UK Auctionline Newsletter No. 46

10th November 2005

NEWS | Message from Dave

Hello <$firstname$>

Whenever I open my e-mail box there seems to be a mail from someone offering, for a price, to show me how I can make a fortune from eBay. Apparently all I need is to learn some secret or secrets known only to the author and my fortune will be made.

With over £20 billion worth of goods being sold on eBay every year and 115 million registered users it stands to reason that this does represent a great opportunity. But are there really any “secrets” that can help you go from making a few pounds extra every week into a top-level power seller?

According to my dictionary the definition of a secret is “concealed from notice, kept private, hidden from view and not to be revealed or exposed.” No if you think about it, why would eBay hold back any secrets could help you sell more. After all the more you sell the more money they get from you and the more profitable they become. In fact through their workshops, online help and eBay Uni days they go out of the way to help you. In fact I have a theory that if you want to write a book on how to get started on eBay you could get all the material you needed from the links on the eBay site map. In fact I strongly suspect that some books about eBay were created doing just that.

So if there are no “secrets” what are all of these products about? From what I can see they fall into three categories, those written by research writers who given any subject will come up with enough material to produce something without necessarily having very much if any personal experience. All that reading these will do is save you time of actually going and looking up the material yourself. A second and a far more rewarding read are the “this is how I do it” type of book or report.

Authors of this type of book include Mike Enos, Skip McGrath, Robin Tungett and Sydney Johnston from the USA and Brian McGregor in the UK. Another British name that is beginning to appearing regularly when eBay is discussed is Michael Sherriff. Michael has recently launched a new members web site www.theauctionhelpdesk.com Michael offers two levels of membership, one provides unlimited, private one-to-one e-mail coaching and support and for an extra £20 per month you access to a private “members only” telephone support for up to an hour a month. When I looked at the Auction Help Desk I think it was still in the process of development and I am sure that a lot more material is going to be added to the web site in the coming months. If you are the type of person who feels they need one to one coaching you might find a visit to Michaels web site worthwhile.

The third type of product and in some ways the most useful are what I call the how to do it. There are a number of tasks that can be quite daunting for a new comer to online auctions. How to take and post images online, building HTML type listing pages are just a couple. I am pleased to say that I have managed to get the rights to a large selection of products produced by probably the UK’s best “How to Do It” presenter Louis Allport. This month I am offering two Volumes from his 99-minute series of audio video lessons covering How To Profitably Sell Digital Products On eBay and How To Run A Profitable Auction Business With No Inventory. These are available to you on CD. See the product section for more details.

Also in this issue I am reviewing a super product submitted by an UK Auctionline subscriber Andy Rogers from Coleraine, Northern Ireland and a new book by Michael Banks called “The eBay Survival Guide”.

Finally if you have a spare moment you might like to visit a new site that we launched recently called www.auction-wealth.com which contains about 50 articles about eBay written by such people and Tim Knox and Sydney Johnston. A good read and lots of helpful tips.

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Feature| 10 ways to save time and money with Packing and Shipping on eBay

by Dave Bromley

One problem with eBay is that unless you are careful you can end up spending far too much time on routine tasks such as packing and shipping. Not only is there the time spent wrapping the items, but also when you take them to your local post office to have them weighed, stamped and posted. As someone who never seems to have enough time I have adopted some time saving measures which frees up my time to do other things.

1.Buy Stamps in advance.

Many of the items that I sell are similar, CDs , audio tapes and books. Therefore I know exactly what the postage is for these items and I buy in advance a quantity of stamps for the various denominations that I use. I can then pack, stamp them and just drop them into the post box without the need to wait at the post office counter.

2.Get a set of scales

Of course one really helpful piece of equipment is a set of postal scales. Not only does this save you time by allowing you to pre stamp packages but it is also very useful when you are listing an item. You can quickly and accurately calculate the exact cost of postage for each item. This can save you making those errors of under estimating the true cost of posting an item or having to make a special journey to the post office just to find out what it will cost to post.

3. Buy packaging materials online

A thriving industry has grown on eBay offering packaging materials. It really is a case of selling spades to miners, but as a result the competition in this field is very fierce. This means that you can make considerable savings if you go to the Business, Office and Industrial Category and look in Packing and Postal supplies. Also many of the major stationers such as Staples and Viking offer a good 24 hour service and often have some attractive special offers or gifts to make an even better deal. Most offer free postage for orders over a certain quite low amount.

4. Whenever possible use padded bags.

If it is suitable for your products one of the great time savers is the use of padded envelopes. They come in a big range of sizes and thickness and are suitable for a wide range of products. It is much easier and quicker just to pop something into an envelope and seal it than putting something in a box, put in padding and using tape to seal it. Also these days padded envelopes can work out cheaper than other forms of packaging.

5. Hold a stock of Post Office Forms

These days forms control our lives and it is no different with the postal authorities. Normally if you are a regular postal user your local post office will be happy to supply you with a stock of the forms that you might need. The ones I keep handy are customs declarations, recorded International and national forms and supplies of airmail and fragile stickers. Completing these and applying them to your packages before you go up to the post office can save considerable time.

6. Use Rubber stamps

I also have a selection of rubber stamps with First Class Mail, Do Not Bend, Small Packet Rate, This saves the time rather than writing these phrases over and over again.

7. Pre print return labels

I would never send out a packet without a return address on it. Over the years that I have used eBay I have had about 5 parcels come back to me because they were undeliverable for one reason or another. If I had not had a return address label on them they and the contents would have been gone forever. You can of course order a pack of name and address labels from the local printer but I have found the most cost effective is to use the sheets of plain labels such as Avery, the 65 labels to a sheet are ideal and print them off as required a sheet at a time. I then just stick one of these on to every packet I send out. And of course it also makes you look a little more professional with your packaging.

