don't actually even sell these. But here is another niche for you, if you know where to find them for cheap! Selling products to eBay sellers is always a good way to go!

Anyway, a good label printer that I recommend is the Zebra Eltron LP 2543. They are as cheap as buying two ink jet cartridges (less than $50), and will last forever. Also, they work with Paypal or Encidia no problem.


Go buy one of these right now, you will be glad that you did!

Changes to eBays Feedback: Buyers Will Only be Able to Receive Feedback

eBay's change to feedback will undoubtedly lead to a decrease in the number of sellers with 100% positive feedback. Now that buyers are only able to receive positive feedback, there is no way for a seller to hold their feedback hostage.

This means that now, if a buyer gives a seller negative feedback the seller can not give the buyer negative feedback in retaliation. I know of many power sellers who rely on this system to keep their feedback at 100%. Giving feedback to get a mutual feedback withdrawal is no longer an option.

Now if you want to guard your feedback, you might want to sign up for Square Trade. However, this is a service you will have to pay for, increasing your cost to operate even more.

Changes to eBay's Feedback System

Things are really changing over at eBay! Today they announced a new way to reward sellers with positive feedback.

eBay Writes:

Search visibility will be tied to customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is reflected in a combination of DSRs, Feedback, and fewer complaints filed of an item being "significantly not as described" (SNAD) or "item not received" (INR). In March 2008, Best Match will become the default sort in search to give more buyers the results they want and will:

• Increase exposure for sellers with DSRs 4.6 and above and at least 95% customer satisfaction in the last 30 days.
• Decrease exposure for sellers with low customer satisfaction or Shipping & Handling DSRs.

Now that feedback is playing a role in getting your items to show up in searches, it will be even more important to please your customers. If you don't want to get left in the dust with this feedback change, you might have to alter your selling practices. If you are getting complaints about high shipping, you may have to lower it. If you ship only a couple times a week, and people notice, you may have to step it up a notch.

Customer service is key in this game, and in order to become a PowerSeller on eBay, you are going to have to bend over backwards to make sure you stay at the top of the searches.

How will I be Affected by the New eBay Fees?

Ebay just announced some very large changes in their fees. I will break down the main points for you below:

• Reduced eBay fees: the fees have been changed so it costs less to list, but this is really just a fee increase, as there is a higher final value fee. eBay does not lose at all in this situation, they just shifted their source of income.
  
• If you used to list a 7 day auction item for $20, with a gallery picture, it would have cost $.95 for the insertion fee, and if it sold for $20, an additional $1.05 would be taken out in final value fees (FVF). A total of $2.00 paid in fees.
• Now with the new fee structure, if you do the same listing, gallery pictures are free, and insertion prices dropped, so it would only cost $.55 to list the item. But once it sells, the FVF has raised from 5.25% to 8.75%. So it will cost you $1.75 in FVF, and $2.30 total.
• If you used to list a 7 day auction item for $100, with a gallery picture, it would have cost $2.75 for the insertion fee, and if it sold for $100, an additional $3.75 would be taken out in final value fees (FVF). A total of $6.50 paid in fees.
• Now for a $100 item, it will cost $2.00 to list, and the FVF will be $4.81. The total for new fees will be $6.81
• Store fees have increased as well, from 10% to 12%.

Take a look at eBay's new 2008 Fees for yourself.

Steve Weber, just wrote a new book about selling on eBay. I will let him explain the rest of the changes at eBay :

1. Rewards for seller performance
   There will be discounts and incentives for sellers with the best customer satisfaction rates according to the anonymous five-star Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs).
   • More search exposure through Best Match
   • Fee discounts for PowerSellers
   • Increased protection for PowerSellers
   
   
2. Feedback Changes
   The strategy is to "increase buyer confidence" and "showcase good sellers."
   • Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
   • Positive repeat customer Feedback will count and Feedback more than 12 months old won't.
   • Negative and neutral Feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) or if the member is suspended.

