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Learn How To Start Your Own eBay Business
You may be happy to learn that it does not take a genius to make millions on ebay, nor does it require you to have any specialized computer knowledge.
You do not even need to be a skilled entrepreneur. With over 1.5 billion page views per month and more than 1000 categories, they bring customers TO YOU and save you enormous advertising costs.
Your primary job, therefore, is to make a successful sales pitch to the customers who see your auctions, and doing that isn't as easy as you might think. You will be competing with more than two million other eBay sellers, many of whom are veterans at online marketing and highly knowledgeable in the niche markets found on eBay.
So how do you compete with them?
The answer is simple: INFORMATION! This manual provides you the information needed to get ahead on eBay and gives you an instant edge over your competitors.
I will provide you with insider secrets on eBay trading that I have learned from years of online auction sales. And I'm not making an empty sales pitch.
If you read this handbook carefully - not once, but several times - and if you follow the advice set forth in these pages, you will be armed with the knowledge necessary for an extremely lucrative home-based business selling virtually anything on eBay.
Registration
If you are new to eBay and do not already have an eBay buyer or seller account, the first thing you need to do is register with ebay and create a buyer account... Don't worry its free. Below you will find the different ebay sites where you can register for your account. click on whichever region is best for you. When in doubt, pick the US site.
Creating your eBay account is as easy as 1 2 3! Let Auction Essentials guide you step-by-step through the sign up process. Go to the eBay Registration Guide.
After you have created your eBay buyer account, you need to turn it into a seller account. The easiest way to do this is to sign into your account and click "SELL" eBay will then walk you through the steps to create your seller account.
eBay is very user friendly so you should have no trouble acomplishing the above steps. If however you do have some trouble, feel free to drop me line and I will be happy to help you out.
Requirments
A computer, an internet connection, an open mind,eBay seller account, and a modicum of intelligence. You will also need to be familiar with the eBay format and know the basic functions of listing items on the online auction site.
The rest of this tutorial is not intended for complete eBay novices nor does it cover basic features such as how to list a product. I have written this tutorial with the serious eBay seller in mind who wants to learn the secrets of making hundreds of thousands of dollars using proven selling strategies CUSTOM DEVELOPED specifically for eBay auctions!
Getting Started
I'm going to assume you are familiar with all of the basic features and functions of eBay. Before you even entertain thoughts of making a six figure income online, you need to hash out a few basic ideas.
- What do you want to sell and why?
- Who do you want to sell to?
- Will your product appeal to everyone or only to a select niche market?
- Are your potential customers pre-qualified for your product? (We'll discuss what that means in a later section).
- Where can you obtain your product?
- How popular is your product?
- What is the age-range and income-range of your potential customers?
Start thinking about all of these questions right now. The most important advice I can give you about online marketing in general is to develop a marketing strategy before you even start selling your merchandise.
Let's start with the most important decision you have to make: what to sell.
What To Sell
With over 1000 categories and more being added all the time, you can sell virtually anything on eBay. But choosing what to sell can often be overwhelming.
My advice is to look first to your own hobbies and interests, because the most successful sales pitch always comes from the heart. It sounds corny, but it is TRUE. If you don't believe in what you're selling, and you aren't willing to stand behind your product, your online business will certainly fail.
You should never sell a product that you aren't enthusiastic about, or else you should be able to fake your enthusiasm better than a Hollywood actor. Either way, you must pass on the positive energy about your product to the consumer. This applies not only on eBay but to marketing in general, both online and offline.
It is true that some things sell better than others. Information and software are particularly hot sellers because almost all computer users are pre-qualified for those products. In other words, the fact that they are using a computer means they need software, and the fact that they are using the Information Superhighway means they are already looking for information!
Another example is this tutorial itself, which is designed specifically for a huge pre-qualified niche market on eBay. The fact that you are an eBay seller meant that you were instantly interested in improving your trade by learning the information contained in this tutorial!
Selling to a pre-qualified market can be very profitable, but you must be enthusiastic about what you're selling or it will surely fail. Once again, you should only sell a product that you are excited about. That is the absolute best advice I can give you with regards to online marketing in general!
