Want to make sure you get what you buy on ebay?

Steps

1. Avoid buying products that are 1p, when they are blatantly not worth 1000% of that.

2. Find the product you want, and before you bid, check the sellers reputation figure. If its less than 90% Don’t bother, you can be sure that that item is for sale with another seller.

3. Read all details about the product to make sure that it is not broken, or missing some part of it. If details are vague, saying a phrase like, “may be missing a part,” or, “some part may not work,” do NOT buy the product.

4. Before bidding, check how they will deliver it, for example, first class post. You will then know how long it will be until your item is delivered.

5. When you’ve won your bid, make sure you pay, the quicker you pay, the quicker you get your item.

6. Wait for the length of time that you were told your item would be. E.g. If you paid by check, figure out how long it will be until it will arrive to the seller, then add the time it takes the item to get there. If it’s pay pal, just use the time you were given from the time you paid.

7. Give the seller 5 days grace, random reasons might have caused a delay.

8. If you don’t receive your item, contact the seller. They will be able to tell you the progress on your item.

9. If it has been a long time since you paid, and you contacted the seller. Its maybe time to involve ebay?

Warnings

* If in doubt, contact the seller to ensure that the item is not bootlegged, or another copy.

If you are dealing with a seller who has high volume, you may have to scroll through scores of pages to find negative feedback. There’s an easier way to go directly to the negative feedback at the free service provided by Toolhaus

Steps

1. Copy the seller’s name before you leave eBay.

2. Go to Toolhaus.org (see External Links)

3. Paste the seller’s name into the Negative/Neutral Feedback edit box and click the “Received By” button.

4. Results for one of the top sellers (with several 100,000 of feedback comments) were available in seconds, showing several 1000 bad feedback comments. This should help identify if there is an underlying problem to be avoided.

Make More Money with eBay’s Affiliate Program

Steps

1. If you’ve been on the web for a while, the chances are that at some time or other you will have taken part in an affiliate program. They generally work by giving you a URL to send people to their site that contains your affiliate number, and then giving you a small amount for each person who comes in using your link and signs up or buys something.

2. eBay’s affiliate program follows this basic formula, but with a few twists.

3. It pays a lot. Each user who follows your link to eBay, signs up and then bids on anything within 30 days will earn you $20. Most affiliate programs will only give you something like 10 percent of the user’s first purchase. What’s more, for each existing eBay user who clicks through from your site and then places a bid or buys something, you’ll get 10c.

4. You can be your own affiliate. If you just link to your own auctions with your affiliate link number from your own website, then you’re getting money without sending buyers to anyone except yourself. There aren’t many affiliate programs that can say that.

5. So Where Do I Sign Up?

6. You can visit eBay’s affiliate program at eBay. Once you’re there, just click ‘Join the Program’. You will then be required to sign up for Commission Junction, which is free.

7. How Can I Get People to Click the Links?

8. eBay suggest a number of ‘business models’ for their affiliates. Before people can click your affiliate links, they need to be at your website. There are two ways to get them there using a search engine, which eBay refer to as ‘natural’ and ‘paid’ search.

9. Natural search: This is when someone finds your website in a search engine’s normal results, either because something you wrote is relevant to them or you used SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques. Be careful not to use any dodgy methods to get a high search engine ranking, though, or eBay might come after you and keep your affiliate money.

10. Paid search: This strategy involves paying for traffic to your website or directly to eBay, by buying ads on search engines. If you go for this option, it’s actually worth placing ads on the less popular search engines instead of the big ones: they’ll have similar click-through rates as a percentage, but the cost typically won’t be anywhere near as high.

11. Content: What you can do is just have a normal website, with articles on a variety of subjects and perhaps a community forum. Run the website for pleasure, but place the occasional eBay affiliate link there.

12. Newsletters: Don’t ignore the potential of putting your affiliate ID in each time you send out a newsletter. You can get 10c for every bid it generates with no extra work, which could be enough for the email to pay for itself, whether it leads to any sales or not.

13. Sadly, our time together is nearly at an end, but there is one thing that I have left to show you. It’s called the featured gallery, and it could help your sales. Look out for the next article!

The right ad can either make or break an Ebay auction or sale. Follow these steps to writing a successful one.

Steps

1. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Ask yourself: What would I want to see in that ad? What would make or break the sale for me, as a customer? Make sure you provide that information, every bit of it.

2. Be honest, be accurate. Dont call a Used item Brand New or Mint.

3. Provide all necessary information, including condition, age, brand names and all relevant info. But keep it tight. Don’t go on and on. You are writing an ad, not a novel.

