The LuxMob Info Tags

Knowledge is Power! And this statement could not be more true when it comes to selling on eBay. As explained in my book “eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak”, being successful on eBay all depends on being in the right place, at the right time, with the right product. For example, did you know one of the most popular categories on eBay for buying and selling is the Antiques Category. That’s right! People flock to eBay to locate treasures from the past. But what if we could know exactly what they are looking for? Just what kind of Antiques? Well I can help! Below you will find the Top Ten Picks of Antique Categories (at the time of this writing) as per eBay.

10 - Lace and Crochet Trim

9 - Medical Antiques

8 - Wood Picture Frames

7 - Knobs and Handles

6 - Linen Samplers

5 - Mixed Material: Picture Frames

4 - Roman Antiquities

3 - Silver Napkin Rings

2 - Locks and Keys

And the Number 1 Antique Category for “Hot Items” is…

Weathervanes and Lightning Rods.

There you have it! The Top Ten Picks of Antique Categories where potential bidders are surfing to find all those treasures from times gone by. If you sell Antiques on eBay, finding items that fit into one or more of the above categories will see your number of bids increase substantially. Always remember to do your research before listing any item for auction. Know what categories are “Hot!” Do a price analysis of your product. Know what the item costs you and what you can potentially sell it for. Then sit back and watch the bidding heat up!

Happy Selling!

Joe Clare

Joe Clare is an active Netpreneur and eBayer! He is the author of numerous articles on how to make money online and be successful on eBay! Check out his latest Best Selling eBook “eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak” Your Passport to Success!

http://www.ebooksnsoftware.com

Here’s a simple trick I spotted just last week, one I hadn’t noticed before, not in almost thirty years of bidding at offline auctions, one that could turn every auction you visit into a fabulous source of high price items that you’ll pick up for pennies.

I sat there, Wednesday last week, wondering how, in just one day, and a few hours before the auction starts tomorrow, can I possibly see what’s in these forty plus albums and suitcases filled with postcards, three hundred plus albums and shoes boxes packed with stamps and first day covers, and an entire shelf filled to the brim with cigarette cards and paper collectibles? How can I ever know how much to bid on almost six hundred auction lots, some of which take a minimum one hour just to flick through with no hope of perusing properly?

And where are those people who regularly bid against me at this auction, people who always spend thousands of pounds at this venue? They were nowhere to be seen on Wednesday, they arrived catalogue in hand next day just a few minutes before bidding commenced.

Maybe they got a sneak preview, a private viewing of items they’d bid for today? But no, I realise that doesn’t happen here. When the answer finally dawned on me it opened my eyes to a wonderful way to bid at auction with confidence, even without viewing beforehand.

You see, you really can’t view properly at auctions packed with multi-item lots and short viewing periods. Realistically, it could take months, dare I say years, to inspect every postcard, every stamp, every coin and cigarette card, every print, every book, every piece of paper for profit potential?

Over coffee, people I’d known for years confessed they wondered why I spent so long viewing items when a simple statistical formula was all they used to determine their maximum bids.

Let me emphasize this doesn’t work with single lot items, like vintage dolls and teddy bears, paintings and toys trains. It only works with multi lots containing hundreds of items.

The trick is just to trust the auctioneers’ estimate of how much a lot will fetch and never exceed that amount. Some bidders stop at the top of the estimate, others at the bottom, yet more buy only items that sell below estimate.

Also consider that offline prices are invariably inflated on eBay, where even common collectibles can reach way beyond catalogue value. Most offline auctioneers estimate according to offline value, they’re rarely ‘techies’ and few are personally familiar with eBay, so whatever they think an item is worth can often be double, tripled, or more on eBay.

Tips

* You should always take a brief look at high estimate lots, people make mistakes, there could be typing and printing errors to inflate an otherwise affordable price. Like the rest of us, auctioneers have ‘off days’, when their estimates will be way off target. A quick check of a handful of lots will reveal how carefully today’s lots were valued.

