Lynn’s eBay Ezine Volume VI, Issue Number 5

 

Hi!

eBay on Location was amazing! It was fun to meet so many of you in person!

Lynn Recommends: Dinnerware Success Story–Volumes 1 & 2 – Get yours! Volume 3 coming next week.

Special Announcement: eBay on Location update

Feature Article: Decisions, Decisions…What to Do With Older Inventory and the New eBay Changes

The Queen’s Update: Diva Dawn’s Delightful Dion Deal

This ezine is published every two weeks.
March 25, 2010 Volume VI, Issue 5

Another crazy two weeks. Of course! That is just the way it goes. Luckily, my mother was here to help for the first week and my dad for the last week. I just rotate them in and out–our guest room has a revolving door!

My mom was awesome and wrote up about 300 items for me so that I could concentrate on writing the dinnerware eBook. The third and final volume will be out in the next week. Please read the Lynn Recommends section to learn more about it. The price will be going up.

I have most of those 300 items photographed and ready to be listed. It sure makes a difference to have that extra help. Here is a photo of my mom five minutes before we had to leave for the airport and she is still writing up items. What a trooper!

Here is that funky item that she is holding up listed on eBay. What is it? Did you guess correctly?

See the item page here.

I got to see one tennis match at the Indian Wells Paribas Open last week. It was the match that Federer lost. Crazy! But very fun to see that level of tennis up close.

Then my dad flew in to take Houston to the Spring Baseball Triple Crown Tournament in Phoenix so that I could attend eBay on Location in Atlanta, GA. Thank you, Dad!

In the Special Announcement section, please read more about my lunch with eBay CEO John Donahoe and how my “Top Seller” panel went in Atlanta at eBay on Location.

While at eBay on Location, I got to meet four Queen’s Court members in person. It was great! Here is a photo with Sandy, Auntie Suzi, and Aunti Suzi’s daughter. Cie and John didn’t make it into this photo–but I really enjoyed meeting all of you there!

After eBay on Location, I got to spend the day with my really great friends Brad and Beth Wiesner who live in Atlanta. I have not seen them in 10 years. Way too long! When I was an executive trainee at May Dept. Stores, I worked with Brad. Brad is now a VP at Home Depot. I got to see Brad and Beth’s 14-year-old son (6′ 4″) play in a basketball tournament and Beth made us a wonderful lunch. Too much fun!

Here are the three of us.

I have had some really interesting experiences these past two weeks with rotating older inventory and that prompted me to write this week’s feature article “What to Do With Older Inventory and the New eBay Changes.” Don’t miss it!

LIVE BOOT CAMP is filling up, we ONLY have 7 SEATS Left for 2010. AND the six-part payment plan ends tonight, March 29. If you are considering joining us, we recommend that you reserve your spot soon. This one is going to sell out quickly. Here is a link.

Finally, we have a story from Diva Dawn. Read below to hear her score with a Celine Dion collectible.

Happy eBaying,

Lynn Dralle, ‘The Queen of Auctions,’
Creator of the best-selling eBay Boot Camp in a Box.

I can’t believe how many of you came up to me at eBay on Location and mentioned the dinnerware eBook. You all thought it was fantastic! Thank you for sharing that with me.

Here is an email that I recently got from Sharon.

Hi Lynn,

Just wanted to write and thank you so much for this labor of love on your part! I’m talking about the marvelous e-book on Dinnerware. I’ve finished Part 1, almost thru Part 2, and anxiously awaiting Part 3.

I made my first foray into dinnerware by going to a small fundraiser at a hole-in-the-wall place. I found a set of 4 Dansk Concerto Allegro Blue plates and a salt and pepper set, along with a set of 3 Dansk Bistro cups and saucers – all for just $9. So I bought them. Within 24 hours, all the plates had watchers! Can’t wait to see what happens by the end of the auction!

If selling dinnerware takes off like I think it will, I will be able to join your Queen’s Court in no time!  Thank you so much for what you do! You are the best e-Bay guru anyone could ever want!

Hugs,
Sharon

Thanks, Sharon!

The Dinnerware Succes eBook is full of tips and information that really can make you money. The price is going to go up by $20 at the end of March (or whenever volume 3 is sent out). So, if you have been thinking about buying this, I highly recommend that you do it soon. Click here to order now.

(Queen’s Court members, don’t forget to use your discount.)

