Archive

I am afraid that this edition of the Newsletter is being produced in a bit of a rush. As some of you will have noticed we have had all sorts of problems with the UK Auctionline Web Site. I had the idea that it would be a good addition to the site if we added an online forum. The idea is that subscribers would be able to lean from each others experiences and it would be a good place to exchange knowledge and general chat.
Of course nothing is as easy as it seems. Tim found some really good software but it did mean changing the way the site was positioned and structured. The outcome was that it went offline for 5 days and when it did come back online it was not working properly. I am pleased to say that after a pile of phone calls and e-mails it should be OK now. Just for good measure our e-mail server has been playing up as well but again hopefully, (fingers crossed and all that) that is also working fine now.

- STOP PRESS -

If you are suffering with technical difficulties in accessing UKAuctionline.co.uk - please try a forced refresh which on most browsers is the key combination CTRL F5 - this should bring UKAuctionline.co.uk and the Forum up in to the browser.

Plus due to the problems with the server - we have copied the entire UKAuctionline.co.uk website onto the UKAuctionline.com domain name. So for the short-term if you cannot access ukauctionline.co.uk, you can use the site via this address. (excluding the forum)
www.ukauctionline.com

The general web site problems maybe mean that you have not been able to visit the web site to get details of Aprils London workshop. The link on the web site should be working now or you can go direct to www.ukauctionline.co.uk/workshop or www.ukauctionline.com/workshop. Some people have managed to get to the site and bookings are starting to come in. Because of the problems I am not releasing details of the event to the general public until Thursday just to make sure all subscribers get a chance to take advantage of the discount offer.

In the USA eBay sponsor a radio program online, Radio eBay. We have just added a link on the home page of the UK Auction Line Web site so that can go and listen to their programs. I hope you enjoy it.

Dave Bromley

Contents:
1. Two Useful Software Programs
2. The Community
3. Extra Reading
4 . Final Thoughts

Two Useful Software Programs

eBay Selling Manager

This is eBays Auction management system which is designed to make sellers lives easier. You may remember that this service which used to cost I think £3.99 per m0onth was made free at the last eBay fee adjustment review in January. The eBay Auction Manager Pro was also reduced from £6.99 to £4.99 at the same time. The only thing is that I have had a good search around eBay.co.uk and I can’t find anything at all about Auction Manager Pro so if you have had more success please let me know were eBay are hiding the information.

The idea behind the program tool is designed to reduce the time it takes you to manage you listings and sales. The one thing that you have to remember is that this is a management tool and not a listing one. Therefore it works well in conjunction with Turbo Lister.

It reduces the time that you have to spend sending customer e-mails by offering you 7 customisable templates. It also allows you to quickly relist both sold and unsold listing in bulk. The program also allows you to print out labels and invoices.

You can also use the software to store and send your favourite feedback comments without the need to retype them. Not something that I have ever tried or wanted to do but some people may find this feature useful. But what I do like about it is that it does allow you to track your sales and bidding activities.

I don’t really want to say much more about it because if you want more detail go to
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/selling_manager/faq.html.

It is useful, it is free, can I say more.

The Top Keywords

I am having great fun with Brian McGregor’s Keyword Service. Every Monday in my e-mail I get a list of the top 4 searched words in each of 287 eBay categories. These can give you a tremendous advantage over other sellers if you know what are the “hot” keywords for the categories you sell in.

The majority of people use the basic search facility when they are looking for particular items. Knowing which are the top words searchers are using and including them in your listing should ensure that you get more visitors and hopefully bidders to your listing. Brian sells this as a subscription service and you can give it a months trial for as little as £8. For more details http://www.workwinners.com/ukalk.htm

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One of the reasons that I have introduced a UK Auctionline forum is to help develop a community spirit amongst my subscribers. This is not a new idea, eBay have always had a very active community area, which you can access from the eBay home page.

Basically there are 3 types of community facilities on eBay, The UK Community Board which is designed as an area to seek help and advise and as an area to share information. This can be a useful area to go if you want to broaden your knowledge of eBay and online auctions in general. The second is the UK Chat Rooms, you may like these but I don’t think I am a chat room person and the various topics of discussion I have seen in this area hold very little interest for me. The final set of boards are the Global Chat section.

The Global Chat area is predominately American based but there are boards for all the major sales areas such as books, collectibles, Beanie Babies and so on. I have found that you can get some very knowledgeable responses and if you ask a question the board members are more than willing to share their knowledge with you. If you are specialising in a niche market it is also a good way to become known amongst your potential bidders. One slight drawback with the Global Chat rooms is that because the main users are based in the USA the busy periods were you get the most activity tend to be in the middle of the night in the UK.

As a seller, participating in the bulletin board for your specially can be quite useful. Apart from being able to communicate with others who share your interest it can also help to establish your credibility amongst prospective customer. Of course blatant advertising is not permitted but you can subtly promote your business and if you have something interesting and useful to contribute to a chat board you can be sure that people will be visiting your auctions just to see what you have to offer.

The other week I went on to the UK Workshop when eBays “Power Seller of the Month” was answering questions, “MoggieX” his eBay ID. is a young man who sells Computer related components. As a successful UK eBayer his answers to the questions asked was informative and full of common sense. If you go to the UK Workshop Board now the transcript of that session is available to read.

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The UK Auction Line News is published by Ezeeweb Solutions Limited.

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