Lynn’s eBay Ezine Volume VII, Issue Number 1

 

Hi!

Happy New Year! I can’t believe that this is my seventh year of writing an ezine. Wow!

  • Lynn Recommends: USPS updated International Rate Chart
  • Lynn Recommends: Trash to Cash Pilot Episode is HERE
  • Special Announcement: Lynn on Location (LOL) in Las Vegas
  • Feature Article: What to Do When You Make a Mistake in a Live Listing

This ezine is published every two weeks.
January 7, 2011 Volume I, Issue 1

Well, we (Mo, Carmen, and I) did it! We got our 300 items listed at auction this week. I was so excited that I grabbed a screenshot at 312. Here is that screen.

Then I as I was writing this ezine we was at 394, OMG! I just had to list six more things and get us to 400. What an amazing accomplishment. I am so proud of Mo and Carmen for working so hard to get The Queen of Auctions here.

The stuff the girls have been listing has been selling at an auction like crazy. We have had one of our best months in a while. Check out this flatware pattern that sold last week. We sold twelve different auctions in this pattern. Yeah!

You can see this listing here.

And we are raising our average ticket price by doing many different things. One of those things is to source higher-end merchandise. Knowing what clothes are in demand on eBay can help you sell those higher ticket items, too. I paid $24 for this jacket. Check out what it sold for.

See this listing here.

Finding in-demand clothing to sell on eBay will be one of the lessons at LOL in Las Vegas in just two short months. LOL (Lynn on Location) will be happening in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday, March 12th and 13th 2011 at the Paris Hotel.

We are so excited about this live event!!! The doors are open and seats are for sale. Please read the special announcement section to learn more or click here. The price is going up on January 15th so reserve your spot today.

Indiana needed to do an environmental service-learning project (ESLP) for her science class. She chose to do a care package to send to a group of soldiers. Luckily, we were able to get Mel and Steve’s son’s info and Indy made him the nicest box with eight of everything for each soldier. Mel and Steve have been featured on two of our clothing teleseminars. (Volume I is here. Volume II is here.)

Here is a photo of Mel with her son.

“Hubba Bubba” bubble gum was a serious request, but we found Bazooka Joe at the $1 store instead. When Indy and I asked Mel if this was OK, here is what she wrote back:

Holy Cow! Look at all that stuff. The guys will love any type of gum. What a way to help them start off the New Year. I really appreciate you doing this on behalf of my son Indy. It is so wonderful.

Indy felt really great that she could do something for someone we know and to help those serving our country. She worked very hard at Headquarters (HQ) writing up coffee mugs, taking photographs, and hauling merchandise to earn money for this.  Houston also worked hard at HQ this week taking photographs but his earnings are going toward baseball gear. In any event, I am very proud of both kids for wanting to work!

Here is a photo of some prisms that Houston photographed for the listing. As you can see, he got a little bored with his duties and tried to make them interesting. I even mention this in the listing. Check it out here.

Check out the listing here.

The USPS raised prices on 1/2/11. Please read the first Lynn Recommends Section to Learn more about the International Rate Chart.

Trash to Cash the Pilot Episode is finished!! Learn more about it in the second Lynn Recommends section. It is really great and I am very excited about the series.

Remember the Duffy bear that I listed for Indy two weeks ago?

Indy had just gotten back from a trip to Walt Disney World where the new Duffy the Bear is the big marketing push. She thought she had bought one several years ago but wasn’t able to find it in her room. During the Queen’s Court call last month, she found her brown Duffy the Bear in one of the bins. Mo’s jaw about hit the floor. Mo has been on the lookout for a Duffy Bear since Live Boot Camp in 2009 when Pam Clayton showed the class how much money she got for hers. And there was one right there under our noses!

Well, I listed it for her and immediately got a lot of emails from ezine readers saying that I had left out pertinent information from the title. You were all right! I debated about what to do about it. I couldn’t change the title, it already had bids. But what could I do? This prompted me to write this week’s article about what to do when there are mistakes in a LIVE listing. Don’t miss reading it and seeing what I decided to do!

