eBay Buying should be fun!

You may know every Internet Giant, from Amazon, Yahoo, to AOL, Google, but not forget eBay. Only eBay is so close that home based business can make money online. It is the easiest way to make money online selling on eBay.
You may not realize it yet, but you are about to begin an exciting new lifestyle! The world of online auctions is not only a very profitable world, but it can also mean a lifestyle change unlike any you could ont have imagined just a few years ago.
eBay is now the world’s largest marketplace and the online auctions model which eBay first brings into business actually allows you the opportunity to make money online quickly. So why not use this to the advantage of your website and your business? By creating an easy-to-use eBay Store and listing some hot, in-demand items at a small discount from the price on your website, you can drive traffic from eBay back to your website as well as creating sales and revenue for your company through eBay. eBay Stores monthly fees is nominal and can easily be paid off from the profit of just a few small sales. eBay Store is set up to where your item can be listed automatically saving your valuable time and making the maintenance of your eBay Store effortless.
Compare this with the majority of businesses out eBay, which may actually take a year or couples of years before they realize any real profits, you will feel satisfied. Is it amazing to make money online selling on eBay?
By simply understanding and knowing what you are doing, you can be very successful doing your online business to make money selling on eBay.
The traffic on eBay is massive, check out the figures for yourself at any source you trust. eBay has a staggering 10 million items on sale at any point in time. The site gets 1.5 billion auction page views each month. This is the key that makes it so easy for ordinary people to make money on eBay. It is simply a matter of taking your products to where the customers are waiting for it. But you need to know what you are doing. It all boils down to getting the formula to maximize your auction effectiveness.
You can be found by more eBay users by being as descriptive as possible in the Item Description and by using as many keywords as possible that describe your item and industry within the Item Title. Reports show that over 90% of searches on eBay are done using the search facility. What users do not know about eBay search facility is that by default it only searches the item titles - not the descriptions of the items.
Imagine building a website that got more than 10 million unique visitors per Day. Do you think you might be able to find a way to make money online selling on eBay? One of the greatest benefits of selling on eBay is this sheer volume of traffic that you automatically acquire as a registered seller of eBay.
eBay allows you to set up an account with only some basic personal information and a credit card for billing. There is typically no up-front investment required! Meanwhile, you can use PayPal as your tool to collect your money from selling on eBay. If you compare this to traditional business, you have to admit this is for your utility.
One of the main concerns that sellers have about trading on internet is: How do I know that they are going to pay? That is not a question at all. eBay and PayPal have protections for sellers and protect buyers also. One protection is feedback. This is simply a recorded comment (either positive, neutral or negative) left by both the buyer and seller after a transaction ends, telling future buyers and sellers how that particular transaction went.
Just imagine the facts that there are numerous of people making money online. The facts are that there are numerous of people who make money online selling on eBay. So why you are not the next one?

If you are an eBay buyer, seller or would simply like to learn more about ebay then you are invited to visit

The MSRD Inc Forum. This forum is fairly unique as it allows registered users to post messages about the items they have up for sale or auction on eBay complete with the link to their eBay page. The message can even include images of the items and best of all it is free. The MSRD Inc Forum also features an Open Forum , a General eBay Forum and a forum style Article Directory.

As I am sure you are aware not every item listed on eBay actually sells. The eBay search function is very good at helping people find what they are looking for but some eBay pages always seem to get more traffic than others. One good reason for this is that some eBay stores and pages have links to them from other websites. All the search engine optimization gurus will tell you that is a good thing and they are right. Plus your eBay store gets traffic from the link itself provided the other website actually gets traffic and that is the goal at The MSRD Inc Forum.

If you have items up for sale or auction on eBay you can register as a user at The MSRD Inc Forum for free and start posting messages right away. In the eBay Stores and Sellers Free Ad Forum you can post ads for your eBay items and stores with text descriptions, images and the link to your eBay page. When you register as a user you get a signature file where you can also put the link to your eBay store and it will appear under all your post in all the MSRD Inc Forums.

Posting an ad for your eBay auction on any site does not do you a lot of good unless that site gets traffic.

That is the function of the MSRD Inc forum style Article Directory which appears below the main eBay forum under the category MSRD Inc Article Directory. The article directory is simply a series of 26 forums in alphabetical order. Such a directory can be filled up with articles on every subject from A to Z. With enough keyword and key phrase text article content and enough incoming links it could produce what can only be called non targeted general interest search engine traffic. The search engine optimization gurus will tell you that you are better off finding a niche and focusing on just one subject and nobody will disagree. However, this forums main theme is eBay and people will be posting messages about items up for sale and auction on eBay. These items will of course include merchandise of every description from A to Z. That being so non targeted general interest A to Z type search engine traffic is what this site actually needs.

