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publication date: May 30, 2007
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- Editorial
- Secret Method To Explode Your eBay Sales! by Tod
Reese
- eBay - The Power Of The Misspell by Shari Hearn
- Five Ways To Detect Shill Bidders On eBay So That
You Don't Pay Absurd Prices by Sydney Johnston
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Hi,
I'm going to have a moan today, but it's a moan with a
purpose, and it concerns the way you are perceived by
others and how a momentary lapse in how you present
yourself in emails can have terrible consequences on
eBay.
Let me tell you as it happened: this morning someone
emailed, saying he hadn't received a reply to the email he
sent me, he was really 'P'd Off', contracted here to
prevent upsetting more polite people than my contact. 'I
will be leaving you negative feedback if you don't get off
your **** and sort this out NOW!'
I looked for his email, I couldn't find one, I wrote back
asking: 'Where did you send the email please?' He
returned with an email address that was nothing to do with
me or my business, still using four letter words to express
his dissatisfaction! I replied: 'I'm sorry, I don't recognise
that email address. It is not mine. Kindly advise me.' He
wrote back saying he had confused me with someone
else, there was no apology, but thankfully no rude words
either! Inside my eBay account I noticed he had already
left positive feedback for something he'd bought from me
several weeks back. I was tempted, very tempted, to
leave him negative feedback, partly for being rude, mostly
because I think someone like him is best thrown off eBay
and my negative might just tip the scales in favour of that
happening given he had a string of negatives for being so
rude.
As it happened I didn't leave a negative, I won't be leaving
him feedback at all, and I've added him to the list of
people I don't want to bid on my auctions.
The point of this story? Purely to say that we all should
check first before upsetting other people, especially fellow
eBayers with potential to leave negative feedback or
otherwise jeopardise our business endeavours.
I'm going to admit, I'm one of the worst offenders, I really
do like getting my own back on rude people, but not if that
means getting negative feedback in the process. And I
don't use naughty words to make my point.
I do sometimes feel like being incredibly rude to someone
who has just been rude to me, and in the heat of the
moment I really have created replies I later regretted.
Those replies weren't rude, but they were very often
childish, usually extremely unprofessional. So, to prevent
over-reacting, I created a string of answers to most
frequently asked questions and most commonly received
insults, they're placed in my signature file box and I pick
and choose the most appropriate 'Thank you for your email'
response at any time.
They go like this, and you can copy any of these:
* Thank you for your email. I am afraid I don't seem to
have received your earlier correspondence. Could you
please send me information about when you sent the
email and which email address you used? (You are
accused of not answering your emails)
* Thank you for your email. I am sorry you feel that way
but I assure you I work very hard to keep my buyers
happy and always offer a money back guarantee on all
my eBay listings. I notice however that you have not
taken me up on my money back guarantee. If you would
like to do so, return the product as soon as possible and
your payment will be refunded by return mail.' (Complaint
that product is not as described or over-priced, etc. This
is usually accompanied by insults and threats to report
you to eBay, PayPal, Trading Standards, etc.)
* Thank you for your email requesting feedback for the
product you bought from me. Our system is programmed
only to leave feedback once it has already been left for us.
This helps us check that customers have received and are
happy with their products and may highlight new ways to
maintain our high standards of customer care.' (Of course
you and I know this is all BS, I just don't leave feedback
until it has been left for me. Otherwise I risk giving
positive feedback to someone whose cheque may later
bounce or who may leave a negative for me).
It's really hard sometimes to keep your calm when the
other person is being rude or threatening to report you for
something you haven't done. But it's always best to stay
calm, reply as nicely as possible, even if you're almost at
boiling point!
Happy eBaying!
Until next time,
Avril
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***
Secret Method To Explode Your eBay Sales! by Tod
Reese
***
eBay is now the 8th most visited site on the Internet and it
has just one purpose - sales. With 40 million visitors per
month most eBay sellers are missing a golden
opportunity. They are missing the opportunity to cultivate
long term clients.