I want to leave you with another great quote from Mary Long at HerStorynetwork.com.

Here is the quote:

One day at a time – this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone: and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.
— Ida Scott Taylor

And here are Mary’s thoughts:

A new year gives us a fresh start. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve already tried and failed. This time, we can choose to keep a vision of our success in our head and let that be our focus. Most importantly, we can choose to be our own best friend on this venture. We can choose to use loving, encouraging words with ourselves. Beating ourselves up with the past yields no positive results. What will make the difference this time is that we start this journey making a conscious choice to love and accept ourselves. This time, rather than berating and shaming ourselves to change, we can kindly encourage ourselves to make positive choices and become the people we’ve always known we could be…

I think this is the BEST advice I have heard as we move forward into 2011. Keep success in your mind and make beautiful memories for your friends, family, and children every day but especially TODAY. Don’t look to the past. Don’t tell your kids and/or parents “we will do it later” but focus on what is good, right, and successful today. Spend time making memories NOW in the PRESENT with your loved ones—even if that means dragging your kids to headquarters once a day for some FUN (Well I call it fun).

I wish you a Successful, Memory-Making, and Happy New Year!

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

The USPS raised Rates on 1/2/11

Once again we have our USPS increases to deal with as we start the new year. The post office left First Class and Media alone. Yay!

The increases weren’t too bad for International and most just went up to $1 to $3. For the first time ever, Europe is not just listed as one zone anymore. To make it easy, I took the country that costs us the most to ship to in Europe, Great Britain, and used that for our Europe rates.

My USPS shipping rate cheat sheet allows you to figure shipping rates at a glance for your international customers. This is a huge time saver and opens up the world as a market for your auctions.

The downloadable chart was the Queen’s Court gift for January. Check out these two nice emails from Queen’s Court members…

Thanks Lynn, I use mine constantly, it’s so handy! I needed the chart today already, I did a quick shipping quote for a pair of Wedgwood ashtrays to a nice lady in Singapore this morning. She just bought them! My first ever sale to Singapore.
–Missy M.

Thank you!!! The rate sheet is fabulous. Happy New Year!
–Lynette Seymour

The laminated chart has International on the front side and the Domestic Quick Retail 1st class Reference on the back. To order the laminated International Chart with two sides and FRE E shipping click here.

To order the downloadable International USPS chart (one side only) click here.

Trash to Cash the Pilot Episode

Now that you’ve survived the holidays, why not take some time to learn while having fun?

Here is an email that I recently got from Annette Crees:

Lynn, I bought your Trash to Cash DVD and watched the download a while ago…just so much fun. I hope you continue to do these. It’s something that could just go on and on and on. You are so fun to watch. I thought it was hilarious when Maureen got mad about making that call.

I’ve never been around anyone that laughs as much as you do…you crack me up. Loved seeing your mom in the video. Your “reality show” is just such great fun.
–Annette Crees

Our reality show pilot is 22 minutes and it is fun, informative and you get to see a behind-the-scenes insider view of the Queen of Auctions.

It features me, Mo, Carmen, my mom, Indy, and Houston.

This pilot episode focuses on four eBay items. You will see where we find them, how we research them, and ultimately how well they sell.

It is a crazy and fun look at how we make eBay a successful business. The only downside for me, mo, Carmen, and my mom has been to see ourselves in HD (high definition)! I don’t think that has bothered Houston and Indy one little bit!

The Queen’s Court is also involved in this as they are “my experts.” We even talk about one member’s help in this episode!

The downloadable episode is available for purchase here.

If you would like to purchase it on a DVD, that can be done here.

We are currently in production for Episode 2. It has been fun and like Jason said, his “vision was to bring the 100 Best books and the stories behind them to life.”

