Have you ever asked, ”Why didn’t my auction end with a higher closing price? Someone else listed the exact same item and it sold for 3 times as much!” 

Welcome to eBay’s Price Gap! You have probably noticed that someone can have the exact same item as another and end up with two totally different ending prices. You think FOR SURE an item will make you all kinds of money, only to lose $5.00, break even or not receive even a single bid.

There are many possible reasons for this…

Ultimately, a penny auction is going to draw more bidders & more attention. Many times, when you can draw in a circle of bidders watching and competing for an item, you will have no problem getting a desirable ending price.  I recently had an experience where I was liquidating end of season inventory to make room for current season items.  I started the auctions at a penny, and a lot of them ended more than what they were listed for in my eBay store!  Sweet! 

Maybe you sell on eBay to bring in an alternative source of income. Not really bringing in a full time wage, but enough to where you’re ready to kick it up a notch.

If you have plans to earn a full time income on eBay, you’ll have to build up your inventory – and savings in order to maintain the volume of sales to get you to the next level.

Take a good look at what is working for you currently. For example, if you’ve been doing this part time for a while, one skill that you may already be excelling in, is selling gently used items from around your home. It could be gently used appliances, clothing, toys..etc.

Have you already developed a well tuned eye for what sells on eBay in the “gently used” department? If so, then expand on it! Use your skills to your advantage to build the inventory in your store to purchase some new hot products that are selling on eBay.

One way you can do this is by helping others. Take their gently used items off their hands and flip it for profits on eBay. You can offer them a set amount for each product or a percentage. Most times, people are just so happy to get things out of the house, and any amount is appreciative. Use your discretion, making sure you take into consideration listing fees and final value fees.

Help friends go through their kids piles of toys and books, writing down each one. Take a day to research them, and break out their items into different piles

Donate–  Toys that may not be complete, broken or anything that may not be worth selling after you perform your research.

eBay – Can include complete sets of books, working toys in good condition, gently used clothing, games etc..products you are familiar with selling or anything that you’ve researched giving you a good return on your investment.

Craigslist– Utilize Craigslist for another alternate stream of income. Mostly, for delicate, big and/or heavy items that you really don’t want to risk shipping. The turn around time is usually pretty fast.

Hand-Me-Down – Items that will be donated to schools, family and/or friends.

You can go at your own speed. You can learn as you go.

Offer pick-up for your items or have a secure location where you can drop them off.

 This is just one way to boost your income with little investment.

Happy Selling!

This may be a basic article for some, but there are always those who would like to start selling on eBay.  It’s good to refresh!  Sometimes going back to basics is all you need to start the New Year off on the right foot.

You may be thinking that you want to sell on eBay and make it your career. You may have been reading about how many have left their corporate jobs to sell on a full time basis on eBay. With motivation and ambition you can make money to help support your family or just make some mad money for your family to take a trip to Disneyworld or a vacation to Hawaii. Doesn’t matter what the purpose for selling on eBay, you need to decide what you can sell to help you make a profit. Profit = Cha-ching in your pocket!

 You will see that just about anything and everything is sold on eBay. You might have an attic with Aunt Betty’s unwanted items from the estate sale or baby clothes and equipment that have been in the corner for years. If these items are of good value and still in great condition, you may find a way to advertise these items to sell on eBay. Unused items + Sell on eBay with a Buyer = Cha-ching in your pocket!

 What to sell? – Where to Find Your Products to List on eBay

 Everyone can start with their home. You should start looking in your closest, through your kid’s toys, or even the garage. By starting in your home you can find stuff that you haven’t used and just sitting in your house collecting dust and taking up space.

 Next you can look outside of the home, the first place to find an eBay worthy item is a garage sale. Garage sales are not about selling junk, but items you don’t have a need for anymore and that need to find a new owner. You can find great deals at church and community yard sales too. Come prepared with cash and a vehicle big enough to take away larger items you might find for a fraction of the retail price. You may be lucky enough to bring home some great bargains and even the a gently-used kitchen sink.

 Before buying – Let’s see What to Look for in an Item

 Most items that you can think of are able to be sold on eBay, but they may not be worthy of a sale. That means that your mother-in-law’s beaded antique lamp might not fetch a good price on eBay. If it looks dreadful to you it’s probably dreadful to your bidders. Save it for when The Antique Road Show comes to town instead.

