10 Ways to ensure positive feedback

Your reputation on eBay will depend very much upon your feedback score which is your biggest eBay selling tool bar none. If you have poor eBay feedback you will struggle to make sales and your eBay business will suffer. Therefore you have to protect your eBay feedback as much as possible. Here are 10 tips that will help you maintain an excellent feedback rating and ensure that neutral or negative feedbacks are kept to a minimum. (You will inevitably and almost certainly unfairly pick up the odd negative because there are some strange people around.)

1. Always be polite in all correspondence. This goes without saying, you should always treat your customers with respect and give them a pleasant buying experience. By doing so you may gain a customer for life.

2. Avoid excessive shipping charges. If you charge £5 shipping for an item and the cost is only £1 you are leaving yourself open to negative feedback.

3. Mail your items as soon as possible. Don’t wait till the end of the week. Taking too long to deliver your goods means you are risking your feedback. You should always aim to have items packaged and sent within 48 hours of payment.

4. Make sure your item description is accurate. Don’t say your item is as good as new if it’s not. This is probably the most common reason for negative feedback.

5. Answer emails promptly. Don’t wait days and days to answer any queries. This only makes your customer frustrated and this can result in a negative comment.

6. List any flaws your item has. If the item you are selling has a scratch or mark say so or you could be left a negative comment for a poor item description.

7. Don’t retaliate to awkward customers. Sometimes you may get an awkward or offensive customer, that’s life. Don’t retaliate, just deal with their query in a polite and professional manner. This usually ends in the customer apologising and excellent feedback follows.

8. Accept returns. If a customer is not happy with your product for whatever reason allow them to return the item and refund their purchase minus shipping fees. You can then cancel the transaction through eBay and you will get your fees returned and therefore wont be out of pocket. This leaves you free to relist the item with your feedback intact.

9. Package your items carefully. If you are selling delicate items make sure they are packaged carefully with plenty of protection, the last thing you want is your customer to receive damaged goods.

10, Don’t leave feedback first. If you do you are leaving yourself open to negative comments. A happy customer will always leave feedback first, if you leave feedback first you will learn the hard way, trust me.

Remember! Your customer is a real living person. I think sometimes people forget this, try to make the whole buying experience as easy and pleasant as possible. Your customers are the lifeblood of your eBay business and your number one goal should be to make them happy. This can only result in excellent feedback and in turn success for your eBay business.

Selling Children's Items on Ebay

Selling for a profit on eBay is easy when you have kids. People are earning hundreds of pounds a month by selling child related items. Here are some general ideas to help you get started.

Childrens Items You Can Sell

Clothes, toys and videos are good money makers on eBay.

Go to eBay and look up a "lot" of size six girl's cloths. You will find they are expensive! The average price for a lot of 20 good conditioned clothes is about £17.

When your kids grow out of their seasonal clothes do not throw them out. Bundle them into different lots by category. For example bundle girls dresses separate from girls play clothes, but only do that if you have at least six of each different type.

Lots of any item sell better than single items unless the item is unique or high priced. For example, a hand embroidered dress that you paid a lot for would sell better by itself instead of bundled with other basic dresses.

The next item to lookup on eBay is toys. Most toys in good condition will sell for a lot of money. One idea that works well is to buy hot items in October at Wal-Mart or Toys-R-Us and sell them on eBay. Busy people are willing to pay extra for the convenience of getting the items delivered to their home. For example, last year a Mega Power Ranger came out in stores around October and sold at Toy R Us for about £25. The same item sold on eBay for up £35 plus shipping. The Yellow Power Ranger is yet another example where the store price was about £3 but was sellin gon eBay for around £10.

Have your children ever received duplicate birthday or Christmas presents? You can sell those on eBay also. Look at the eBay listings for items of interest to see if selling on eBay is worth more than returning the item to the store.

Kid's videos and DVDs are also good money-makers. Bundle about three of these together, and you can usually make about £3 - £6 per bundle. Bundle more and the money goes up. Disney movies in hard cases can go for a higher amount. This also works for other types of movies as well.

Save those McDonalds toys. Some Kids Meals toys sell high. Take the new Star Wars toys from Burger King...very collectible. You will find them selling on eBay from £1 to £3, not including shipping.

Ebay has a whole section devoted to dolls and bears. If your daughter doesn't want her collectible dolls anymore sell them on eBay.