* Do not use the technique until you have experience of particular auction houses. View in advance of your first two or three sales, estimate values, check how closely estimates match actual realizations, calculate statistical accuracy for individual lots and write this in the margin alongside. Where lots typically go within ten per cent of estimate (higher or lower) add 10% to the margin. Where estimates double add 200 per cent and trust auctioneers with low percentage points over others whose estimates vary widely, and consistently, and can never be trusted.

Avril Harper is a triple eBay PowerSeller and editor of eBay Confidential and webmaster of http://www.publishingcircles.com. She has produced a free guide - 103 POWERSELLER TIPS - which you can download with other freely distributable reports and ebooks at http://www.toppco.com

One of the most valuable things in life is the ability to learn a skill. One of my dad’s favorite sayings was “You can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, or you can teach a man to fish and he will never go hungry.” This can be applied to searching on eBay.

The main things I search for when I am mining Internet gold is by Product Title or Listing as it is called; but you need to remember that we always want to view Completed Auctions. It doesn’t matter if a computer is listed at $1, and there are 2 days left…that information doesn’t help us. We need cold, hard facts of what that computer sold for, how much it sold for and who bought it; and this is available to you on Completed Auctions. Many times when I search by a product and see that it is a hot seller, I will then check for the top sellers of that product. Then I check the sellers other auctions.

Very Important - Successful eBay Sellers Are Just That For A Reason! They know the tricks and techniques that get those sales. View all the items and incorporate your own ideas to make your sales successful. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Your goal is to Make Fast Cash! Clone what works, and integrate them with your own ideas. Use the following guidelines as an aid in your search:

1. When do the “hot sellers list?

2. What starting prices do they use?

3. What is the wording in their ads?

4. What is the duration of their auctions ( 3, 5 or 7 day auctions)

Eliminate trial and error. Concentrate on successful power sellers. With all of this information at your fingertips you need to realize that you don’t need to be an expert in any product you want to sell. Focus on hot, selling products and the techniques the top eBay sellers use to sell them.

Tim Gilberg is able to provide information and insight from a unique
perspective - that of someone who is actually doing what others just
talk about. Ebay Power Seller Platinum Status was Attained by Tim Gilberg, which is one of the highest sales levels attained selling on eBay. Tim is active on Ebay and liquidation.com as well as consulting
and working with other Top ebay Power Seller’s to give you real life
in use insight, not theories.Visit Tim Gilberg at his website Make Money on eBay

Like many folks, you have heard of online auctions. Heck, even non-computer users have heard of Ebay. Everyone starts out as a bidder. The brave move on to be sellers. Little, by little, you learn the ropes.

One of those “ropes” that seems to always give people problems is working with their auction photo. Previous photo experience may have only been limited to the seller’s children or pets. Suddenly, they find themselves wading thorough terms such as “pixel,” “uploading,” and “compression.”

Sure, Ebay has tutorials, but it’s not the whole story. Isn’t it frustrating that “help” files are always “streamlined?” Doesn’t it seem like the step-by-step details are missing? I pondered this one day, trying to look through the eyes of someone who’s never heard of “image hosting” before.
For example, did you know that there are 5 screens that you have to pass through before you get to the screen for uploading your pictures to Ebay? Did you know that you can practice uploading pictures without making an actual auction listing? I’m sure you feel braver already!

Just make your way to the fifth screen and don’t continue after that - (because the listing was not completed, it will not be listed. If you go to sell a real item, your “mock” listing will be there - your choice will be to start a new listing or finish your last (mock) listing - …starting a new listing will delete any drafts or “mock” listing.)

I bet you’re really mixed up when you find out there are 3 choices when you get there: “ebay picture services,” “basic picture services,” and “picture manager.” Who wouldn’t be confused? I clearly outline these choices in my free online auction tutorials including which one you need and why (hint: it’s not the same for every person).

The instructions for how to put picture on ebay can be found here:
http://www.auctiontongue.com/com_ebay/instructions_on_how_to_put_picture_on_ebay.htm
Ebay suggests that there are four ways to “capture” your digital photo for your auction listing: digital camera, regular camera and scanner, film-to-digital image service, and video camera and VCR tape – that’s where Ebay leaves you hanging.