From: Selling Books: eBay bans negative feedback for buyers, cuts listing fees

How to be a Powerseller Part 2: Researching your eBay Competition

In my last post, How to become a Power Seller on eBay: Copy the best and Profit I told you that it was important to see what kind of things your competition is buying. Well, I just found a great tool that will let you see what items your competition has won, the percentage of auctions they have the winning bid in, and how much they have spent in the last 120 days.

All you have to do is type in their name, and you can get a better idea of how much they are willing to spend on the items they are reselling. You can also see the kinds of products they use to ship, and anything else they have bid on.

The website is http://www.goofbay.com/ebay_bid_history_tool.html

Do your homework!

Where to Buy Electronics, Books and Movies, to Sell on eBay

I just found a great new place to buy electronics, books and movies to sell on eBay! I have been working on finding new product sources, and have located one that is sure to have a few bargains. eBay sellers already go to Goodwill to buy their products to resell for a profit, but have you looked at shopgoodwill.com ? It is a great site, and since they do not have that large of a following (compared to eBay) you can easily get some good deals! I recommend looking at the books, movies, music and electronics to find a good stream of products to sell on eBay!

How to become a Power Seller on eBay: Copy the best and Profit

Want to become a power seller on eBay? Well then, you have to do what the power sellers do! The best way way to master your eBay niche is to learn from your competition and then beat them at their own game.

So, first you need to find out who your competition is! Like all aspects of eBay, this is going to take some hard work. You are going to have to sift through lots of auctions, looking for Power Sellers who stand out in your Category.

So, here is how you learn everything about your competition:

• Do a search for the items that you are or will be selling.
• Find about 3 or 4 Power Sellers who specialize in selling these items.
• Examine their listings:
  
• How do they describe their product?
• What kind of pictures do they take?
• What are their pricing and shipping strategies?
• How are their stores set up?
• Find out what kind of things they are buying on eBay. Some may buy their inventory off of eBay. This is good stuff to know!
  
• To see what your competition is buying click on their feedback.
• Then click "Feedback as Buyer"
• Then copy the item number from the feedback and paste it into the search.
• This will give you a good idea of what their buying habits are.
• If you are really serious about selling in this niche, it is a good idea to buy a cheap product from the Power Seller with the highest feedback and see how they go about sending emails and packaging the item.
  
• Through Hammertap you can search and see how much the seller has made in the last month. You can also see what product sells the best, and how many of them they sell each month. It is a powerful tool that really helps you analyze your competition!

Study hard, and then take the best aspects of the top three or four Power sellers and combine them to make your eBay store the best. Copy their practices and reap the benefits!

How to Buy and Sell LEGOs on eBay

Are you wondering what else you can sell on eBay? Do you have some extra room in your eBay Store? You should try to sell LEGOs! They are a very collectible item that sell very well on eBay. One of the best things about selling LEGOs is that they are easy to find!

When buying and selling LEGOs on eBay, it is important that you completely avoid dealing with all LEGO knockoffs, do not buy or sell mega blocks, or building blocks of the same caliber.

Methods of selling LEGOs.

• Sell lots of 1 lb lots of LEGOs (going price is about $5-$10 per lb.)
• Sell minifigs (the little LEGO men).
• Sell specialty pieces separately (large base pieces, flowers, guns, etc...).

These are the main three avenues of selling Legos on eBay, and if you get into selling them, you will probably be doing all three.

I recommend having a store where about 90% of your LEGOs can be bought, and then having about 10% of your LEGOs in auctions. The auctions should be for things like higher end minifigs and 1 lb lots of LEGOs.

Make sure you tell your customers to visit your store for more great LEGO products in all of your auctions!

Where to find LEGOs:

• Your Closet
• Garage Sales, and Thrift Stores
  
• Craigslist.com often has LEGO lots to buy locally without having to deal with the competition of other online bidders.
• eBay is the only other way to get a reliable source of LEGOs.
  

