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Leaving negative feedback is normally seen as the last option. However there are a few points you need to keep in mind before you leave it.

Most importantly, the other party will normally have the option to return negative feedback to you. So if, you grossly concerned about receiving negative feedback to your account then you should either wait for the other party to leave feedback first, wait until after ninety days is up and then leave it using the techniques described above or consider dropping the matter completely.

If your still determined to leave negative feedback then you need to keep eBay’s guidelines in mind. If you violate any of these the other party can apply to eBay to have the feedback removed.

So, keep in mind the following points.

- Most importantly do not include any contact details within your feedback comment.

- Do not allow the feedback comment to contain profane, vulgar, obscene, or racist language or adult material.

- Do not make any references to eBay, PayPal or law enforcement organisation investigation.

- Do not leave feedback comment contains links

Additionally if you are a winning bidder and have left feedback for a seller, who later files an unpaid item dispute you must respond to this, otherwise eBay will have the right to remove your feedback. eBay now removes feedback automatically from buyers who do not participate in any unpaid item dispute.

Mark Kenny is the author of Maintain Your Feedback. You can download his free ebook, valued at $27 from http://www.MaintainYourFeedback.com or check out his blog at: http://www.Trading-Web-Solutions.com/blog

“Objection” is a term taken directly from sales and marketing training, and it is important you understand the significance of objections to your eBay sales process.

Objections are those points, sometimes small issues, which make a bidder or a buyer think again about going for your offering.

In your auction description you need to remove as many of these objections as you can.

These are the kind of objections which your prospective buyers will have.

Objection 1
Is the seller trustworthy?

The buyer usually doesn’t know you. If they’re serious bidders they will check you out. How will they do this?

a) A good Feedback Rating will be one way they assess you. Be determined in getting your feedback up, and making it all positive.

b) They might also click through to your About Me page. This page gives you the opportunity to convey your personality and your honesty.

One of eBay’s standard About Me page formats lets you display your recent feedbacks - always useful - and also your other auctions, again useful. This is in addition to anything about yourself which helps to show what a sincere and genuine person you are.

And finally, if you have a web site from which you sell products or services, you are allowed to place a direct link to it from the About Me page. (This is in marked contrast to your auction description page, where eBay does not allow direct links to web pages.) So, create an About Me page and incorporate the points mentioned.

c) A prospective bidder may wish to ask you a question. As you will know, there is a standard eBay facility whereby a bidder can ask a seller a question. You should really welcome questions.

Why do I say this?

Well, if a bidder asks you a question, first of all you know they are interested in your offering. They wouldn’t have wasted their time on typing out their question to you if they weren’t. Also, by asking you a question they are qualifying themselves in as a real prospect. And you now have the chance in your reply to directly influence them. Depending on the nature of their enquiry, you have the opportunity to convey your integrity, honesty, credibility, fair mindedness, helpfulness, expertise, knowledge, other appropriate products etc.

So, if questions are such good things, why not make it easy for the bidder to ask one? Always have some text in your auction description offering to answer any questions, with a link to your email address. If you have a little knowledge of HTML coding you will know how easy this is to do. It is far better than simply relying on buyers finding the standard “Ask the seller a question” link provided by eBay.

d) You might consider a moneyback guarantee, if it’s appropriate and you can “afford” it.

Why would you or should you do this?

Well, when you think about it, in online auctions, the buyer is normally asked to take all the risk. They usually pay the seller up front - before the item is delivered to them. The risk is all theirs that the seller doesn’t perform.

To some buyers, particularly on higher value items, this risk is so high that it can cause them to have second thoughts about bidding. You know you are trustworthy, but they don’t. By offering a moneyback guarantee you are offering what is known as “risk reversal”. You are taking the risk off your buyer. In effect you shoulder the risk.

I know this works, because I use it myself. In thousands of auctions I’ve run, I can count on one hand the number of people who have invoked my moneyback guarantee.

If you can practice “risk reversal”, it will help your auction success rate, and it is vital on Dutch auctions.

Objection 2
How do I pay?

Always maximize the number of payment options you will accept.

