Ebay Auction Arbitrage

Author: Jason James

Arbitrage is the act of purchasing a product in one market for immediate resale in another. Arbitrage can only occur when there is a disparity in prices between one market and another.

If you want to make money on ebay right now and don't have a significant amount of start-up funds, arbitrage may be your best option--at least to raise the money to purchase inventory for your ebay home business.

You can start buy scouting out other auction sites to see if there is a significant disparity in prices between those sources and ebay.

I personally suggest you start with sites like bidz.com, bid4assets.com, and www.firstgov.gov/shopping/shopping.shtml. If you can't find good prices there for the products you want to sell on ebay, you can search Google for ""government auctions"" and ""auction sites.""

You should be able to find a number of online auction sites that are significantly less-trafficked than ebay, have significantly lower fees than ebay, and subsequently have significantly less buyers than ebay.

You should then exploit this market loophole--the disparity in prices--between ebay and this market by purchasing products from your selected online auction site at low prices. You should first check prices on ebay to find out what similar items are selling for. If you can purchase at a significant discount on your selected online auction site, you should do so.

You can immediately turn around and sell these products on ebay for higher prices. You should stress the discounted prices in your auctions and pack them with highly- trafficked keywords, so that it shows up for a number of different keyword and keyphrase searches.

Some people even use this arbitrage technique exclusively with ebay auctions. They buy an item on ebay and then resell it on ebay, using one market within ebay to buy and then two or more to sell.

You can use this technique, too. Search for items up for auction on ebay in popular categories, but with poorly organized templates and bad selling strategies. Purchase these items and resell them with professional templates, better descriptions, and titles that are filled with keywords that pull visitors from multiple ebay markets.

Using this simple strategy and your skills as a professional ebay seller, you can purchase items and immediately turn them around for 200% profit. If you are currently looking for a way to bring in revenue for your ebay business, this could be a quick way to build your inventory without purchasing expensive wholesale lots.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Tips on Making Money on eBay Without Selling

Author: Jason James

The eBay business phenomenon has seen millions of buyers and sellers join together in what amounts to the world's biggest virtual flea market. In this world's fast-paced online transactions, that amounts to billions of dollars a day, a person can actually make some money without selling anything he owns. In the world of free enterprise, all it takes is the ability to grasp opportunity and take an educated risk.

Here are some tips on how you can think out of the box with eBay:

1. Promote products as an affiliate. Promote other sites with products. An affiliate program is actually just another way for a company to give its products as much exposure as possible to potential buyers.

Most affiliate programs actually let you join them for free or with a small fee. All you have to do is to list the product, with the highest bidder getting what he wants through you. The company tracks these sales. Depending on the revenue generated, or even the agreement you ad with the company, every sale of a product you make, you get a commission. As an affiliate of a company, you are not an employee or a contractor, receiving no perks nor benefits, except for the commission.

2. Get out there and join the forums. If you are quite passionate about the products you advertise, you can create interest by providing highly relevant content to enthusiasts. Find others like you. You have to let people know you exist. Participate in chats, forums and user groups. Once these people get to know you and your level of expertise in the subject, it gives you a leg up on making ""recommendations"".

3. Drop shipping products. Another variation of the affiliate program, drop shipping involves just passing on to the manufacturer or wholesaler your customer's order letting them take care of the delivery, and you make a profit from the difference between the wholesaler's price and your selling price.

4. Advertise other products when you post. Most veteran eBay sellers know a large volume of customers can pass through their auctions without people actually buying something. So, in order to maximize their marketing space, they advertise other products in the same space through links. Savvy eBay sellers even edit their About Me links to get people interested in other wares.

5. Create a link to other sites. If you are a web programmer, one outfit suggests you make use of the About Me site in another way. When you create the About Me link, there is a way to take advantage of the HTML layout feature. This layout can be edited with HTML syntax to link users to another site, if you so choose.

As a further explanation, when you create your About Me link, choose any format layout. This may sound strange but you will have the opportunity to enter a code on your own. Next, go to the bottom and click on ""Preview"". There, you will go to the bottom of the page again, this time clicking on ""Edit using HTML"". Delete everything in the box and replace it with your own code. If you are not code-savvy, you better hire someone to create the link.

So there you have it, five (out of a lot of) tips to make money from eBay without resorting to selling.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

5 High Profit Secrets To Write Better eBay Listings

Author: Jason James

How do you make more money on eBay with your current and/or future listings? That's the question that is demanding an answer.

Making money on eBay and selling products through auctions is much like owning your own brick and mortar store. For example, when people come to a store, the most important aspect to selling anything is in the way it's presented.

Big companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to have people build presentable displays of products so they sell. It's call merchandising.

That's the answer to making more money on eBay. Merchandising.

Or, in eBay auction terms, writing your product listing. Here's five high profit ways you can write better listings.

1. HTML it!

Take some time to learn some basic HTML, or the language the web uses to display websites.

Using HTML you can easily create a very nice looking ""display"" of your product and build a brand for yourself. By keeping the same look in all your listings people will feel comfortable with your position as a seller and theirs as the buyer.

HTML allows you the opportunity to make your listing stand out and be more professional. Use the HTML editor on the product listing page to make it much easier, even if you don't know a lot HTML.

2. Don't Scream At People.

One of the biggest mistakes people with their eBay listing is the use of all capital letters in the title. IT'S VERY ANNOYING!

Using capital letters is a means of expressing surprise, anger, sadness, discouragement, and other sorts of unhappy emotions. Not a great way to instill an emotional response to buy.

Now, notice I didn't say don't use any caps in your title. Just not all caps. A title is just that... a title. Think of a book title or movie title. Capitalize the first letter of each word.

3. Your eBay listing must be clear.

When presenting a listing for your product you must make it absolutely clear what you are selling. Concise descriptions as well as crystal clear pictures will keep your prospective customer interested in the product. If they are unsure about anything, at any time... you will probably lose them to your competitor.

4. True Powersellers go a step further.

It's not enough to make the product listing very clear, but also your terms and conditions. This means your shipping policy and costs, return policy, any warranties that you, or the company, offer, and any guarantees associated with the product.

This goes the extra mile into creating a comfortable atmosphere where the person reading your listing will be more inclined to buy from you.

5. Follow a listing schedule.

Before you ever place the listing ask yourself a question, ""Is this the best time to sell it?"" Even the best, most thought out listing, will fail if the time isn't right.

Create a listing schedule that clearly lists the starting and ending dates of your auction. This will ensure that, if you're selling holiday products or seasonal products, the buyer will receive them on time.

Your listing is a part of your business. This is where you begin to build a long lasting relationship, one of comfort and recognition, that continues for long lasting income.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Keeping records of your Ebay business: Part 3

Author: Jason James

Welcome to Ebay seller business bookkeeping 101. In case you are just now catching up to speed with this article series about keeping good financial records of your ebay company, you may want to check back with part part I and II of this article.

