Hi Everyone,
Welcome to my new e-zine. I wrote an eBay newsletter with my mom for a few years, but this is the first edition of my e-zine. How exciting!
First of all, I want to thank you all for making our “100 Best” campaign a huge success.
This e-zine is published every other Tuesday. May 31, 2005 Volume I, Issue 1
- eBay Stores and How You can Benefit
- Things You Should Never Buy Used & Inside Edition
eBay Stores:
I have to be honest, I thought that the eBay stores were only for selling merchandise that you had in quantity. I would only put commodity items in my eBay store, like Royal Copenhagen Christmas Plates, glass prisms and my auction tracking tools. I never thought that I could sell unique one-of-a-kind items in my store. I thought those things were only good for the auction format. About six months ago, I found out something that helped my business and will also help yours!
The eBay stores are awesome! What I am going to teach you here can add a big chunk to your monthly sales. We have increased our eBay sales by $500 to $1,000 each month by utilizing the store!
When you have tried an item at online auction once or twice and it hasn’t sold, don’t be discouraged. I used to give up and give the item to charity. No more! Now I list it in my eBay store at anywhere from $4.99 to $499.00 and it only costs 3 cents per item each month. That 3 cents also includes a gallery photo. I use the “Good Until Cancelled” feature, and that way, eBay automatically keeps it in the store until it sells or you pull it out. We have about 2,000 items in our store, and it only costs us $60 each month to list them. That $60 investment brings in $500 to $1,000 each month—a huge return on investment! Every day we get at least one (and often more) emails that say “end of transaction”– this means that another item has sold. It is really exciting. Stuff we thought would never sell has now found a home.
Some tips for managing your store items—
- Only use one photo (unless you are hosting your own photos). eBay will charge 15 cents for each photo after the first one. This can really add up.
- Always use the gallery feature. It is only 1 cent per item for the stores.
- Choose a basic store for $9.95-$15.95 each month unless you have a lot of items. If you have a lot of items (like we do), it may be worth it to move up to the featured store at $49.95 per month. I was told by eBay store services that this would bring my items up higher in the searches. We just upgraded last month, so I have not made my final decision. I will need to look at sales data over a three-month period and see if there is any significant change. If any of you have comments about the featured stores, I would love to hear them at Lynn@TheQueenofAuctions.com.
- There is a telephone hotline for eBay Store owners. It is great. They answer quickly and can help you with all sorts of problems, concerns and questions. 1-866-322-9103 and someone is there from 6 am to 6 pm Pacific time. Trust me, this is worth the $9.95-$15.95 per month.
- Offer a shipping discount for buying multiple items. Many times, an auction shopper will add on an item from the store just because a $9.99 item that normally would cost $16.99 with shipping is now only $10.99 (because we only charge an extra $1 for each item—as long as they are small).
Things You Should Never Buy Used & Inside Edition: I was on Inside Edition last Tuesday, May 24th, in a segment titled “What you Should Never Buy Used.” What a thrill! The camera crew followed me around and filmed me in LA for 7 hours. We found some very dangerous items in a very short time period in local thrift stores. When we saw the final show, I was on for all of about 3 minutes. Who cares? It was national TV. My kids were so excited to see me, and then the show actually displayed the cover of “The 100 Best Things I’ve Sold on eBay” for at least 5 seconds. I was jumping up and down. We have streaming video of the show that you can see on our website. Follow the link here.
The show covered a very important topic, “Things You Should Never Buy Used.” The National Enquirer had interviewed me for an article on this subject and that article is also posted on our web site here. http://www.thequeenofauctions.com/insideedart.html . Please read this and take note of dangerous items that are being sold in most thrift stores and at most garage sales. Cribs, recalled car seats, used cosmetics, and used mattresses are just some of the items. eBay does not allow the sale of most of these things on their website, so spend some time and acquaint yourself with the rules. We have posted some of the guidelines for you on the Inside Edition page on our web site. Protect yourself and your feedback rating with eBay—do not sell recalled or dangerous items.
Happy Buying & Selling!
Lynn
Please contact me with any questions or suggestions for future issues. I would love to hear from you Lynn@TheQueenofAuctions.com