Please don’t give up yet! Remember – we’re all in this big internet mess together, and together we’ll figure it out. There’s no way around learning to use your digital devices, except sitting down and reading the owner’s manual. From there, you may find additional help on the internet. You have to do your part, first.

If you decide to buy a digital camera, read my “How to Buy a Digital Camera for Auction Use” http://www.auctiontongue.com/com_ebay/index.html It tells precisely what features you need to look for and what will cause you trouble.

If you do buy a digital camera, it’s a whole other story getting the image onto the computer. I thought you would enjoy some step-by-step photos of that process, too, so I included them at http://www.auctiontongue.com/com_ebay/index.html

If you have a regular camera and scanner, or a friend has a scanner, try my tutorial “Scanner overview.” I even put together “Navigating Your Computer” so anyone could find and locate their auction pictures with ease.

I hate to tell you this, but there’s more for you to worry about. Ever go to an online auction and you wait and wait for it to load and nothing happens? Usually the culprit is a large file-sized auction photo. It’s the number one mistake beginners make. It makes your auction look unprofessional. The chances are slim anyone will hang around to place bids at that auction.

What’s that? Do I have a tutorial to solve that? Why yes I do! If you can’t tell already, I like helping people learn about the internet. I like to see people getting excited about their auctions. Believe me, your despair will be short-lived, and you will soon be an auction pro with some great auction stories to tell.

– See you at the Auctions – Renee from AuctionTongue

Note: If you would like to view this article, along with step-by-step instructions and detailed pictures, visit my online auction tutorial guide at: http://www.auctiontongue.com/com_ebay/index.html

Renee Matt maintains AuctionTongue.com, a review site of auction tool, free auction templates, auction software, auction sniper and image hosting services. AT focuses on auction websites outside of Ebay. Sign up for their FREE Auction Freebies newsletter at http://www.auctiontongue.com/

If you know what you’re doing, you can quickly find what you’re looking for on eBay. Here are a few golden rules.

Be specific: If you’re searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you’ll get further searching for ‘harry potter rowling philosopher’s stone first edition’ than you will searching for ‘harry potter’. You’ll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It’s a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can’t spell. Whatever you’re looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings – the chances are that fewer people will find these items, and so they will be cheaper.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe your item, for example searching for both ‘TV’ and ‘television’, or for ‘phone’, ‘mobile’ and ‘cellphone’. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you’ll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD because you want to buy that CD, you should click the ‘CDs’ category to just look at results in that category. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don’t care about?

Don’t be afraid to browse: Once you’ve found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click ‘Browse’ and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay’s search engine is – a few symbols here and there and it’ll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say ‘anything can go here’. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for ‘car 195*’. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes (”") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for “Lord of the Rings” won’t give you any results that say, for example “Lord Robert Rings”.

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don’t want to appear in your search results. For example: “Pulp Fiction” –(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become ‘(TV,television)’, which would find items with either word.

So once you’ve found your bargain item, bid for it and won it, what if it all goes wrong? Don’t worry – eBay has a thorough dispute resolution procedure, and we’ll cover it in some depth in the next article, so you’ll be prepared if the worst happens.

John is an Ebay Powerseller. He’s published a blog listing his best resources and articles. His blog can be found at www.auctionblogonline.com.

“What’s the best way to go about Opening an Ebay store ?”

I am asked this question all the time…

An ebay store is one step higher than having just an ebay ID. You have a whole store which you can categorize and sell your items. It is usefully to open a store if you have a vast stock of items to sell, and you sell regularly. Powersellers have ebay stores.

The best is to sell brand new wholesale goods available from wholesalers. This one of the most easiest ways that people are using to earn a secondary income, by working from the comfort of their home.

Advantages of an ebay store?

-You can manage the items you are selling on ebay more easily + effectively.

-It feels more professional having a store, rather than just the basic listing page.