Buying LEGOs on eBay to Resell:

• When buying LEGOs it is a good idea to buy them in bulk.
  
• You can get the best prices for lots ranging from 2-6 lbs. Make sure you include shipping into the cost of acquiring your Lego stock.
  
• Stay away from buying larger lots at first. Buying small lots will give you practice in separating the good LEGO auctions from the bad ones.
• Make sure the auction says 100% LEGOs, you do not want to buy other toys or garbage, and it is also good to buy ones that have been cleaned. Look closely at the picture to make sure it is a quality lot!

Coveted LEGO Items:

• When buying LEGOs it is good to keep on the lookout for some of the more popular items.
• For example, Generic LEGO Minifigs sell for about $1 each, and they fetch a higher price if they include accessories.
• If you find minifigs from the themes: Western, Space & Pirate they are worth about $2-$3 each, Castle are worth more: $2-$10, and Star Wars are worth the most $4-$25. One Darth Maul minifig sells for up to $30!

How to Buy on Craigslist to Sell on eBay

There is another great money making idea I have for you. It is all about using eBay and Amazon as a source of product to resell on craigslist.

Every day on craigslist people post "wanted" adds. This gives you direct insight into what is in demand in your local market. Here is how this money making idea works:

• Search through the craigslist.com wanted adds.
• Find a high priced product that is relatively cheap to ship (electronics work well for this)
• Locate the product on Amazon or eBay to see if you can make a profit.
• If you find a product that you can resell email the person with the wanted add and tell them that you can get them the product within a certain amount of time if they can wait.
• If they are flexible, buy the item on eBay or Amazon and resell it for a profit!

I have done this a couple of times, and it has worked great. It just takes some time to search for the right product to resell to a buyer.

If you want more money making ideas, and eBay selling tips please sign up to get an email every time this blog is updated.

What Should I sell on eBay? Nintendo Products!

Everyone is always looking for something new to sell on eBay. Well, have you considered used electronics or video games. There is a good market out there for used video games for systems like the Nintendo SNES, Nintendo 64 and others. Today I am going to focus on buying and selling Nintendo 64 related products.

The best way to know what to buy and to sell is to do some research. I recommend looking at the finished auctions. Here is the search that I use to find the highest selling used Nintendo 64 games.

You will see that these are some games you should pick up right away if you see them:

• Banjo Tooie
• Conker's Bad Fur Day
• Harvest Moon
• Killer Instinct Gold
• Mario Kart
• Mario Party
• Mario Party II
• Mario Party III
• Mario Tennis
• Mystical Ninja
• Paper Mario
• Super Mario 64
• Super Smash Brothers

These games all resell for at least $15.00 a piece. Some up to $30.00, and they can commonly be purchased at garage sales for as little as $2-$5. This is a good way to pad your income.

If you want to go more in depth with the Nintendo 64 venture, I recommend you compile a list of all of the Nintendo 64 games selling on eBay, and look them up on Hammertap. They have a free trial, and you can see the average selling price, and sell through ratio for any item on eBay. It is a great tool to research what sells on eBay.

After you have a list of what sells and how much, you can stop depending on chance to find the random mario game at a garage sale, and start looking to other sources. If you know what sells, and for how much, you can make informed buying decisions. Look at craigslist.com to see if anyone is selling a Nintendo 64 bundle in your area. The 64 and controllers themselves sell for about $30.00 Add a couple of good games, and it could be a profitable venture.

Also, if you are feeling really on top of your game, you can buy bundles of Systems and games on eBay. Every day someone is cleaning out their kids closet and selling bundles of games and systems on eBay, when they could make a much larger profit selling the items individually. This is where you come in. Buy the complete package, and split it up, and resell each item to make some good money. There are quite a few sellers who do this, sharkkisser, ryleys, datsunfamily, to name three.

