Take You Ebay Business to the Next Level

Filed Under (eBay) by Brandon and Skye on 19-07-2008

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Over the last few years the number of people using eBay has grown rapidly. While many eBay users are just buying and selling for some extra cash or as a hobby, there are many people out there taking it to a new level and running their own full-time business.

These people are making their eBay home business a main source of income and have figured out all eBay’s marketing strategies in order to be productive.

There are many reasons to start an eBay home business, but whatever the reason, it is sure to be successful.

Why start an eBay home business? Out of all worldwide businesses, 64% said that the Internet has had a good impact on their sales. Also, having an online business can greatly increase geographical sales by reaching customers all over the world, which otherwise, would never have been possible. 73% of business owners have also managed to cut their administrative costs by putting their business online.

An eBay home business can give you the flexibility to start work when you want and finish when you want. Working from home, you can be your own boss and decision making is entirely down to you and no-one else.

Starting an eBay home business is relatively easy and a little market research will go a long way in determining your success.

Selling junk that people don’t want will get you nowhere and you’ll most probably be doomed for failure… even before you begin, but researching into what products are’ Hot’ and what your buyers are actually looking for, will most definitely have the opposite effect and your eBay shop visitor’s will be screaming out to buy your products.

‘eBay Seller Central’ http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral offer an excellent resource in getting you up to speed with every aspect of the eBay marketplace. This also includes ratios on what products are selling well and products that are not.

You should also consider using third party eBay market research tools such as Terapeak or HammerTap in your marketplace research.

The bottom line is supply and demand; you must find the products that are in demand and then supply that specific market.

A recent ‘AC Nelson’ poll showed that nearly 53% of online shoppers plan to buy even more in the next year. A large part of this shopping is done on eBay. After all, it is the Internet’s No.1 shopping and auction website. If that’s not a good reason to start an eBay home business, then I don’t know what is.

With over 160 million registered eBay shoppers and over 100,000 of them on eBay each day, an eBay home business definitely has the potential to be successful and make the user a lucrative income.

eBay also offer excellent e-commerce advice and helpful tips to get you started at: http://pages.ebay.com/merchantsolutions/ecommerceresources/ and can put you in good stead throughout the duration of your new business venture.

Thinking of what to sell on eBay with your new home business needn’t be difficult.

Do you have a specific hobby that would interest others or do you know enough about a subject that would perhaps class you as an expert in that field? If so, create and information product that would pertain to that specific hobby for example:

Cycling - “A guide to Bicycle trips in Europe.” Bicycle spare parts are also becoming harder to find. Creating a market for this specific niche could be potentially profitable.

Cookery - “101 Delicious recipes for Diabetics.” You may have been a chef or cook and you’re looking to create an additional revenue stream using the knowledge you possess.

Recently, eBay has disallowed the sales of digital products on auctions. You can still sell information products with classified ads or you can sell a CD with your product(s) on it as a regular auction listing.

Google is a fabulous resource for market research and by simply typing into their search query box whatever interests you, would return thousands, if not millions of topics to give you ideas and inspiration to get your eBay home business started.

Providing your customers with a service or a product that cures a problem, can provide your new eBay business with profitable sales for many years to come.



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Starting an eBay business - How to decide what to sell on eBay

Filed Under (eBay selling) by Brandon and Skye on 02-07-2008

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Whats wrong?When starting an eBay business there are a lot of factors that come into play, but we are going to address what to sell on eBay.

The first thing I would do is take a look at your hobbies and try and find out what YOU are interested in. What kind of products are you best suited to sell on eBay?

Now the first thoughts of everyone starting out on eBay is to just find out what sells and copy everyone else. This is good if you are just looking to run with the follow the crowd, but in the LONG run YOU would be much happier finding a product to sell that you:

  • Know about
  • Trust
  • Like to be around all day
  • Understand the market

I suggest you sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and write 5 hobbies or things you do for fun. After you have your list head over to terapeak (the best market research for eBay seller) and take them up on their free trial. Then start drilling down those 5 hobbies that you have. Use the category tool to find out how hot that item is, and how big the market is.

From there it just comes down to finding the right brands to sell under those categories. This is easily done by looking at the brands average sell through ratio (ASR). You will be looking for a product that has a 60% or more ASR.

Remember, keep it fun and focus on things that you LIKE and are FUN. This is the true way to suceed.

PS. Starting an small eBay business is fun, but make it a winner by deciding know what to sell on eBay.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Scumfrog

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How to become a eBay powerseller in 90 days

Filed Under (eBay selling) by Brandon and Skye on 23-06-2008

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Save even more...?With gas prices what they are, there are many people who are wanting to work from home. Lots of people, including myself are turning to eBay to fill this need. When times are tough, this is when people start to think outside the box for ways to generate new revenue.

So now that you are going to start treating eBay as a money making venture, you really need to work on your image. Most eBay sellers do not have an image, sure there are lots of listings and fancy posts, but by and large most eBay sellers spend about 2 seconds thinking up their image. This is where you should be different from the rest.

Everyone out there has a horror story about someone ripping them off on eBay. This is why you need to carefully craft your brand and establish yourself with great feedback and a powerseller status. Becoming an eBay powerseller means that you have done something right, at least long enough to get the status. You want to inspire trust in your customers and being an eBay powerseller is one way to do that.