You should provide different types of payment options for your buyers:

PayPal
Nochex
Check
Postal Order
Banker’s Draft
Bank Transfer
Cash

You can accept credit/debit cards on your auctions if you open accounts with relevant payment processors like PayPal and Nochex. These enable buyers to pay you with a credit/debit card even though you aren’t a business, and you don’t have what is known as a Merchant Account.

As you probably know, PayPal is owned by eBay. Therefore eBay make it really easy for you to take PayPal payments from your buyers. But don’t forget other payment processors, like Nochex. It might just be that your interested buyer only has a Nochex account.

Opening accounts is free. Paying anyone via PayPal or Nochex is also free - which is why so many auction bidders and buyers use them.

There are charges for you as a seller, however, and these are incurred when you receive money and/or when you transfer money from/to your PayPal or Nochex accounts from/to your own bank account. Check out the respective fees via their web sites.

In my experience, the rates of charges are reasonable for giving you the significant advantage of being able to accept credit/debit card payments on your auctions.

If you are selling low value items, say less than £3 ($6), it may be prudent to add a small sum or percentage to the final sale value to cover this.

Speaking personally, I never ask the buyer to incur additional charges for using PayPal or Nochex. By now, you should have realized why - it’s called removing an objection! I take the view that buyers who wish to pay by credit/debit card should not be discouraged in any way - and a surcharge of this nature might just prevent them from bidding or buying.

If you don’t have PayPal account and you’d like to create one, go here:
http://www.paypal.com

If you don’t have Nochex account and you’d like to create one, go here:
http://www.nochex.com

As I mentioned, they’re free to set up.

Objection 3
Is delivery expensive?

Always fully describe your delivery details within your auction description. Be up front about shipping costs.

If bidders or buyers aren’t given this detail within the auction description, they may become suspicious that the seller is hiding something, and therefore decide not to bid.

There is no reason why you cannot say up front how much P&P will be. You can find out the real delivery costs of the company you plan to use. You can get these details from their website.

Once you have the postal costs you can add the appropriate handling and packaging costs, and there you have the figure to let your buyers know in advance that you’re not hiding anything.

You have just removed another doubt in your prospective buyer’s mind.

Incidentally, there have also been occasions where sellers have sold items at what appear to be cheap prices, but have inflated delivery costs to compensate, or even over compensate. Never do this!

Objection 4
What happens if the item arrives damaged?

In your auction description you should cover your policy in relation to damages and insurance.

If you’re selling higher value items you may wish to consider using a delivery service which includes insurance. Remember, even though the buyer has paid for it, the item is your property until it is accepted by the buyer. So if it is damaged in transit, this is your responsibility. You will have to arrange a replacement or a refund, and claim your costs back via your insurance.

Don’t forget, if you do need to have enhanced insurance cover, it is perfectly reasonable to include this is in your delivery costs as shown in your auction description.

Objection 5
How professional is someone who has multiple spelling errors?

You might consider it to be very unreasonable for any bidder to pass by your auction just because you have spelling errors.

However, they may believe someone who won’t take the trouble to get their spelling correct might be equally unprofessional elsewhere.

You and I might feel their stance to be unreasonable. With spell checkers available, however, there’s no reason to have any spelling errors creeping through on your auction page.

So, spell check your auction description page - please.

Objection 6
What do I do now?

It’s all very well describing your auction in full detail, but you should always “ask for the order”. Tell them what to do now. In other words, don’t forget to suggest to your prospective buyer that they make a bid today for this valuable, rare, stunning, limited edition item!

And remind them that when they win the item they will be enriched by the strongest benefit you have already identified to them in your auction description.

Objections - Summary

Don’t leave these points hanging in your auction for the bidder to ponder and make assumptions.

If you spend time removing these objections, you will be repaid handsomely. I can guarantee you will receive more genuine bids on your eBay auctions.

Brian McGregor is an eBay and internet entrepreneur. He recently created the ‘eBay Master Class’ for eBay sellers. For your free copy, please go to http://www.workwinners.com/ebm-request.htm

Reported in The Enquirer on July 17th BOONEVILLE, KY.

An eastern Kentucky woman hopes to fetch at least $750,000 for a
Revolutionary War map and a few strands of hair that she says
belonged to George Washington.

Christa Allen from Kentucky needs some money right away as her
son has been in the hospital recently, and she doesn’t have
medical insurance.

