How Professional Ebay Auction Templates Can Boost Your Ebay Sales

Do you like to sell on eBay? It’s easy and fun, isn’t it? In fact, it’s one of the easiest online business you can start almost overnight, without any major investments. That’s the best thing about it. But do you also know that only the minority of the people selling on eBay are really successful and that most of them quit after a little while or run it only as a hobby. Yes, that’s true. Hard facts, but the truth. So, what are the secrets of those successful eBay sellers? Well, the most important thing to become successful is a unique product. That’s the first thing. In case you don’t have a unique product, you can sell products which are in high demand, eg. children clothing, designer clothing, digital cameras, etc. But you have to keep in mind that your item has to compete with 100 similar products – maybe even to a better price. So if you are selling products which are highly competitive, then your sales letter has to be DIFFERENT. No, not only different, it has to be UNIQUE. And not only unique!! Your listing has to be PROFESSIONAL.

Let me tell you about our experiment. We have tried various listings for the same item. And what do you think which listing got the most bids? Right, listings with a professional UNIQUE design end up with 30-40% more bids. Can you imagine that? It was exactly the same item. Just the design of the sales letter can make a massive difference in the end price you may get. It’s just amazing. We have saying in German: “Das Auge isst mit”. The translation is something like: “If it looks nice it has to taste better”. Well, as we know this is not always true though, but that’s the psychology of our human brain. If the overall impression of the food is good, an impulse is sent to the brain: This has to taste good – I want to try that. It’s the same thing with buying in a shop or on eBay. If the auction website of the item you are looking at looks nice, the product has to be good and it’s more likely that you click on the “Bid now” button. We have seen that many times and especially with our little experiment.

So, if you use professional looking eBay auction templates for your listings, you will be surprised how this may boost your eBay business. Try to modify your templates and see which perform better. You will notice that a tiny change can make a huge difference. Keep track which templates has generated what prices and compare after a month. You’ll see that some templates do really well and some don’t. Be creative and modify your templates. But be careful! Don’t overdo it though with bright colours an a dozen animated gifs. No, that’s not what the buyer wants to see. They want to have a clear and honest description and a good picture. If the overall design is professional, believe me – it’s more likely that they place a bid. And at the end of the day – that’s all it counts, doesn’t it?

When You Need Extra Cash, Ebay Fits The Bill

We all have items in our closets and stuffed in drawers that we no longer have a use for. Some of us use our free time to manufacture craft items that we give to our friends and families for gifts, and still others of us buy candles and other items in bulk to sell to family and co workers for a little extra cash. Anyone with something that they no longer need or want to sell has options to help create a little more cash flow. EBay is an online community providing auction services for buyers and sellers of just about everything. The question remains, though, how to utilize this website in the best way to make the most money?

The first thing to consider is what you want to sell. Looking over your items, would it be better to sell them off one item at a time, or to sell a bulk lot at some discount from the individual cost of the items. Another thing to consider is if you want to use the buy it now option. This allows someone to pay a preset price for the item, if there have not been any other bids, and avoid the auction proceedings. If you have multiple items, do you want to spend the cost for multiple listings, or do a dutch auction, where there are multiple items that are sold for a set bid price? This allows multiple people to get the items from the same auction.

The next thing to look at is who is offering the same items that you are. Searching for items brings up a listing, and this allows you to see what type of descriptions and advertisements get the bids, and which ones do not work. This will allow you to make sure that your descriptions are written to make the most of the space available.

Looking into how many people are offering items similar to yours also helps when deciding how to market your items. Consideration needs to be made to starting bid range, how much the winning bids were, and how the items were offered. Looking into these things allows you to price your items low enough to get bids, but still high enough to prevent losing money.

Ebay - The Power Of The Misspell

Anybody looking for a1984 Don Mattingly rookie basball card? How about a pair of stirling silver demitasse spoons in your grandmother’s pattern?

The last time I checked, you can find them on eBay, along with a number of basball caps and other misspelled items. Believe it or not, some people still don’t know how to spell check. But, bless their little misspelled harts, because you can use their errors to profit on eBay.

