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Why I love paying fees
publication date: Feb 28, 2007
*****
- Editorial
- Become An Auction Middle Man! by Mark Kenny
- All The Secrets About British Car Auctions by John Winam
- Make Money On eBay - Increase the Size of the Sale! by
Bob Hamilton
*****
Hello,
I love paying my eBay listing and final selling fees, I love giving
PayPal a share of whatever money I've taken using their
payment system, and the more I pay eBay and PayPal each
week the happier I am.
That's because I make sure every penny I pay to list, sell, and
take payment, is money well spent. I don't waste money. So the
more I pay eBay to upload my listings, generally speaking the
more items I've actually auctioned during whatever period. The
more I pay in eBay final sale fees, the more I've made from my
endeavours and, the more PayPal takes from my account the
greater the amount of money that's actually made its way into my
bank account.
Yes, it's all common sense, you need to speculate to
accumulate, but that doesn't mean you have to waste money in
your eBay business, there are in fact many ways to reduce your
outgoings and grow your bottom line even bigger.
Here's another clich to join all those already used in my editorial
this week:
'A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned' (sometimes 'Gained') and
these are great ways to cut outgoings and make you a happy
Bunny:
1) Reclaim Listing and Final Selling Fees wherever possible,
notably where the buyer fails to pay you or that person becomes
'No Longer Registered on eBay' mainly because they've failed to
pay other sellers and earned too many 'Non Payment' strikes.
eBay refunds your listing and final finishing fees where the buyer
reneges on payment or is expelled or deregisters on eBay before
paying you. Where you see 'No Longer a Registered User'
alongside buyer details for one of your products inside your eBay
account, this means that person is unlikely to pay you, and you
can click on the link for fast refund from eBay. These amounts
may be small, £31 or so a time in my case, but given that for
some products (notably eBooks and CDs) around one per cent
of buyers renege on payment this represents a tidy sum for
eBayers selling three or four thousand items a month.
2) Claim a PayPal Merchant Discount where payments into
your PayPal account exceed a specific minimum amount
calculated monthly. Alternatively, where you are close to that
minimum threshold, work just a little bit harder, upload a few
more items each month, increase your prices even slightly, and
reach PayPal's discount threshold. I could not locate any
information inside my PayPal account about discount which
applies to Premier and Business accounts not Personal
accounts. Do it yourself, by logging into your PayPal account, go
to 'Help' top right of screen, next page half way down the left
side, at 'Receiving Money' click on 'Fees', next page click on the
question: 'I receive a high payment volume. Does PayPal offer a
Merchant Rate?' From there you enter another area of your
PayPal account (be sure the lock symbol shows bottom of your
screen) and your answer will be based on your own recent sales
figures.
3) DIY In Fact DAMAYCY
Do It Yourself where possible rather than using expensive
outside auction services to create your templates or host your
pictures, and so on. In fact Do As Much As You Can Yourself
because the pennies really do count. Here's a great example. I
reckon much more bidding takes place in the late evening when
people are home from work, than happens mid morning when
most people are working and too busy to log into eBay to bid.
With this in mind I began listing items on Turbo Lister which I
uploaded in small batches and paid six pence a time for eBay to
reschedule my listings to start at a specific time, in my case 8pm
on the day I created my listings. If I listed 50 items, that meant
I'd pay £33 for those listings to go straight away into eBay's
system but not to actually begin selling until a few hours later. If
I list 300 items a week, as I do, scheduled listing would cost me
£318.
Before anyone shouts up, I know it's free to schedule items using
Selling Manager but I find that system a tad problematic in that
unless you program it correctly the system always leaves
feedback, good feedback, as soon as someone pays for their
product. I don't ever give feedback until it has already been left
for me, thereby minimising spur of the moment negative and
neutral feedback being left for me by the hasty and bad-
tempered few operating on eBay. Most people are far less
reluctant to leave nasty feedback before you leave feedback for
them! So Turbo Lister it is, or rather was, until I began placing
sticky notes on my computer screen at the end of a busy day's
listing, just to remind me or anyone else passing the computer to
begin the upload some time late evening. It worked well, as long
as the sticky notes remained on the screen, and cost next to
nothing (50 pence for the sticky notes and another few bob for
Sellotape to clag them to the computer screen!)
That's just one big saving achieved by doing as much as you can
for yourself rather than paying high fees, not only for scheduling
listings, but also for hosting photographs on eBay (do it yourself
and save 12p on every second or further picture included in your
listing, the first is always hosted free by eBay), using fancy and
costly templates from outside companies when eBay's Turbo
Lister template is always free (also free via Selling Manager),
and so on, and so on.
Go on, give it a go, and remember if you cut your costs by just
£33 a day, that's more than a £31000 over the year! A very nice
saving indeed!
Happy eBaying!
Until next time,
Avril
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Become An Auction MiddleMan! by Mark Kenny
***
I was flicking though the freeview channels earlier today and
came across the auction channels, Bid TV and Pricedrop. I'm not
a big fan of these channels, but I personally know people who
live by them - If someone's birthday is coming up they they'll flick
over to Pricedrop to see what gift they can get them.
Seeing those channels again reminded me of something I did a
few years ago. It's very simple and if you are a little short of cash
I'd recommend you give it a go.