4. Provide photos. You don’t have to be a pro, just take decent, clear photos. Photos do sell products. Some bidders will only look at the photos.

5. Do your research. Know what you are selling. Know comparable prices. Start your opening bid with a price you can live with and if you know your price is below other comparable models in similar condition, say so.

6. Never assume the buyer is an expert and will “automatically find” your item . Explain what makes it special. Is it one of a kind? Is it rare? Is it priced below market value? Whatever sets your item apart should be mentioned.

7. Use the right keywords. Be specific. People look for specific items and get frustrated by looking at a ton of unrelated items. Help the right bidder find your item.

8. Look at completed auctions for similar items and see what titles and keywords caught bidders’ eyes and got the highest bids. Learn from them. Use the same or similar keywords. Again, help direct the bidders who want your item (or ones like it) to your ad.

9. Group ads for similar items in the same week and stagger the starting times by a day or two. Tell bidders that you have related items on auction. This will encourage them to look at your other items and up your chances of multiple sales this way. Every related ad you have is just one more chance for a bidder to see all your items.

Tips

* Can’t stress it enough, think like a bidder and write a clear description and provide enough photos.

Warnings

* Don’t rip off someone else’s photos or copy their ad word for word. This can get your ad pulled.

Here’s how to set up a drop ship business on eBay!

Steps

1. Select your Niche Market. Copy & Paste this link into your webbrowser & select your market (e.g. “Antiques & Art”) http://listings.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQfclZ3QQsocmdZListingCategoryList

2. Set your financial goal (i.e. Create $300 a week in profits).

3. Set up an eBay Seller account. Copy & Paste this link into your webbrower http://www.ebay.co.uk

4. Do eBay Research.

* Go to eBay

* Click “Advanced Search”

* Enter product within your Niche Market (i.e. Art Deco lamps)

* Sort by “Price Highest First”

* Select “Completed listings only”

* Click “Search”

* Make note of the best selling products

5. Go to the web to find an online distributor. Go to www.google.com and search for one of the “hot selling products” you discovered in STEP 4. When you find a website selling the same or similar products, make note of it in your Drop Ship Journal (url, email, telephone #, contact name).

6. Keep doing step 5 until you have a list of 40 websites that have products you want to sell on eBay.

7. Establish an account as a retailer with the online distributor (website). Get the “contact information” and either email or telephone, or send a letter asking how to become a retailer of their products and ask if they will drop ship to your customers.

8. Copy and paste product picture and description from distributor’s website to desktop. Once you have set up a retailer account (See Step 7) you need to go to their website and copy the pictures and description of the products you want to sell on your desktop (e.g. create a folder on my desktop for each retailer and then create a sub-folder for each product).

9. Create eBay listing on Turbo Lister. You’ll be using the images & descripions you got in Step 8 and upload to eBay.

10. Answer the customer’s emails.

11. Once your customer purchases the item from your eBay auction, you simply contact the retailer & give your customer’s shipping address.

12. Distributor sends product directly to your customer”: You never, never, never have to see or handle the product! It’s like magic!

13. Post auction review: Here you’ll evaluate your profits/loss for each auction and either change your approach or if it’s working and your making good profit - carry on doing what you’re doing

14. Relist every Sunday at 8PM religiously as if your life depends on it! Create a folder in Turbo Lister called “relist folder” and make certain you put all your auctions in the folder (taking out the ones that didn’t make money) and relist every Sunday at 8pm.

Tips

* Before you do anything, get a Journal and write, “My drop ship business on eBay Journal” on the front. If you’re serious about taking action — instead of just reading, then get your journal now. Immediate action is the secret ingredient to success in any area of life. Now you’re ready to roll!

Buying SIM cards on eBay is brilliant, because you can save money, and usually get deals you wouldn’t find elsewhere. This guide will give you some basic tips on finding the cheapest SIM card out there.

Steps

1. Decide what network you wish to be on (e.g, o2) and what tarriff (e.g, o2 online). Enter this in the basic search box at the top of every eBay page.

2. Note the postage costs. A standard o2 SIM card can be posted for 46p, plus a few pence for the packaging and time, say 60p-80p is a fair amount to pay. To avoid checking every listing, simply click “Customize my Search Results” and make the “Postage” columm appear alongside the actual price, that way when browsing results you can see the postage costs aswell.