Finding Your Niche Market
Once you have a product in mind, you need to pinpoint your niche market. This is very easy to do. Brainstorm a list of interests, hobbies, topics, subjects, and ideas that are similar or related to your product.
For example, if you sell knives then you would consider the following interests/hobbies relevant to your product:
- Camping
- Hunting
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Boating
- Knife Collecting
- Diving
- Martial Arts
- Sporting Goods
- Kitchenware
- Cutlery
- Tools
- Collectable Hand Tools
- Knife Making, Ect.
The eBay users who visit such categories on the auction site make up your niche market.
Once you know where your customers go, you need to KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS. Brainstorm a list of their
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Likes and Dislikes
- Age Range
- Income Potential
- Likley Vocation
- Maritial Status, Ect.
Devise a complete dossier on your potential customers in that niche market. The reason for this will become clear later as you learn to write an effective sales pitch. The sales pitch aims at attracting a certain profile of eBay user and is the most profitable tool you can use to increase the percentage sales of your products.
Choosing a Category or Categories
Ok, you have put a lot of thought into your product and completed the introspective phase of getting started. You're excited about your merchandise and you're ready to start selling it on eBay auctions.
The next step is to find your niche market; as applies to online auctions, this refers to the category you will list your item(s) in. Considering eBay has over 1000 categories to choose from, this should be a relatively easy process. But there is one important trick you strategy to know.
Before listing your item in any category, follow these simple steps:
- First, browse through ALL eBay categories and write down which ones you feel are relevant to your product.
(You should be able to find at least 5-10 possible choices.)
- Next, write down the number of auctions currently online in each of those categories
(the number of auctions online will appear next to the category name).
An average in any category is about 1000, so if there are more than 1000 you may conclude that the category is active and if there are less than 1000 you may consider it inactive. I consider categories with over 3000 auctions to be popular and those with over 10000 are most popular.
Using this ranking system, rate the categories that you have chosen for your product. I recommend listing in active or above categories only because they get the most traffic. If you put your product in an inactive section of eBay, you may get little or no bids, even if you feature it. Avoid categories with less than 1000 auctions online!
I personally hate doing research, but it is a crucial part of your auction research and vital to your success. However i have found a tool called Deep Analysis that is designed specifically for eBay market research. With a few clicks Deep Analysis will more detailed information than you could ever need to successfully market your items.
Keeping Track of Your Auctions
Once you have more than 5-10 auction listings online, you will need to develop an effective system for keeping track of them all. Simply listing the items and sending a confirmation email to the winners is not enough.
For example, if a customer purchases one of your products and asks whether you received payment yet or not, you need to track down the item number and see if you have received his check. Other customers may want to know when the item was shipped or have other questions pertaining to auctions they won in the past.
If you list less than 5-10 auctions at a time, you can probably keep track of them with the old pen-and paper method, or with a very simple spreadsheet. If you choolse this method, follow these steps for keeping track of the auctions:
- Use a seperate sheet of paper for each auction you list.
- Write down the item number, URL, listing date, listing price, and category, along with any other comments or pertinent information.
- When the auction ends, write down the ending date, the sell price (if any) and the buyer's contact information.
- Index the auctions by auction number for quick reference in a file.
Again, this method works ok for fewer than 10 auctions online each week and is fine for the person who views eBay as a hobby. However, if you want to make a Profitable business out of eBay, then you will have 50 to 100 or more auctions running at all times. In that case you will need a database system of some kind to track your auctions.
Selling the merchandise is only half the battle - you MUST keep track of your sales or you will quickly find yourself lost and confused. Particularly on April 15th!
The best way to track your auctions is to use some kind of auction software. There are many different auction manager style programs out there, and over the years I have tried almost all of them. I found that very few of them were worth the money I paid, but there were a few out there that I felt were well worth the money. The best auction manager software that I have found and also happen to use is HammerTap Manager.
To continue on to the next page of the tutorial please click here.
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