If you are an eBay buyer visiting the MSRD Inc Forum can help you find more information about merchandise listed on eBay. Including descriptions and even images posted in the eBay Stores and Sellers Free Ad Forum by the sellers themselves. Buyers can also find more information about any subject from A to Z in the MSRD Inc Article Directory and therefore any kind of merchandise from A to Z. Some of the articles in the directory may have been written by authors who are also eBay buyers and sellers. If you have anything to say that is related to eBay please feel free to post it in the General eBay Forum.

If you are an article author yourself then you are invited to register and post your articles in the directory. It works pretty much the same way as any other article directory and it is free.

First of all, allow me to clear up some terminology about eBay stores. In the USA, they are known as eBay stores, whereas in the UK the term eBay uses is shops. Just to make it easy for me, I’ll be calling it eBay stores throughout this article but remember, if you’re in the UK, everything I say applies equally to eBay shops.
Now, you may not have heard of eBay stores. Or, you may have heard of them but didn’t believe they were relevant to your eBay activity. Perhaps it’s time for a re-consideration. Let’s see what you may be missing.
So, what exactly is an eBay store?
The best way of describing it is that it’s like having your own e-commerce site where you can offer items for sale which you may or may not be auctioning on eBay.
Your store has a unique URL and can be personalized by creating a logo and writing an outline of your business and your policies. The cost of listing items is far less than in eBay auctions.
It’s a snip to add inventory to your eBay store as the listing creation process is the same as you’re already used to. You list items in your store on fixed price format, just like Buy it Now, and you can have them appear in your store for 30, 60, 90 or 120 days. Or you can list items indefinitely, paying a small monthly ongoing fee for each one.
In addition to listing fees, running an eBay store incurs a monthly fee. Currently there are three levels of store:
1. Basic for $15.95 (£6) per month
2. Featured for $49.95 (£30) per month
3. Anchor for $499.95 (£300) per month
The best place to start is with a Basic store. As I write this, you can get one month’s free trial of your store. Note that you must have a feedback rating of at least 20 before you can sign-up for an eBay store.
When anyone accesses your store they will be presented with both your store only items and your auction items.
Now, how do you get traffic to your store?
Here are some of the ways you can do this:
1. Mention your store in your auction listings e.g. “We have more great inventory & accessories you can BUY NOW from our eBay store”.
2. Offer discount if people purchase from your store as well as your auction on the same day.
3. Include your unique store URL in your email signature.
4. Use eBay’s Merchandising Manager to cross-promote your store items.
5. Run targeted email campaigns to your previous customers, pointing them either to your store or, more effectively, to a specific relevant category in your store.
Viewers can also search your store for anything they might want. And they can click through to your store from the door symbol next to your eBay user ID.
If you want to investigate more, you can find everything you need here ( http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/stores-ov.html ) for USA eBay Stores, and here ( http://pages.ebay.co.uk/storefronts/store-features.html ) for UK eBay Shops.

Starting an ebay drop-off franchise is fast catching on ebay. There are millions of buyers everyday on ebay and let’s face it, not everyone knows how to sell an item on ebay. Some people just are not interested or not familiar with how ebay works, the terms and conditions and all that stuff. They just want to sell their item and get some cash. That is where an ebay drop-off franchise comes in.
What is an ebay drop-off franchise?
It’s actually quite simple in concept. An ebay drop-off franchise store acts like the middleman in the ebay world. You bring the items you want to sell to the ebay drop-off store. The store will auction it on ebay. If it is sold, the store will send a check to you minus a certain percentage of the sale price. The store will also pack and ship the item for you.
In my opinion, this is a huge untapped market as there are lots of people who have heard of ebay but do not know or want to get involved in the whole auction process as it can be rather tedious. They are looking for people to help them sell.
So why get an ebay franchise?
Getting an ebay franchise is not cheap. It usually cost anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars plus some ebay franchises charges a annual or monthly royalty fee ranging from 3 to 6 percent of your gross revenue.
However, there are some great advantages to getting one.
1) Brand Recognition
The single biggest advantage of getting an ebay franchise is that you get to be affiliated with a recognizable brand. Some ebay franchise such as “isold it ebay store” spent huge amount of money in TV advertising and marketing plus they have a huge network of stores across the country. In that sense, your franchise store gets to leverage some brand awareness without you spending any money on advertising and marketing.
2) Franchise Store Support
Another important advantage is that you can get immediate support and training needed to maintain and operate your ebay franchise store. This is especially important if you do not have sufficient experience doing business. Plus most franchises have ebay drop-off experts who can be stationed in your store when you just opened for business to guide you on the details of running the business.
3) Franchise Buying Power
Because most franchises have a network of stores, they are able to negotiate better pricing on overstock items or with suppliers.
There are a lot more advantages in getting an ebay drop-off franchise. You can visit my website where I discuss more in depth on the different ebay franchises that are available.

