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100 Auction Secrets Revealed! By Aubrey Johnson & Barkingbird Productions AuctionTip #70: Use Underscore to Get Longer Titles By using underscore
"_" between words in your title, you'll get to enter a longer title
than if you just used spaces between your words. It's just one more free
thing you should do in order to make your listings stand out. AuctionTip #71: Use Excellent Key Words in Titles Since there are so many
items on eBay, one of the most effective ways people find things is to use the
search engine. If you want people to
find your item, then place key words, and other carefully selected words in
your titles. For example, if you’re
selling a collectible model car, don’t just put the word CAR in your title, put
the make and model, too. Put as many keywords as
possible in the title, so the greatest number of searches will locate it for
someone who is looking for items like yours. AuctionTip #72: Path of Least Resistance - Go With Your Strength When it
comes to finding the right thing to sell, make the best out of what you have. If you
have an advantage, then by all means, use it. But first you must recognize it;
this is the hardest part. Sometimes these things are so obvious that we never
see it. A few
months ago I decided to start writing my own info-manuals to sell online. It
was like pulling teeth trying to decide which way to go... but it was so
obvious- go with what you know. And when
you notice it... it's off to the races. Do you
have a house full of stuff you don’t use? Sure you do. For years it never
occurred to me that anyone would pay good money for stuff I never use. Do you
work for someone who you could help liquidate some assets for? Selling on
someone else's behalf, called consignment, for a percentage is a very lucrative
opportunity. Do you
have any special knowledge that others would gladly pay money for? Of course
you do. Someone out there wants to know. You wanted to know how to sell on
eBay, so I was there to help you by writing what I knew. You’re
looking for the shortest path to your goal. Upon closer inspection you’re
always going to find better ways to get there. But at
some point you have to "do"- stomp doubt in the ground with action. Read,
think about it a little, sell a little, and commit to a direction and run with
it- it will become perfectly clear to you what to do. AuctionTip #73: A Purely Digital Filing System? I hate filing. With a
passion- but you have to have a way of doing it. If you can, create a
purely digital filing system- save some trees and save you a headache- Use
email receipts to keep records income. Keep good backups though. Get a scanner and scan
important documents into the computer like business expense receipts and
account statements that come in the mail. It's hard traveling back
and forth from a digital and paper filing system, and it's redundant to keep
both. AuctionTip #74: Interesting Consumable Product Sources That I’ve Used There are
numerous places to buy wholesale goods. I'm sure you've seen lists of
wholesalers everywhere. Here a
few that I have tested and found profitable. This is to give you some ideas...
I list them for ONE reason only. They are consumable. That
means when they run out they buy them from you again. Profit potential from
these types of products is endless. Keep in
mind that I am not recommending you go out and dump a whole lot of money into
fat burners. This is merely something that I have tried an found it to work
very well. You and I
both know that if something works very well then in time it doesn't work so hot
because... everyone else is doing it too. The main
thing I want to show you is to keep looking for better and better ways of doing
things. Develop a consumer market "sixth sense" by knowing what
people want and need, and then give it to them. Here are
reliable wholesale consumable product sources I have used in the past: Fatburners Fat Absorbers Vacation Packages Metabolife In an
ideal world, you would develop your own consumable product and then have people
sell it for you. That is difficult to say the least. That is why
I will keep the focus on helping you develop your own information products in
this book. Another
tip that I can give you in your research for authentic sources is the Thomas
Register: I have
little to say about doing business directly with manufacturers other than it
can be done. I will also say that it costs a lot of money and there is a
formal process to doing business with them. I once
tried to buy CD media from Memorex but I failed to meet several prerequisites.
I had to have some type of wholesaler license and I hadn't been in established
very long at the time so that didn't help either. In essence you are becoming a wholesaler when you do this. AuctionTip #75: Don’t Get Thrown Off If you want your item to
show up during primetime, remember there is 2-3 hour posting delay,
so post 2-3 hours early. For instance, if you
want your auction to end at 10PM EST, then start your auction at 7PM. AuctionTip #76:
Harness the Power of Search Engines
Using
search engines with auctions is a potent combo. The whole
point of eBay is that they bring you the traffic and you simply pay them for it.
If you have a good bid-pulling sales letter you make money. Using
search engines adds to the amount of traffic you normally would get… without
you doing a thing! The
problem is that it’s somewhat intimidating, especially if you’re new to
intermediate when it comes to auctions. Few
people use them with auctions because those that know how to use search engines
don’t sell their goods with auctions, but their own website. Skirting normal
fees, competition and advertising. At this
point I’m going to recommend some good starting points for your research and
experimentation with search engines. This is
where auctions become another book. To start
off, concentrate on promoting with Pay-Per Click search engines. Focus on
Goto.com to begin with. With
Pay-Per Click search engines you bid on a keywords for the clickthoughs you
get. These are words a potential customer might use to find your auctions. Let say
you exclusively sell Rock-&-Roll T-shirts. You would bid on words like “Van
Halen Shirt”, “Van Halen” and so on. You might pay a penny per click-through,
depending on the competition. You would
simply point the visitor to your “My eBay” page or website. This is an
excellent way to get highly targeted cheap traffic. AuctionTip #77: Proofread Your Ads and Email Always make sure to
proofread your listing before you post an ad for the first time, or have
some else do so for you. You'll be amazed at what fresh pair of eyes
will uncover. It's very frustrating to
catch a mistake after the auction has started and people have started
bidding. Make sure you check over your ad and email for errors. AuctionTip #78: Find Your Niche Selling on eBay is just
like the Internet or any other real world business. In order to be
successful you need to pick a niche and stick with it. When you're starting out
selling it's ok to sell a little bit of everything- but when you get serious,
sit down and decide where you're corner of the market is. AuctionTip #79: Offer A Free Newsletter or Mailing List A great way of staying
in touch with customers and potential buyers is to offer a newsletter dealing
with their interests- such as something dealing with the niche you chose. You
can use this to build trust, give out free information, and to plug your
auctions. |