-You can put your auction items in catagories

-if you sell loads of items regularly or are a powerseller, then your buyers have more ease searching for items as they are catagories. More happy buyers = more sales, its that simple!

There are 3 levels of an ebay shop which you have to pay for using monthly subscriptions.
Basic Store ($15.95/month). Featured Store ($49.95/month), Anchor Store ($499.95/month*)
These depend on the amount of stock you are selling on ebay and how regularly you are selling.

Its best to start of with the basic store, which they are offering for Free for the first month, so why not give it a try ?

Things you should know.

The great thing about an ebay store is that you can edit the store colour + features to your needs, and be unique. You can have a red store, orange, purple, the choice is up to you.
You can also change the layout, your heading/name etc.

I teach hundreds of people a day on how to effectively open an ebay store.

About the Author: Sandeep Marwaha-
Please subscribe for our Ebay 2006 profit exploding report. Simply enter your details on our site…

http://www.ukriches.com/

Learn the most effective ways to sell on ebay from a powerseller who is showing hundreds everyweek how to sell on ebay profesionally

Use eBay picture service or host your own photos?

If you use the eBay picture service, your first photo is free. But each additional picture will cost you $0.15 and the supersize picture will be another $0.75.

This can cut into your auction profits if you need, let’s say, 3 or 4 pictures showing different angles, and one supersize picture for the “WOW” effect!

So I found a way to have as many pictures I want in my listings without having to pay all these fees to eBay: I do my own image hosting!

They are a lot of image hosting services to choose from online. Some are free, and others charge a small monthly or yearly fee.

Currently I use Photobucket image hosting. They have a free starter package (which gives you 25 MB of disc space) or a premium package (unlimited disc space) to store your pictures. You can subscribe to the premium package for 3 months ($9.00) or one year ($25.00).

Now, how to load your pictures on your photo-hosting service?

First, you have to resize your images. One reason for resizing your photos is that Photobucket limits the size of the pictures you can load - 250 KB for the free package and 1 MB for the premium package.

The second reason is that you don’t want to slow down your eBay listings with huge images! Big pictures take forever to load, and potential customers will hit the back button instead of waiting.

So I recommend limiting each picture to a size of 500 pixels maximum. I use the free Irfanview image optimizer to resize my pictures.

Once your photos are resized, you can upload them to your image hosting service, which is very simple.

For Photobucket, you have to log in into your account. Once you are in, there is a white window on top of the page marked “picture”, with a “browse” button on the right. Click on “browse”, and a new “choose file” window will appear. That window shows the files in your computer. From that window, select the file containing the picture you want to upload to the Internet.

Once you have found the right picture, highlight it with your mouse and then in the “choose file window”, click the “open” button. The name and location of your picture will then appear on the Photobucket screen.

Now click the “submit” button, and voila! Your selected picture is on Photobucket. You can even load several pictures at the same time by using the “submit multiple pictures” feature.

All right, your picture is now on Photobucket. But how do you insert that picture in your eBay listing?

Once your image is hosted on Photobucket, you will have to copy the URL of that photo (which is directly under it) and paste it into your eBay listing. Use the following html code to display the picture correctly in your listing (don’t forget to inverse the quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of this code!); paste your Photobucket image URL where it says “the URL of your picture”:

>img src=”the URL of your picture”<

You can even add a border around your picture, by adding a border code to the above, making it:

>img src=”the URL of your picture” border=8<

By changing the number of your border, you can make it larger or thinner.

Another great advantage of choosing online image hosting is that the quality of your pictures in your auction listings will be much better than with eBay picture services!

So you can have as many auction pictures as you need, with higher image definition, for less money. You can’t beat that.

Good luck!

Author Sophie Van Tiggelen of Bagatelle Jewelry (http://www.bagatelle-jewelry.com) creates original handmade beaded jewelry in lampwork glass, freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, semi-precious gemstones and sterling silver. Sophie’s designs are natural, beautiful and sophisticated, and she specializes in turquoise, coral and chalcedony.