So she decided to put the hair and map on eBay.

Maybe you haven’t got the odd strand of Washington’s hair kicking
around, but you have probably considered selling that redundant
exercise bike or coronation mug.

This is the way so many people start selling on eBay, casually
selling an item or two freshly dragged from the loft. A goodly
percentage then go on and get the eBay selling bug. Just check
out the success stories on Freeauctionscripts.com for
confirmation.

But beware! There is a world of difference between selling spare
items from the attic and buying and selling profitably as a
business.

For a start it is essential to consider eBay listing fees, eBay
final value fees, PayPal transaction fees, cost of goods,
shipping expenses, refund expenses (damaged/missing shipments),
office expenses and packaging.

The advice from seasoned eBay merchants is well worth examination
if you are considering trading seriously.

Here are the top tips from a variety of eBay Powersellers.

1. Seek advice and learn as much as you can before you
start. Use the eBay Store Sellers Board - a lively forum
where you can pick up tips and ask questions.

2. Find a niche. Sell what you like and can get your hands
on. Keep in mind shipping and the supplies to ship those
items.

3. Keep yourself organized either on paper, online, or with
a spreadsheet.

4. When volume picks up, find ways to decrease your workload
and streamline your business. How about a USPS pickup
instead of a trip to the post office each time?

5. Recognize when you need a solution. As number of products
increase you will need management tools such as
Turbolister or SpareDollar.

6. Make research a part of your daily routine. It’s
important to know what changes have been made, get tips
on how to improve your business , and know when there are
problems.

7. Adapt to change. It’s a constant fact that things change.
Those that can adapt to changes will survive.

With the right preparation you can certainly enjoy a profitable
and convenient way of life.

As Judith Isaacson of Goldman Jewelry eBay Store concludes in her
success story on Freeauctionscripts.com:

“So here I am in Israel, promoting and selling jewelry that is in
New York, to customers around the world, without leaving the
house. The process of building and handling the internet
extension of our family business, and combining family, home and
business brings me full circle. My cup runneth over.”

Keith Watson has been developing websites and advising about marketing and sales on the Internet since 1992. To sign up for a ezine from me full of tips and advice about how to make money using the Internet Sign up for an ezine that walks the talk!

eBay is one of the world’s largest market places with over 35 million visitors per day. That first sentence is worth repeating because I want you to realize that eBay gives you the ability to reach a customer base of millions and millions of people which is beneficial to you. Say Goodbye to garage sales and hello to eBay.

You don’t have to become a major power-seller or wholesaler to take advantage of eBay and what this mega marketplace can do for you. All you need is a computer with Internet access so you can setup auctions for all that stuff laying around the house you’ve been wanting to get rid of by selling it or giving it away, so why not eBay it?

eBay auction VS garage sale

First lets talk about garage sales. Holding a garage sale consists of getting all of your items ready to sell and placing them on display in front of your house or on your driveway for neighbors and lookers to purchase. You or someone you know and trust needs to be physically present at all times to sell the items as your front yard has now become a small storefront. In other words you have to sit at home all day after getting everything together and promoting your garage sale which is a lot of work especially considering what you can accomplish with less time and effort
on eBay.

Time & Money

Just about everybody is looking to save time and money which is
exactly what eBay does for you. eBay is a much larger market and can attract many more potential buyers than a garage sale can. The very reason that there are more potential buyers creates more of a demand for your product, toy or whatever you are trying to sell. eBay commands more dollar for your product than a garage sale for this very reason.

eBay also saves you time because once you have setup your auction it does most of the work for you. You don’t have to be present to sell the item, you don’t have to be home to get paid electronically and you don’t have to be there for somebody to see your auction because your potential buyers can look at your item for sale from the convenience of their own computer which saves you precious time.

eBay also gives you the ability to accept different payment methods such as PayPal, money order, check or cash it is up to you what payment methods you wish to accept. Garage sales simply do not offer this sort of flexibility with time and money.