Research, research research! Research your item – see if it being sold on eBay and for how much. With your mother-in-law’s antique lamp, I would focus on “antique lamps” and see what is selling and for how much. This might take you a few days to decide on your price for listing but the few days can be worth it. The reason for the research is to help you know what you have and know what it could be worth. In the long run this time can make you more of a profit.

The main aspect of an item for possible sale is whether you can get a higher price on eBay than you are paying for it right now. Let’s use an example of the gaming systems. These gaming systems are in all shapes and styles and they are hot sellers throughout the year. The best time to find them is when they first go on sale in stores. If you can afford to buy three or four at $400 a piece, you can make at least twice that much for each one on eBay, especially if the system is in limited release in stores. Then this item is consider hard to find and hard to get your hands on with a limited availability.

On the other hand, larger items like curio cabinets or wardrobes may not be cost effective for you. They will cost a lot to ship and the price customers are willing to pay may not make a decent profit. However, with bigger items like cabinets or outside kid toys there is the option of setting up a local only sale, where the winning bidder must come pick the item up – so consider that if you’ve got furniture or larger items you’d like to get rid of. And if your item is hard to find you might find some potential buyers are willing to drive the extra distance to pick it up.

eBay’s Prohibited Items – Caution all the way!

We’d be negligent if we didn’t mention that eBay does have a list of items that are prohibited from selling on eBay. Remember the rules? Yes, if you didn’t know eBay has a full list of what you can and can’t do so everyone is in check. What is nice to know is that the items that are forbidden are known to everyone because eBay has made it clear. There are people who will test the limits but you don’t want to be one of them. Know what you can’t sell as well so you can stay clear of them. Here is a limited list of illegal items to sell on eBay:

• Pornographic items
• Used clothing
• Recalled items
• Credit cards
• Event tickets (that’s scalping if you didn’t know)
• Alcohol (the drinking kind)
• Weapons
• Food (even space rations)
• Human body parts

Complete Prohibited List: For a complete list, go to eBay and look under “Seller Resources” and then “Prohibited Items”.

 Selling on eBay can be a fun learning experience with a profitable outcome when you select the right items to sell and do your research to know what you are selling. Assess each product by the current market and the efforts involved in selling and preparing the listing before just putting it up for sale to make some fast cash. The more time you put into it and do it right the first time, could generate profitable income for you.

I find items every day that are selling on eBay and share them on my membership site, so you can get a piece of the profits with little research.  Join with coupon 81440 for a New Year discount price! www.boutiquebargains.com

Happy Selling! 

What is an Auction Sniper?  Auction sniping is waiting until the last possible moment before an auction closes to enter your bid, with the hope of outbidding other sellers that didn’t anticipate such a move. Auction sniping is not a violation of eBay rules and is considered fair practice in auction bidding.

Why Snipe?  Well, my main reason for writing this is to give you some tips on how to ‘flip that auction’ and take advantage of misspellings. By doing this you can purchase items for pennies on the dollar and resell them, making a great profit!  It’s a great way to get inventory.  It’s also a great way to get name brands for your kids and sell them later. 

Use a program such as fatfingers.com or typohound.com – there are more.  Think of commonly misspelled words.  Examples you can check out are:  Gymboree, Hanna Andersson, Baby Lulu, Oilily – these are all highly sought after brands.  I like to look for my favorite brands, items that sell well – and even items I like to buy for my kids!

Do your research before purchasing ANYTHING, unless you know by experience that it’s going to sell for you.  I like Terapeak, but there are other eBay research programs that you can use.  Sometimes just by using the eBay completed listings, you will be able to get enough information to make a decision if you want to resell or not.  Once you have your listings in front of you, sort your listings by ‘ending soonest’ so your turn around time is less.

Do not bid on anything yet – this will only drive up the ending price.  Use a sniping program such as Gixel.com – unless you know you can physically be at the computer to bid last minute.  If you think you’re going to be bidding on numerous items, use a sniping program to be sure you won’t miss out on any last minute bidding.

I’ve dabbled in SMS to my cell phone and proxy bidding.  But it’s much easier to use a program that does everything for you!  Enter a price you are comfortable paying and you’re done!

Good Luck and let me know how you make out! 

Jenn Cangelosi is owner of Boutique Bargains and a dedicated eBay expert who has transformed her hobby into an online business guiding moms wanting to build a successful eBay business.

