Ebay Seller Mistake

Ebay Seller Mistake, If you are trying to make money on eBay, you need to start with avoiding mistakes. Follow these proven auction success tips to help make sure your profits don’t slip through the cracks.

Strategy #1 - Failure to have continuity in the sales process

This mistake is also very common among people who sell products online, both at auction sites and on their individual websites.

This cannot be stated too strongly, if you’re just selling on eBay, you’re really missing out on what’s out there. You’re truly missing the mark.

If you look at the majority of the successful products that are sold, you’ll notice that they have continuity in the sales process. What is continuity in the sales process?

Well, whenever you sell a product, make sure that you take the time to inform the customer of other products that you sell. Whenever a product is bought or sold, have an opportunity to acquire the email address of the customer to let them know that:

Strategy #2 - You also can use that email address as a marketing tool to give them free reports free updates; free information about how you can make them more successful in terms of whatever they’re doing.

Another thing - this alone is worth going over. Another thing you want to make sure is that in every product you sell that you have a backend catalog at the end, whatever it is that you’re selling. You want to make sure that you give the customer information about other products that you have.

This is a win-win situation. Why? Well for one, if the customer has bought from you and they know that you deliver value and they know you deliver value for a very good price; chances are they may come back to you. Generally, every 3rd or 4th customer you do business with will ask you for other products.

It is important to realize that you have to have some type of continuity in your sales process. When you have continuity in your sales process you’re leveraging your marketing dollars. You’re giving the customers and potential customers, through referrals, information about what other items you offer for sale.

That is a very important factor in success and anyone who is buying or selling products online should make sure that you have good continuity in your sales process.

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eBay Checklist - 8 Sellers Steps to Good eBay Customer Service

Being a responsible seller takes effort. Here is a checklist that will help you keep on top of things in case you are worried you have missed anything.

1. Research your item
Researching your item is very important to improve your sales and guarantee your eBay selling success. Type the names into a search engine - use the additional information in your description or headline. Compare your item to another sellers and make sure your description is better and more detailed eg. iPhones  compared to iPhones - Black 16GB iPhone gets 1569 searches. iPhones gets 127,000 searches but this will include accessories, Nano's and anything related your item will be drowned if your are not specific

2. Monitor competition/powersellers
With similar items to yours for sales, pricing and marketing. Make sure you look at the type of auction, the description, post and packagaing, terms of service. If you look ata successful seller learn from them to improve your sales and profits.

3. Item description
When you offer international delivery on eBay, be clear about your delivery charges for international delivery. Your TOS or terms of service deals with any possible problems and will guide the buyer on refund policy and procedures. This not only clears up any confusion but ensures buyers behave in a consistent way and reduces any problems.

4. Pictures
Use a digital camera to take pictures. Make sure they are of all the angles to give eBay bidders a good idea of what the time looks like and the condition. Use a 3rd party hosting site to host additional pictures to save money on your listing and place the link on the description.

5. Customer service email
Descriptive transaction email are important: Confirm that the buyer has won the bid , add in the payment terms and postage information as a reminder that they have won the bid and the payment method to use. Make sure you thank the for the payment and confirm when the item has been posted with instructions on how to contact you if any problems. It's surprising how many problems you avoid just by communicating this way.

6. Monitor your emails
Email request get sent all the time by potential buyers about your item at any time, and not answering these emails could lose you customers. Use these questions to build a FAQ to answer peoples questions without creating work for yourself.

7. Wrapping items correctly
Professional wrapping creates good impression: use appropriately sized parcels and/or envelopes. Use bubble wrap to stop your item from getting damaged. Include a print out/invoice and if possible a picture of the sold item to ensure confirmation of what was bought and the condition. Print labels are more professional and save time. Make sure you use first class trackable post or parcel delivery companies but specify this in the TOS for the buyer to choose.

