More Books and eBooks Review
July 7, 2007
I’ll admit I’m a little obsessed with all of the books and eBooks available. It’s probably because I’m now neck deep in eBay, but I don’t remember seeing as many books and ebooks available.
Since my last eBook post I’ve had the chance to review a few more. If you’re serious about getting started or ramping up your eBay knowledge you have to do research and do a bit of reading. I’ve added a Book section on the right side of the blog. I strongly recommend these books as they have great information and are written by proven eBay sellers and experts.
Now, on to the eBook reviews:
“Buy and Sell Antiques and Collectibles“: By far my least favorite subject. I dislike everything about antiques. For some reason they creep me out. However, while at eBayLive! last month a large majority of the individuals I met were selling antiques and collectibles. I wanted to know what all the buzz was about and see whether these techniques would apply to items in other areas. This eBook was written fairly well and does provide some good info.
“Build a Niche Store“: While this isn’t really an eBook or Book, their website has some very good information about supplementing your income by taking advantage of the eBay affiliate program. I personally bought the software and had it up in running in a matter of minutes. (I’ll go over affiliate programs in another post.) The support forums and owners of the software were extremely helpful. If you have some patience and are a little technical, i.e. have your own website and hosting provider, this software should be something that you look into. It is especially helpful when you have pinpointed your niche.
“The Silent Sales Machine “: Another news letter I get each day is from The Silent Sales Machine. Plenty of great tips and good things to help jump start your eBay business. This eBook and website servers as a spring board into making the right decisions and doing the right things from the start.
“Ultimate Surplus & Wholesale Guide“: This is by far THE BEST eBook and source I’ve read to date related to eBay. There are hundred of people selling wholesale guides and “secret sources” to potential eBay sellers. Many of those guides point you to websites that you can find in a search engine, are here-today-gone-tomorrow companies or worse yet, middlemen pretending to be wholesalers. This eBook is packed with great information about sourcing from surplus and wholesale companies. Real companies. There is some repeat information you may have already seen on other sites, but by far, the has the most complete list I have seen today. A word of caution. If you are not serious about selling, don’t purchase this book. To deal with all of these sources you must be setup as a business and have a sale tax id/reseller certificate. Real wholesalers and suppliers require this.
I hope you find these references to be as helpful as I did. I continuously go back to many of them to review. In addition, each provides a website and news letter that is continually updated with good information.
Getting traffic to your eBay store and auctions
July 6, 2007
If you’re more than a casual eBay seller you should seriously consider starting an eBay store. I suggest starting a store even before you build a stand alone website. Here’s why:
The Internet has become the leading resource for shoppers to research products. Almost all shoppers start with a search engine query and begin scouring the Internet for product reviews, descriptions and the best deals around. Unlike eBay store listings, eBay auctions are not typically picked up by the search engines because of their short lifespan .
An eBay store inventory item can be listed for up to 30 days or good ’til cancelled (meaning it stays in your store until someone buys it). These items are indexed by the major search engines. If your store listing titles are optimized with the best keywords, you will see store traffic increase just from search engine traffic alone.
Some numbers show that eBay has over 215 million customers. Opening an eBay store gives you access to that audience without having to worry about driving traffic to your personal site. Don’t get me wrong, a personal site is important (as I’ll mention later), but every serious seller should take advantage of what eBay has to offer.
Unlike auctions, eBay stores give your customers instant gratification. Instead of them having to wait for the auction to end(unless you are using Buy It Now), they can purchase the item immediately from your store and guarantee they will get the item.
For as little as $15.95 a month you can get your own eBay store, a mini website to publish special information about your store, marketing tools and much more. Compare that to starting your own website.
Starting your own website requires a domain name, hosting fees, building the website, driving traffic to your website, managing your products, updating your website etc. All things important to have later on, but not immediately.
eBay stores allow you to list several items, for as little as a few pennies. Keep in mind that your Final Value Fees will be slightly more, but now your items gain more exposure.
If you haven’t heard of Googlebase and have a store you need to. Googlebase is Google’s engine for researching items for sale. They have even built a Store Connector application that will allow eBay users to upload all of their store items into Googlebase and get them indexed in the search engine. Another great way to drive traffic to your store. More traffic to your store means more traffic to your auctions which means more money for you!!!!
I’ll go into setting up your store the correct way in another article, but be sure to take your time and research all of the features and offerings the stores have to offer.
If you already have a website you can take advantage of the the traffic you do have and additionally get a 75% price break on Final Value Fees on your items. Any traffic you drive from sites outside of eBay to your store may qualify you to get 75% off those Final Value Fees!! That’s a great deal.
So, what are you waiting for, open an eBay store today!!
Let the buyer BEWARE…
July 4, 2007
Ah yes another load of liquidation items arrived today. Out of 19 pieces described as returns 6 were basically salvage or better put, junk. Part of the learning experience is knowing what you’re buying. Those deals that seem too good to pass up are usually better off being passed up, Not all are bad, we’ve done well with some and others are a resellers nightmare.
You really need to look at the photos of the liquidation auction and pay especially close attention to the manifest. It the pics or description don’t look right, just pass on it. It’s amazing what some people will pay for these lots, not to mention adding in some pretty pricing shipping.
After all we are in this for the money, right????
Anyhow I hope your “Cat in the bag” turns out to be a real winner…
How to build traffic to your blog
July 2, 2007
Getting your eBay business up and running takes a bit more than just having an account on eBay. You need product to sell, but just as important, you need traffic to your store. eBay has millions of users that hit their site on a daily basis.
So how do you get individuals to your auction or store? Having great auction titles helps, but marketing outside of eBay is also a good start.
We’ve just started our blog as you can tell (Post #4 here). I admittedly have discounted blogs in the past. While I did subscribe to a few, I never really saw the business value in keeping one. After researching how to get more traffic to our eBay store I have come across countless articles and eBooks about RSS and Blogs. Needless to say, I’ve reconsidered the importance.
To get traffic to your blog takes some finesse. While you can submit your blog to several directories, I’ve found that many require your blog to be a few months old and/or have at least 20+ posts.
Most of the articles I’ve seen all state the same thing:
Pick a topic. You’ll also need to have a specific topic or niche to focus on. Our blog documents our journey through setting up an eBay business. While we will digress from time to time, the core niche is there. You should do the same. Be an expert on something, track your progress on something, provide valuable information.
Publish your blog feed via RSS. I’ve looked into a few sources. Feedburner is a good start. They’d help you get some stats on your feed as well as help publish your blog. You blogging software should also provide an RSS XML file.
Keep your blog fresh. You’ll need to publish often. Even if it’s just a paragraph or two. Add content and make it worthwhile.
Ping the Blog Services. There are several services and directories that keep tabs on when your blog has been updated. Usually these need to know your blog exists first. Try pingomatic. Using this site will let the many service know you’ve made an update.
Link to your blog. If you haven’t created an eBay ME page do it now. eBay’s ME page is your spot on eBay to tell others what your about, interested, policies about your auctions and most importantly LINK OUTSIDE OF EBAY. Link to your blog here. eBay does have some rules about linking to sites outside of eBay, but these pertain to what is allowable within your auctions. See eBay’s policies for details.
Start sharing your knowledge and start a blog and the traffic flowing.