It is a proven fact in marketing that you will continue to
buy over and over again from people and companies that
you know, like and trust. Yet 95% of all Internet marketers
fail when it comes to eBay. Most are looking for the fast
buck. They completely miss the opportunity to use eBay
as a lead generation tool. They miss the opportunity to
create a list of people that will be willing to consume their
products over and over again.
Lead generation on eBay can be accomplished in several
ways. The most popular way is by using the self
liquidating ad. A self liquidating ad is one that pays for
itself. In other words your customer directly pays your
advertising costs. What they are purchase from you is
really some form of advertising.
Let me give you an example of a self liquidating
advertisement. Recently I saw in a magazine an ad for a
pair of sunglasses. The ad claimed that the sunglasses
were free. You just have to pay the shipping and handling
costs.
My guess is that the advertiser probably isn't making
much if any money on the sunglasses. But they also
aren't losing any money. The shipping and handling most
likely cover their actual costs. What they really want is
something far more valuable - your contact information
and your 'permission' to market to you. In other words
they are looking for qualified prospects - prospects that
are interested in the products and services they are
selling.
Once this company has your contact information and
'permission' to market to you, they will begin to establish a
relationship. They will do this in a variety of ways including
sending you ads for other product and services you may
be interested in. Over time most customers will be worth
many times more than their initial purchase.
Since eBay is purely a commerce site it is a perfect place
to do a self liquidating ad. Let's look at an extreme
example. Let's pretend that you own a car dealership that
only sells high end sport cars. We will assume that your
average car sells for $65,000. One way you could use a
lead generation self liquidating ad would be by 'selling' a
special report. For example you could sell a report on
eBay entitled 18 Ways to Drive the Car of Your Dreams
for Less Than the Cost of a Yugo.
An ad. like this would get some attention, especially from
people who are interested in trading up to a high end
sports car. The report is really nothing more than an
advertisement for you. Of course you would have to write
a report that had real content and offered up ways for the
consumer to really do as the title suggests. A report like
this however, would cost you literally nothing to produce -
except your time - and there would be no overhead, no
inventory, and no headaches.
Since this report would be nearly all profit you could set a
low 'Buy It Now' price ($4.97) to attract a huge number of
prospects. The revenue generated would easily offset
eBay's seller fees.
In the report you could suggest several real ways for
people to drive a luxury car for little money. You could
also list in the report resources for them to research. For
example the resources could be dealers that know how to
work special financing deals or specialise in selling high
end sport cars below market value. The resource you
suggest would of course be your own car dealership!
The report did not cost you anything to produce and it fully
paid for its own ad costs with each person that ordered.
The person buying the report is more likely interested in
what you have to offer and is therefore partially qualified.
Anybody that contacts you after reading the report is a
fully qualified prospect and should be marketed to
aggressively.
Once you have their name and contact information you
could send them a weekly 'hot sheet' of cars that you are
trying to sell. Once they purchase you could then sell
them accessories and branded clothing. If they were close
to your shop you could sell them on servicing. And the list
goes on and on.
If you study eBay you will find very few using this lead
generation tool. Yet lead generation and specifically self-
liquidating advertising is a proven winner. Almost every
type of business can benefit from lead generation
advertising. If done correctly lead generation advertising
can actually become another source of revenue for your
company.
Look at eBay as more than just a fast buck. Look to eBay
as a way to create long term clients. eBay if worked
properly can be your best source of fresh leads and can
really explode your sales.
Todd Reese is an information marketer, eBay seller,
marketing consultant, and author of
http://www.AutoDigitalDelivery.com. His specialty is
turning struggling eBayers into PowerSellers.
***
eBay - The Power Of The Misspell by Shari Hearn
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Anybody looking for a1984 Don Mattingly rookie basball
card? How about a pair of stirling silver demitasse spoons
in your grandmother's pattern?
The last time I checked, you could find them on eBay,
along with a number of basball caps and other misspelled
items. Believe it or not, some people still don't know how
to spell check. But, bless their little misspelled harts,
because you can use their errors to profit on eBay.
Every day items go up for auction with typos and
misspells in the titles. The problem is that a large number
of people search for items to buy using the search box,
not browsing through the category listings. Therefore, the
misspelled items are the ones that usually don't fetch the
bids they deserve because they're not getting traffic.
