SECRET STRATEGY #1 – FIGURE OUT WHY YOU HAVEN’T DONE IT BEFORE!
Before, you rebuild a house, you need to tear down what doesn’t work
and then rebuild. To just rebuild over the bad parts just doesn’t work.
So, ask yourself this question: “Why haven’t I done it before?” And if
you have done it before, ask yourself: “Why haven’t I succeeded before?”
Now, before you say something like “I didn’t have the money” or “I
don’t have enough time,” I want you to consider that the answer is
really something that you can’t see. Let me draw an analogy.
Let’s say that you’re driving down the street and you see this house
that is tilted. You walk up to the front door, the owner answers and you
say, “Hello, did you know that your house is slanted and that there is
probably something wrong with your foundation?” The owner replies, “I
don’t know what you’re talking about. My house is perfectly straight!”
How could they possible say that?! Well, it’s because they’ve been
living there so long that they don’t even see the symptom let alone the
real problem. So, consider that all the reasons that you haven’t done
this before aren’t the real reasons. The real reason is the one that you
can’t see… the foundation of the house.
Now, fill in this Bible saying: “_____ is the root of all evil.” You
said “Money,” right? Well, would you be shocked if I told you that the
Bible doesn’t say “Money”? You’re shocked aren’t you? Well, Timothy 6:10
actually says “The love of money is the root of all evil.” A few words
makes world of difference don’t they? After all, if you heard “Money is
the root of all evil” over and over again as a child then how could you
ever have money around you and still remain good? The sad thing is that
while the Bible’s actual saying, “The love of money is the root of all
evil,” is true, the often misquoted version simply isn’t true. The Bible
is talking about Greed not Money.
Another saying that I really hate is “Money doesn’t grow on trees”
because it really does! OK, it may not physically grow on trees but it
does grow like fruit on a tree. Investments are a prime example of this
principle. If you invest and nurture your investments, they’ll grow and
you can use some of the money to spend on yourself and replant the rest.
Constantly feed the Goose and it will lay bigger and bigger golden
eggs. Later in this article, I am going to tell you about a Powerseller
that epitomizes this as he took $1,000 and turned it into $270,000!
My point with both of these sayings is that you need to get at the
real reason that you haven’t succeeded rather than focus on the obvious
symptoms.
SECRET STRATEGY #2 – GET SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
According to the Powersellers that I interviewed, they believe that
they number one reason that people fail on eBay is that they don’t treat
it like a business. While the Powersellers that I talked to really love
their work, the realize that it is a business. Even though it doesn’t
cost millions of dollars to sell on eBay, they treat it like a business
every day of the week and they have it organized like Microsoft or Ford
or any other successful business. You know, even ballplayers who make
their living playing a game treat their profession as a business. eBay
Powersellers treat their business like a business worth $100 million.
SECRET STRATEGY #3 – ORGANIZE IT AND KEEP IT ORGANIZED
This is the absolute hardest thing for me because I am one of those
people that likes to go with the flow. Although whenever I’m not
organized, I always lose money because I can’t find the web address to
that one special deal that I found out about. Or I forget about some
meeting or to make a call to place an order. You’ve got to be organized
to be successful. Successful businesses are highly organized and
disorganized businesses are short-lived.
SECRET STRATEGY #4 – COMPARTMENTALIZE EVERYTHING THAT YOU ARE WORKING ON
This strategy is kind of similar to #3 but I want to make it specific
anyways. I have used this strategy for a couple of my small businesses
and I am told that it also works very well on eBay. You see, one thing
that amateurs try to do is the try to do a little of everything
everyday. Post a few listings, answer a few emails, go to the bank every
morning, package a few items and mail them. The problem is that this
just doesn’t work because you’ll be all over the place and unfocused.
And when you’re unfocused, you make mistakes and mistakes cost money!
A better way to approach your business is to do one or two things per
day. For example, make Wednesday your shipping day. Simply package all
of the items that you sold and then drop them off with your shipper.
Make Tuesday the day that you go to the bank. And make Thursday the day
that you get all of your listings ready to be posted. The main point is
to focus on one thing until you’re done with it and avoid getting
scattered all over the place.
SECRET STRATEGY #5 – BUILD A WINNING TEAM
It takes a team of 55 players to win the Super Bowl and 25 players to
win the World Series. How are you going to create a successful eBay
business on your own? Now, you might be thinking “But I’m more of a
tennis player type.” Well the best tennis players in the world have
coaches, trainers, medical staff, agents, publicists and tons of other
people that are there to help them succeed. Do you think that the
President could have even become President without a campaign team?