Here are the segments in Volume #1

Introduction

  • Types of Dinnerware
  • Manufacturers to ALWAYS buy
    (Pattern name in signature)
  • Manufacturers to ALWAYS buy
    (No pattern name in signature)
  • Tricky Manufacturers
    (Pattern name in signature)
  • Tricky Manufacturers
    (No pattern name in the signature

 114 pages!!!

VOLUME #2

  • Manufacturers to NEVER buy
  • Designer/Artists to Buy
  • Best Selling Patterns of All Times
  • Patterns to Buy
  • Good Color Combos
  • Good Themes
  • Different Countries
  • Identifying the Different Pieces

 143 pages!!!

VOLUME #3 (Coming by April 5th)

  • Where to Buy?
  • Research in the Field to Make Quick Purchase Decisions
  • How much should you pay?
  • Single pieces to purchase vs. Entire Sets
  • Research at Home
  • Pricing and How to Sell
  • Condition and Seconds
  • Cleaning
  • Photographs
  • Categories
  • Title
  • Let’s put it to the test–a Case Study with me

This eBook is a no-brainer moneymaker for YOU! Don’t miss out on our special price before it goes up again. Click here to order now. Volumes #1 and #2 are available now. Volume #3 will be available as a download around the end of March. Your purchase price buys all three volumes.

Remember that bunch of dinnerware I bought with my dad at the Goodwill for $4.99 less his 10% senior discount? Five of the pieces sold to the same lady for $193.00! That profit is more than enough to pay for a copy of my Dinnerware Success eBook.

Here is the dinner plate that sold for the most money.

See the auction here.

Order your eBook now at a still low price! Click here.

Order in three payments here.

You can read more here.

eBay on Location this past weekend in Atlanta, Georgia was fantastic. I got to be on stage with Cindy Shebley (photography expert), Jordan Insley (electronics expert), and the always amazing and humorous Griff! It was a blast.

Then after our “Top Sellers Secrets Panel,” we were all invited to lunch with eBay CEO John Donahoe. I am a new fan! Here is a photo of me with John.

I got to talk to John about our serious concerns with DSRs and negative feedback. He let us know that eBay has a new system in place that before a new buyer can leave negative feedback they must watch a short video. If they try and leave second negative feedback, they will have to watch another video.

I thought that this was definitely a step in the right direction, but think that the same requirement should be made for anyone trying to leave a “1” or a “2”, since those hurt us so much more now than just a negative.

John also opened up our luncheon by saying (to the ten of us attending) that eBay is committed to the small entrepreneurial seller!!! Yeah!  Great news. We do keep hearing this and eBay on Location was a testament to this support of the smaller seller.

I couldn’t believe how many newbies were in attendance and upper management from eBay was all over the place making themselves extremely available to everyone. It was a great experience and if you are thinking about attending any of the eBay On Location events, I suggest you sign up now.

I will be a panelist on the same eBay “Top Seller Secrets” forum (moderated by the one and only Griff) at the remaining three eBay on Location events this year! So I hope to see you in Dallas, TX May 7 & 8Chicago, IL July 9 & 10; or San Jose, CA September 1 & 2Click here to learn more.

‘Decisions, Decisions…What to Do With Older Inventory
and the New eBay Changes’

by Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions

One thing I took away from eBay on Location was how many of you are deleting slow-moving and older inventory now. I have some advice for you about this.

eBay is changing the way it displays search results. Effective March 30th, all store items (which will automatically change to Fixed Price GUC) will now show up in the main core search!  Store items will no longer be shown below auction items and will soon show up in the top portion of the results page. This is extremely exciting news.

1.     Don’t delete or edit until you have given the new search algorithms at least 30 days.

About 2-3 years ago, eBay let all store items show up in the core search for about 30 days. It was incredible! We sold soooooo much merchandise. We talked about this with Griff during the “Top Seller Panel” at eBay on Location. He said that it was amazing but that eBay’s systems couldn’t handle it back then and that is why they had to turn it off. They were on overload! Griff also reminded us that this has been working in both England and Germany with fantastic results.

Because of this, I recommend waiting until at least 30 days have gone by before purging any of your slow-selling inventory. Let’s see if the same incredible sales that happened back then, happen to us now.

As an example, Carmen was purging our two-year-old merchandise to make room for new stock and this beautiful Majolica vase was ready to go to charity three weeks ago. I said “no way”, I am keeping that and I put it in my living room.

Because of that, it didn’t get taken off of eBay. And–NO WAY–it sold last week for a LOT of money.

See the eBay page here.