Up to this point we have educated you on a few basic important tips when it comes to keeping good records of your ebay selling business and a detailed journal of your expenses and receipts. You were also given the basics on learning what a balance sheet and an income statement is in relation to your ebay selling business, as well as understanding gross profit and your gross profit margin.

Most importantly, you were also introduced to the cold hard truth about the power of the IRS and what would be expected of you should an audit of your ebay selling business come your way. Your transactions, purchase records, and receipts should ideally be all laid out and ready to be prepared on a day's notice. Forming these kinds of good habits with your paperwork is one of the greatest 'non-financial' investments that you will ever make.

By now you are probably asking yourself, ""Is there a simple way for me to keep track of everything pertaining to my ebay selling business?"" The answer is yes, there is. In fact you are encouraged to read the following information and advice about how to create a system for keeping track of your sales and expenses.

You need a bookkeeping system!

Before you read on it is important to understand that there is no single system that is better than another when keeping records of your ebay selling business. Amazingly, some people can do well enough with just a pencil and a set of legal pads. But for the majority of us we need a little more help then just pen and a blank sheet of paper.

If you are like me, then you need all the help you can get to better organize your ebay seller business. And although I will give you some basic advice on some helpful tools, you will ultimately have to form the paperwork habits then best suites your needs. You may use whatever methods that best keeps you on top of your numbers and properly report the transactions of your ebay seller business.

As a general rule of thumb, you will need the following parts of a bookkeeping system:

1. You will need to keep track of your ebay seller business's list of accounts or categories that you will record in a general ledger. This is called a Chart of Accounts. Some examples of ""accounts"" would be your rent, utility bills, insurance, advertising costs, Internet and home office costs, etc.

2. Your ebay seller business bookkeeping system should have a detailed record of your business's income and expenses, your assets and liabilities, and of course the owner's equity. You can easily keep track of these items with a General Ledger.

3. Any office store will be able to provide you with an Accounts Receivable Statement. This record-keeping tool will help you keep track of any amount of payments that are owed to your ebay seller business for amounts uncollected.

4. No ebay seller business, or any other business for that matter, can be properly tracked without an Inventory Listing. An inventory listing is just a matter of easily keeping track of the items that you have for sale to your ebay customers.

Any of the above types or record keeping tools can just be created with a blank sheet of paper and pencil but it is wise to just invest in the office supplies that are already made for such records. In general, all you want to do is create a system that is easy to use and will make both your life and your ebay seller business as simple as possible. The easiest way to keep track of your sales is to list your totals for each day. Then you will be able to total sales for each month and set goals of your ebay seller business grand total for the year.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Succeeding with Ebay Auctions

Author: Jason James

Ebay just seems to be another one of those darling Internet phenoms like Google that just seems to do no wrong. With nearly 15 billion in sales last year and over 10 million visitors every month (and still growing!), it seems like Ebay might be taking on giants like Wal-Mart in a few years. Ebay auctions can be very profitable for sellers but it takes hard work and sacrifice to make an Ebay business successful.

To people first entering into the world of online auctions, the most important thing might seem to be the product itself. The better or more popular the item, the higher the bids should reasonably be. As true as this seems, succeeding with Ebay auctions is actually more complicated.

Marketing is a part of any business and definitely plays a huge role in separating a successful one from those that fail. In every form of marketing, the main point is to inform the customer of the advantage they receive by using your company to buy a product or service.

To make money on Ebay and ultimately succeed, you need to focus on the product description. After all, people cannot actually see or touch the items they are buying using Ebay auctions. All that they have to go on when deciding whether to bid (or hopefully, how much to bid!) is a picture and your product description. You have to inform them about your product and convince them that they are getting more by buying it from you than someone else selling the same thing.

Feature

Product descriptions boil down to three things: Feature, Advantage, and Benefit. An Ebay business must accurately describe the features of a product to the customer or risk negative feedback or even no bids for an item. Describe the features of your item using positive (not inaccurate or overly fluffy) words so that they clearly understand everything about the item but still feel good about it.

Advantage

What advantage does this item have over similar items that may be listed with other Ebay business owners? You have to convince the buyer that your item is superior to others like it and therefore demanding of a higher bid. This may require some creativity on your part but just remember to be honest.

Benefit

Your customers will want to know what benefit they receive by buying this item from you instead of some other Ebay business owner. There are a couple of options here. First, you could focus on the benefits of doing business with you and tell them why you offer superior quality and service compared with your competition.

A return policy is a good idea to focus on and will help your customer feel more secure about doing business with you if they know that they can return the product if it not what they were expecting (of course if you remember to be accurate when describing the features, this should rarely arise and is therefore a fairly safe policy to incorporate that definitely helps build a positive feedback rating).

Secondly, you can also focus on the item itself. How does this particular item benefit the potential buyer? Is it rare or come with some verifiable but interesting history? In all honesty, you can be fairly creative here as well. Just don't promise something that your item cannot possibly deliver upon.

Ebay auctions are a new and rather odd way to buy things. Not seeing or touching the products requires a bit of faith on the part of a buyer. Build that faith and trust with your customers by delivering the best description possible so that they can literally visualize this item and how it will benefit their lives. Your Ebay business will succeed if you remember to incorporate feature, advantage, and benefit in every product description.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Remove These Objections and Watch Your eBay Auctions Fly

Author: Brian McGregor

""Objection"" is a term taken directly from sales and marketing training, and it is important you understand the significance of objections to your eBay sales process.

Objections are those points, sometimes small issues, which make a bidder or a buyer think again about going for your offering.

In your auction description you need to remove as many of these objections as you can.

These are the kind of objections which your prospective buyers will have.

Objection 1 Is the seller trustworthy?

The buyer usually doesn't know you. If they're serious bidders they will check you out. How will they do this?

a) A good Feedback Rating will be one way they assess you. Be determined in getting your feedback up, and making it all positive.

b) They might also click through to your About Me page. This page gives you the opportunity to convey your personality and your honesty.

One of eBay's standard About Me page formats lets you display your recent feedbacks - always useful - and also your other auctions, again useful. This is in addition to anything about yourself which helps to show what a sincere and genuine person you are.

And finally, if you have a web site from which you sell products or services, you are allowed to place a direct link to it from the About Me page. (This is in marked contrast to your auction description page, where eBay does not allow direct links to web pages.) So, create an About Me page and incorporate the points mentioned.

c) A prospective bidder may wish to ask you a question. As you will know, there is a standard eBay facility whereby a bidder can ask a seller a question. You should really welcome questions.

Why do I say this?

Well, if a bidder asks you a question, first of all you know they are interested in your offering. They wouldn't have wasted their time on typing out their question to you if they weren't. Also, by asking you a question they are qualifying themselves in as a real prospect. And you now have the chance in your reply to directly influence them. Depending on the nature of their enquiry, you have the opportunity to convey your integrity, honesty, credibility, fair mindedness, helpfulness, expertise, knowledge, other appropriate products etc.

