The worst mistake imaginable
publication date: Jan 17, 2007
- Editorial
- Why You Could be Making £3500 a Week
by March 2007
- The Most Vital Element of Selling on
eBay by Philip S.
- From eBay Zero to PowerSelling Hero:
Using Feedback Effectively by Isaiah Hull
*******
Hello,
The experts say it's good to make mistakes,
you learn from your mistakes, and this helps
improve your business, but there are some
mistakes that can spell disaster to your venture
or at least embarrass you to a point where you
might never go online again.
I have just witnessed the worst mistake
imaginable, it's a picture of a shiny kettle
selling on eBay. The kettle is very clean, very
well photographed. Despite being a very good
photograph, the person selling the item, who
also presumably took the photograph, failed to
make a few last minute checks on his
illustration, otherwise ...
... he would surely never have left the
reflection of himself, camera in hand, standing
naked in the kitchen.
I kid you not, I couldn't believe it either when
I first saw it.
Go see it for yourself at:
There are other mistakes that might not leave
you quite so open to ridicule which are also
easily preventable.
For example:
* You should grab every chance to promote
your eBay listings, both on and off the
Internet. But some techniques, nonetheless
favoured by big time PowerSellers, seem also
to generate negative feedback from buyers.
The odd negative rarely matters to major
PowerSellers' feedback totals, but they do
matter to new eBayers. I recall a PowerSeller
in the UK using a technique that almost
overnight toppled his 100% positive feedback
rating to below the 98% positive feedback
level required to become (and remain) a
PowerSeller. The seller in question used
feedback given to buyers to promote his own
business without ever saying anything about
the buyer. Buyers like feedback to reflect
something that benefits them, such as having
paid early, which creates a good impression on
others whose goods they may bid upon later.
The erring PowerSeller, previously having
given typical feedback such as 'Great Buyer',
'Quick Payment', turned to using just one
standard comment on positive, negative and
neutral feedback. I can't remember the
seller's name but the comment went like this:
Another Transaction by EBAYID. Buy Again
at www.blahblah.com
Think about it, you don't need to include your
eBay ID in your feedback, that's already
included alongside whatever feedback you
give, and adding mention of an outside site,
even if not linked through, is against eBay's
rules. Also it just looks bad and does nothing
to make good buyers feel appreciated or warn
other sellers about problem transactions.
* Listings that attract several bidders mean you
can make second chance offers to non-winning
bidders for as many items you have which are
similar to whatever you have just sold. The
Second Chance Offer can be made directly
through your eBay Selling account. But there is
a problem here and a recent proliferation of
scam emails masquerading as Second Chance
Offers deter many eBay buyers from responding
for fear of disclosing their eBay user name and
passwords to fraudsters.
Get round this problem by emailing potential
second chance buyers separately to sending the
Second Chance Offer. Tell them you have sent
a Second Chance Offer which they can access
through their eBay account without responding
via the email sent by eBay.
* If you are selling more than just personal
possessions on eBay you should inform the
Inland Revenue and also Social Security if you
are receiving Benefits.
Everyone is allowed to sell personal goods, up
to specified income levels, on eBay but there is
a fine line between what officials view as
'personal items' and items being acquired and
listed purely for profit. It's a mistake to think
the authorities will turn a blind eye to more than
one or two 'iffy' transactions, they definitely
won't.
But they are considerate, they'll appreciate you
asking their advice, they will almost certainly be
lenient regarding any small mistakes you have
already made. But few mistakes are as big as
that of Barry McNaughton, jailed today for
claiming Social Security Benefits while also
selling hundreds of thousands of pounds worth
of luxury goods on eBay each year. Another
major mistake, earning 80 hours community
service for Mr. McNaughton, was that of using
his sister-in-law's eBay user name to trade on
eBay.
* Leave no stone unturned. An amateur
genealogist, writing on Ancestry.com's blog,
tells how his mother moved into a retirement
complex leaving him to clean out the family
home. Most of the stuff was bundled off to
charity shops and jumble sales, given to
friends and relatives, but the son decided to
look more closely at a few casserole bowls
kept in a china cabinet.
They contained $4,200 which the mother no
longer remembered! Moral: check everything
closely before parting company with your
family possessions or items bought at estate
auctions where relatives have also failed to
check their deceased relatives' belongings.
Now for something a bit special...
***
Why You Could be Making £3500 a Week on
eBay by March 2007
***
I have something really special for you today
and the perfect product to help you achieve
your New Year's Resolution to start and grow
a profitable eBook business, on eBay and
beyond.
Just the other day I acquired resell rights to a
mammoth batch of products a top UK eBook
PowerSeller is selling himself on eBay.
And I bet lots of other people have bought
them too, which is fine by me, I don't care if
hundreds or thousands of people buy these 112
eBooks and more I'll be adding; I'll still have
great fun turning them into high value, best
selling and, best of all, unique products to sell
on eBay and elsewhere on and off the Internet.
(Don't worry, I'll show you how to do the
same with a selection of comprehensive
training manuals you can download today with
these 110 plus titles, as well as a training site
where I'll upload articles and ideas as often as
I can to help you get a real foothold in the
eBook business).
Here is a selection of those 100 plus books
(actually there are many more which only
those who order before 21st January will get).
Oops, I got sidetracked, here is that brief run-
down of titles you can download minutes from
now (I'm using PayPal to take orders which
means once you press the 'Pay' button (don't
worry you don't need a PayPal account).
