Hello and welcome to the 54th issue of UK Auctionline.

The eBay live event held last month in Ls Vegas seems to have gone off quite well. Most of the reports I have had seem favourable although it looks as though eBay shot themselves in the foot when they tried to have alibaba.com prevented from exhibiting in the restaurant of the Hotel in which the ebay Live event was being held. You might like to read about this in the Further reading section below.

A couple of new features have been added by ebay.co.uk in the last month. The first should help cut down on the number of e-mails from potential buyers. EBay are going to allow you to create a custom built Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page. That will be shown to prospective buyers before they send you an e-mail.

You will be able to include up to 15 frequently asked questions. This could cover questions such as “Do you accept Paypal” or “Will you combine shipping fopr multiple items?”

To customise your Ask Seller a Question page go to Preferences in MY eBay. In the Selling Preferences section click on “Show” next to Ask Seller a Question”. From there , simply click “Edit” and begin customising.

The second feature gives sellers an option to include a Skype button to their listing. This is a pilot program which is being trailed in a limited number of categories which include: Art, antiques, stamps, coins, pottery and glass, sports memorabilia, real estate, baby products, musical instruments and audio consumer electronics.

I hope you enjoy this issue and find it useful

By: Robbin K. Tungett

My sister K.D. is passionate about horses. She knows everythingthere is to know about horses. I've been trying to tell her for years to put her knowledge on paper and we'd put together an eBook and sell it on eBay. There are so many topics she could cover.... "Buying Your First Horse", "Proper Care & Feeding of
Your Horse", "How to Train Your Horse", "Common Medical Issues Horses Encounter", "Trail Riding Tips", ... and the list goes on. You get the picture! I envision a whole series here.Unfortunately, she has yet to get the picture. She's also a very talented artist and could capitalize on back-end sales through
promoting her horse portrait services http://www.sistersdraw.com
.

She is also a member of a local Trail Riding Club. Which gives her another advantage she's not fully explored. You see, one thing horse people love is horse "stuff". They are always buying horse equipment and tools. This also means they usually have extra stuff laying around that they're not using anymore. (See where I'm going with this?!)

So, she could cash in on this in many ways on eBay. One way of course would be to find a product or products she would like to market to horse lovers and sell them on eBay. Another way would
be for her to sell other people's items and charge a fee. Why am I telling you all this about my sister? Well, the reason is, you probably have opportunities just like this without evenrealizing it!

My sister finally got her first taste of the possibilities this past week. A neighbor friend had a saddle he wanted to sell and get $700 for. So, she told him she would list it on eBay and sell it for him and anything over $700 she would keep. So, after researching the item on eBay a little, I helped her create an ad
and list it on eBay with a $700 reserve. She was pretty excited when it got it's first bid within 18 minutes of being listed. It easily reached it's reserve and finally ended up selling for $960.00. Now, here's my sister having to learn another lesson about making money online. She was feeling guilty that she was
making so much money off her neighbor and I had to convince her a deal was a deal and if she wanted to make money, she had to be firm and confident about the deals she makes.

The buyer ended up being local so she didn't even have to go to the trouble of shipping it and he paid by cash. The person who she was selling the saddle for had also been watching the auction and knew exactly what it went for but didn't expect any more than the original amount.

She did great, except that she ended up paying the $42 fees to eBay rather than taking it out of his $700 as was the deal. The guilt got the best of her. I'm still working on her! She still ended up with a $218 profit for a small amount of work. Oh, that reminds me - there's still MY fee for creating the listing for
her! :)

So... what's YOUR passion? What knowledge could you share with others for a profit in the form of eBooks or reports? What talent do you have? What groups are you associated with that you
could share your eBay selling knowledge with through consignment sales?

The possibilities are there - you just have to be willing to recognize and use them!

Now go out and act on your passions!

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the
absence but in the mastery of his passions." -Alfred Lord
Tennyson

About the author:
Robbin K. Tungett is a successful Internet Business Consultant,
Site Developer, Affiliate Marketer, Artist, Author and editor of
Auction Riches News, a weekly eZine that caters to those
interested in making money on eBay. She is most widely known for
her eBay expertise and her site http://www.AuctionRiches.com.
Visit her blog at http://www.AuctionHerald.com.

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By Dave Bromley

(This is a copy of an article I originally wrote for my other magazine Money Master Online (www.moneymasteronline.co.uk). As the changes are going to have a considerable affect on many eBay sellers by increasing shipping costs I thought it was worth repeating in this issue of UK Auctionline.)