As a serious seller on eBay you’re familiar with their fee circumventing rules. If not, visit: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-circumventing.html.

In a nutshell their rule is that you are not allowed to put an item up for bid for a penny and charge $100 for shipping and handling (S&H) in an attempt to avoid the transaction fee. Since we are not trying to avoid fees we all follow the rules – right? To a certain extent yes, but many sellers are still stretching the bubble by over charging for S&H in an attempt to maximize their profits and losing bidders in the process - the end result is the opposite of what they hoped for. Ultimately they reduce their sales and although these efforts fit within eBay’s policies, when extreme, they are considered an unfair practice by many buyers.

I’ll give you an example. I play in a Texas-No-Hold-Em poker game once a month - just a bunch of friends who get together, play a little poker, talk about their lives and have some fun. I thought it would be nice if we had some ‘professional-style’ poker chips so went to eBay to buy some. I like to think of myself as an intelligent eBay shopper so I watched the auctions for a few days and noticed that the final price averaged $60 for the chips I wanted (retail is about twice that at a local store). The market was determining the price, or was it?

As I watched these auctions I noticed an interesting problem, the shipping charges varied greatly. For the sake of this example let’s say one seller was offering S&H at $20, another at $30 and one $50. We’ll call them Seller A, Seller B and Seller C. As a buyer, if I was willing to accept the price determined by the market – in this case $60, then the final cost of the item from each of these sellers would be:

Seller A: $60 + $20 = $80
Seller B: $60 + $30 = $90
Seller C: $60 + $50 = $110

I did some additional homework and discovered the package would weigh 17 pounds, the size would not increase shipping costs and the sellers were all in my state. I went to the UPS and Fed-X web sites and plugged in the needed information for shipping cost estimates. The results were $11 and $17. All things being equal the total cost of the chips should be around $71-$78. So which seller’s auction did I bid on? Only one – Seller A – and I got the chips for $52, plus S&H ($72). If I hadn’t won that auction I may have bid on Seller B’s but probably would have lowered my total bid amount by $10. Seller C’s auction closed without a singe bid.

Seller A got my business, Seller B may have, and as far as I was concerned, and apparently other bidders, Seller C can go pound sand. The outcome of this example should be pretty clear and it should be obvious by now that you don’t want to be Seller C. Although you may get an occasional windfall with less savvy bidders, in the long term your sales will be much less than that of other sellers of similar items.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t recoup your shipping and handling costs in the process. We’re not in business to lose money, but make sure you are not trying to pad your ‘profit’ at the expense of loosing bidders and ultimately sales. Take the time to do similar research on your own items and market niche and find out where you stand with your shipping and handling charges. If you’re fair to your customers they will think better of you for it and in the long run your sales will be better.

© Copyright 2005 Steven Woodward - All Rights Reserved

About the Author:
Steven Woodward is the owner, editor and publisher of the Auction Sellers Network (ASN); a web site for individuals and companies who are serious about utilizing the online auction marketplace for their business. In addition to topical articles, ASN provides an extensive resource center, news feeds, member forums and classified ads. For more information or to become a member please visit http://www.AuctionSellersNetwork.com.

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About the Author tag is left intact and included. We do request that we be informed where it is posted and reciprocal links will be considered.

This is such an important topic and the majority of sellers don’t control their ebay fees. Are you completely aware about the costs involved when you are selling on eBay?

Have a look at John:

John has bought a nice antique vase on a garage sale for $55 US. What a bargain, since he knows that on eBay he could sell it for a big profit. He makes 3 beautiful photos and John wants to use one of photos as a gallery picture, because he knows that without a gallery photo it is hard to sell your items.

So, he starts to create his auction listings.

The auction starting price should be $55, to break even. John also ads a ‘Buy it Now’ price for $110 and an additional subtitle. As John is not satisfied with the first look he decides to add the ‘bold’ feature as well and finally he submits his auction. This auction looks perfect now, but does John really know how much he paid on eBay fees just for this listing.