Quick tips

Shipping can be a hard one to get used to - so make sure that you either A. get a postal scale (about $20 at Office Depot) or B. have the post office weigh the packages before you list. Take it from me because I have lost so much money on shipping because I would just ‘guesstimate’ and that simply does not work. I would recommend always making the buyer purchase Insurance and tracking. I had an issue where a customer said she never got her package and I didn’t insure it. We decided to wait a couple of weeks then figure it out, she actually wanted me to refund everything to her, which I didn’t feel was fair but was willing to do it because I believe in customer satisfaction. Fortunately the package finally showed up after three and half weeks (and I sent it Priority Mail).

You want to only send to the buyers address if it is registered with eBay. A couple of years ago a gentlemen contacted me to buy a $250 wireless antenna, he said he was traveling and asked me to send it to his satellite office. He paid me through PayPal, I always thought that was safe and would automatically include coverage. Two months went by and then all of the sudden Paypal took $250 out of our account without warning or explanation, when we called them they said that one of our eBay transactions was fraudulent! It turns out the man used a stolen credit card, PayPal told us we were out of luck since we did not send to his confirmed address. Lesson learned.

Always state the terms of your auctions, it is good to come up with your terms to use at the end of every auction that states your policies, if you combine shipping, the payment methods you accept, etc. Also, think of a refund policy. I give a full refund, or for instance my sister-in-law gives purchase amount
back but not shipping, those sort of policies are up to you as a seller.

I use Turbo Lister, a free software program, that makes it so much easier to get multiple auctions setup simultaneously. If you do it directly from eBay it seems like it takes forever to enter each one. Turbo Lister is a free download and is available in Seller Tools at eBay.

A way to save money; I always use the free template from eBay. It’s not really anything fancy. You can choose to get those cute little borders and clipart on each auction but it costs more money. It’s proven that ultimately it doesn’t matter to people, they want what you are selling. Your first picture is free after that they are .15 cents for additional ones. So I always try, when possible, to use only one picture. Sometimes if it is a big clothing lot or a large dollar item I will only use more pictures. I also make sure to try and write a great
description so potential buyers know what they are getting and are excited for their purchase.

Something that works; I will sometimes utilize the ‘Buy It Now’ features (they cost extra) but I put the BIN price higher than I would normally expect to get and when somebody really wants an item, they would rather pay the higher price than risk missing the auction end without winning the item. There are
many times where this has benefited both myself and the buy it now bidder.

If you are doing a local pickup or have special instructions for your auction make sure you include those instructions ALL OVER your auctions. The mistake I made one time was only putting local pickup only on just the shipping description and
the winning bidder did not notice that. Now I plaster special instructions like that everywhere.

Remember that people love fast shipping so when you do sell try to ship the item out as soon as possible after auction ending. Your customers will love fast shipping. I also include a note thanking them and sometimes I include a bonus item. That’s just
some of the fun and benefits of selling on eBay.

Lori Osenbaugh sells on eBay in addition to being a licensed Realtor® and Pampered Chef Consultant. You can custom search for Colorado homes at PreferredDenverHomes or search Lori’s Pampered Chef Online

Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay. There are many people who don’t like the idea that their item might sell for a far lower price than they intend. Equally, there are people who have hundreds of the same item and don’t want to sell them individually. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and how to spot them.

Normal Auctions.

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: you bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions.

Reserve auctions are for sellers who don’t want their items to sell for less than a certain price – a concept you’ll know about if you’re familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that you will be told if your bid has not met the reserve price set by the seller. If no-one is willing to meet this price, then the auction is cancelled, and the seller keeps the item.

You can spot these auctions by looking out for ‘Reserve not met’ or ‘Reserve met’ written next to the current bid on an item’s description page.

Fixed Price (‘Buy it Now’) Auctions.

Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. A seller might add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that you can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the ‘best offer’. This means that you can negotiate a price to someone who offers their items using Buy it Now, which could be a great way to get a bargain on things that don’t seem to be selling.

Fixed price auctions are easy to spot, as they have a little ‘Buy it Now’ logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.

Multiple Item (‘Dutch’) Auctions.

These are auctions where a seller is selling more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don’t worry – everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price. You can enter how many you want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.

After all this, you might find yourself facing a dilemma: when you have the option, should you bid, or should you just use Buy it Now and save yourself the hassle? That’s what the next email will be about.

Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.