So, if questions are such good things, why not make it easy for the bidder to ask one? Always have some text in your auction description offering to answer any questions, with a link to your email address. If you have a little knowledge of HTML coding you will know how easy this is to do. It is far better than simply relying on buyers finding the standard ""Ask the seller a question"" link provided by eBay.

d) You might consider a moneyback guarantee, if it's appropriate and you can ""afford"" it.

Why would you or should you do this?

Well, when you think about it, in online auctions, the buyer is normally asked to take all the risk. They usually pay the seller up front - before the item is delivered to them. The risk is all theirs that the seller doesn't perform.

To some buyers, particularly on higher value items, this risk is so high that it can cause them to have second thoughts about bidding. You know you are trustworthy, but they don't. By offering a moneyback guarantee you are offering what is known as ""risk reversal"". You are taking the risk off your buyer. In effect you shoulder the risk.

I know this works, because I use it myself. In thousands of auctions I've run, I can count on one hand the number of people who have invoked my moneyback guarantee.

If you can practice ""risk reversal"", it will help your auction success rate, and it is vital on Dutch auctions.

Objection 2 How do I pay?

Always maximize the number of payment options you will accept.

You should provide different types of payment options for your buyers:

PayPal Nochex Check Postal Order Banker's Draft Bank Transfer Cash

You can accept credit/debit cards on your auctions if you open accounts with relevant payment processors like PayPal and Nochex. These enable buyers to pay you with a credit/debit card even though you aren't a business, and you don't have what is known as a Merchant Account.

As you probably know, PayPal is owned by eBay. Therefore eBay make it really easy for you to take PayPal payments from your buyers. But don't forget other payment processors, like Nochex. It might just be that your interested buyer only has a Nochex account.

Opening accounts is free. Paying anyone via PayPal or Nochex is also free - which is why so many auction bidders and buyers use them.

There are charges for you as a seller, however, and these are incurred when you receive money and/or when you transfer money from/to your PayPal or Nochex accounts from/to your own bank account. Check out the respective fees via their web sites.

In my experience, the rates of charges are reasonable for giving you the significant advantage of being able to accept credit/debit card payments on your auctions.

If you are selling low value items, say less than £3 ($6), it may be prudent to add a small sum or percentage to the final sale value to cover this.

Speaking personally, I never ask the buyer to incur additional charges for using PayPal or Nochex. By now, you should have realized why - it's called removing an objection! I take the view that buyers who wish to pay by credit/debit card should not be discouraged in any way - and a surcharge of this nature might just prevent them from bidding or buying.

If you don't have PayPal account and you'd like to create one, go here: http://www.paypal.com

If you don't have Nochex account and you'd like to create one, go here: http://www.nochex.com

As I mentioned, they're free to set up.

Objection 3 Is delivery expensive?

Always fully describe your delivery details within your auction description. Be up front about shipping costs.

If bidders or buyers aren't given this detail within the auction description, they may become suspicious that the seller is hiding something, and therefore decide not to bid.

There is no reason why you cannot say up front how much P&P will be. You can find out the real delivery costs of the company you plan to use. You can get these details from their website.

Once you have the postal costs you can add the appropriate handling and packaging costs, and there you have the figure to let your buyers know in advance that you're not hiding anything.

You have just removed another doubt in your prospective buyer's mind.

Incidentally, there have also been occasions where sellers have sold items at what appear to be cheap prices, but have inflated delivery costs to compensate, or even over compensate. Never do this!

Objection 4 What happens if the item arrives damaged?

In your auction description you should cover your policy in relation to damages and insurance.

If you're selling higher value items you may wish to consider using a delivery service which includes insurance. Remember, even though the buyer has paid for it, the item is your property until it is accepted by the buyer. So if it is damaged in transit, this is your responsibility. You will have to arrange a replacement or a refund, and claim your costs back via your insurance.

Don't forget, if you do need to have enhanced insurance cover, it is perfectly reasonable to include this is in your delivery costs as shown in your auction description.

Objection 5 How professional is someone who has multiple spelling errors?

You might consider it to be very unreasonable for any bidder to pass by your auction just because you have spelling errors.

However, they may believe someone who won't take the trouble to get their spelling correct might be equally unprofessional elsewhere.

You and I might feel their stance to be unreasonable. With spell checkers available, however, there's no reason to have any spelling errors creeping through on your auction page.

So, spell check your auction description page - please.

Objection 6 What do I do now?

It's all very well describing your auction in full detail, but you should always ""ask for the order"". Tell them what to do now. In other words, don't forget to suggest to your prospective buyer that they make a bid today for this valuable, rare, stunning, limited edition item!

And remind them that when they win the item they will be enriched by the strongest benefit you have already identified to them in your auction description.

Objections - Summary

Don't leave these points hanging in your auction for the bidder to ponder and make assumptions.

If you spend time removing these objections, you will be repaid handsomely. I can guarantee you will receive more genuine bids on your eBay auctions.

About the author: Brian McGregor is an eBay and internet entrepreneur. He recently created the 'eBay Master Class' for eBay sellers. For your free copy, please go to http://www.work winners.com/ebm-request.htm

On Ebay Aida Is More Than An Opera By Verdi

Author: Dave Bromley

Ask most people what Aida is and they will tell you it is an opera set in Egypt. Ask a marketing person and they will tell you that it is the sales formula that all advertising must incorporate if it is to succeed.The letters stand for:

A Attention

I Interest

D Desire

A Action

It is a formula that can also help you write better ebay auction listings.

It does not matter how well your description is written, how good your product is or what terrific value it represents if no one knows about it. So how do you grab people's attention and get them to read your listing?

We know that the majority of potential bidders will start by going to eBay's search engine. So the important thing is to get as many key words or phrases that they might use into your title. If I am looking for a Rolex Oyster wristwatch I might type in Rolex, Oyster or wristwatch into the search engine. If you have a Rolex Oyster Wrist Watch for sale at £25 I will not even find it if your listing title is something like ""Amazing Value Top of the Range Quality Watch""

The secret is to think like a buyer. EBay offer you some tools to help you gain attention. If you cannot get everything in your title that you want you could pay an extra 50p and add a sub title or go for one of the other enhancements that eBay offer. Only testing will tell you whether these are worth it for your products.

Having gained attention and got people to read your listing you have to get and maintain their interest. The very best way to do this is to answer the question that we all have in the back of our mind when we read any advertising, ""What's in it for me?"" If you description starts by outlining what the item is and then details the benefits it offers you will draw the reader onto the next stage which is to create the desire to own the item. One of the best tools to create desire is visualization. Phrases like ""Just imagine how you will feel wearing a top of the range watch"" or ""Just think as a Rolex owner you will standout from the crowd"".

