The Top Ten Tips For Auction Success!

by Joe Clare

If you were to look through eBay, or any other online auction site for that matter,you would find that many people make some very basic mistakes. And, they repeat these mistakes over and over again. As indicated in my book "eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak" with a little common sense these mistakes are completely preventable. So to prevent you from making these very same mistakes I have put together the Top Ten Tips For Auction Success. 10. Shipping Always state what your shipping price will be. And, Do Not try to rip off your buyers by inflating the shipping price to increase your profit. Believe it or not, people do have a fair idea of what shipping costs should be. If they feel you are inflating your shipping price they will not bid on your item and may not look at any of your other auctions either from fear of being ripped off. 9. Customer Support You must respond to all emails regarding your auctions. Yes, responding to emails is time consuming. But, if you don't, that potential bidder will look elsewhere for the product and you will have lost yourself a customer. 8. Reserve Price Do your research on the price for your item. If you must use a reserve price keep it real. If you over price your item you will not get as many bids. And, while all good marketers know there is a time and place for the Reserve Auction, you may actually get more bids using no reserve pricing at all. Do your research to help you make this decision. 7. Item Condition You must let bidders know what condition your item is in. Is it new and in it's packaging, or used but like new condition. Does it have any imperfections they should be made aware of. A potential bidders will want to know what condition your item is in before making any bids. 6. Terms This could come under the heading Customer Service. If you have terms on your auction page that read something like this "Not Responsible For Item Once Shipped" or "Item Sold As Is" you will get less bidders for that auction. Be a responsible eBayer, have insurance on the item that your buyer can purchase. And be sure to have some sort of guarantee on your products. 5. Feedback One of the most important parts of your eBay Business. Feedback is a method eBay uses to allow buyers and sellers to record their experiences with each other. Then, others can check out the feedback of any eBayer they wish to deal with, to see if there has been any negative comments left. Therefore, it is extremely important to keep your feedback rating positive. 4. Auction Start/Close Time You must plan your auction start/close time around the bidders you wish to attract to your auction. If the product you are selling appeals to the working woman, the best time to start/end your auction would be in the evening or on the weekend. Always create a profile on your product and what group of the population you are selling to. 3. Item Description Not enough information or too much rambling of information will discourage people from bidding. So too will to many typos. Your item description must be clean and concise. Succinctly provide all the information required to describe the item sufficiently and create buyer interest. 2. Image You need to use an image on your auction page. Remember a picture is worth a 1000 words! Potential bidders will want to see what the item looks like before they make a bid. With digital cameras, being so affordable these days adding an image to your auction page is easier then ever. But, make sure the image is clear and well lit to show it's detail or any imperfections it may have. Also, keep the image at a reasonable pixel size so your auction page doesn't take to long to load. 1. Headlines This is the most important issue for getting more bidders to your auction page. You must include words that people will search on eBay. And, you must make your headline enticing, so potential bidders will click it. If you are selling an antique make-up table a headline saying old vanity table would not pull in a lot of bidders. But, if you said something like "Vintage Vanity Table - Mint Condition - Collectors Item" not only would you get more potential bidders to view your auction, you would also be using words people would search eBay for. Your auction title would appear in searches for Vintage, Vanity Tables, Collectors Items. Therefore, allowing even more potential bidders to see your headline. Happy Selling! Joe Clare Joe Clare is an active Netpreneur and eBayer! He is the author of numerous articles on how to make money online and be successful on eBay! Check out his latest Best Selling eBook "eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak" Your Passport to Success! at www.ebooksnsoftware.com

How To Add Unlimited Pictures To Your Ebay Auction Listing - For Free.

by Thomas Haselhorst

I get a lot of questions from people wanting to know how to add more pictures to their auction listings. Do you know that eBay charges for additional pictures? Yes, that's right. Pay attention when you launch your next eBay listing. Only the first picture is for free. For any additional photos you will be paying $0.15 per photo. This does not sound much but you will be surprised how these figures add up: Imagine you add 3-4 photos per listing. This will end up to an additional $0.50 - just for hosting of your photos. Let's say you have 3-5 listings a day at the end of the year you might have paid $400-600$ just for picture hosting. The fees can add up very quickly. Do you know that you can add as many pictures as you like - For Free and even without using eBay's image hosting service? Well, you could use one of the so called "auction management" services. You pay a monthly fee and hosting of all your item photos is included. But do you know that these services are expensive too? Fees are ranging between $20 and$70 per month - depending on your selling volume. This easily adds up to $400-600 a year - maybe even more. So, what can you do to avoid these additional costs? Of course, you can add only one picture per item, but guess what?? Right, the chance that your potential customer/bidder quickly moves to another listing is high. In fact, VERY high!! Because people like to see first what they are buying and do you think that one picture is enough? I don't, because we live in highly visual world...people want to see the product or item they potentially want to purchase. Yes, the even would like to "touch" it - if they could. What about you? Do you take the product you want to buy in your hands and "touch" it? I bet you do. Imagine you are in a shop and want to buy a birthday present for a good friend. If one special gift catches your attention you take it from the shelf and you carefully look at the product, don't you? You "touch" it and turn it around to get a "feel" for it. How can we add this "feeling" experience to our eBay auction listings? Yes, by adding a couple of good photos. Take pictures of your item from all sorts of different angles. The potential buyer will get a good "feel" for the item and it's more likely that they place a bid. As mentioned above: You can add as many pictures as you like - For Free. How can you do it??? The answer is simple: Host your own pictures! Not sure how to do it? Here are some ideas: 1. It's very likely that your Internet Service Provider offers you also free web space. I have used (and still use) the 10 MB web space my ISP gives me for free. Check the policy of your ISP - maybe an email to them is a first try. 2. Find a free or cheap web host - but be careful! Some of the free webs hosting companies do not allow that their service is being used just for data storage. Read their policy carefully before you sign up. 3. Search for some image hosting services. There are a couple of free image hosting companies out there allowing 'hot linking" to eBay auctions. 4. In case you own a website you can make a special "ebay" directory for your auctions pictures. Upload all your photos and item pictures BEFORE you design your auction listing and copy and paste the image URL into the source code of your auction description. http://www.auction-design-for-free.com may assist you with that, in case you are not familiar with this process. One important point to mention is the file size. Make sure that your 3 - 4 pictures of your item are NOT 1 MB big. Can you imagine how patient your potential buyers/bidders are? That's right! That's right! Not very patient at all. If the pictures are not loading within 20 seconds your visitor leaves your site and moves on. There are maybe other listings offering the same - with pictures loading faster. So, make sure that the file size is in manageable range. You'll be amazed how more pictures will add more credibility to your selling practice and gives the potential buyer/bidder the feeling that they can almost "touch" your item. About the Author Thomas Haselhorst is webmaster of http://www.auction-design-for-free.com and http://www.monster-ebook-sale.com

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