8. Post Sale communication
Do this a few days after you post an item, ask if there were any problems with the item. This ensures good customer service and reduces complaints and provides a way for customers to mention issues and you to deal with them before bad feedback affects your reputation.
Good customer service is very important to really good eBay seller. This protects your reputation and improves your DSR status and visibility when listing items. When dealing with new or first time buyers a good reputation ensures return customers and builds trust.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lance_Lovelady 

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How to Create eBay Listings That Sell at Least 50% of the Time

How to Create eBay Listings
1. Item description
You must write a clear, informative and lengthy item description. Always be truthful in your description and include in your description any defects with the product. Look at one of the sample items I found on eBay in advanced eBay selling for one great and one terrible description.
2. A good picture
As the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words and that is certainly true with selling online because the customer can no longer feel or see the item themselves so they need your picture and description to replace that experience.
3. Reasonable shipping
The thing buyers hate most is finding a great deal but realizing shipping is going to cost them an arm and a leg. I find the most successful listings for the buyer and the seller charge for the full cost of the shipping + the packaging materials. The other option is to give free shipping as eBay favors this but only do so if you can afford this and still have a healthy profit margin. You could always include some of the cost of the shipping in the item price and then offer free shipping.
4. Price
Yes, I rate price at number 4 because contrary to what you have probably heard is that price isn't that important. of course you need to be competitive but if you look professional, take a good picture, describe your item well and charge reasonably for shipping then you can often sell for far more than the other sellers. This is because people still aren't that confident buying online and when you promise to offer a professional service and back that up by looking professional then people are willing to pay more for that confidence. Go to increase your eBay profits to see the proof for this and to learn more about increasing your sales and decreasing your time.

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How to Improve Your eBay Profit Margin

There is a way to acquire sales information for previous auctions for free but it has its limitations. eBay provides this data on its site but one is limited to the last 14 days of sales but it is possible to see up to 90 days by using a third party provider. Terapeak, which is based in Victoria, Canada is a web-based research tool which allows someone to look back at all sales on eBay for the past 3 months and at product sales trends for the past 2 years. Since Terapeak is an eBay Certified Provider, all of the sales data that is given comes directly from the eBay market research team.
One of the first arguments for doing research before buying or selling on eBay could be that supply and demand for some or most items, along with sale prices, can change quickly. Terapeak provides a great deal of current marketplace research but some of my favorite areas of the site that I use daily are summed up below.
Sell-Through Rate - This number gives the percentage of successfully completed auctions. 50% or higher is usually considered a good number on eBay.
The Average Sales Price - If the filters are used during search, this can be a real shortcut to arrive at your target price but otherwise it is best to search for a very similar item in the completed auction area that you plan to buy or sell and use the price of that item instead of the average price for the category.
Research auctions that have already ended - Discover what made other auctions a success. Did the auction start at a low bid or fixed price? What day and time did it end and how many days did the auction run? Was free shipping offered? Were optional features such as "Bold" for text or "Featured Plus" for top placement in search results used for higher final prices?
I use Terapeak nearly every day and let it do the heavy lifting for me when it comes to research on eBay and find it to be a great value and an easy to use tool.
 

 

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21 Success Strategies of eBay Powersellers

21 Success Strategies of eBay Powersellers
by Dave Espino

The online auction giant - eBay - has exploded on the Internet scene. eBay is one of the most visible and far-reaching Internet companies in existence, with a large segment of the population either using the service, or at the very least, aware of it. Among eBay sellers, there's a designation given to approximately 4% of them...

These are eBay's "Powersellers", a group of auction sellers that is distinguished by the amount of volume they produce.

The entry-level Powerseller, the Bronze level, does at least $2,000 a month in eBay sales, maintains a 99% positive feedback level and maintains their eBay account current. Higher award levels are granted at the $10,000 level, (Silver level) and at the $25,000 level. (Gold level)

What are some of the strategies and techniques these PowerSellers use?

As someone who achieved Powerseller status several years ago and continues to study other Powersellers, here are Dave Espino's 21 Success Strategies of eBay Powersellers...

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