So far you have done really well in attracting potential bidders attention, getting their interest and arousing their desire but unless you can get them to take some action it will all have been a waste of time. So how do you get them to take action? It is quite simple really you just ask them. ""If you don't want to miss this wonderful watch bid now.""

This has been a brief introduction to the AIDA formula but I am sure if you keep it in mind while you are writing your listings you will see an increase in bidders.is to be successful.

About the author: Dave Bromley is a writer and eBay fan who runs one of the UKs biggest online auction information sites. He also publishes a monthly newsletter and has a 6 part mini course for people who are new to eBay auctions. For more information visit http://www.ukauctionline.co.uk

Have You Got eBay PowerSeller Potential?

Author: Darren Yates

What exactly is a PowerSeller? PowerSellers are the eBay members that have made it, you can recognize them by the 'PowerSeller' badge next to their name. You've probably seen these people across eBay as you go about your usual business - to succeed on eBay, you need to think the way they do.

How do you get Awarded PowerSeller Status? eBay decides who can be a PowerSeller and who can't, and they have strict rules. To get in at the minimum PowerSeller level, you must have a feedback rating of at least 100 (minimum 98% positive) and sell at least $1,000 worth of items every month for three months in a row.

There are different levels of PowerSeller membership as you sell items of greater value: $1,000 is bronze $3,000 is silver $10,000 is gold $25,000 is platinum $125,000 is titanium

If PowerSellers ever fail to meet the required amount of sales, or their feedback falls below 98% positive, then they lose their PowerSeller status. Essentially the only eBay users that get to be PowerSellers on eBay are the users that have been successful for a while and are on track to stay successful.

The Marketplace and the Shop. This is the most important part of understanding how PowerSellers think. They don't see what they're doing as being some random bazaar, or a hobby - instead, they see themselves as a business.

For example, if you run a stall in a marketplace, the chances are that you have a general area of business, but you mostly just sell whatever you can get your hands on that week. If your dodgy buddy got his hands on a job lot of something at a discount, then that's what you'll be selling. This might be fun - and when you have a good week, you'll have a really good week - but it's no way to run a real business in the long-term.

PowerSellers think far more like shops. They sell the same things again and again, every week - regular stock for regular customers. They do 'boring' business things like keep inventories and budgets. They know what they're going to be selling, how much they buy it for and how much they expect to sell for. Just like a real shop, there can be hard times sometimes, but their income is stable and their business can grow slowly.

The best advice I can give you on thinking like a PowerSeller is this: don't take long-term risks for short-term gain. Look after your reputation, manage your selling properly, provide good customer service and the rewards will come to you in due course. And you'll get a little badge next to your name that makes people trust you more!

One option that you may of missed is - What can eBay do for any other businesses you have. Millions of people visit eBay every day - why keep everything separate when you're starting to tap into that kind of power?

In fact $14 out of every $100 spent online is spent at eBay!

About the author: Darren Yates has learned of a guy, Brandon Dupsky, that makes $22,000 a DAY! on eBay selling everyday stuff. Do you think you could too? -

http://www.how-to-make-money-online.inf/eBay-millionaire/

Misspelling On Ebay - Use It To Your Advantage

Author: Thomas Haselhorst

In the ongoing quest to find great deal on eBay or even to find items you can flip, one of the interesting approaches is by looking for misspelled items. One of the most common misspellings was ""labtop"" for ""laptop"". This misspelling is so common that some people listing laptops actually use the word ""labtop"" in their title. Check it out.

You know the topics you are interested in. Look at how the word can be misspelled. For instance, if needlepoint is your passion, try searching for ""needlepoint"" or ""needlepoint"". It is more than likely that you will find a few items under these misspellings. Even better - for you - these items will not have bids on them because people looking for needlepoint will not find these.

As an experiment, I went and tried this just now and found 13 items and not one of these had an eBay bid. Some were from the same eBay seller. You could watch these, buy them at the last minute for the opening bid price which is low, ask for combined shipping and have a great set of items that you can list in your own auction - correctly spelled !

It won't work in the case of combined shipping where all the items will be shipped in the same package but a side benefit of winning these misspelled auctions is that you have them already packaged and ready to reship when you sell them. If you like, you can take a peek inside to make sure it is as advertised and then tape it up again.

Often it is easy to copy the misspelled auction into your word processing program and fix the misspelling and modify it so that it is yours. It will have the basic information such as dimensions and color already worked out for you.

About the author: Thomas Haselhorst is webmaster of http://www.auction-design-for-free.com and runs a new blog at http://www.powerseller-articles.auction-design-for-free.com/wordp ress

5 Tips For Your Ebay Business

Author: Jason James

If you are experiencing serious difficulties selling on ebay, you may be missing some of the subtleties that separate successful auctions from low-bid auctions.

Here are five tips you should always follow when you sell on ebay:

1) Sell at prevailing ebay market prices.

If you try to sell your products for obscenely high rates, you will end you losing profits. Although clever pricing strategy can get higher bids for your product, there really is a ceiling for what you can do selling on ebay. If your products aren't selling, reset the prices to something more reasonable.

2) Sell items that yield higher profit margins.

If you're selling radios from a dropship source that only yields a 2% profit margin per sale, you are in serious danger of losing money if you have to relist items. The easiest solution to this problem is finding another dropship source with lower prices or selecting another item that will yield a higher profit margin.

3) Improve your auction layout and design.

A poor layout and unprofessional design can easily deter potential customers. If you can't honestly say that you would be impressed with your own ebay auction template, you should trash it and make a new one. You may want to ask a friend or relative to give you a honest opinion of your template to help you assess where you should put information, pictures, and links (if it is a store template). This can do wonders to improve your conversion rates as an ebay seller.

4) Improve your store policies.

Offer to give your customers a money-back guarantee if they are not satisfied. Many people are weary of shopping on ebay because they have heard of other people who purchased things from less-than-honest ebay sellers. You should go out of your way to provide your customers with consistent store policies--and then to follow through with them when the need arises. This will boost your credibility, bring in repeat sales, and prevent nasty confrontations and negative feedback.

5) Improve your keyword and keyphrase density.

Most people search ebay using either ""titles"" or ""titles & descriptions."" If your title and item descriptions are not packed with highly-searched topics related to your product, you will seriously reduce the amount of potential buyers you could have viewing your auction.

To reiterate--if you want to make money on ebay, you should set reasonable prices, pick items with high profit margins, use a professional auction layout, set and follow consistent store policies, and pack your titles and descriptions with highly-searched keywords.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

3 Resources that can help you decide what sells best on eBay

Author: Jason James

Determining what sells best on eBay may take some trial and error if you are not already stocked with merchandise or if you are unable to create your own product. What sells best on eBay for one person may not be what sells best on eBay for another.