My advice is to just wait 30 more days before you begin editing. It really can’t hurt you (at the most a small increase in fees) and it may really help your business.

2.     Then use eBay’s new Selling Manager Pro ‘Slow Moving’ feature to help you decide what to purge.

Once you have waited to see how the new search algorithm is going to affect your sales, then make your decisions on what to purge with detailed data. eBay now provides a section on “My eBay Summary” that is called “Without a Recent Sale” in the status section. eBay displays items here that have been listed on eBay for over 18 months with NO sales. Please see the computer screenshot below.

 

As you can see, I have 1852 items out of 6147 total store items (about 30%) that have not had a sale in the past 18 months. I believe in leaving my stock on eBay for two years (24 months) anyway, so will not be deleting any of this inventory right now.

This is a very powerful tool that eBay is providing us and I encourage you to use it when and if you decide to purge.

3.     Finally, let those boxes of items headed for charity sit for a few weeks before you actually send them off

This is what prompted me to write this article. Carmen and Deborah had about twelve boxes of purged inventory items sitting by my front door two weekends ago waiting to be picked up by one of our local charities on Monday morning.

These items were 2 1/2 years old. We had decided to get rid of them and then not delete any more inventory until 30 days after the new search changes start.

I was at a baseball tournament and got the best offer of $5.00 each for 4 Vietri Stoneware plates. Normally, I would have said NO, but if you can believe it, and of course, you can, these plates were sitting in those charity boxes by the front door!

See the sales page here.

I quickly accepted her offer and sent her a combined invoice with realistic yet decent (to me) s/h/I charges. She paid immediately and when I got home, I grabbed those four plates and put them on the eBay shipping table. Too funny!

It always amazes me how often this happens. Things that are taken off shelves and ready to go to charity (and because they haven’t been deleted off of eBay yet) sell!

Here is my very STRANGE advice, get those boxes ready but put them in the garage for a few weeks before actually getting rid of them. After a few weeks, go ahead and do your eBay purging and send them to charity.

4.     Re-purpose some of your older items into different style listings.

Mo has been doing this a lot lately and I decided to take her advice. If dinnerware or other items haven’t sold in the quantities she had them listed, she changes those quantities and makes a new listing.

This can be very time-consuming so I advise only doing it with higher-priced quality items. However, I did this recently with some really neat red Asian-inspired plates that I had listed as singles at $19.99 in my eBay store. I re-purposed them into twos and started the auctions at $9.99. Well, lo and behold, one of those auctions actually sold! You just never know.

See these plates here.

I hope these four tips give you some ideas for how to deal with a slow-moving inventory. I also encourage you to wait until after the new search algorithm takes effect to make any major changes. Good luck to you and I can’t wait for the new changes!

Happy eBaying!

Lynn


Visit my eBay Store.

Visit my eBay auctions.

For more great eBay tips and stories, visit my website at:
http://www.thequeenofauctions.com


WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR ON YOUR WEBSITE? Yes, you may – just as long as you include all links as they are and append this complete blurb with it: The Queen of Auctions and eBay Power Seller, Lynn Dralle, publishes ‘eBay Tips & Tricks’ a weekly ezine with 10,000+ subscribers. If you’re ready to jump-start your eBay business, make more money and have more time, get your FREE tips now at www.thequeenofauctions.com

We have a great story this week from Diva Dawn. Read below for Diva Dawn’s Delightful Dion Deal.

Click here to read the story…

Please patronize Diva Dawn’s auctions (divadawnlv) and make her business this year even better. Thanks!

eBay PowerSeller and third-generation antique dealer, Lynn Dralle, is the creator of Boot Camp in a Box, the home-study course where you can learn to implement the Dralle Method to maximize your eBay profits.

If you liked today’s issue, you’ll love this step-by-step course that is guaranteed to be the most complete and enjoyable guide to selling on eBay that MAKES YOU MONEY.

Read all about it here.

The Queen of Auctions also offers articles, teleseminars, how-to books, tracking guides, DVDs, eBay Boot Camp training, and other resources to help entrepreneurs make their eBay business a six-figure sales machine.

The Queen of Auctions/All Aboard Inc.
PO Box 14103
Palm Desert, CA 92255
760-345-9355
Lynn@TheQueenofAuctions.com


Happy eBaying!!

Lynn


Lynn is an experienced eBay Power Seller, author, and teacher. If you want to know the eBay tips, tricks, and tools that Lynn uses for buying and selling at an online auction click here.