Kids Crafts You Can Sell

Around the holidays, especially, have your children place their hand in paint and make a print on some quality paper. Add a holiday related poem and you have a great craft to sell on eBay.

Have your kids make gift jars with ready made mixes. For example, hot chocolate mixes in a jar with a plastic spoon tied to it with a ribbon. Dip the end of the spoon with white chocolate.

Baby Items You Can Sell

Used baby items are very profitable. Baby items cost a lot of money, especially in their first year. Any "gently" used items are generally good sellers on eBay.

If you have baby coupons that you will never use, sell them on eBay! Left over diapers and formula sell well also. A lot of 35 used cloth diapers usually sells for around £15 plus shipping..

There you have it. Plenty of ideas for selling those leftover kids items on eBay...and you can even make a nice profit while you are at it!

Online auction sites

When people think of online bidding and auction sites, they think of eBay first. This is because eBay is arguably the most popular and successful of all of them. However, there are many more out there, and there may be advantages to using those that are less known to the general public. Some have a large variety of things just like eBay, but others have a niche market and do quite well with those things. When searching for something special, don’t forget to find the smaller ones to see what they have to offer.

Though eBay is very large and successful, it also has some large problems. They can not monitor everything on the site due to the sheer volume, and some things are listed that should not be there. Though eBay members can report things that are not supposed to be on their auctions sites, they often miss some items. Smaller auction sites might have more success with keeping things legal and monitoring what is going on with each auction. Total control is still out of the question, but they have an easier time with it.

Some auction sites have nothing but one category. There is one out there that is geared towards jewellery, and I am pretty sure I found one once that had nothing but clothing. If you find it hard to navigate a site as large as eBay to find the one specific thing that you need, you might want to check out such auction sites to see if you have an easier time finding what you need from them. You might be surprised what you find when you look. There are some cautions with using smaller sites, however.

In the UK the main rivals to eBay are QXL, CQout and Buy it UK. You can find a fuller list if you go to the Directory link on this site. There are also specialist sites such as golfbidder and Soccer4sale. There have also been a whole host of individuals trying to launch online auction sites but most have found little success. Currently it has been estimated that eBay have over 90% of the market in the UK.

One thing to check out before placing a bid with any of the auction sites is how they handle their business. They should have some sort of buyer protection in the event that an auction is a fraud. This happens fairly regularly, and if the site offers no protection from this type of activity, it might not be a good idea to bid there. Many people are honest, but the few that aren’t spoil it for everyone else. If you don’t know if auction sites can help you if you are scammed, perhaps you should find somewhere else to bid. Things get lost in the mail, and things break en route to destination, but some things never made it out of the post office because they were never sent and may have never existed. Learn to protect yourself and your money.

eBay Description Writing Tips

A well written description can add many add pounds to your final selling price it is well worth spending some time thinking about your item descriptions.

At its heart, your item description is an ad. Without making it too obvious, you should be writing sales copy. You're trying to get buyers excited about your products, and that's usually hard - but on eBay, if you have the right thing to sell and give enough details, the buyers almost excite themselves.

Technical Details

Include every technical detail you know, including the item's manufacturer, its condition, how big it is, where and when it was made, its history, and anything else special about it. Don't be too boring, though: the best descriptions are written in friendly, conversational language, and show a real knowledge of the item. Whatever you do, make sure you tell the truth!

Remember that most of the people who'll be buying your item will be just as knowledgeable about it as you are, if not more - this is their hobby, and they're experts. Don't feel like you need to explain the basics of the item: just go into as much technical detail as you can. As a rule, don't write anything in the description if you don't know what it means, as the chances are someone will, and if you've got it slightly wrong then you'll look like you don't know what you're talking about.

Interesting Details

You might find that you enjoy writing a few things about how you got the item, why you're selling it, and who you think might like it. This isn't strictly necessary, but it gives your auctions some character and a personal touch, and can make people more likely to trust you. People might wonder what you're doing selling 500 CDs all at once, and if you tell them the reason, then they'll feel reassured that nothing dodgy is going on. If you're selling them because you're having a baby and you need the space, just say so.

Write as Much as You Can

Leave nothing out of your description, even if that seems to you like it makes it cumbersomely long. There is no way you can be too thorough: someone, somewhere will appreciate that you took the time to write the extra information.