Every day items go up for auction with typos and misspells in the titles. The problem is that a large number of people search for items to buy using the search box, not browsing through the category listings. Therefore, the misspelled items are the ones that usually don’t fetch the bids they deserve because they’re not getting traffic. Sometimes you can pick these items up for a song. And, once you’re done singing what can you do? Resell the item on eBay, properly spelled of course, for quite a nice profit.

Some sellers have even begun to capitalize on eBay misspells by selling programs designed to find misspelled auctions. However, just typing in some of the most common typos and misspells into the search box will often times yield great results. (If the correct spelling automatically pops up, that means there were no items with that particular misspell.)

How do you know what a common typo or misspell is? One way to find them is to go to misspell sites such as www.searchspell.com, where you will find typo and misspell suggestions for any word you type in. Some common typos are often caused by leaving out a letter, such as in basball. You could also type in baseall and see several other items for sale. Transposing letters is another common typo, such as baesball, where, once again, you may find some items for sale.

Another way to utilize misspells on eBay is to include the most popular misspell in your title along with the correct spelling. The reason being that some people mistype or misspell the item they’re searching into the search box. For example, a Jack Lalanne Juicer is often typed in as Jack Lalane Juicer. That is a very common misspell, and numerous people type that into the search box when searching for a Jack Lalanne Juicer. If you type in Lalanne and Lalane into the title you are able to grab both sets of people, those who are spelling it correctly, and those who are not. You’ve just increased traffic to your auction.

Savvy eBay sellers (and buyers) are utilizing typos and misspells to their advantage. Give it a try. You might find yourself stumbling onto quite a few treasures.

How To Use A WYSIWYG HTML Editor To Make Stunning Ebay Auction Listings.

What kind of browser are you using for online surfing? Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera?? Sure, all are good programs but I want to talk about an excellent program called Netscape. If you use Netscape, do you know that you also get an amazing WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web design program called Netscape Composer for free? Basically you don’t need expensive HTML editors anymore. The list of commercially available HTML editors software is endless – and the price tags are enormous. Most people don’t want to spend a lot of money to get started with their eBay business. Fair enough, since the goal is to make money and not to spend money. So it makes perfect sense to use a program to design auction listings which is available for free. And such a program is Netscape Composer.

It has the same professional features like FrontPage or any other similar program. To design stunning and professional looking eBay auction sites with Netscape Composer you need to download Netscape first. If you start up the program, select File->New Composer Page and basically you can start immediately to design your auction listings. You can make you letters in any colour, bold, italics, use background colours (or even images) etc. The options are endless. You can save this file on your local hard drive as html file. I used to have one file for every listing I generate. The best thing is that once you have got a nice and professional looking eBay auction listing, you can use it for ever. Just open your last listing in Netscape Composer and edit according to your new item. Amazingly, this takes only a couple of minutes.

But how do you transfer your listing saved as a html file on your local hard drive to eBay? The answer is simple. Once you have logged in into your eBay account and selected your category and starting price you have to type in your “item description”. Did you see that eBay allows HTML format? Have a look when you launch your next listing. That’s the time where you go back to your new listing you just have created with Netscape Composer. Down the bottom of your Netscape Composer page you’ll see a button called: SOURCE - the source code of your listing. Click on that and highlight and copy the entire text. Select then the eBay site and paste this text into the “Item description box”. Make sure that all links are working and that all photos are uploaded to the internet.

When you have finalised your listing you will be surprised. A stunning and professional looking “DIY-listing”. You can always use “ready-to-go” auction templates and edit these according to your item. You’ll see that with an professional auction design you can easily attract more buyers and get higher bids. It’s worth the effort. Keep in mind that professional web design software is highly expensive and does the same job. Alternatively, you can choose from a huge variety of third party auction services doing the job for you. But hey, there are incredibly expensive too. Don’t you think that the eBay fees are high enough and you can easily do it yourself without spending any additional dollars. It’s really simple!

Ebay And Dropshipping

eBay and Dropshipping go together like a hand in a glove. As you read this article, right now, thousands of eBayers are running there own auction business. Some of them make little money, and some of them make real huge profits. Why? It is mostly due to the products they choose to sell, the Dropshippers they use and how they promote their eBay Business.

