eBayLive! 2008 and getting the most out of eBay
May 16, 2008
What do I need to know about eBayLive! ?
eBayLive! 2008 is just around the corner and it looks like it will be another great conference. This will be my second eBayLive! event and I think I’ll get the most out of this one. My first eBayLive! event was very overwhelming. So much to do, see and take in and I wasn’t really sure where to start. Now with almost another year gone by, I’ve honed my needs and strategies to just a few topics. It’s much like building a niche for yourself on eBay.
So many people want to get on the eBay bandwagon and become the next eBay millionaire. It’s not easy, but some people do stumble upon instant success. The rest need to really think through what they want to accomplish and how to accomplish it. It took about 10 different niche’s until I found one that worked. Since then, I’ve found several others, but I use the same process that I painstakenly learned the firstime.
Anyone planning on going to the eBayLive! event should be prepared. If you haven’t registered you need to do it quick as it’s scheduled for June 19-21st. Once registered, look at the sessions and pick the areas that you really want learn about. It’s going to be impossible to take in everything, so plan to attend those sessions that are most important to you.
Vendors
There are going to be hundreds of vendors that are offering great one time only show deals. Be careful! While some really do have some good deals, they are there to make money. If you buy, find out what their guranatee or money back/return policy is. It will also be critical to detemine what your game plan is as well. If you don’t have one, start working on it now. Otherwise it is like going to the grocery store when your hungry. You’ll end up with a bunch of junk.
Network!, Network!, Network!
I can’t stress the networking aspect enough. Last year I was able to meet up with a great group of PowerSellers. I wasn’t a PowerSeller yet, but had the urge to become one. I sat in on 2 networking sessions and learned more from those sessions than ANYTHING ELSE at eBay Live!
Why? Because these were real-world people that weren’t trying to sell me anything. They were just like me when they first started. It was surprising that I had marketing and strategy ideas that the PowerSellers never even thought of. In return, they shared some of their ideas on how and where to get started. Had I not networked and met those people I may not be where I am today on eBay.
eBay as the starting place
One thing everyone should realize is that eBay is just the stepping stone to growing your business. Many people only focus on eBay selling and miss out. There are several tips and tricks that users can use to boost not only their eBay sales, but their off eBay business as well. Make sure that you pay attention to those little marketing tips and tricks that are provided. eBay won’t openly share them with you, but if you read between the lines, it’s quite obvious.
Contact me if your going to eBay Live!
If you plan on going to eBay Live! let me know. I’ll put putting together a few round table open discussions were we can share our successes and failures. I’ll be inviting those that are on my marketing list (signup found on the first page of the site) and then those that contact me otherwise. If you want to be included, my recommendation is to signup for the newsletter.
Hope to hear and see you there!
Jeff
New ebay PowerSeller Fees and Benefits
February 16, 2008
eBay recently anounced some changes to their fees and benefits for not only powersellers, but all users. They will now be providing lower insertion fees, Free galleries for all listings and lower fees for some of their packs.
Powersellers will now also get better exposure in search results, fee discounts and some increased protection. The biggest protection issue for me is the fact that powersellers can now be protected when shipping to an unconfirmed address. That was one of the single biggest issues for me and I sometimes turned away customers on big ticket items because of fraud. This will help alot.. at least in my opinion.
The fee discounts are nice, especially if you are a reputable seller with high feedback ratings. Now with the new detailed feedback ratings, powersellers with detailed seller ratings greater than 4.6 get some discounts. DRS’s greater than 4.8 received an even bigger discount.
Feedback rules have changed. Buyers can no longer received negative feedback. I personally don’t like this. I’ve had several terrible buyers that have caused nothing but problems and I like to warn other sellers of this. It is going to be all too easy for sellers to quickly get bad feedback for small issues because the buyers have nothing to lose. Seems a bit odd to me.
All of the details can be found here on eBay here.
How to become an eBay Powerseller in 90 Days or less
July 9, 2007
The first post in our blog was June 29th. In that post I mentioned hoping to have our eBay PowerSeller status with the next few days. Well, we WOULD HAVE had it by the first of July, however, the invitation process is automated.
Let me explain a bit more. To qualify as the minimum level PowerSeller(bronze) you need to have a 99.8% feedback rating or higher, at least 100 feedback from unique users and a 3-month average sales of $1000. Silver requires a $3000 three month average. eBay doesn’t provide the details in their help file on how/when the invite process works, but I was told by a PowerSeller rep, that an automated process runs between the 2nd and 3rd week of each month. If you qualify, you’ll get an invite.
I emailed them directly and they were kind enough to review my account ahead of that process and offered our earned status the next day.
Now, how can you become an eBay PowerSeller in under 90 days? There are plenty of eBooks online that you can purchase to show you how to do that. However, it really isn’t worth paying for that information. I’ll give it you for free.
First and foremost, you need to have the feedback rating and at least 100 unique feedbacks. Buyers/Sellers who have been on eBay a while may not have an issue with that. If you do, and you want to ramp up your feedback by ways other than selling you can try the following:
- Buy items on eBay that you use everyday or will need to replenish overtime. Ie Toothpaste, soap, cleaning supplies etc. You may find yourself a bargain online as well.