Don't assume that anyone who wants extra information will email you to ask a question: many buyers are shy and won't do it. Think of questions that buyers might have and add the answers to your description, as people generally tend to ask the same questions over and over again.

Each time a buyer does email you with a question, you should both answer their question and update your description so that it will include the answer next time. If people ask questions that are answered in the description, try putting these parts of the auction on a line alone, or in bold, to make them easier to notice.

Latest eBay News

There has been quite a bit in the press this weekend about fraud on eBay. The Sunday People highlighted the case of Stacey Humble who lost £4,600 when she tried to buy a VW Beetle on eBay.
Full Story
Interestingly this week the Western Mail carried a letter from Mathew Phillips who was recently convicted and imprisoned for defrauding eBayers by selling non existent Ryder Cup tickets. Writing from his prison cell he gives his side of the story. For more information.
If you are interested in buying a dress worn by the late Princess Diana you have until Wednesday to get your bid in. Diana wore the chiffon gown and matching neck scarf, both designed by Catherine Walker, to the Cannes Film Festival in 1987 and the London opening of "Miss Saigon" in 1989. To read more…

Finally today I came across an very amusing but unofficial “eBay song” on YouTube.
These guys seem pretty talented to me but see what you think. ”
eBay Song

Do You Know----- How Did Ebay Come To Be?

eBay is Twelve Years old! -- That's right, this giant is only 12 years old. eBay was created in September 1995 by a man named Pierre Omidyar who was living in San Jose. He wanted his site, then called "AuctionWeb" to be an online marketplace, and wrote the first code for it in one weekend. It was one of the first websites of its kind in the world. The name eBay comes from the domain Omidyar used for his site. His company's name was Echo Bay and the 'eBay AuctionWeb' was originally just one part of Echo Bay's website at ebay.com. The first thing ever sold on the site was Omidyar's broken laser pointer for which he received $14.00.

The site quickly became massively popular, as sellers came to list all sorts of odd things and buyers actually bought them. Relying on trust seemed to work remarkably well, and meant that the site could almost be left alone to run itself. The site had been designed from the start to collect a small fee on each sale and it was this money that Omidyar used to pay for AuctionWeb's expansion. The fees quickly added up to more than his current salary and so he decided to quit his job and work on the site full time. It was at this point, in 1996, that he added the feedback facilities to let buyers and sellers rate each other and make buying and selling safer.

In 1997 Omidyar changed the site's name and his company's name to eBay, which is what people had been calling it for a long time. He began to spend a lot of money on advertising and had the ebay logo designed. It was in this year that the one-millionth item was sold. It was a toy version of Big Bird from Sesame Street.

Then, in 1998, the peak of the dotcom boom, eBay became big business. The investment in Internet businesses at the time allowed it to bring in senior managers and business strategists who took it public on the stock market. It started to encourage people to sell more than just collectibles and quickly became a massive site where you could sell anything, large or small. Unlike other sites at that time, eBay survived the end of the boom and is still going strong today.

1999 saw eBay go worldwide, launching sites in the UK, Australia, and Germany. eBay bought half.com, an Amazon-like online retailer in the year 2000. The same year it introduced Buy It Now. PayPal, an online payment service, was purchased in 2002.

Pierre Omidyar has now earned an estimated 3 billion dollars from eBay and still serves as Chairman of the Board. Oddly enough, he keeps a personal weblog at http://pierre.typepad.com There are now literally millions of items bought and sold every day on eBay all over the world. For every 100 dollars spent online worldwide, it is estimated that 14 dollars is spent on eBay -- that's a lot of laser pointers.

How to avoid the eBay Scams

The truth is that nearly all eBay transaction go through without the slightest trouble. But there are people out there who are just waiting for an opportunity to relieve you of your money without giving anything in return.

At least once a week there is a report of somebody being jailed for operating some type of eBay scam. There are many different types of scams such as selling non existent goods to persuading the seller to send items before they receive the money.

You may wonder how people can get taken in by some of the more obvious scams on eBay but they do. The obvious way of avoiding these scams is to know what signs to look for. I have recently coma across an article from non profit making Consumer Reports.org called Winning at eBay. Read this and you should be well prepared to
spot and avoid being cheated. To read the article go to http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/personal-finance/ebay-8-07/overview/0708_ebay_ov_1.htm

Why You Should Specialize on eBay

Specializing in one particular area is a great way to ensure that you make the most possible money out of your ventures. There are many reasons why you should specialize in one area, but I will discuss a few of the most important.