3. Consider avoiding the auction. Bidding on SIMs is easy enough, it’s just like any other item, but if you really want to see the quick deals, click “Show buy-it-now items only” on the left. Then, you can choose to sort from low to high priced items. This way you’re seeing the cheapest items that can be bought literally within the next few seconds (no waiting for auctions to end). Remember, as a general rule: The lower the cost is, the higher the postage is.

4. Purchase like any other eBay item, and wait for your SIM card to arrive in the next few days!

Tips

* Is the item new? A used SIM may be cheap, but you don’t want the seller’s contacts on there, or people with the number calling you!

* As always, reading feedback is essential when buying on eBay.

Warnings

* When buying a gold/platinum SIM card, is the full number posted in the listing? If so, avoid! Many companies will add this number to mailing lists, etc. - Make sure at least one number has been censored.

Don’t be dumb, save money when using eBay!

Steps

1. Determine the retail price of what you’re looking to buy, call a couple local stores, do a search on the internet to check other internet sites that sell the same items you are seeking, find the lowest retail price possible and use the prices you find as your guide. Time spent researching is money saved in the long run!

2. Are you willing to buy it used? If so, you’re going to save a lot of money. Keep in mind, some things are better used than others some are not, take electronics for example, they can be hit or miss and they usually are not going to have a warranty, but if it does have a warranty, then this is definitely your number 1 choice. Lightly used clothes/accessories are generally marked down significantly and here is where you can get some great deals.

3. Get an eBay account (duh). Type in what you’re looking for in it’s simplest form, now look to the left box with the options. Click on “completed listings”, and search. Now you have all the items that have been sold in the past 90 days (all these auctions are over). Look at the final bids in green, indicating these were sold at the following price. Are they cheap enough when comparing to retail to bother with eBay? More than likely, yes. But always look at shipping charges, and assess again. If its a big huge item, check local classifieds and craigslist.org before considering ebay, the shipping fees alone could end up making it more expensive than buying it locally used. After looking at some of the completed items, determine how much they’re generally going for NEW and USED. Use these new figures as reference to how much you’re willing to bid. Look for the finished auctions with the most bids (also indicated in the completed auction title), these are generally the best deal.

4. Do not use a ‘buy it now’, as you will notice, it’s likely more than our new reference prices determined from the final auctions! When a cheap buy it now comes up, it usually gets snatched up pretty quick. They do come up every once in a while, so don’t completely rule out buy it now, but more often than not, well you know…

5. Find an item that has already gotten a few bids, YOU NEVER WANT TO BE THE ONLY BIDDER AT THE END OF AN AUCTION, because it simply means, you didn’t get that great of a deal, unless the seller put a horrible description of the item to the point that buyers didn’t even find it. Example, a guy selling a Gibson Les Paul puts “guitar” as the title, here is where the golden deals are, but you won’t find many of these because of their poor descriptions are not helpful in the search tools.

6. Try a few alternate spellings, spaces, hyphens, etc. for your item, if their are some dumb spelling mistakes, there are going to be less people encountering the auction which = lower prices.

7. The art of sniping. When you have found the right item with a low price, some bidders, and good pictures, now you have to bid, there is no point of bidding on an item early in the game, this does nothing but create commotion and drive the price up. Watch the item and track it in My Ebay, do not bid till the last 15 seconds, YES 15 SECONDS! Here is how to do it. With 5-10 minutes left in the auction, Open up 2 browsers and your clock (you know, double click the clock on the bottom right of your desktop). Put the auction page in both browsers, in one browser, enter the ABSOLUTE most you’re willing to pay, taking into consideration the final auction prices, shipping, and how much they were going for in retail stores. Remember if you are gonna be kicking yourself if you lose the auction by one penny above your price, then that isn’t the most your willing to pay right, pick a price that if the final bid is more, you’re OK with not winning the item. Enter your price, Click place bid, there is going to be a confirm bid page after you hit the button. Now look at your other browser with the item and keep hitting refresh until there is a minute left in the auction. Look at your clock and countdown 40 seconds from when the refresh page told you one minute. Goto the other browser and click place bid. Usually when you keep hitting refresh the last couple minutes, you can see all the action with dumb buyers fighting back and forth. If you did it all right, you should have sneaked in, unsuspecting, and stolen the item at the price YOU WANTED IT AT.

Tips

* Cable/DSL is a must for sniping

* Avoid Wireless connections when sniping

* Always consider shipping fees

* Always check Craigslist.org first for your item

* Buy used when possible

* Sellers that ship Worldwide mean they have a much larger number of potential buyers, which means the final price will be higher, USA shipping only is your best bet.