Let’s do the math:

Insertion fee: $2.40
Buy Now Price: $0.25
Subtitle: $0.50
Bold: $1.00
Gallery Photo: $0.35
2 Extra Pictures: $0.30

John finally sells his vase for $98 as the highest bidder so John pays additionally:

Final value Fee: $1.31 (5.25% for the first $25)
and: $2.19 (3% of $50 ($75-25$)

= $8.30 just on eBay fees!

But this ‘fee journey’ is not over yet…John receives payment from the bidder of $108 ($98 for the item and $10 for shipping) The bidders pays via PayPal and John has to pay PayPal fees of 2.9% + $0.30 US = $3.13 +$0.30 = $3.43.

In total John has paid $11.73 just on fees. He has already paid $55 for the vase plus the $11.73 in total for listing = $66.73. And almost forgot! Yes, John needs to pay the $10 for shipping. Therefore, total costs are:

Buy merchandise: $ 55.00
eBay fees: $ 8.30
Paypal Fees: $ 3.43
Shipping: $ 10.00

Total Costs: $ 76.73
Received: $108.00
Profit: $ 31.27

Well, John has made a profit. That’s pretty good anyway, but I think John could save massively on his ebay fees. Here some tips how to save on eBay fees:

John could easily host his own pictures through his internet service provider, through some online pictures services. In fact he could add unlimited ebay pictures as he wants without paying additional cents. John would have saved $0.30 on this additional picture hosting feature. Then, John could have easily removed some special features like ‘bold’ and ’subtitle’. John could have come up with a more descriptive and detailed main title with some snappy keywords to attract more buyers. John could have also started with a lower price to decrease the insertion fees, yes even a a starting price of $1 No reserve’. The positive effect with these $1 starting auction is two fold; Firstly, you save on insertion fee and secondly more buyers place a bid if the starting bid is low. This increases dramatically the number of bids and this attracts even more buyers because they think ‘When so many people place a bid, then this item must be really cool’ and they bid as well.

In summary: Keep your eBay fees in mind and don’t guess how much your listing will cost. Sit down and do the math before you launch your auction listing. It’s worth and maybe saves some surprises at the end of the month when the monthly bill from eBay is waiting in your mailbox.

T. Haselhorst is CEO of Monster Internet Empire and webmaster of
http://www.auction-design-for-free.com,
http://www.powerseller-articles.auction-design-for-free.com,
and http://www.submit-articles.biz

The Internet’s largest independent online auction training facility. With expert people on staff to teach you the industry’s secrets. Anyone can learn and everyone can profit!

Learn to make big money online using online auctions and a custom e-commerce website that we will build for you.

We will show you the secrets used by Power Sellers on how to find and locate wholesale or dropship products.

Use the best and latest software tools available to make you successful with online marketing using proven methods.

Let us get you started down the fast track and take years off your learning curve - TODAY!

Go to our website at www.freeauctioncourses.com to listen to Craig Meyer’s presentation and find out more about our 60-day Money Back Guarantee.

Not sure what to sell? Our expert staff will assist you every step of the way in locating a profitable product with a direct source from a wholesale manufacturer or from a reputable dropshipper if you don’t have the space available for inventory on hand.

Internet Auction Resources

The Internet’s largest independent online auction training facility. With expert people on staff to teach you the industry’s secrets. Anyone can learn and everyone can profit!

Learn to make big money online using online auctions and a custom e-commerce website that we will build for you.

We will show you the secrets used by Power Sellers on how to find and locate wholesale or dropship products.

Use the best and latest software tools available to make you successful with online marketing using proven methods.

Let us get you started down the fast track and take years off your learning curve - TODAY!

Go to our website at www.freeauctioncourses.com to listen to Craig Meyer’s presentation and find out more about our 60-day Money Back Guarantee.

Not sure what to sell? Our expert staff will assist you every step of the way in locating a profitable product with a direct source from a wholesale manufacturer or from a reputable dropshipper if you don’t have the space available for inventory on hand.

Online Business Coach