To see how these sellers get their products to resell, look at the feedback they receive as buyers. They all buy Used Nintendo 64 lots and resell them at a profit. Some of them have become Power Sellers just buying packages and splitting them up to resell on eBay.

You can do this! It is not that difficult, it just takes some homework, and a little bit of start up capital. I can't emphasize enough how helpful Hammertap is for the important research you need to do about these market trends!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I will be here to tell you how to sell more niche products soon!

Free eBooks to Resell on eBay

I have been thinking of some no hassle ways to increase income and feedback at the same time. One of the easy ways I have found is to sell eBooks. These are great because once you have them, you can resell them over and over. You do not have to go and get more inventory and you don't have to ship anything!

So, as a gift from me to you, I am giving you a list of eBooks with resell rights that you can download for free to sell on eBay. These are pretty decent books, and there is no catch. You can just download the ebooks to read if you want.

So, here is how I would market these (you need a store):

Start a .01 cent auction every day for one eBook. This will draw some attention to you and your other auctions. Make sure to include links in your auction to your other auctions, and your store. Tell them to check out your about me page for a free gift. Give another free eBook there. I think Skip McGrath has some free eBooks to give out for this purpose as well.

Also, in all of your other auctions, no matter what for, it would be very helpful to have a link to an eBook about selling on eBay to drive more sales. Say something like, "if you want to make money by selling on eBay too, check out this eBook." Do whatever it takes to cross-link all of your auctions to your eBooks.

After you have penny eBooks, and links pointing to the eBook section of your store, you can start adding eBooks that sell for more than just one penny. It costs next to nothing to have items like these in your store, and if people only buy ten eBooks from you a month for $3.00, it will more than pay for your store fees.

OK, now that I have told you how to do it, here is a list of free eBooks with resell rights to put into your eBay store.

• Auction Profits
• Learn 2 Play Guitar
• Power Seller Interviews
  
• The Speed Reading Monster Course
• The Spanish Language Speed Learning Course
• How To Be A Public Speaking Superstar
• Smart Parenting
• Powerful Ways to Sharpen Your Memory
• Hypnosis Mania
• Unleash The Creative New You
• Body Language Magic
• How To Be An Ace Athlete
  
• Super Tactics of Time Management Experts
• 1000 Cocktail Recipes
  
• The Diabetics Cookbook

Just download these, and upload them to your own website. Then, after someone wins your auction, or buys it now, eBay will provide them with your website and they can download it easily.

Good Luck!

Things are changing at eBay

I was over at Steve Weber's blog today, weberbooks.com, and saw that it looks like there are going to be some big changes at eBay!
Weber writes:

A new chief executive is on the way in, and Meg Whitman is on the way out.

At the top of the agenda:

Shifting eBay's emphasis from auctions to fixed-priced listing, which could make the experience of buying on eBay more like the one customers have come to expect from sites like Amazon.

Fixed-price sales now account for 40 percent of eBay's revenue. Who knew?

An announcement on a new fee structure is expected next week. I am guessing -- I'm way out on a limb here -- that fees for sellers will be higher.

If eBay can improve its search function and repeat-business action, higher fees might be worth it.

One area where eBay is expected to CUT fees: image hosting. That's long overdue, if you ask me. The more product images on eBay, the more sales. Encouraging multiple photos for listings without a fee penalty makes a lot of sense.

There's a lot of speculation about what this means for eBay Store sellers. For those of you who sell on eBay, how do your costs compare to Amazon when you add up insertion, final-value, and PayPal fees, compared to Amazon's 15-percent Marketplace commissions?

Auction Formatting and Font Size

What is with the big font their guy? When you make your auction templates you should use a small font in a legible color. No giant light green letters. This not only makes your eBay ad hard to read, but it also makes you look unprofessional.

When formatting your add, keep it simple. Use crisp pictures when possible, and keep the majority of your font sizes under 16.