Are you ready to get your eBay noticed in the New Year?

After you’ve worked hard getting your items listed, have done your product research there is another step to perform. Marketing. It takes time to establish a following and a reputation for quality, but having a plan in the beginning can speed things up. Here are some tips to help you steer your marketing efforts in the right direction for the New Year.

What is Marketing?

For those who don’t know, marketing is how you get the word out about your products. Look at companies like Coca-Cola and Nike. These are reputable brands, but they had to be presented to the public in a variety of ways to get noticed.

Online marketing strategies for websites also work if your only presence in cyberspace is on eBay. Some use eBay as a sort of test market before going further and building websites to sell their products. eBay has a few fees they charge for their services, but these are nominal compared to the money you can make. Remember, it takes money to make money and if you’re serious about creating a profitable business at some point or another you’ll need to spend a little money.

Where to Begin

·Spread the News – Begin with word of mouth, or viral marketing. Tell your friends and family about your new business venture on eBay. Send them emails with links to your auctions so they can see just what it is you are up to.

·Email – Use your email in another way. Each time you send an email, you have the opportunity to “sign” them with a signature line. Use that signature line as a way to link to your auction listing or eBay store. Add a tagline like, “Come and see what’s new on eBay!”

·Customer Feedback – Ask for feedback from your buyers. Increasing the amount of positive feedback elevates your standing on eBay. Most people leave feedback anyway but send an email message to follow up after you ship your products as a customer service gesture to gauge their satisfaction and remind them to add feedback.

·Business Cards – Use business cards. In each package you ship add a business card so your name stays fresh in their minds. For informational products like eBooks and special reports, add a business card resource box on the last page of the product.

·Reward Repeat Customers – Offer coupons and other promotional offers for repeat clients. We say repeat clients because anyone can take advantage of an offer the first time and never return. If offer a discount to a customer when they next bid and win or make a fixed price purchase, they will come back. A discount on shipping will get their attention.

·Freebies – Add freebies to the packages you ship. Here’s an example. Let’s say that you are selling a bicycle. Add a bicycle pump or stickers (for a kids bike) to be used by the buyer. Include your logo and web address where applicable.

Each of these ideas contributes to an overall marketing plan. If you have a separate website, the number of marketing strategies you can use increases even more. Don’t narrow yourself into just one form of marketing. You need to develop a well thought out marketing plan and work your way through each step in order to reach ultimate success with your eBay store.

For more tips, join our Selling On eBay Newsletter!

Happy Selling! 

I know..I know…don’t rush it, right? 2010 will be here before you know it. Do you have a solid set of goals ready to accomplish for the new year?

Whether you’re just starting out on eBay or you’ve been in business for a while, every year you’ll want to sit down and evaluate your plan for the new year. This will make it easier to stay on path so you don’t feel like you’re spinning your wheels every time you sit at your desk.

One of the perks we have as stay at home moms is that we are never finished being busy with our business. Always changing and improving to grow your business is a constant motion. So, when there is something that diverts us from being focused on business – we always know in the back of our minds that we can work on it a little bit at a time. Businesses don’t become successful over night!

Here are some things that may spark an idea to keep you on track for the New Year:

• Introduce a new product line to your eBay store
• Rethink any inventory that has been sitting in your store for more than a year
• Start email marketing
• Build a blog using WordPress
• Offer a coupon to returning customers
• Add a FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) page to your eBay categories
• Improve your search visibility to attract more traffic to your items
• List 10 items a week, every week
• Organize your space to better suite your needs
• Hold seasonal sales through out the year

Hope this helps you build a successful New Year!

eBay is the premier online marketplace. With access to the entire world in one website, you have the potential for unlimited sales of your goods. But, don’t think that selling here is any easier than selling anywhere else. To make the most of your time on eBay, here are five tips to maximize your profit.

Just about everyone from housewives to retirees has tried their hand at selling one thing or another on eBay. Those who have made big profits include those who sell vehicles and even real estate. It gives new meaning to selling everything but the kitchen sink. So, how do they do it? What does it take to get started selling on eBay? Here are five tips to help you get your foot in the door of eBay profits.