If you are new to Internet Marketing, promotion of your new eBay Business is key. Also, staying up to date with all the new and better ways to advertise and promote your business is cruical. Things on the Internet can change almost over night and to keep your eBay Business making money you must keep up with those changes. But don't be discouraged, the ease of using dropshippers will allow you more time to concentrate on improving your sales skills and learning how to bring more customers to your eBay auctions.

The great thing about dropshipping, is that it will allow you to operate a Home Based Business as an Internet Marketer with out ever worrying about storage of inventory, packaging of inventory, or even shipping of that inventory. How? The dropship supplier will look after all of that for you. And even greater still is the fact that your auction business will cost you very little to get started. The fact is, most dropshippers charge you nothing to become a member to sell their products. While others may charge just a nominal administration fee. So, with such a low financial risk the only thing you have to lose is a bit of your time.

How does one put together eBay and Dropshipping? It's really very simple. First, browse eBay to see what kind of product(s) you would like to sell. Then sign up as a member with eBay. Once you have decided on a product(s), locate a dropshipper for that product(s). Sign up with that dropshipper and then place an auction on eBay for the item.. Once your auction is over and you have a buyer for the product email your dropshipper the required information. The dropshipper will ship the product directly to your customer, and charge your account the wholesale price for that product. The difference between the wholesale price and your retail price is pure profit!.

To run a successful eBay Business you will need to sell what the public wants to buy. Always research any product before you decide to sell it. Make sure it is popular and you can get it at a great price.

Happy Selling!

PayPal dispute/claim information for buyers

Filing a dispute/claim with PayPal for an eBay auction.

Buyers can file a claim with eBay by going to the closed auction while signed into the eBay site and clicking on the "report the item as not received" link in the page header. If your payment was made through PayPal, the filing process will carry you over to the PayPal site, there's no need to file in 2 places.

Claims can also be filed from this link

The first stage of the dispute process is a 20 day communication forum between the buyer and seller. If a buyer is not satisfied with the communication stage, the buyer can escalate the dispute to a claim at any time. The seller can escalate the dispute to a claim at any time as well. If the buyer doesn't escalate the dispute to a claim within the 20 days allotted, the dispute is closed forever and the buyer cannot reopen the dispute/claim. Buyers should be aware that sellers CAN refund a buyer in the dispute/claim process without the buyer having to close the dispute/claim, do NOT let a seller convince you to close it.

PayPal will only freeze the funds in the seller's account if it's over $100.00 so it's important that buyers select sellers wisely by checking feedback left and received by the seller, recognizing the red flags to a fraudulent transaction like posted here and looking for the PayPal Buyer Protection in the auction for up to $1000 coverage, see icon here.

In the event that the auction is removed from the eBay site and you have received an email from eBay stating this with information saying you should not send payment, you need to file a claim right away. You can file a claim like this:

PayPal.com > Login > Security Center > Item Not Received

Make sure you escalate the dispute to a claim immediately.

If the claim is found in the buyer's favor-

If the auction doesn't qualify for the PayPal Buyer Protection and the amount of the claim is not in the seller's account then it's up to the seller to do the right thing and refund. If the seller does not refund and the account is empty then PayPal refers the claim to the eBay Standard Protection Program also called the SP3. See here. If a buyer is refunded using the eBay Standard Protection Program there is a $25.00 USD processing fee for eBay to refund the buyer.

If the auction does qualify for the PayPal Buyer Protection for up to $1000 coverage, there are some requirements that the buyer has to have met to qualify for the refund.

1. File the dispute via the PayPal Online Dispute Resolution process within 45 days of the date of the payment, and then escalate the dispute into a claim.
2. Send a single PayPal payment for the full price of the item to the PayPal account specified by the seller in the listing. If the buyer sends payment to a different PayPal account, even at the seller's request, the transaction will not be covered by PayPal Buyer Protection.
3. Associate the PayPal payment with the eBay listing. For example, when paying through the Send Money tab, the buyer must select "eBay Item" as the payment type and must enter the correct Item Number before making the payment. ***Be aware of sellers that say "For credit card payments pay this account, for eChecks & instant transfers, pay this account" buyers will lose PayPal Buyer Protection by paying this way***

To be sure you meet the above requirements, PayPal suggests paying via the gray "Pay Now" button on the closed eBay listing.

This policy applies only to the sale of tangible, physical goods.