First of all, when you specialize in an area, you have the potential to become a “go-to” person in the area. For example, if you sell plus-sized lingerie, you will eventually develop a following of people who visit your auctions on a regular basis looking for new plus-sized lingerie. If you make your buyers very satisfied with their purchases, and they truly enjoy dealing with you, they will look up your auctions specifically every time they need new lingerie. You will be the first person they “go to” when they need what you sell.

Secondly, you can be seen as an expert in your area if you specialize. If you're selling household items, a few items of pottery, and several types of clothing all at once, people are going to see that as very random. They won't trust that you know what you are talking about with regards to that rare piece of Wedgwood, because your auction history shows that you have only ever sold five pieces of pottery or china and none of it was Wedgwood. How can they be sure that you even know it is authentic? But if they look at your feedback and see that you've sold dozens of pieces of Wedgwood, they can feel more confident that you know the difference between an authentic piece and a reproduction.

Another great reason to specialize is that you will learn better sources to get the items you sell. If you are selling a wide range of items, you won't have as much time to seek out better and better sources for your merchandise. But if you specialize, you can work on a close basis with one or two suppliers to get better terms and prices for your items. You will also be able to learn more about your items, so that you'll always know you're getting the best price. If you are selling too many different items, it will be much harder to learn everything you need to know about the items.

You might also consider naming yourself something related to what you are selling. If you sell Wedgwood china, you might name yourself “Wedgwood_China_Source”, or “Wedgwood Jennifer”. When people see your name, they will know right away that you will probably have even more items in your other auctions, and they will be more likely to click the link to see what else you are selling.

Going Above and Beyond as an eBay Seller

There are many, many ways to set yourself apart from the competition on eBay and get more than your fair share of your market. You need to get a little bit creative and try to put yourself into your buyers' shoes. What you need to do is absolutely shock your buyers at the level of service you provide. I'm going to give you a few examples, but I'm sure you'll be able to think of many ideas on your own.

One thing you can do is offer an optional service for buyers where they can ship a gift to someone else. You could offer gift-wrapping for free with any item over a certain price, and ship it with a gift message to anyone they choose. There is one point to keep in mind here, however. This type of service is sometimes taken advantage of by people who are using stolen PayPal accounts, so it is up to you to decide whether or not you wish to take that risk. It certainly can be worth it, especially if you are selling items that are very commonly given as gifts. It is also a great service during the Christmas holiday shopping season.

You should also go as far as you possibly can with regards to packing items for shipping. Tossing a piece of delicate glassware into a box wrapped in a couple of layers of newspaper is not good packaging. You should always take great care to carefully package everything you ship as carefully as possible. Buyers will often make extremely glowing positive feedback posts for you if you go out of your way to pack the item carefully. Packing is one extremely important area that you should never, ever skimp on. Even magazines should be packaged with a little extra padding inside the mailer, especially if they are ten years old or older, or sell for over $10.

You might offer a small bonus inside the packages that you send out. One seller that I made a purchase from gave me a sheet of stickers for free with my purchase of a sticker album. The seller did not advertise this in the auction, so I was especially happy with this Another seller included a beautiful bookmark for free with a book purchase, and that bookmark included her eBay seller ID and the URL to her auction listing on the back. This was a great way to offer an unannounced bonus, as well as reminding me to visit her auctions again. And yes, I have bought from her again! Try to keep the bonus related to the item you have sold, if possible. If it's not possible, a generic bonus is still something that sets you apart, and people will definitely appreciate the extra effort.

Include a personalized, hand-written thank you note with each purchase. Your buyer is going to really appreciate that you took the time to thank them, and that you've included their name on the thank you note. Even something very simple like, “Thank you, Lisa!” will go a long way toward making your buyer happier with their purchase.

Shipping very quickly is extremely important to the way people see you on eBay. If you only ship once or twice per week, it is probably going to hurt your business somewhat. If you really cannot ship any more often than that, it is extremely important to state this fact very, very clearly in your auctions!

One final point is that you should always answer every single e-mail quickly and courteously. Even if you think a question is stupid or the tone of the e-mail is rude, be professional and respectful, and respond quickly. That angry buyer might be a really nice person who is genuinely interested in buying from you, but just happened to be in a bad mood that day.