1. Do market research first. Just about everything has been sold on eBay but everything you sell won’t make you money. Take a look at auction results. Some products sell in cycles. What is popular today may not be popular at this time next year. If eBay is your business, you want to bring in more money than you are putting out.

2. Set your prices carefully. Again look at auction results. What is the most competitive price? Your laptop may be worth $300 but if laptops from the same manufacturing year are selling at $250, asking for $280 won’t make you competitive.

3. Work on your descriptions. Even though hundreds of thousands of people shop online every day, they are still skeptical about sketchy details. Leaving out pertinent facts about your product can be a turn off for buyers. If they think you are hiding something, they’ll be reluctant to buy.

4. Read all of eBay’s policies. The last thing you want is to run afoul of the law. eBay has policies in place to protect the seller AND the buyer. Non-compliance could get you sanctioned on the site. Ignorance is not an excuse. All you need to know can be found on eBay’s website in an easy-to-read format for users.

5. Decide on all aspects of selling before listing your products. How many people have forgotten to be specific about their shipping and payment methods? We all know how that scenario usually turns out. There are guidelines for disputing with non-paying auction winners but you don’t want to have to use them. The same goes for shipping. If it costs you more for shipping than you anticipated, you won’t make any money.

Are you contemplating selling items on eBay? Use these five tips to get started today. There is much more to creating a successful business on eBay, but these will definitely help you begin on the right foot.

Check out what is selling right now with my one week special offer of F-R-E-E tips showing you what is hot on eBay.  Join HERE.

This is a guest post by John Baxter

Christmas is an exiting time of the year and everyone always seem to be rushing around scooping up gifts for family and loves ones.  So, will your eBay listings be part of the Christmas commerce gold rush or will your sales be left dwindling in the dark?

When I first started eBay’ing I simply assumed that no one would be buying anything from my eBay stores because there are so many people in the physical high street shops at this time of the year.  And ‘Oh Boy’ was I proven wrong. The first Christmas my eBay store was open, was a booming success.  Sales were high leading up to the Christmas week and I was even making sales on Christmas day! (Yes I am a workaholic and I do check my email after the turkey has gone).

So what can you do to make sure that your eBay listings are making sales this Christmas?  Here are a few tips to make sure your store is seen in this festive seasons shopping spree;

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Are you excited??  I was out doing some shopping this weekend and I really noticed a huge increase in traffic around the shopping malls.  Could the Holiday Season already be underway?  I think so!  I’ve even noticed a nice upswing in sales from my eBay store.  I happen to love store sales, since it’s how I sell a majority of the year.    

It made me start thinking about double checking my eBay “TO DO” list.  Am I prepared for the holiday? 

Here is just a quick glimpse of what I like to do to prepare for the Holiday rush:

- List all remaining Holiday items – clothes, toys, gift items.  You can’t sell it if they don’t see it!  I always tell my readers to just keep listing to your store.  List all seasons, all the time.  Don’t ever wait and hold on to an item because you feel it is off season and no one will buy it.  Some of my best sales are from off season items. 

- Clean out the toy boxes!! We do this twice a year – before Easter and before Christmas.  Both times we list any sellable toys at least a month before the holiday.  Any earnings go towards new toys, it’s usually a great motivator to get my 6 year old to write a Christmas list so we have a solid goal of the money we need to raise.

- Stock up on shipping supplies!  I know a lot of eBay sellers get their supplies off of eBay.  Boxes, packing supplies, postage supplies, mailing envelopes, extra printer paper, ink…etc.  A couple of my absolute favorites for supplies and postage off eBay are, Uline.com and Stamps.com.  Stamps.com has a promo code – C-8RRH-ZNJ – if you’re interested in checking them out.

- Crock-Pot meals! – Nothing is more satisfying than sitting down to an already prepared meal after a busy day on eBay!  Prepare it when you wake up and it’s cooking all day.  Keeping a schedule is key to making sure your family is not neglected – and you need your down time as well.  Keep crock pot recipes handy so you can fix it and forget it.

Good luck this holiday season!

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As we wind up for the Holiday Season on eBay, there is one thing that you can prepare for to optimize your eBay store for the New Year, if you haven’t done so already.

Create Multiple Custom Store Categories

It makes total sense!    eBay lets you create up to 300 Categories AND Subcategories in a single store.  That’s a lot of categories!!  Make sure you are using relevant, popular keywords in your custom category names.  This will ensure you are placing on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).