Become an auction middleman! All I used to do is purchase
watches off Bid TV and Pricedrop, and then relist them on eBay.
After all when firms are auctioning the items on TV, they are
throwing in all the information you need to use in your listings.
It's like copying and pasting someone else's auction (Avril: Be
economical in your use of other people's sales materials, you are
allowed to copy ideas and rework small portions of product
descriptions, but you can't steal huge chunks of sales spiel or
pictures).
I even looked up watches online to see if I could get a few
images of it and the recommended selling price. Normally it was
significantly higher than what I paid for it. I did this about ten
times two years ago, and I never made less than £320 profit per
watch.
The best part is as soon as you win the watch on Bid TV or
Pricedrop, you can list it on eBay straight away. There's no need
to wait for it to arrive as you know you are guaranteed to get it
within a couple of days.
If you know your markets well, it may work with other goods
being sold as well, after all there's not a lot that these channels
don't offer these days. Good luck.
Written by Mark Kenny. Join http://www.AuctionCUT.com - the
online auctions and eBay forum. Come and discuss your eBay or
online auction goals, with Mark and other members. AuctionCUT
offers ad revenue sharing for members and an exclusive
dropshipping report.
***
All The Secrets About British Car Auctions by John
Wynam
***
In England, car auctions have become very popular over the last
few decades, especially British car auctions which have become
known around the world for their potential to get hold of excellent
quality of cars, great models, and brilliant cars in great condition
at the best possible prices.
We personally use car auctions every week to make an extra
income, as well as run other jobs for income. That's one of the
advantages of car auctions, you can buy a few cars, make some
extra money reselling them, and still pursue other income
streams.
We personally do this weekly so there is no reason that anyone
else interested in British car auctions couldn't do the same, after
all, people will always like choice, and that's why there will
always be room for sellers in business. If you can market your
product well enough, get enough customers, the chances are
you will sell if it is a needed item. The car has become one of
those items, especially in the fast paced society we live in today.
When you arrive at the auction, you will be asked if you would
like to test drive any of the vehicles on show, in other words, you
will have the chance to drive any of the cars which are available
for biding on that given day at the auction you have chosen.
You will then be told it is bidding time and you will be seated.
Some of the British car auctions will hold their auctions with
people standing. Whatever the auction is, whether it seated, or
standing, they are all basically the same with three main phases.
After phase one, the testing phase, you will have the bidding
phase which is what we have briefly discussed.
After the bidding phase, you have the payment processing
phase, after this part of the auction, is the check out part. You
will then be able to take the car away with you on the same day
you have won the item. This is of course depends on cleared
payment.
If all is well and payment clears at the British car auction, you will
before to drive your new vehicle home. Many people take cars
home in bulk if they decide to buy a few. They bring large
vehicles to drive a load of cars home with them.
Read more of John Winam's work at
***
Make Money On eBay - Increase the Size of the Sale! by Bob
Hamilton
***
For those who want to make money on eBay, increasing the size
of the sale is a thought that is continually running through your
mind. In fact, one of the most rewarding things that we have
learned is exactly how to increase the size of the sale. We use
three primary methods for achieving this.
TIP #1: COMBINE IDENTICAL ITEMS
Just as the name implies, combining identical items is simply
taking two, three or more of an item and combining it into a
single package. In our case, rather than selling a single package
of baby bottle nipples that might retail for $5.00, for example, we
place groupings of the same bottle nipple together into a single
auction. Those groupings might be four to six packages that
together retail for about $30.00. Buyers are just as quick to snap
up the combined package as they were the individual packages.
A buyer bonus? Shipping charges are less when measured on a
per item basis!
TIP #2: COMBINE SIMILAR ITEMS
Once again the name tells it all! This is taking similar items and
combining them together into an auction package. In our bottle
nipple example, this involved replacing a single package of baby
bottle nipples that retail for about $5.00 and placing a variety of
different bottle nipples together. We might combine one or two
packages of slow-flow nipples with one or two packages each of
medium-flow and fast-flow nipples. Again, the buyer will happily
make this package purchase. That's especially true when they
discover that per item shipping charges are reduced.
TIP #3: ADD-ON SALES FROM YOUR eBay STORE
This method involves very little effort on your part. Buyers simply
work to save on shipping charges by adding purchases from our
eBay store. The work for you is to keep the store well stocked
with a variety of products that will appeal to your target buyers. If
you are selling baby products, a store that is filled with pet
supplies probably won't work. However, fill that eBay store with
baby items and you will soon have many add-on sales, and that
means that you will make money on eBay.
TIP #4: CONDUCT RELATED AUCTIONS AT THE SAME TIME
Another technique that had been successfully used to make
money on eBay is to list related or complementary items at
auction so they close at overlapping times. For example, if you
are selling bedding products, you might list a sheet set that is
complementary colors to a quilt or bedspread that you have
listed. Buyers would buy this combination if it were a Bed-In-A-
Bag, so why not let then have access to the pieces of a bed-in-a-
bag set?
We have had add-on sales of identical products. We have had
add-on sales of complementary products. Finally, we have had
add-on sales of totally unrelated items. In all cases, the buyer's
first questions were about reducing freight costs by adding other
purchases. Be sure that you highlight the shipping cost benefits
- give it a try and you will make money on eBay doing just that.
To Your eBay Success!
Read more articles by Bob Hamilton at:
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