So lets get into it. By the end of the 90 days you should be rolling up on powerseller.

The first step is to head over to terapeak and see what I can sell all day long on eBay and will be easy for me to supply my customers with. After a few minutes poking around terapeak, I see gift cards are a big seller. So I type in “gift card” in the search and heres what I find out

In 30 days there are 2.4 million dollars worth of gift cards sold on ebay. There are 138 thousand bids during this time. There is a sell through ratio of 75.85%, meaning a VERY high percent of these gift cards sell.

So drilling down a little further, I see that eBay auctions for wal-mart gift cards sell at a 82% ratio, meaning you will have more sucess if you sell those.

After finding out wal-mart gift cards are the way to go, I see what the most sucessful sellers in this category are doing, yes terapeak can actually do this.

Turns out that most of the successful ones are starting their gift cards at .99 cents and creating a bidding frenzy that is boosting beyond the value of the card itself. So remember, this is not a way to make money, simply a way to establish yourself with great feedback and to get a powerseller status in a short amount of time.

So let’s look at the $100 dollar wal-mart gift card. Using this technique, according to terapeak, the average sale price if started at 99 cents is 100.81. Enough to cover the cost of the card, and your eBay fees will be limited a little. But remember, we are trying track our self to powerseller status. So we don’t mind loosing a little money.

So will I qualify for powerseller status after doing this for a short while? Yes, yes and YES!

Now for the best part, you can start to get an eBay discount as a powerseller, making things even juicier when you get around to selling whatever product line you want to start with.

According to eBay’s page, here are what they say is required to become a powerseller

  • Three Month Requirement: a minimum of $1,000 in sales or 100 items per month, for three consecutive months
  • Three Month Requirement: 2 items sold per month for the past 3 months (6 items)
  • Achieve an overall Feedback rating of 100, of which 98% or more is positive
  • Have been an active member for 90 days
  • Have an account in good financial standing
  • Maintain a minimum of 4 average monthly listings for the past 3 month
  • Effective July 2008, have maintained a minimum 4.5 or higher in all four detailed seller ratings (DSRs) for the past 12 months - item as described, communication, shipping time, and shipping and handling charges

    • As you can see, it will cost you a little bit, but overall if you are going to make eBay your choice for selling in a global market, it will be worth the cost in the long run.

    You also can recoup the cost by allowing everyone who visits your auction for a drawling for a $100 dollar gift card. More how to do this later on.

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    Terapeak review vs Hammertap

    Filed Under (eBay) by Brandon and Skye on 19-06-2008

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    Once I decided to get serious about making money on eBay, the next step was finding a research tool that will allow me to know what my items are worth. This terapeak review will outline how I use terapeak, along with some pitfalls to avoid.

    Naturally I wanted to get the best eBay research tool for my money, so it came down to Terapeak VS Hammertap in a knock down drag out boxing match between the two best research tools on the market.

    After taking free trails of both Hammertap and Terapeak I decided that the winner was Terapeak with one hand tied behind their backs.

    What sets terapeak apart from other ebay research tools is it’s very easy to use. I found terapeak simple to use and very fast at searching. When using hamertap it would take a long time for my computer to finish searches, terapeak uses their own server to crunch the numbers, so if speed of your computer is an issue, terapeak is the winner here.

    The biggest bonus for me was the terapeak title builder. You simply start typing your product into the builder and it starts suggesting keywords below as you type. Take the following example:

    I type in “ipod” into the box. The following keywords would be suggested:

    Keyword Listings Avg. Price Avg. Shipping Max. Price Min. Price eBay
    For 343 $7.15 $1.47 $69.24 $0.01
    Nano 156 $9.00 $1.79 $169.95 $0.50
    Apple 155 $13.54 $1.63 $199.00 $0.01
    New 113 $16.38 $1.42 $211.99 $0.01
    Case 100 $5.60 $1.64 $22.99 $0.01
    Video 92 $14.50 $1.66 $199.00 $0.98
    Charger 82 $7.29 $1.11 $19.99 $0.01
    Gen 81 $9.96 $1.53 $199.00 $0.01
    Car 63 $11.29 $1.60 $162.99 $0.74
    3rd 59 $11.12 $1.63 $169.95 $0.69
    Black 58 $11.30 $1.22 $164.95 $0.50 eBay
    Usb 57 $8.71 $1.55 $144.00 $0.01
    Cable 55 $4.13 $0.78 $17.99 $0.01
    Touch 53 $10.46 $2.18 $197.50 $0.74
    Skin 49 $5.61 $0.99 $10.99 $0.99
    Fm 47 $16.06 $2.15 $69.24 $1.99
    Mp3 45 $21.35 $2.75 $199.00 $0.01
    Classic 43 $19.35 $1.52 $199.00 $0.99
    Cover 39 $5.49 $1.95 $13.99 $0.69
    Iphone 39 $4.62 $1.37 $9.99 $0.01

    This tool will actually make you more money then the tool cost, now that’s a big bonus for any eBay seller who wishes to boost their sales.

    Go ahead and get a Free Terapeak Trial right now, and see for yourself. You will be glad you did.

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