The above information is from this link.

Once PayPal has closed the claim in the buyers favor, the buyer is free to file a chargeback dispute with their credit card company. If the buyer used a debit card for the purchase through PayPal and the card has the Mastercard or Visa card logo, the buyer may have chargeback rights, the buyer needs to contact their issuing bank for more information. Buyers must wait until PayPal/eBay closes the the claim before filing with their credit/debit card company, PayPal can and has closed PayPal accounts for this, from the User Agreement:

iv. Consistent failure to pursue the Buyer Complaint Process described below before pursuing any alternate reversal process provided by the buyer's issuing bank. Policy is here.

If a buyer feels as though they will miss the deadline in filing the credit/debit card chargeback by waiting for the investigation to be closed by PayPal/eBay, buyers are protected.

If PayPal resolves a claim in the buyer’s favor but the buyer does not receive a full recovery of their payment, and if the time for processing of the claim results in the buyer’s loss of credit card chargeback rights, then PayPal will provide a full recovery to the buyer.

Section 5 here.

It is strongly suggested that buyers purchase from sellers that have the PayPal Buyer Protection in the auctions, especially if the buyer doesn't have a credit or debit card for chargeback rights.

Canceling Bids and Listings

Ending listings before their time

As a seller you've had bad experiences with low-feedback buyers in the past, and now you're determined not to deal with anyone whose feedback score is below ten. But someone with a feedback score of zero has just bid on your auction for your grandfather's guitar and you'd like to remove their bid.

Or maybe you've put your baby, a '56 Chevy, on sale at eBay Motors only to find that bidding isn't going as well as you'd hoped, and you're ready to call it quits and try to sell locally rather than online.

Not to worry! As a seller, eBay provides you with several of tools that can help you to limit the body of people that you transact with, or that can help you to cancel an auction when you decide that you don't want to sell any longer, for whatever reason.

Canceling or Restricting Bids

To cancel a single bid on one of your auction listings, use the eBay cancel bid form, supplying the item number and the eBay member ID of the bidder whose bid you want to cancel.

When you fill out and submit the form, all of the bids placed by the bidder will be removed from the auction and the current bid amount will be recalculated according to the eBay proxy bidding process.

To prevent a given bidder from bidding on your auctions at all, use the eBay blocked bidder or buyer form, supplying a comma-separated list of the eBay members (by member ID) that should be prevented from bidding on your auction listings.

Canceling and/or Ending Ongoing Listings

If for some reason you decide that you no longer want to sell an item listed in an open auction, or that you want to sell an item immediately at the current bid amount, follow these steps:

Visit the eBay end listing early form and enter the item number of the listing you'd like to end.

Use the form to select either to cancel all bids and end the listing without a winner or to end the listing and accept the current high bid as the winning bidder (you must then sell the item at this price to the current high bidder).
Enter a reason for ending the listing early or for canceling all bids and removing the auction listing.

Once you submit the form, the listing will end and bids will no longer be accepted. If you have opted to cancel all bids and end the listing, you have no further obligations as a seller in relation to the item or service in question. If you have opted to end the listing early and sell to the current high bidder, you'll be expected to complete the transaction with them at the current bid price.

When You Can't Cancel and Exceptions

There is no way to cancel an auction listing or a bid once the auction has ended and a winning bid has occurred. Regardless of your intent, once an auction listing closes and a bidder wins your item or service, you're contractually bound as an eBay seller to accept payment and deliver unless one of the following is true:

It's a real estate auction. Since eBay real estate auctions (listings for land, investment property, or housing) are non-binding, a seller is not required to sell real estate to the highest bidder even when one exists.


The other party's account is suspended. Since no eBay member is required to complete a transaction with a member whose account is suspended, a seller need not complete a transaction if the buyer or winning bidder is suspended from eBay once the listing is complete but before shipment has occurred.


Your listing featured a reserve price. Sellers are not required to sell to the high bidder on an auction listing if there was a reserve price associated with the listing and the reserve price was not met.

The Five Things You Must Do Before Buying On Ebay

As a consumer, you will find many great deals on items that you want and need through eBay auctions. Many people visit eBay on a daily basis looking for auctions for items that they may be interested in – simply because eBay auctions are so much fun!