So how can you use trial and error to discover great eBay products and/or services to auction off on eBay? Below are 3 tips of places where you can find merchandise, place it online, and then test your sales to determine what sells best on eBay for you.

1. Find items to sell at large wholesale discount stores like Costco. Places like this typically have a huge inventory of cheap items sold in bulk that you can resell on eBay. They offer such good deals on all kinds of merchandise like toys, grills, DVDs, etc. You will have unlimited new products to choose from with wholesale outlets like this in order to determine what sells best on eBay.

2. Dollar stores are probably the best way to buy cheap items and resell with little risk of loosing money when you test to find out what sells best on eBay. The quality of products sold in dollar stores range from very poor quality on up to 'diamonds in the rough'. I have seen the same products that I have purchased in a dollar store sold on eBay or at a swap meet for 10 times the original cost, not a bad profit!

3. Garage sales happen usually every weekend and there is a multitude of products that you can find to sell on eBay. What sells best on eBay from garage sales could range from antique furniture, to new or used video games, on up to old clothes.

Of course the above eBay product sources are just a few of the overall options available to you. They each are stock piled with product ideas that you can help you determine what sells best on eBay for your home based business.

About the author: Jason James is an eBay PowerSeller and his website ""Auction Resource Network"" reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him earn $10,000+ a month on eBay. Claim your FREE e-Course Here: http://www.auctionre sourcenetwork.com

Start an eBay Business Now!

Author: Jason James

Home-based business is fast becoming a popular trend in the market today. All you need is a computer and a good internet connection and poof! You're all set for a new business. There are many sites that help budding entrepreneurs start their own businesses. One of which is eBay.

eBay is a very familiar name to people who always surf the net, but what about those who doesn't know much about eBay?

To start with, eBay is a place where most people shop. In short eBay is a virtual shopping center stuck on your computer. It is also one of the biggest shopping sites in the internet with almost 50 million products and services and it's till counting. And of course if there are goods, there are entrepreneurs.

How does one become an eBay entrepreneur?

First thing to do is get to know about the site. Know about how an eBay business shop works. There are help pages available for eBay visitors. For starters there are online guided tours that could best help you navigate and to learn more about the site.

Think of what you can sell. Then make your mind up on the item or service. Many people on eBay sell almost anything they could find in their house. As long as it's still in good shape, someone will be interested.

If you don't have anything to sell, start with something you have a background with. It is advisable that you have an experience with the product.

There are things to consider in starting a business whether online or in the real world. Things like cost, shipping, storage, product life cycle and the season are always to be considered.

Cost is different from price. Cost is the total expenses that go with the product. This will include the actual price of the items if you're buying them in order to have stocks of it, the shipping if it will be delivered to you and to your client, the rent of the storage room and other things.

Shipping is the delivery of the goods. You have to know how much it will cost you to deliver the items to your client. And of course how much will you charge your client of the labor and shipping fees. The condition of your item is also to be thought of. This concerns the physical component of the product. Is it fragile or too heavy?

Storage is the place where you place your goods while waiting for the clients to buy it. You must have a sufficient and safe place to store the goods.

The life cycle of the product means the demand time of the product. You should mull over on how long the product will be able to attract potential buyers.

Season is also a consideration. Items sold on the wrong season might just get a negative response from the shoppers.

Putting a photo of your product is a plus! This will hold the interest of your potential buyer. The first photo you put up is of no charge but the next ones are charged.

Setting up an eBay shop is very easy. Since it has no start up costs, and no time restrictions, eBay is the best place where you could market your goods!

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Keeping records of your Ebay business: Part 1

Author: Jason James

Are you ready to take your Ebay business to that next level as a rich ebay seller? Would you like to quit your day job to become an ebay seller full time? Can you imagine the freedom you will have from working as an ebay seller from anywhere you please? Want to know the secret?

Good... Now that I have your attention I want to be honest with you. Today's article does not really have any well kept ""secrets"" or magic wands with bells and whistles that will make you a rich ebay seller overnight. Instead, we are going to discuss the importance of keeping a proper paperwork train moving along so that your ebay business can stay strong and thrive based around good record-keeping.

I realize that this topic is a dry one but trust me, keeping good records of your ebay seller business can make or break you in the long run. As boring as it is, the advice you are about to be given is rock solid for anyone like you who wants to become wealthy as an ebay seller. It only takes one time to get audited by the IRS before everything can come crashing down on you and your business as an ebay seller. In addition to the tax law, without proper paperwork tracking, your business has no direction and will ultimately fail.

3 Reasons why it is essential to keep good records:

1. Without keeping records of everything pertaining to being an ebay seller and the sales you have made then how else will you be able to gouge your progress? A detailed paperwork trail will show you how well or how poorly your business is doing. If becoming an ebay seller full time is your goal, then keeping good records is key.

2. Second, the tax law requires you to keep records of your business. Unfortunately the law is the law and there is no choice in the matter, even if you are just a small-time ebay seller trying to make it big.

3. You may need a business loan or other type of loan from a financial institution someday. Many power ebay sellers jump-started their ebay business by obtaining a loan from the bank and you can too, provided you have kept good records as an ebay seller. Most loan applications require a ton of paperwork and all of the details and history of your business.

Tracking your Ebay business is not just for the IRS:

If I were to ask you today how your business is doing as an ebay seller, what would your answer be and what would determine that opinion? It's not enough just to say that you are doing good in your business. Instead, your answer should be calculated from your paperwork records, by tracking specific items.

In other words, keeping detailed records of your ebay seller business is not only for the purpose of the IRS but also to help you create a profitable business plan based on actual facts. For example, do you know which ads are pulling in the most sales? Do you have the history of testing and tracking on the ads that are not pulling in sales? Are your profit margins high enough to cover your business expenses? What percentage is profit?

It would obviously be impossible to accurately answer these questions unless you were the kind of ebay seller that kept good business records. And if you have not started documenting and saving copies of everything pertaining to your ebay business, then it is never too late to start! With a little commitment and self discipline, you can get into the habit of keeping the books up to date immediately.

Taking that first step:

Getting started with keeping the books up to date with your ebay seller business is kind of like doing that big chore that you have been putting off for a long time. You know you can do it, you know it needs to be done, but getting started just seems like a mountain to climb.

Well let's break that mountain into a molehill today and get started with explaining to you about profits margins and gross profit margins.

1. What is Gross Profit? Gross profit is your starting point in order to determine profitability from being an ebay seller. You simply subtract the total cost of your inventory that you have sold from the total revenue that you earned for the sales.

2. What is a Gross Profit Margin? A gross profit margin is a determination of how profitable you are as an ebay seller. You will know this information by dividing your gross profit by your total revenues. The higher the percentage is, the better off you are as a profitable ebay seller.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Boost Your Profits On Ebay With One Simple Trick

Author: Jason James

Did you know that the most important thing that separates ebay neophytes from successful ebay sellers and ebay powersellers is how they construct titles and descriptions?