- Buy some eBooks(good ones) and some of the inexpensive ones. There are plenty of very good eBooks that are not get rich quick schemes. I’ve purchase a few great recipe eBooks that have had some really good information.
The next big step to becoming a PowerSeller is sales. You need to meet that minimum requirement average for three months. Some people can hit this just by selling 1 item, others it takes a lot of work. It all depends on what your selling and your commitment.
It seems my recurring them lately has been eBooks. Resist the urge for the get rich quick schemes, buying eBooks with resell rights. Chances are, you aren’t the only person selling them. Obviously since you bought it from someone. Not too mention, you probably won’t hit your mark selling that type of product.
Look into Drop Shipping. That will provide you a great source of product with no money out of your pocket. I mention below a good resource for liquidators and surplus, the same resource has some information on drop shipping as well.
The alternative is looking into liquidations and wholesale. Beware, this isn’t something you should go into if your are not serious. It requires a real commitment, some investment of both time and money and risk.
This is how we got started and how we were able to accomplish our PowerSeller status. We actually MORE THAN MET our sales goal before we met our feedback rating.
I also can’t say enough about the Ultimate Surplus & Wholesale Guide. This little gem really helped us understand the process. The other great resource for us was this liquidation web site. In fact, this is were we ended up getting our first set of products to sell. Like I mentioned before, you need to go into this having done your research.
Your buyers will also help raise your feedback rating. This should go without saying, but customer service is critical to being successful. You can achieve the sales level and have terrible customer service and never become a PowerSeller. In fact, you’ll lose repeat customers and any new customers. Always put yourself in the customers position. Quickly answering emails, proper packing, fair shipping costs, good turn around times all contribute to your success.
Good luck and let us know how you progress.
Are eBooks really worth it?
July 1, 2007
I always enjoy learning something new. It seems that as you get older (at least in my case) you enjoy learning more. I definitely didn’t have that outlook in high school or college. I now find myself reading more and watching things on TV that 5 years ago I would have never sat through. All for the sake of learning something new.
Now that I’m trying to really dive into selling on eBay and making some money online I’m going into information overload. Everyone thinks that eBay can turn dirt into gold overnight. That’s definitely not the case. From what I’ve seen, you need to educate yourself on all facets of eBay selling. So, I immersed myself in everything eBay including books, websites, blogs and eBooks.
If you search on eBay for eBooks you’ll get thousands of listings, most for the exact same content. So the question is,
“How do you determine which eBook has valid info and which is a waste of money?”
That’s not an easy question to answer without putting some time and effort into research. Fortunately, I’ve done enough of that over the last several months for everyone. Most new eBay sellers are searching for the Holy Grail of eBooks that has all of the “Secrets” to becoming a successful PowerSeller. I have yet to find one. However, I have found a few that are worth reading and investing the money in.
When looking for an eBook, I look at the seller. Most eBooks are being sold on eBay by people with “Resell rights”. This means that they purchased an eBook or several eBooks from eBay or someplace else with the hope to find that Holy Grail. What they found was the eBook told them to sell eBooks. Hardly a new idea, after all, they bought an eBook, why wouldn’t someone else? So they try and recover their money by selling the same eBook they just bought. And yes, I did the same thing, several times. I was hoping each eBook had better and more valuable information than the last. In some cases that’s true. If the seller is the author or closely affiliated with the author I give them more credit. If they are a PowerSeller and the eBook is a secondary product to what they sell I give them even more.
So far, I’ve found a few that I think are worth passing on to others. PlatinumPowerSeller.com has a few eBooks that really good and in my opinion, come from a good source. They have a good eBook on drop shipping as well a an excellent starter kit, newsletter and seller tools. Mike Enos is a PowerSeller.
Skip McGrath’s website, newsletter and eBooks are excellent. He has a great free eBook, “99 Tips for eBay Buyer and Sellers” not to mention several other articles that have provided me some great information.
Finally, I came across another eBook, that while not specifically about eBay, did have some good ideas. “Free Google Ads” provides some decent ideas on how to generate some income outside of eBay. Granted, there is A LOT of fluff and junk that could be removed to slim this eBook down to about 1/4 of it’s size. If your site gets some decent traffic, has a good niche or speciality items I’d recommend picking up that eBook as well.
As I finish reading some of the others I have come across I’ll pass on the info here. In the meantime, I strongly recommend taking the time to do the research on the eBooks for sale. Much like my lack of desire to learn something new in high school and college, I hated homework just as much. It now pays more than ever to spend the time doing your eBay homework.
Here are a couple of things I do when I research an eBook.
- Check the seller’s feedback. Is it positive? How many negatives have they received and what are they?
- Research the buyers that left feedback. Are they now a PowerSeller? What are they selling? They may or may not have gotten anything from the eBook.
- Contact some buyers. In many cases, buyers will respond and let you know whether the product was really worth it.
Good Luck in your eBook endeavors. Please post comments on your experiences as well.