However, before you start buying on eBay, there are some steps that you need to take. Here are five things you must do before buying on eBay.

1. You can't buy anything without registering first.

Registration is free and only takes a few minutes. You will be asked for credit card information, and this is required before you will be able to bid on auctions. Your email address must be confirmed before your account will become active, so make sure that you use the correct email address.

You will be given the option to sign up for a Paypal account, if you don't already have one, and you should strongly consider doing so. Signing up with Paypal is free and many auctions will require you to have a Paypal account.

2. Once you have completed the registration process, you are ready to start bidding on auctions.

However, don't jump in right away. Navigate around the site a bit, and get a feel for things first. Some unscrupulous sellers try to take advantage of new eBay users, and you must be wary of them.

Start by searching for the items that you are interested in. Using the category list, click on the categories that you feel that you are interested in, and start looking at the open auctions in those categories. You should find the items that you are looking for quite easily.

3. Once you have found items that you want to bid on add the auction to your favorites – but don't place your bid just yet.

Instead, go find old auctions for similar items. See how much those items sold for so that you know how high to bid. Research the item as best as you can. Determine what the item would cost if it were brand new, and what you should bid now on the used item, in the condition that it is in.

4. Learn more about the seller.

Remember, not everyone is honest. Avoid buying from sellers who have low reputations. The reputation system at eBay is an important tool for buyers. This will enable you to determine whether or not you can trust the person that you are buying from.

Read their feedback page. Read the seller's 'About Me' page. Get to know who you are dealing with a little bit better by communicating with the seller about the auction.

5. Place your bid.

Once you know what item you want and how much you should bid on it, you are ready to place your bid.

There are two ways you can do this. Some sellers take bids on their auctions, with the item going to the highest bidder. Others choose to use the 'Buy Now' feature, which means that they have a set reserve price that you must meet – but you are not in competition with other bidders.

This is a typical option that sellers use when they have multiple identical items to sell, or when they sell brand new items on eBay using drop shippers.

If you are entering into an open live auction – where bids are placed and the highest bidder wins – you will need to watch the auction closely to ensure that you keep raising your bid to win the item.

Just make sure that you don't end up winning by paying way too much – unless it is a unique item that won't be found elsewhere!

eBay Policies Overview

eBay's policies are rules and guidelines that create a safe and fair trading environment for all eBay members.

Learning about eBay's policies will help you avoid breaking rules (including the law) and aid you in trading with reliable, trustworthy buyers and sellers.

The most important eBay policy is Your User Agreement.

eBay Policy categories:

• Privacy: Your privacy is our top priority. Read about how your personal information is protected and how it is used.
• Feedback: Rules and guidelines about eBay's system for member reputations.
  Identity: Rules about your contact information and User ID.
• Rules for Everyone: General policies applying to all eBay members, including our Outage Policy, Employee Trading Policy, and more.
• Rules for Buyers: "Always pay for your purchases", and other important rules for buyers.
• Rules for Sellers: Important listing policies and other rules that apply to selling, such as no solicitation of off-site sales and the Tax Policy.
• Prohibited and Restricted Items: Can you buy hippopotamus ivory on eBay? What about selling lottery tickets? Find out in our comprehensive list of banned and restricted items.

Note:

Note:You may contact eBay to report suspicious activity at any time by following the links found at the bottom of most Help pages.

How to Sell

If you want to reach a huge world of potential buyers for your item(s), you've come to the right place:
1. To sell on eBay, you need to register first. It's free to sign up and takes just a few minutes.
2. Next, gather the information you'll need, including:

• A clear and compelling title and description for your item.
• Picture(s) of your item - you can use pictures saved on your computer OR enter the Web site address for pictures hosted on the Web.
• Choose the most appropriate eBay category (or categories) so potential buyers can find your item easily.
• If you're unsure whether your item is allowed on eBay, learn more.
  

3. Then, click the Sell button at the top of any page. and fill out the Sell Your Item form.

Now, just sit back as other eBay members bid on your listing. When the listing is over, you'll receive an email with simple instructions for completing the sale.

Market your item worldwide to millions of eBay users

All you need to do is create a seller's account and list your item on eBay's U.S. site. Once you do so, any item you list will be seen by millions of potential buyers.