Most ebay neophytes and unsuccessful ebayer sellers--as well as some successful ebayer sellers--have no idea that one title is any different from another. In fact, the difference between a good title and description can be the difference between 15 visitors and 250 visitors--which has huge implications for your bottom line.

So what makes a good title?--Three things: keyword-packing, accuracy, and readability.

Keyword-packing will determine when your auction is pulled up in response to an ebay search. For instance, if you are selling jewelry and use the words ""white gold"" in your title, whenever someone searches for ""white gold"" by titles, your auction will be one of the results that gets pulled up. This is why you should always load your ebay auctions with relevant keywords.

Another important part of writing titles is accuracy. If you use keywords that are highly-searched but irrelevant to your auction, your auction will get pulled up by a lot of searches, but will not end up with a high final price. If a visitor is looking for one thing and finds something entirely different, they will more than likely hit 'back' immediately. This is why you should always write a title that focuses on an accurate description of your product.

The last component of writing titles is readability. If your auction title is not readable and compelling, very few potential customers will open it. To keep it readable and compelling, avoid tossing together a jumble of words that will get pulled by more searches, but wont attract buyers. Also include descriptive, compelling words and phrases to attract buyers, such as ""new"" or ""50% off.""

In addition to writing a good title, you will also need a good description.

A good description should also include keyword-packing. As I discussed earlier, you should include as many relevant keywords as you can in your description; however, you should try to keep this within reason. Don't fill your description with random keywords. Instead, insert them into your description as often as possible without sacrificing readability.

You will also want to write a compelling description. You should consider what separates you from other ebay sellers and focus on those points. For instance, let's say all of your merchandise is brand new. You could make it a point to stress how other ebay sellers often auction off broken and refurbished items--and that they can only be assured that they will receive high quality products if they shop at your store.

The gap between ebay powersellers and ebay newbies is big, but some of the steps to bridging the gap are small. Using better titles and descriptions is one of those small steps. If you follow the methods I outlined in this article, you could easily boost the amount of visitors your auctions receive by a factor of five or ten.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

4 Easy Ways to Make Money on Ebay

Author: Jason James

Ebay is a haven for people that are into business and the best part about it is you don't have to leave the comforts of your own house while trying your luck for your first million. There are many easy ways to make money on Ebay and this article would certainly guide you in your mission.

These tips mentioned are just some of the easy ways to make money on Ebay. You do not need to memorize this guideline word per word, just digest the important facts and guidelines and let the inner business person in you thrive.

The easy ways mentioned here are just some of the things that you could apply in your own business in Ebay.

Here are the four easy ways to make money on Ebay:

1. Know Your Products

As a seller, you must know your products well and this means its weaknesses and strengths. Through this way, you would be able to sell the product well and defend its weakness (if there is any). By knowing your product, you could also advertise it well in Ebay so that you would be able to have a large target market which is more than the usual. This number one easy ways to make money on Ebay advice suggest that you should invest well in your products.

2. Determine your Target Market

Through determining your target market, you would be able to determine or estimate the number of sales that you would be able to make. Aside from that, you would also be able to know when and where to catch your target market. For example, your target market are students, advertising in sites that are often visited by students could be a worthy investment because the target market is there. This second easy ways to make money on Ebay tip shows that you should be able to establish communication rapport with your target market.

3. Know Your Competition

By familiarizing yourself with competition, you would surely assess yourself if you meet the standards of the product. A competition could be viewed as a friend or foe, depending on the seller's reasoning. It could be considered as a foe when both of you are neck to neck when it comes to selling your products. It could be a friend when you are checking out their latest wares so that you would not be left behind. This third easy ways to make money on Ebay shows that research goes a long, long way in Ebay. Competition is good as long as it is a healthy one.

4. Present Well

Presentation is the name of the game. Be sure that your product is in good quality so that you would be able to make an impression to buyers. Also be sure that this good impression would last even up to the time that your product would reach the buyer's house. A good presentation and feedback in Ebay are considered investments in Ebay. Once the word spreads, there would be no stopping you towards the road of success. This last easy ways to make money on Ebay clearly shows that presentation aims to capture the interest of potential buyers.

These easy ways to make money on Ebay are just suggestions to start your business right. The tips and guidelines mentioned in the article five easy ways to make money on Ebay are not the shortcut for success in any business. You, yourself must be able to make your own easy ways to make money on Ebay guide so that success would land in your hands. Happy Trading!

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

The Secret Power of an eBay Auction Title

Author: Brian McGregor

I get frequent emails from my newsletter readers wondering why their eBay auctions aren't working.

You might have the most brilliant auction description page with a fantastic set of pictures offering a superb item at an incredible price. But the page counter shows after seven days of your auction that it's only been seen by 3 people. Has that happened to any of your auctions?

If it has, I always start at the same point. The auction title.

In 99% of cases, the reason for low viewing figures is that your auction title isn't smart enough.

Here are a few facts. At the end of this small list you'll understand the secret power of eBay auction titles:

a) 79 million times each day buyers use eBay's search box to locate items in which they are interested.

b) eBay's standard search system takes the search words keyed in, and compares them with the titles in its database of 10 million auctions. (Note it doesn't compare them with sub-titles, or auction descriptions)

c) If an auction title doesn't contain the words keyed into the search box, the auction won't get returned in the search results list. And that's another of the 79 million searches you've missed out on!

d) If an auction isn't returned in a search list, it can't be clicked on to have the auction description viewed.

So, the whole of eBay's default search system relies on matching keywords with auction titles. And that's the secret power of auction titles. If your title contains words which buyers are searching upon, your auction will be returned time and again in search return lists. Let's say you want to create a new auction. Remember, your auction title has three functions:

1) To contain keywords. (Number one on this list for the reason you now know!)

2) To persuade buyers to click through to your auction description page

3) To convey what the item is

To decide on the keywords to use, you have to think like a buyer. What words would be used by a person interested in searching for an item like yours?

At this stage, just list them. Don't put the words into a sentence yet. Spend as long as you like on this exercise. The more effective you are with this, the less likely you are to have one of those sleepy auctions that rarely gets a visitor.

Having listed as many keywords as you can think of, you have to decide which are the strongest. Remember, you only have 55 precious characters for your auction title.

Taking your best keywords, you now create your auction title. It's not an English exam, so it doesn't matter if it doesn't scan like a sentence.

You can add a power word or two if you've space. By this I mean words like stunning, limited edition, unique, rare, new, one-off, exclusive, distinctive, dramatic etc. These are words which can influence buyers to click through to your auction description. They won't be searched on by buyers, so use them sparingly. For the same reason, I don't advocate the use of ""clever"" words like l@@k or w0w!