Or maybe you’re saying something like “But I can’t afford to hire
someone!” Look, you can’t afford not to. Take this article for example. I
dictated it into a digital audio recorder, copied it onto my computer,
had somebody transcribe it for a few bucks (probably in India for all I
know), edited it myself and then hired another kid to submit it to over
300 article directories.
On top of that, while the kid submits the articles, I’ll be writing
another article. All of this cost me about $30 and would have taken me
at least five hours to do on my own. I’m worth more than $6 an hour and
so are you. Always look at it this way and you’ll make more money and
more money.
And yet another consideration is to barter with people. I know a
gentleman that is about 75 years old and doesn’t even own computer. And
yet he makes over $100,000 per year online. How does he do this? Well,
his grandson knows a ton of stuff about how to create a web site, how to
market online and other things. So this gentleman makes fishing flies
and lures and his grandson sells them on eBay. In addition, this
gentleman dictates articles into an audio recorder for his fishing email
newsletter for which he has over 5,000 subscribers. He takes care of
the creative stuff and his grandson manages the business and they split
the profits. There is not excuse… if you don’t know how to do something
find someone that does!
SECRET STRATEGY #6 – TAKE THE HENRY FORD APPROACH
Every single Powerseller that I spoke with had a systematic approach
to dealing with everything from posting listings to packaging and
shipping items. For example, with regards to packaging and shipping,
more than a few Powersellers told me that have their computer set up on
the far left of a workbench, then down the line to the right was a
printer, then their products and then packing materials. They simply
work their way down the line from left to right. The same thing goes
with orders. Personally, most of the products that I sell are
informational so I have my customers place an order and my autoresponder
automatically sends them their product. Takes me nothing to do this.
Basically, you want to set up a system that does not change and which
you could practically do in your sleep.
SECRET STRATEGY #7 – USE THE RIGHT PHOTOS
One of the things that I love to do on eBay is search for things that
I know that I want to buy for myself. However, what I do is that I look
for the auction listings where the seller doesn’t really know what they
are doing. A lot of sellers use the bad photos and post them in their
listings. A bad photo can cost you bidders. Few bidders = less money.
So, make sure that your photos look good and effectively represent your
product and ask yourself if the photo would make you want to buy the
product. If you don’t know anything about taking photos, ask a family
member of friend to help you out.
Also, check out your competition and see how the sellers with the
highest bids take their photos. Many Powersellers that I spoke to said
that the best backdrop that they use for their photos is a light blue
backdrop because it catches the buyer’s attention as they are browsing
eBay without being distracting or repulsive. And be sure that the photo
is well cropped. This is one of the biggest mistakes that sellers make
for two reasons: 1) the buyer cannot easily see the product when they’re
browsing because the photo is all “dead space” and 2) larger photos
(large file size) take much longer to download. This is why it’s
critical to use an image optimizer, use as few photos as possible and
make them as small as possible while still forwarding your listing.
Remember that most Internet users still use slow connections (although
you should not worry about this if you are selling items to buyers that
you are relatively sure have fast Internet connections like high-tech
computer items or plasma screen TVs.)
SECRET STRATEGY #8 – DON’T SELL AN ITEM JUST ONCE, SELL IT A THOUSAND TIMES
It takes just as much time to post a listing for one item as it does
to post a listing for 10,000 items. In fact, it takes much less time.
For example, you could go to an auction and find one item to sell or you
could take the same amount of time to find a product that you could
sell a thousand times. A few years ago, I made really good money on eBay
selling sporting tickets but they were a pain is the ass to post. Date.
Location. Section number. Row number. Hell, some people even asked for
seat numbers. It was ridiculous! Dutch auctions are the perfect solution
to this problem because eBay will allow you to sell up to 10,000 items
per auction listing (this also works for Fixed Price listings).
Dutch auctions also help with your “assembly line.” Think about it.
Is it easier to package 100 items that are exactly the same size and
weight or 100 items that are all different sizes and weights? Now, you
might be thinking “We’ll then, all of my auctions are going to be Dutch
auctions!” Not so fast! There are drawbacks to Dutch auctions. First,
eBay listings fees are calculated as the sum total of all the items be
sold in the listing. For example, let say that you are selling 1,000 $1
items. Then eBay will say that your listing has a $1,000 value and the
original listing fee will reflect this value even if you only sell one
item (although they only charge up to $4.20 per listing so there is not a
ton of risk.)
Even more importantly though, in Dutch auctions, the final sales
price is determined by the bid of the lowest winning bidder. For
example, let’s say that you have ten items with winning bidders. The
highest bidder bids $50 and the lowest bidder only bids $25. In this
case, every winning bidder will receive the item for $25. So, as you can
see, you need to be very careful when using Dutch auctions as you need
to know the balance of supply and demand.