He has accomplished this with our first Pilot episode. That is so COOL!

LOL, WOW!

65 Days and counting

LOL — Lynn on Location…Laugh out Loud and Learn with Lynn & her associates at our first ever LOL event. I want to point out that this will be different than a Live Boot Camp where each student gets hand-holding and actual work done. Rather this is an event to network, brainstorm, and learn from the speakers and the attendees.

This very special 2-day event will be held in Las Vegas on March 12th and 13th, 2011 (Saturday and Sunday) at the fantastique Paris Hotel in the Champagne Ballroom! We have negotiated super room rates with Paris for those attending the event. (Many of you have been asking what those rates are…Friday night $119.00, Saturday night $129.00, and Sunday night $89.00.)

It will be two jam-packed days of teaching, networking, and just plain having eBay fun. I have already gotten confirmation from some very special guest speakers. Lisa Suttora, sourcing expert, Diva Dawn, organizational expert, and a clothing expert will be joining us. (Although due to scheduling conflicts this may change).

Many of the usual suspects may be joining me. Carmen, Jason, Mo, Deborah, my brother Lee, Houston, Indy, and my mom hope to join us.

We can’t wait to see you all in Vegas!

To learn more, click here.

To purchase your seat at our still low rate, click here. The price will be going up on January 15th and will keep rising until it reaches its full published price sometime before LOL.

(Sorry, no Queen’s Court discount or other coupons can be applied to Live Events.)

To learn more, click here.
To sign up now, before the price rises, click here.

‘What to Do When You Make a Mistake in a Live Listing’
by Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions

Making a mistake in my listing seems to happen to me a lot. And now that I have two other people listing for me (Yippeeee  Thanks Mo & Carmen), I find that sometimes I know a pattern name or keyword that may have been left out of the title.

If you made a mistake in your listing or forgot some important details, you may revise your listing, add to your description or even end it early (if it was that bad of a mistake!) Let’s look at an example of each of these.

• Revise Your Listing

Use this feature if your item has no bids and the auction has more than 12 hours left. You will be able to change your title, change your description and even change the price if you need to do so.

This shows one of my auctions with more than 12 hours left to go. See the arrow that points to “Revise Your Item.” These options only show up on my screen because I am signed in as the seller of this item. No one else would be able to see these.

To use this feature, pull up the auction page by using the auction item number. Make sure that you are signed in to eBay and once that page comes up, all you have to do is click on the blue “Revise Your Item” button on the upper left-hand side (see above) and then change what you need to change. If you want to change the title and description, just type the new one over the old one. You are even able to change the category and price. To change the price, just type your new price over the old one. This is a wonderful feature because we all make mistakes.

While I was proudly checking my 400 listings on Tuesday, I noticed a Crown Corning casserole that had been listed (not by me –you don’t even know how much fun it is for me to see my auction totals rise even when I am not listing!) without the pattern name.

I knew the pattern name because I had sold a lot of items in that pattern before. I quickly went in revised the listing title and raised the price. What a great feature this “revise your item” is when you make a mistake or have others listing for you.

Here is a link to that auction.

• Add to Your Listing

Once your item has bid, you are not allowed to change anything, but you can add to it. This can be very handy. As an example, let’s imagine that you have listed a serving dish and you didn’t include the measurements. Two buyers have emailed this question and you have answered it and posted the response on the listing but another one just emailed the same question. The best thing to do will be to add to your description.

To do this, pull up the auction page using the eBay item number. Once again, in the upper left-hand corner, click on “Revise Your Listing.” The next page that comes up will have a blue button that says, “Add to your Description” so click on this. There will be a text box for you to add whatever you like. You may write something like, “Oops! I forgot the dimensions. This piece is 12 by 14 by 8.”

I had to add to an item’s description a few years ago. I had bought six little figurines at a garage sale and I knew that they were good–I just had a feeling, but there were no maker’s marks. I had asked for help in the title and no one offered any suggestions until 14 hours before one of the auctions was going to end. A nice eBayer told me that they were by a famous California potter named Jean Manley. I quickly added to the description.