Finally, do the words in your title convey what the item is? If so, that's it. You've created a powerful and compelling auction title. And your title will appear more often in search return lists. And, as you know, that's the key!

If you can get your auction to appear more often in search return lists, more buyers will view your auction description page. The more people that visit your auction description page, the more likely you are to make a sale at an acceptable price.

Now you know the secret power, why not create a new title today for one of your auctions? If you do, believe me you'll get your fair share of the 79 million eBay daily searchers.

About the author: Brian McGregor is an eBay and internet entrepreneur. He recently created the 'eBay Master Class' for eBay sellers. For your free copy, please go to http://www.work winners.com/ebm-request.htm

How to properly pack and ship your Ebay products

Author: Jason James

Learning to pack and ship your merchandise is generally the very last step in the ebay product sales process to be considered. Packing and shipping can actually be a learned skill because you must do it right the first time and since your ebay product is being shipped to paying customers, you will only have one chance to make it work and get that product out to your customer in good condition.

If you have the right supplies then the skill of packing and shipping your ebay products can be easily mastered. Here are some points of interest to keep in mind to help you pack and ship your ebay products safely.

1. Your ebay products should be packed very snug and tight within your boxes to avoid being shifted around and broken during shipping. On the other hand, do not overdo it with too much tightness because that also could result in damaged a ebay product.

2. Remember that shipping costs could eat you up if you do not 'think' as light as possible when it comes to packaging your ebay product. Choose the most lightweight of materials that you can gather. You do not want to have all of your ebay product profits destroyed by high shipping costs due to packaging.

3. If your ebay product is considered fragile then the best method of packing this item is to package it inside of a box and then pack that box inside of another. It's the 'box within a box' type method and as you can probably imagine, this heavily reduces the chances of damage to your ebay products.

4. To help protect ebay products that are flat items then try to use cardboard stuffers or padded envelopes. These little packing gems can provide you with that extra peace of mind knowing that your customers will receive their ebay products without any damage.

5. You may not have considered this before but it is important not over-tape your ebay product boxes. I know that sealing your boxes up extra tight and with lots of tape prior to shipping may seem like a great idea but there are cases where the customer has to aggressively wrestle to open up a packaged item and because of that they actually damage the product in the process.

Once your ebay product is ready to be shipped out to the customer then the next thing to do is to go to the nearest shipping carrier's office or authorized shipping center of your choice. Most people have their preference of shipping companies and some just like to stick with the United States Postal Service because it is fairly cheap. Ultimately, it is up to you to determine which service you want to use to ship out your ebay products.

Stay organized with your outgoing ebay products by retaining copies of all of your shipping insurance forms, your package receipts, the ebay product tracking numbers, etc. Not only might you need these documents for personal reasons in the future but they will definitely come in handy in the short run should the package gets lost or the delivery of your ebay product is beyond the promised delivery time. If you have a customer that is very upset because the ebay product that they ordered from you is lost or a no-show then you will need to have the appropriate receipt and documentation to prove it.

Ok, so your ebay product is en route to your customer so what's next? Well most ebay sellers just sit back and do nothing after the sale is made and the item is shipped but I suggest that you take your commitment to your ebay customers one step further. To really stand out and show your customer that you are just as concerned about their ebay products getting shipped to them properly as they are; simply use email to communicate with them every step of the way.

In other words you should send them several courtesy emails along the way. For starters, you can email your customer to let them know that their ebay products have been shipped.

The next email should be to let your ebay customer know that their merchandise is actually 'en route' on the shipping truck. This information can be easily found by utilizing the shipping company's online tracking service.

If you really want to stay in constant contact with your customer and show them that you really care about their ebay products getting to them safely then you can also send a third email letting them know when their item is actually on the truck in their local town and en route to their house or business.

And last but not least, send them an email once you know that their ebay product has been delivered. As stated above, you can find this information out by the tracking features provided by most major shipping outlets.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Grab More Time For Your eBay Auction

Author: Jason James

When selling on eBay, time is the one factor that is never on your side. Obviously the longer your item can stop on eBay, the higher visibility it receives & the more bids it is likely to get.

eBay presently offers five different lengths of listings, either a 1,3,5,7 or 10 day listing.

While a 10 day listing will give you the most exposure your item will not appear within the top of the relevant category immediately. Those items which are ending soon are the first to be shown within eBays listings. Generally new items appear at the bottom of the category listings and work there way towards the first page. On a 10 day listing it will take the best part of a week before your listing is shown on the first page of search results.

Therefore anyone browsing the eBay categories will not see your item in the eBay search results. As with search engines, many users will only look in the top two pages of results.

That is why the 1 day auction format offers a few advantages. Your item will be viewable immediately to any users browsing though the eBay categories. However, 1 day may not give many bidders the opportunity to find your item before the item ends.

So, why not get the best of both sides.

There is a way to both, give your item maximum visibility on eBay while also keeping it in the top search results for the category it is listed in.

It's a very simple tactic that anyone can use. As long as your item has no bids & doesn't end within 12 hours, eBay allows you to revise your listing. This revision can be anything, from title to pictures used including Auction length.

When you first submit your listing to eBay select a three day format. This will put it within the top two pages of results in this category. Allow your listing some time, to see if it's discovered and if not after two days just revise it to a 5 day auction. Because your auction will have already been running for two days, when you revise the listing it will show three days remaining, and still be within the top listings for the category.

If it's still not discovered and has no bids, just repeat the procedure for seven and then for ten days. If your able to revise your listing four times, you'll easily gain more coverage than any other listing in the same category. And more coverage should mean more bids!

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

Taking Great Product Photos for eBay

Author: Peter Horner

Copyright 2006 Peter Horner

Every eBay seller would like to attract customers and increase sales. Successful eBay sellers know that better product photos could make you more money, because your buyers will feel more comfortable buying items from you. But taking great product photos isn't always easy, read these quick tips to find out how to take great product photos for eBay.