SECRET STRATEGY #9 – “BULK LIST” YOUR AUCTIONS
Once you decide on which products you want to sell large quantities
of, it’s best to bulk list them with auction management software.
Auction management software makes it extremely easily to list your
auctions at the right time so that you make the most money. They also
make it simple to copy listings, make changes and manage everything
including payments and feedback. They are an incredible timesaver and
extraordinary powerful because they allow you to list your auctions at
your leisure and schedule them to be posted on the day and at the time
of your choice. Of course, the professional versions of these programs
cost money but almost all of them have free versions that you should
start with.
SECRET STRATEGY #10 – KNOW HOW YOUR BUYERS WILL FIND YOU!
Every Powerseller I interviewed said that this is the most critical
aspect of any auction listing. Why? Because the buyer must first be able
to even come across your listing. Powersellers use titles with keywords
and no fat. Many sellers don’t understand that while it is important
for the title to be catchy, it is more important to be seen in the first
place.
How do you get seen? Well, 93% of all eBay purchases begin with the
buyer searching for a particular keyword in the title and the more
specific you can be the better. For example, the most searched keyword
on eBay as of this writing is “Xbox” and the second is “Xbox 360”. So if
you are selling an Xbox 360 then include “Xbox 360” in the title. This
way, everyone that searches for “Xbox” or “Xbox 360” will find your
listing. If you only had “Xbox” in your title, then people searching for
“Xbox 360” would not even find your listing.
Furthermore, include as many valid keywords in the title as you can
like “Brand New Xbox 360 Premium Sports Package Video Game System”. Use
words that sell like “rare,” “antique,” “popular,” and “free” but use
them sparingly. It is more important to have keywords in your listing.
And resist the temptation to use words like "LOOK", "WOW" and "MUST SEE"
because they waste valuable title space. Instead, be "search engine
savvy" and realize that keywords in the headline are found by the eBay
search engine. As of this writing, over 59,000 listings included “LOOK”
in their titles and, while I didn’t check them all, those that I did
check were selling for about 10% less than their competition.
SECRET STRATEGY #11 – WRITE DETAILED AND ACCURATE “SALES PAGES” FOR YOUR DESCRIPTION
Let me ask you a question. Without reading a description and the
items being identical, would you buy the item with the longer
description or the shorter description? Of course you’re going to buy
the one with the longer description because sellers that go into more
detail are believed to be more honest. Therefore, you want to make sure
that you give a detailed and accurate description that answers just
about every conceivable question that a buyer could ask. Also, be sure
to ask yourself (or better yet, ask someone else) whether you would bid
on the item after reading the description.
It’s also critically important to have a description that acts more
as a sales page when you have a product that people might not
specifically be looking for. When a person is looking for a particular
product like a video game then they will generally enter the particular
video game into the search engine such as “Madden football”. For these
items, you don’t really have to “sell” the product because people
already want it. In this case, you simply have to describe the product…
“for Sony Playstation” and “brand new”.
For other products, you have to be more descriptive such as
“beautiful Icelandic helmet” and for informational products such as
books and programs, you need to create more of a sales page as the buyer
might only be looking for “how to make money on eBay”. In this case,
you need to sell the person on the benefits of your product over your
competition. If writing sales letters intimidates you, I suggest that
you buy a book or creating sales letters or hire a copywriter.
Finally, always have a “call to action”. A “call to action” is a
simple statement in the auction telling the buyer what you actually want
them to do like “place a bid now!” You might be thinking that the buyer
already knows what to do and that’s true. But just because someone
knows what to do doesn’t mean that they will do it. People in the United
States now know more than ever that they should eat healthy but obesity
is at an all-time high. Having a simple “call to action” can increase
bids by 40% or more. I have got this guide off a site outside of ebay,
however I feel this will be very useful for people on ebay.
There are two fees paid by almost every eBay seller that you can
reduce or avoid altogether. The first is the template fee. You want your
auctions to look good, so eBay provides pre-designed templates but they
charge 10¢ every time you use one. The other is the scheduling fee. eBay
charges 10-cents when you schedule an auction to list at a specific time.
Unless you can create and launch your auctions at exactly the right time of
day, almost every seller uses this service. You can avoid or reduce these by
using an auction management service to launch your auctions and host your
photos. I use an auction management service called
Vendio.
For $9.95 a month, you get a free web store and Vendio gives you
the template and scheduling for free as part of that fee. Since you save 20¢
with each listing, after you make 50 listings per month you are saving
money. And you get other features as well including inventory management,
custom messaging, auto feedback posting and the Vendio Scrolling Gallery to
show off all your listings.