Sometimes you can pick these items up for a song. And,
once you're done singing what can you do? Resell the
item on eBay, properly spelled of course, for quite a nice
profit.
Some sellers have even begun to capitalise on eBay
misspells by selling programs designed to find misspelled
auctions. However, just typing in some of the most
common typos and misspells into the search box will often
times yield great results. (If the correct spelling
automatically pops up, that means there were no items
with that particular misspell.)
How do you know what a common typo or misspell is?
One way to find them is to go to misspell sites such as
www.searchspell.com, where you will find typo and
misspell suggestions for any word you type in. Some
common typos are often caused by leaving out a letter,
such as in basball. You could also type in baseall and see
several other items for sale. Transposing letters is another
common typo, such as baesball, where, once again, you
may find some items for sale.
Another way to utilise misspells on eBay is to include the
most popular misspell in your title along with the correct
spelling. The reason being that some people mistype or
misspell the item they're searching into the search box.
For example, a Jack Lalanne Juicer is often typed in as
Jack Lalane Juicer. That is a very common misspell, and
numerous people type that into the search box when
searching for a Jack Lalanne Juicer. If you type in Lalanne
and Lalane into the title you are able to grab both sets of
people, those who are spelling it correctly, and those who
are not. You've just increased traffic to your auction.
Savvy eBay sellers (and buyers) are utilising typos and
misspells to their advantage. Give it a try. You might find
yourself stumbling onto quite a few treasures.
Shari Hearn is a writer and creator of
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Five Ways To Detect Shill Bidders On eBay So That
You Don't Pay Absurd Prices by Sydney Johnston
***
There is a lot of buzz about shill bidders on the eBay
forums. But in reality, shill bidding isn't that common and
is rather easily detected.
A buyer will sometimes attempt to use shill building to
raise the price of merchandise he is selling. The idea is
that the shiller will bid increasingly high prices, in the hope
that legitimate buyers like you will top the artificially high
prices in an effort to win the goodies for sale.
Here are five ways you can recognise a shill bidder:
1. Few shill bidders will have any feedback. This is
because they never follow through with transactions and
therefore don't have anyone to leave feedback for. If the
shiller does have legitimate transactions on eBay, he is
usually smart enough to use a separate ID, because he
does not want to get caught shilling and lose all buying
and selling privileges.
{It is important to note, however, that just because a
bidder has no feedback that does not mean that he is
necessarily a shrill bidder. This may simply be a new
account that has not had time to build a feedback
reputation.}
2. Generally, a shiller only bids on the auctions of a
particular seller. When in doubt, you can check the current
and completed options of a seller and see if this shiller
has bid on other auctions by the same seller.
3. Shill bidders are most often eBay newcomers. You can
check the feedback, and the date that the eBay account
was created, for any eBay member. If the bidder's
account was created two days ago and he is bidding on
several auctions of the same seller, you can be pretty
certain about what is going on.
4. eBay has ways of tracking shillers. Of course we don't
know everything they do (and if I did know I wouldn't tell!)
but some clues all are dead giveaways. For example, if
the seller and the bidder have the same IP address, eBay
knows to take a closer look.
5. Shill bidders retract many more bids than normal
buyers. eBay does allow any buyer to retract a bid,
although this is only supposed to occur for specific
reasons. But actually a retraction is rarely challenged and
ultimately what can eBay do? It cannot force a person to
pay for a particular item.
It is wise not to use this option on a frequent basis.
Remember that your eBay behaviour is constantly
tracked. A retraction is considered to be a 'black mark' on
your reputation so don't do it very often. Shillers, on the
other hand, don't care because they're unconcerned
about their reputation. If caught, they simply open a new
account.
Sometimes a shiller is the high bidder at the end of an
auction. In that case, the seller and buyer can agree to
cancel the bid, rather than retract it. However, all this
takes a lot of work, planning and effort. In the end, shill
bidding is rarely worth the trouble and time. Instead, smart
sellers spend their time finding products and writing
listings - the two basic moneymaking activities of an eBay
business - instead of plotting how to raise profits on
individual listings. Success in business is about efficiency.
Read more of Sydney Johnston's articles at
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