A fascinating eBay case study is the number one seller on eBay, a little outfit called Marie’s CDs, but is better known under its old name “1 Cent CD.” Jay and Marie, current ID “jayandmarie”, are an institution on eBay and are a big part of what makes eBay such an amazingly popular phenomenon.

This little company is literally an eBay dream come true. They started small out of their home in California in 1999 and began growing quickly. To date they have completed over 1 million auctions on eBay and have a feedback rating of 177,018 with 99% satisfaction from their customers!

When I say grow, I mean it in a Jack and the Beanstalk kind of way. Their business started out as a little fly-by-night outfit and has now sold over 1 million dollars (yep, that’s $1,000,000) annually for the past three years… Let me repeat that: over a million dollars in sales each year for three years running! Now THAT is growth!

They employ several people, have three small buildings in southern California, and ship items all over the world (mainly CDs). They got their fame from their auctions for CDs that start at only a penny…

What can we learn from this fascinating case study? What do Jay and Marie actually do?

Well, for one thing, they have huge numbers of auctions. Today, they have 83 pages of auctions listed. eBay lists 50 auctions to a page, so that is over 4,000 auctions.

Secondly, they offer great value, because their CDs begin at one cent. Yes, all of them.

None of their auctions has a reserve. Does it pay off? You betchum! Today, looking through 4 pages of eBay auctions, only 3 of them had no bids - so far.

And, naturally, their great feedback and reputation work heavily in their favor. After all, how many eBay sellers have 177,000+ feedback points with over half a million transactions completed.

This case study shows all of us how smart marketing and a great business model can pay off on eBay - and ecommerce, in general.

Sydney Johnston, the AUCTION QUEEN, was one of the original sellers on eBay and has been selling on eBay since the winter of 1996. She is the originator and teacher of the famous Auction Genius Course, a powerful 16 hour multi media seminar on the Internet that teaches her students how to sell on ebay.

If you are trying to sell wholesale products using auction sites and you’d like to increase the “I Sold It On eBay!” factor, most top eBay sellers know they have to research their SEO keywords.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization (a good thing when you are trying to attract new customers to your wholesale products or business), and it’s a lot easier than you think. Plus, using SEO keyword tactics works equally as well with your website as it does with your eBay seller auctions. Although it may take you a little bit to get the hang of the process, once you learn this crucial technique you’ll be eBay selling with the pros.

First, visit eBay’s Pulse section, which offers anyone who visits the page a quick view of what’s hot on the auction site. I’ll walk you through this process using some SEO keywords that I’m personally interested in: wholesale and retail doll supplies. (For a list of wholesale companies that offer doll supplies, visit WholesaleGopher.com).

My eBay Pulse search shows there is only one “wholesale doll” item listed, 46 items matching “retail doll”, 82 items matching “doll supplies” and 84 items for “wholesale doll”. (Of course, your results may differ from mine, since eBay sellers are constantly changing their auctions, offerings and products). You can also use the scroll down list on the site to pick an item category that interests you, and then write down the top terms from there, too.

Next, you need to check and see how popular those keywords are. Using a freebie keyword suggestor, I find out that my keywords “wholesale and retail doll supply” were searched 564 times last month over many of the search engines (explaining this process will take too long to go into in this article; hopefully we’ll touch upon it a bit more in another piece). Because my SEO keywords are so specialized, I’m not seeing any other results than the ones I stuck in there, but you’ll probably get a whole slew. Any that describe your wholesale wares well, plug them into eBay Pulse as well to see what their demand is on the auction site, too.

Then, I visit Google and type in “wholesale and retail doll supply” (WITH the quotations - this is really important), and find that there are only eighty-four websites listed that meet the search term requirements. (Let me add here that these are incredible odds; you won’t see search results like this often).

Are you still with me? Okay, now comes the hard part: figuring out which search terms are the best to populate your eBay auction with. Read the next article in this series for an in-depth explanation how to use these SEO keywords so you can start yelling, “I Sold It On eBay!” sooner, rather than later.

Jim Staley is the is the CEO for WholesaleGopher, one of the most trusted dealer and distributor directories on the Internet, offering visitors wholesale items, import and export goods, surplus and closeouts from true wholesale sources. Learn more about wholesaling with his free, bi-weekly blog at http://www.wholesalegopher.com/blog/.