This article is written from my experiences of selling on ebay. I have a personal account and a business account with an Ebay store. I started selling on Ebay about 4 Years ago and was a power seller for about 3 Years. So this article is based on my experiences of selling on Ebay, not based on some ebook that I have purchased. (I have never purchased one on how to sell on Ebay - Maybe I should! - lol).

In many ways Ebay is the perfect marketplace in theory, because the laws of supply and demand largely determine the price. The greater the demand for an item and the lower the supply the more expensive the price will be. This is pure economics theory at work here.

There are exceptions to this, such as you only need two people to bid on an item to push the price way up and this is not reflective of the marketplace. I quite often sell the same items time and time again and the price can vary wildly. Some people get a bargain and some people less so.

How do you know what to sell?

There are two ways to find good products to sell: -

1.List a variety of products and see what sells. However this can be costly as you want to start your auctions at a low price, to encourage interest and if there is not enough demand, then you will not sell your product and end up with loads of fees and no income, or even worse you will sell your product for less than you paid for it and still end up with the Ebay fees and Paypal fees to pay.

2.Look at what other people are selling and how much for and then pick items that you can earn a good margin from. But beware other people can use this method to see what you are selling also.

How can you tell what somebody else has sold?

Feedback is how you tell whether or not to trust a seller on Ebay, but you can also use it to see what somebody has sold. If you type in any keyword you will get a list of items for sale. Click on any of the items and it will show you the details of the listing. On the listings page the seller’s information will be included. Next to the sellers name is their feedback number. If you click on this number it will take you through to the feedback profile page for the seller. As you scroll down on this page it will show you what they have sold and on each item there is a link to view the item. This link will take you to the original listing and will allow you to see exactly what sold, how much for and how much bidding took place on the item. The more bidding the better, as it is an indication of a higher demand for an item, which is what you are looking for.

Ebay is too transparent!

One of the biggest problems with Ebay is that you can spend considerable time, effort and money finding good products to sell. At which point you think that Ebay is great because it works really well. However two things can happen: -

1.You list more of the same product thus increasing the supply when the demand has remained static and the price has to therefore fall.

2.Other people look at your feedback, see what you have sold and what they can also sell and earn a good margin on, so they also start to sell the same product. Thus increasing the supply with the demand remaining static.

No comparison to the High Street!

What I mean here is two things

Firstly when you go shopping in the high street there may be hundreds or thousands of shoppers and only a handful of shops that sell what you are looking for. (In my case Jewellery - Most towns only have a few Jewellers.) In this instance there is a large demand (shoppers) and small supply (shops). Comparativley on Ebay you are only on one computer so are an isolated shopper but there are hundreds of shops selling jewellery - low demand and high supply

Secondly if you want to sell a second hand piece of jewellery you cannot just rent a shop or stand in the High Street and sell your item. However you can just open an Ebay account and list you item. The competition from second hand pieces is much greater than it is on the high street.

Ebay encourages second hand items!

Most people will buy on Ebay for one of two reasons.

1.Because they think the item will be cheaper

2.Because they cannot find what they are looking for elsewhere.

Because so many people use Ebay to try and grab a bargain and it is so easy for people to list second hand items, it pushes the price of second hand items up and lowers the price for new items.

In the high street if a second hand item were slightly cheaper than a new item, then the new item would sell every time. But on Ebay it’s quite often the second hand item that sells.

This is fine if you sell second hand items but most businesses sell new items. In the jewellery trade this is particularly true. A lot of the gold jewellery is sold by pawnbrokers and is unredeemed pledges that they have. When you consider that they only give scrap value for the gold it is pretty impossible to compete if you are selling new items. Have a look at the second part of this article to find some tips for selling on ebay based upon my personal experience.