On the 21 August the Post office will be introducing their new “Pricing in Proportion” pricing for postal items. This is going to have a considerable effect on what we pay to post items and needless to say it is going to cost us all more.

At present working out the cost of posting a letter or packet has been simple, you weigh it and dependent upon this the postage can be worked out. So a first class letter weighing up to 60g would cost you 32p irrespective of its size.

The new system will be based not only on weight but also size. In general this means that you will pay the same or even less for standard letter size items but more for larger ones. The Post Office are also taking the opportunity of reducing the various price bands from 16 to 10.

The weight limit for a “standard sized letter” will go up to 100g. (By standard size they mean a letter no larger than 240mm long, 165mm wide and 5mm thick) That is the equivalent of 12 pieces of paper, folded in half in a C5 envelope. At present this would cost you 49p first class but after August it will only be 32p.

He will e 3 main mail formats, Letter, Large Letter and Packet. In simple terms the following type of items are likely to exceed the Letter format: CDs, DVDs, most brochures and catalogues, magazines and large greetings cards. If you have been sending such items out by post if they weighed between 60 –100g they currently cost 49p but under the new system they will only cost 44p a saving of 5p. However if you item was under 60g but larger than standard size it is going to cost you 12p per letter more.

Packet format will be required for most books, VHS cassettes, parts and samples and most cylindrical packages. The cost o theses start at £1 for up to 100 g first class and go up to £2.70 for a packet between 751-1000g.

If you sell standard items on ebay such as DVDs or books you will need to work out how the new charges re going to affect you. Obviously you will already know th weight of the packages you regularly ship out but now you need to consider the size.

You should be able to get a free booklet “Pricing in Proportion” from your local Post Office. There is also a help line on 08456 113 113

You can also order a free size guide and get more information b visiting www.royalmail.com/pip. If you think you will need a more sturdy and durable size guide you can order one by visiting www.averyweigh-tronix.com/pip. But it costs £26.44 which I think is way over the top, what I expect I will do is get a free size guide, fix it to a piece of Perspex and cut out the holes.

The Post Office tells us that they have estimated that 80% of all mail either won’t be affected or will cost less to send. This may well be true for the general public but many home based businesses that use the Royal Mail to ship goods or information are going o find their postage costs going up. In some cases there will be a simple answer, for instance if you currently send out our information in A4 envelopes you may just need to fold the contents in half and use a C5 envelope but for mot of us it is just going to be a case of just having to pay more.

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The Ebay Price Guide - a Review

One of the keys to success on eBay is to carry out thorough research on your market. There are numerous software programs and online tools to help you do this but recently the San Francisco Publishers No Starch press came out with a new print book that serious eBayers will find very useful.

The eBay Price Guide by Julia L Wilkinson covers every category on eBay.com and in its 570+ pages with examples of prices achieved for many thousands of articles. In each sun category around 15 items are listed showing the highest prices achieved and another 15 showing the average prices.

In addition to the prices there is a useful introduction to each category, which gives a useful overview of that category. And there is an interesting section at the end of the book containing lists of eBay facts. For instance the 6 most expensive things sold on eBay or the 50 sellers with the greatest number of feedbacks.

As someone whose main market is not ebay.com but eBay.co.uk I initially wondered how relevant the price information was going to be. But these days we live in a global market and these days it is not unusual for someone living in Germany or the UK to buy an item from eBay.au (Australia) and to resell it on eBay.com. The potential for this type of International trade is growing all the time. Also included with the book is a companion CD that contains a demo version of Hammer Taps Deep Analysis software program which is an essential tool for any serious eBay marketer.

Also on the CD is an e-booklet (and that is a new phrase on me) called The eBay Appetizer which describes how to get started on eBay as well as The Sellers Guide and The Auction Accelerator which contains lessons from some of the major Internet businesses coaches. These bonuses alone are worth the purchase price of the book

My one concern when I first saw this book was that the information would quickly become out of date. But the publishers have launched a web site at www.nostarch.com/ebaypg.htm in which they are going to add updates and other information. Currently if you go to this site you can view a sample chapter of the book and see a full list of the contents.

Compared to many of the eBay related items on offer at present the less than $30 price tag for The eBay Price Guide seems good value to me. If you are serious about your eBay business this is definitely an investment worth making.

You can listen To 8 Different Methods For Making eBay Profits. Have you ever wanted to sell on eBay but didn't know WHAT to sell? Don't worry, it's a very common problem. After you listen to this CD and learn the 8+ selling ways discussed, your problem will be deciding WHICH profit making method to TRY FIRST!

But because Mike wants to spread his teaching beyond the USA he is making a very special offer to you today.

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