Here is that auction page. You can see where I added to the description at the bottom in yellow. It ended up selling for $15.50.

If your item has bids and you have made a serious error in the title or description, an addition to the description may not be sufficient. Also, if there are less than 12 hours left (even if your item has no bids) you cannot change the title and description. In cases as serious as these, it may be necessary to end your listing early and start over.

Let’s look at an example. A friend of mine who sells on eBay, emailed me to say that she had listed a very expensive violin and it was already up to $300 when she noticed that it had a serious crack on it. She asked for my advice and I told her that adding to the description was not sufficient–she would need to let every bidder know about the damage and the best way to do this was to end the auction early and start over.

There are other cases where you may need to end your auction early. Some of these have actually happened to us! We broke the piece while it was up for sale, we made a mistake in counting and listed something that we didn’t have to sell, or we lost an item.

To end an auction early, you will need to click on the blue button on the lower middle section of the “My eBay” page that says, “end listing early.” It is in the “To Do” section. Next, you will need to input the eBay Item number and if there are any bids, eBay will ask you to cancel all the bids. Then you will need to choose the reason for ending the auction early. There are four to choose from:

  • The Item is no longer available for sale,
  • There was an error in the starting price or reserve amount,
  • There was an error in the listing or
  • The item was lost or broken.

Then click ‘continue.’ Your listing will be ended and no longer show up on eBay. If there were bidders, they will be notified through eBay that their bid was canceled and the listing ended early.

When a bidder gets a notice from eBay that their bid was canceled, it can be very upsetting. To keep my bidders from getting angry, I also email the bidders myself and apologize for the inconvenience and explain the situation. Also, if it is an item that I will be relisting, I give them the new auction number. It helps to keep everyone happy and also to increase the chances that the bidders will bid on the new revised and corrected listing.

As you know, I recently had a serious dilemma with this. I had listed a teddy bear that was very valuable to my daughter Indy. I forgot to put Original and Hidden Mickey in the title. I had one bid at $9.99 and I thought it was worth $100. My dilemma was this. Do I end the auction and change the title or do I let it go to the end and see what happens? I also didn’t want to upset the bidder because it was my fault. I eventually decided to do the right thing and let the auction play out.

Here is the listing and description.

When NOT to End Your Auction Early

If you have something rare up for sale and a bidder notices that you are relatively new to selling on eBay or you may not know what you have, then they may try to make you an offer and ask you to end the auction early and sell it to them or to add a buy it now, so that they can purchase it through eBay. Do NOT do this. They will have all sorts of excuses, like, “It is my mother’s birthday tomorrow” or, “I had one of these when I was a kid” blah blah blah.

All I say to these people is, “Thank you for the inquiry. I hope you win the bid, but it is our policy to never end auctions early. Too many people have already expressed an interest in this item.” These people are usually trying to take you for a ride and get a great bargain. It can be tempting especially if the offer is for a lot of money, but let the auction play itself out and in the majority of cases, you will get more money by doing this.

Several years ago a bidder offered to do a ‘buy it now’ on a glass girl figurine that I had up for sale. The bidder explained that they would be out of town when the auction ended and would appreciate a BIN (Buy it Now). I sent my standard reply listed above. Boy am I glad that I did.

Happy eBaying!This figurine (which was only at $50 at the time of his request) ended up selling for $1,125.00! What if I had agreed to a $200 offer?

You see that there are many ways to fix a LIVE eBay listing. These tools are also a great way to help you “let go” and delegate more. I am a very type “A” person who does not like to delegate. But having Mo and Carmen list for me has been such an awesome experience. We have really just begun!

These editing tools allow us to go in and add important details once a listing has been made live. They really are fantastic and help our business to grow.

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 FRE E tips now at www.thequeenofauctions.com

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.