Off we go with just a few great titles:
* 7 Days to Easy Money
* The 90 Day PowerSeller Challenge - a great
book, it really does show you how to become
an eBay PowerSeller in 90 Days
* 597 Business Letter Templates
* Automatically Deliver Your eBooks - a
great book for all of you who worry about
uploading eBooks to the Internet so customers
can download them immediately payment
makes its way into your bank account
* Autoresponder Magic
* Become a Mystery Shopper
* Build a Website in 5 Days
* Make Money Buying and Selling Used Cars
* Guide to Cashing In on eBay
* Digital Photography Guide
* Property Fortunes in Cyprus - a great idea
just springs to mind for generating really big
AdSense cheques on the back of this report
* Interview with PlanetSMS - Oh, I should
not have listed this one, it might give the game
away!
* Learn to Buy and Sell Antiques
* How to Build Huge Niche Keyword Lists
* Public Domain Profiting - my all-time
favourite money-making principle and the
subject of a really comprehensive 'Do This,
Do That' module at my training site (I've sold
this package alone at £397 with no refund
requests)
* 15 Day Resell Rights Success
* Selling eBooks Successfully
* Smart FTP - THE guide for anyone who
wonders how to upload a web site in just a few
minutes flat
* Stock Market Trading - another source of
income in your 2007 Multi-Income Stream
Business I'll describe at the training site
starting January 21st!
* Earn £3100s With Your Digital Camera -
another easy peasy income source for 2007
* Wholesale Sources Revealed
If all of this interests you, here's the link you
need to get started:
Until next time,
Avril
***
The Most Vital Element of Selling on eBay
by Philip S.
***
There are a lot of very important factors when
it comes to buying and selling on eBay but
what is the most important one, the most vital
element of eBay marketing, the one thing that
can boost your business and increase your
profits the most?
The answer is TESTING.
Yes, that's it, testing is, in my opinion, the
most important thing you can do for your eBay
business, it gives you the power to increase
efficiency, find out new and better way to
market and sell, improve your sales pages and
processes, basically it gives you the ability to
improve every single aspect of your business,
therefore you can do everything in your power
that will result in more profits for you.
Now, don't get me wrong, you don't have to do
all the testing yourself, I mean, obviously you
need to focus on running your business at the
same time and working to make sure
everything goes ok but don't worry because
you can use the test results of other sellers
also.
Yes, this is the real beauty of it: you can use
the test results that other people have
discovered to improve your own business.
Here's how you can do it:
Find a group of like minded people - This can
be done on the web, you can find websites that
have communities and membership areas that
allow you to discuss eBay marketing strategies
and test results with other sellers.
It's as simple as that, when you are part of a
group of like minded people you will find that
most of the members love to share their
experiences and discuss their business and
marketing tactics and pretty much just talk
selling.
You can leverage the efforts of other sellers to
boost your own business and much more.
This is one of the big secrets to massive
success and riches, if you aren't doing it then
you could be leaving a lot of money on the
table, why don't you start using eBay to create
the lifestyle you desire?
Would You Like To Have Your Own Money
Making Ebay Business? If so, visit:
***
From eBay Zero to PowerSelling Hero:
Using Feedback Effectively by Isaiah Hull
***
When I talk about feedback to new eBay
sellers, I usually compare it to having one note
posted on the door of a brick-and-mortar
business for every transaction. At almost any
business--no matter how bad the service--you
would have a lot of positive transactions; and
thus a lot of positive notes. As a potential
shopper, you probably wouldn't bother to read
all of these positive notes?
Instead, you'd look to see if there were any
negatives.
If you were planning to eat at a restaurant and
you found a bunch of notes in big, red marker
that said the food was moldy; the waiter
dumped hot coffee on me on purpose; and the
manager chased me out of the store with a
gun, you probably wouldn't go there, or at
least you'd think twice about it.
And likewise, if you wanted to buy an
engagement ring, but you found a number of
notes on the local jeweler's door that said I
bought an engagement ring. The diamonds
were fake. And the owner refused to give me a
refund, you would drive out of town to another
jeweler.
Feedback is a powerful tool that will ensure
either your success or failure selling on eBay.
This is why it is so important to use feedback
carefully. You should do everything possible
to see that each of the following happens: 1)
every buyer gives you feedback; 2) all of that
feedback is positive; and 3) every dispute or
misunderstanding is resolved, resulting in: a)
positive feedback, b) mutually-withdrawn
feedback, or c) neutral feedback.
A lot of eBay sellers have a written feedback
policy that requires the buyer to post feedback
if they want feedback from the seller. This
allows the seller to factor in the buyer's
feedback when leaving feedback. It also forces
people who wouldn't otherwise give feedback
to do so.
I personally do not use this system. When I
receive payment, I leave feedback
immediately. My feedback is always positive
and descriptive. If I have something bad to
say, I try to work it out with the buyer first,
rather than posting negative feedback.
In the example I used above, giving negative
feedback to a buyer would be the equivalent of
a store owner driving out to the buyer's house
and posting a big, nasty letter on the person's
door for everyone in the neighborhood to see.
Leaving negative feedback like this is not only
is a bad reflection on my business, but it can
also prompt retaliatory negative feedback from
the buyer.
After all, if someone left that nasty note on
your door for all of your neighbors to see,
wouldn't you at least exercise your right to
leave a response on the door of that someone's
business?
This is why it is so important to avoid these
exchanges altogether.
In general, it is pretty easy to avoid negative
feedback as an eBay seller. If you create a
clear store policy and adhere to it, give refunds
when they are warranted, and communicate
with your customers whenever there is a
problem, you shouldn't ever have to worry
about negative feedback.
- Written by Isaiah Hull, author of 'How
to Profit on eBay In Seven Days Without
Spending A Single Penny.' For a limited time
only you can get a pre-publication copy of his
book for ONE-FOURTH the post-publication
price!
.gif)