Warnings

* If the price is too good to be true, it might be a scam

Want an inexpensive iPod? Follow these simple instructions and you should have one in no time.

Steps

1. Go to http://www.ebay.com.

2. Click Register (at the top).

3. Register your info.

4. Go to the main page. In the search box type in the model and color of iPod you want.

5. Click “sort by” then scroll down and click “Lowest Price”.

6. Bid, and (hopefully) win. If it says buy it now, that means there is no bidding involved you pay and it is sent to you.

7. Alternate Site to watch for:
* Got to http://www.craigslist.org
* Select your city and check for iPod ads under electronics

Tips

* Most eBay users won’t send the item until you pay.

* If you bid, check back hourly or as much as you can.

* Check the shipping price! Some person may charge $10.00 but then will charge $100.00 for shipping!

* Read the description. Who knows, someone may have put in a broken screen.

Warnings

* Check the reputation of the sellers as there are few fraudulent sellers*

* Be aware that you have to be at least 18 or older to register on E-bay, so if you want your Ipod really badly, ask your parents to buy it for you.

eBay.com is a gigantic online auction site where thousands of items are bought and sold every day. You can make good money selling on eBay; some people even make a living at it. But eBay is a highly competitive marketplace where, quite often, the best listing wins. Here’s how to create a listing that’ll move your item quickly and get you the price you want.

Steps

1. eBay is definitely a place where a picture is worth a thousand words. Take lots of pictures of your item from all angles, and make them really big. Put your item against a neutral background, give it lots of light, and make sure the images are in sharp focus. Taking pictures outside, whenever possible, is the easiest way to make sure you have enough light.

2. Don’t tell…sell! Learn the “feature-benefit” method used by professional ad writers. Bad: “The camera comes with a big long lens which I don’t know anything about.” Good: “The high-quality 80-200 zoom lens (feature) lets you take sports and wildlife shots like the pros (benefit).”

3. Be brutally honest — list every last flaw in the item. This is proof of your trustworthiness and the buyer will find out anyway. Bad: “The camera is in good condition.” Good: “There are a few light scratches and a small dent but nothing which will affect the camera’s operation.”

4. Spell- and grammar-check your listing. Bad: “Pantex.” Good: “Pentax.”

5. Show you care. If you don’t, why should your buyer?

Tips

* If you list a lot of items, design a simple but distinctive layout and use it every time. Professionalism builds buyer confidence.

* If you’ve had a bad experience (non-payer), don’t complain about it in your listing. Would you shop in a store where the sales clerk griped about the customers?

* Take advantage of free sales training. There are dozens of books on how to sell on eBay. You’ll find at least one at your local public library.

Selling your used clothes that you don’t wear anymore on eBay is a quick and easy way to make some money.

Steps

1. Gather items that you don’t want anymore.

2. Wash each item, according to care tag instructions.

3. Examine items closely, looking for any holes, stains, or any flaws.

4. Make a list of items you are going to sell, taking down brand, color, size, and condition.

5. Take clear digital photos. If you can’t tell what items you have in the photo, no one else will be able to either. If you will be selling in lots, lay out outfits together or items that are similar, and take a few detailed photos of any flaws that need to be pointed out. Otherise, take clear photographs of the front and back of each item.

6. Take measurements: Bust/Chest, Waist, Hips, Inseam, Length are the basics. Sleeve length, neck size, and bell width (on skirts/dresses) are also helpful.

7. List your items on eBay. Write up a title, description, and set your starting price. Make it as low as you are willing to sell the item for — lower prices encourage more people to bid.

Tips

* Be honest about what you are selling. eBay is based on honesty.

* Familiarize yourself with eBay’s rules and regulations before listing ANYTHING.

* Don’t use popular brand names in your title or description: “Like Gucci,” “I think this is Chanel,” or “Looks exactly like Prada!” is considered keyword spamming, and your listed will be ended.

* Don’t include anything in your photos that you don’t intend to sell.

* Just because something has a condition issue doesn’t mean that it’s not saleable.

* Be reasonable with your prices; you shouldn’t expect to sell used clothing for the same price as it was when you bought it new.

* If the items are stored in a home where there are smokers or pets, disclose this in your listing. If buyers get items which smell like smoke or have pet hair on them and the possibility wasn’t disclosed in the listing, they often leave negative feedback.

Warnings

* No underwear or dirty clothes.

* Try not to sell to people with bad feedback if possible.

Things You’ll Need

* Camera

* Computer with Internet connection