8. Pick the time that you go to the post office

There are always some times in the day or days in the week when your local post office is liable to be more busy than others. If you ask the counter staff I am sure they would be happy to tell you when these times are likely to be. Also they would also be able to tell you the times they would expect to be less busy. If you use this information you can cut down the time you spend waiting in line at the post office.

9. Copy addresses from Paypal notification.

Whenever you get payment notification from Paypal it will contain the name and address of the buyer. I always highlight and copy this and using my labelling software I paste this into the label template this saves having to write or type the information in. I always print my labels on the AveryL7160, 21 labels to a sheet paper.

10. Compare prices

There is plenty of competition to ship larger items and it is worth comparing prices for the various shippers and couriers to get the best deals. In my experience with smaller items it is difficult to beat the Post Office but for items that need to be shipped fast or weigh over 2 Kgs (4 1/2lb) it is worth looking for the best deal

Advice| Buying and Selling Guitars on eBay

I am not quite sure why Andy Rogers is being so honest and upfront I his new “Guitar Arbitrage Report” which is a step-by-step guide on how to source & sell guitars and music gear on eBay. He tells you everything and not only that but you could take the method he outlines and adapt it to many other niche markets on eBay.

Although I know nothing about musical instruments I found his e-book fascinating and it gave me plenty of ideas on how I could adapt his methods to fit into my own market. But not only is the content good but the product which comes on CD, which I far prefer to downloading is well produced and contains a couple of very useful bonuses. To find out more about this excellent CD visit Andy’s web site at www.stuff2bid4.com

News| The Story of Janice Smith

Janice Smith was a 27 year old Dental Hygienist with one child and another on the way. She liked her job but wanted to spend more time with her family and in fact with two very young children she needed to be at home. But she also needed to bring in some kind of income and that is why she turned to eBay.

Now only 3 years later she is making up to £6,300 per month through her eBay business. In her book “Make up to $11,212 a month on eBay” she will show you how she did it and how you can replicate her success.

Click Here!

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FEATURE| Learning the lingo on eBay

By Kirsten Hawkins

Do you have trouble sometimes understanding when people talk about eBay? Don’t worry, some of the jargon is really obscure, and you can’t be expected to understand it until someone’s told you what it means. Here’s a little list of some of the most useful lingo to know, but you don’t need to memorise it – even the most common jargon is only used relatively rarely.

Words.

Bid: telling eBay’s system the maximum price you are prepared to pay for an item.

Dutch: an auction where more than one of an item is available.

Feedback: positive or negative comments left about other users on eBay.

Mint: in perfect condition.

Non-paying bidder: a bidder who wins an auction but does not then go on to buy the item.

PayPal: an electronic payment method accepted by most sellers.

Rare: used and abused on eBay, now entirely meaningless.

Reserve: the minimum price the seller will accept for the item.

Shill bid: a fake bid placed by a seller trying to drive up their auction’s price.

Snail Mail: the post, which is obviously very slow compared to email.

Sniping: bidding at the last second to win the item before anyone else can outbid you.

Abbreviations.

AUD: Australian Dollar. Currency.

BIN: Buy it Now. A fixed price auction.

BNWT: Brand New With Tags. An item that has never been used and still has its original tags.

BW: Black and White. Used for films, photos etc.

CONUS: Continental United States. Generally used by sellers who don’t want to post things to Alaska or Hawaii.

EUR: Euro. Currency.

FC: First Class. Type of postage.

GBP: Great British Pounds. Currency.

HTF: Hard To Find. Not quite as abused as ‘rare’, but getting there.

NIB: New in Box. Never opened, still in its original box.

NR: No Reserve. An item where the seller has not set a reserve price.

OB: Original Box. An item that has its original box (but might have been opened).

PM: Priority Mail.

PP: Parcel Post.

SH: Shipping and Handling. The fees the buyer will pay you for postage.

USD: United States Dollars. Currency.

VGC: Very Good Condition. Not mint, but close.

The chances are that you’ll find more specific jargon related to whatever you’re selling, but it’d be an impossible task to cover it all here. If you can’t figure one out from your knowledge of the subject, then type the term into a search engine, followed by the word ‘ebay’. The chances are that someone, somewhere will have seen fit to explain it.

While it’s good to be able to understand others’ jargon, avoid using it unless you really need to (for example, if you run out of space in an item’s title). Many people on eBay are not experienced buyers and you will lose them if you write a load of gobbledegook all over your auction.

By now, you’re well prepared for eBay life, and you’re probably ready to get started with that first auction. In the next email, we’ll show you how to dive in and get started.

About the Author: Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.

Source: www.isnare.com

PRODUCT|List for zero fee on eBid

An up and coming star of the UK online Auction scene is eBid.co.uk. It has recently launched a sister site in the USA. If you have not visited the UK site it is well worth going and having a look as this zero list fee t site seems to be attracting a lot of attention.

It now has a lot more items listed that the last time I took a look at the site and I suspect that this could be a site well worth monitoring.

Visit eBid UK here

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Extra Reading

Man Proposes on eBay

Offer of the month:The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay

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Dave's Final Thoughts

As you may know we are regularly adding new articles to the web site at www.ukauctionline.co.uk. Usually the 3 latest entries can be found on the home page. However, when new items are added these are then transferred to the article bank. SO if there are any of the hundred or more eBay related articles that you want to read you can find them by clicking on the link to the ARTICLE Bank which is on the left hand side just below the navigation buttons.

It was good to see that eBay have launched another TV and Radio campaign to raise awareness of the online auctions in time for Christmas. I hope that you will all benefit from this.

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