1) Using a digital camera with fully automated shooting modes will make taking product photos much easier. It allows you to instantly preview, upload, and edit your photos with your computer. 2) Use a tripod to avoid blurred images which occur when you handhold a camera. 3) Use proper lighting. Some people find natural outdoor lighting the best, but never use direct lighting such as a flash. Flashes wash out colours, details, and create harsh shadows, especially when doing close-ups. Use soft, diffused lighting to avoid losing detail in your photo and create soft shadows. If you're a serious eBay seller consider buying a photo tent or light box to diffuse the light for you. Alternatively you can use lights and buy white plastic light covers, which will also create diffused light. 4) Find a good backdrop for your product and avoid clutter which distracts the eye. Your product should be the only item you're shooting. If you're using something like a photo tent or light box it's easy, or alternatively you could use a sheet or piece of fabric. Larger items can be more difficult but be sure to cleanup the background so that there are no distracting objects. 5) Avoid underexposing your photos, especially if you're shooting against a white background or outside in bright light. Your digital camera should have an over/under expose button that allows you to compensate and adjust the exposure. When taking pictures against a white background you might want to increase the exposure by +1 so that it lets more light into the camera and the background becomes a pure white. 6) Getting close and filling the frame with your subject will produce a better photo, and also help avoid clutter. Buyers like to see the details of what they are buying. The best way to take good close-up photos is to use your cameras macro setting, which is designed to focus at short distances. 7) Your product should be sharp and in focus. Take care to focus correctly. Auto focus on your digital camera may not always produce the best results as it can sometimes be fooled. In these cases use aperture priority mode, and set an aperture of 8 or higher to ensure that your entire photo is sharp. When you increase the aperture your camera compensates with a slower shutter speed, so remember to use a tripod. 8) Take photos of different parts of your product and try different angles. Photographing your product from many angles helps add depth and avoid a flat online appearance. Pick one main overall shot of the item, but also use other detailed photos or different perspective shots. The more buyers can see, the more likely they will buy your product rather than your competitors. 9) Once you've saved all your photos to your computer, you can optimize your pictures for online viewing. Make sure your images are saved as JPEG files and increase the compression so that your pages will download more quickly on a user's computer. Also crop your photos so that it is composed only of your product, eliminating white space and making your product look better. 10) Edit your photo. Adjust the light and contrast to improve on your original photo. Make your subject stand out by adjusting the contrast between the foreground and background colours. You can also make certain parts of your picture lighter or darker to improve the overall look.

Once you've practiced photographing your products using these tips, visitors will have a better shopping experience and will be more likely to bid on your items.

About the author: Peter Horner is an experienced photographer who co-created the large format printing company DesignerPrint. Using digital printing technology DesignerPrint create canvas prints, block mounts, and poster prints. http://www.designerprint.co.uk

The rules of linking from your Ebay auctions

Author: Jason James

Because ebay is such a busy place of merchandise sales with many various ebay stores and markets selling thousands of items, there must be a few rules that are set in place to insure that everyone is playing fair. Ebay auctions are a gift for us to make easy money without having the overhead or the stress of running other types of businesses so it is ideal that we all adhere to their policies.

Very few other issues will get ebay sellers arguing about the rules no more than the rules on linking to and from your ebay auctions. Ebay has some very firm rules when it comes to liking and it would be wise of you to follow them to insure that your ebay auctions stay online and profitable.

Below are the following links that you may use in your ebay auction description:

1. On your ebay auction, you may have one link to an additional web page for information. This web page is to be used exclusively for further information about whatever ebay item that you are selling from you ebay auction.

2. Your ebay auction may have links to more photo images of the merchandise that you are selling on ebay.

3. If you want your customer to click on a link from your ebay auction that opens up to separate window to send you an email, then that is ok. In fact this little ebay auction email window may increase inquiries of your ebay selling item.

4. Ebay auction links that connects to your other ebay auctions or any of your other ebay auctions stores is also permissible.

5. You may have one link that links to your ebay About Me page. This is in addition to the link next to your user ID that ebay provides for your ebay auction.

6. Ebay authorizes you to have links to your vendors' websites that help you with your auctions. Ebay considers any type of listing services, payment providers, and software programs to be 3rd party vendors.

In addition to the above Ebay linking rules that are authorized for your Ebay auctions there are also links that are not allowed with ebay.

1. You cannot have any links that link to other websites that offers to sell, trade, or purchase merchandise outside of Ebay. This should be obvious but many new sellers to Ebay auctions break this rule.

2. Links to any other websites that encourages ebay bidders to place their bids outside of ebay are not authorized in your ebay auctions

3. Your ebay auction cannot have links that link to outside websites that offers to sell merchandise that is considered illegal at ebay. 4. Links that connect to websites that solicit ebay user Ids and passwords is also unauthorized to have within your ebay auction.

When it comes to linking from your About Me page the ebay rules are pretty much the same overall with your ebay auction. Because ebay gives you this page to self promote your business, then linking to your website from it is allowed.

On the other hand, you need to be sure that the link does connect to other trading sites or to website businesses that sell the same product or merchandise at the same price or lower price than what is advertised on ebay.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com

The Secret to Ebay Store Success

Author: Jason James

If you care to take the time to look, there is more advice out there on the Internet about how to be successful with your Ebay store than you could ever possibly read in a lifetime. Ebay itself offers plenty of advice for newcomers to the world of online auctions that can be quite useful. But at the end of the day everything will really boil down to just one thing: excellent customer service.

Living and Dying by Reputation

When you are first starting out in any business it is absolutely vital to generate positive feedback from customers. This not only helps you get their business in the future, but it also helps generate word of mouth advertising about your company. An Ebay business is definitely no exception to this rule.

A company offering the absolute cheapest product or service possible will still die if it treats customers poorly. Although you cannot please every single person that uses your Ebay store to buy something, it is definitely possible to keep the vast majority pleased with the services you provide.

Accurate Descriptions

Since the customer cannot physically touch or see the actual item you are trying to sell at your Ebay store, descriptions are absolutely critical. Misrepresenting an item may yield you a few dollars more on the winning bid but the negative feedback can absolutely destroy your reputation and any chances of true success using online auctions to make a living.

Also, you want to write your descriptions so that you anticipate most questions a customer may have about the item. You still have to respond to customer questions as soon as possible but you certainly don't want to be bogged down all day shooting e-mails back to people. Try to think of all the questions a customer might have before writing your description so you can write it so that almost all of these questions are answered in the description itself.

Clear Photos

Never be tempted to use trickery or odd angles to misrepresent your item with a photo. Again, negative feedback kills more Ebay business owners and their dreams than you would ever believe. Look carefully at the picture you plan to post with your listing and ask yourself if it accurately represents what you are selling. If it does not, take another picture that does.

Transactions

It can honestly be intimidating for customers to use the Internet to buy the things they want and Ebay auctions can be even scarier. People want to believe that they are buying from a reputable and honest seller who is professional in every respect. You send this very message by making the transaction as convenient as possible.

All of your terms should be clearly listed up front so that there is no chance for confusion. Inform customers about your shipping charges and consider including the Ebay calculator in your listing so that they can figure them out themselves and cut down on questions that you will have to respond to.

Be certain to include your return and warranty policies so that you did everything possible to inform the customer of precisely what they are getting should they decide to buy from you. You may want to consider making an occasional exception to your policies in the interest of avoiding negative feedback, but that is something you, as owner of your Ebay store, have to decide on a case by case basis.

Include as many payment options as you can reasonably accommodate. Fewer options generally means few bids and less profitable online auctions for your Ebay store.

By following these simple guidelines and being sure to make the customer feel as special as possible, you will build a great reputation on Ebay. In the end, this will help grow your Ebay business and keep your business thriving.

About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay.

Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com