Your Complimentary eBay Language Lesson
publication date: Mar 28, 2007
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-Editorial
-Advertise Your Business For FREE on eBay
-How To Get Bids On Your Auctions
***
Hi,
Boy, I did slip up last week when I advised you to
begin selling on overseas eBay sites, including
France and the Netherlands, even though I knew
you'd realise these sites are predominantly foreign
in language, in those examples French and Dutch,
respectively.
Rather stupidly I omitted to tell you how to speak
to those people in a language they would
understand, namely their own, even if, like me,
you're not fluent in French, or German, Japanese
or whatever.
It is actually very easy to accomplish this essential
task.
All you do is write your eBay titles and product
language in your own language, for most of our
readers it's English, then have it translated at one
of many free online translation services. Once you
are into the translation site, you tick one box
detailing the language featured in your text and
another box saying which language you want that
text to be converted to.
What you get may not be a perfect translation but
it's close enough to get your listings opened and
attract bids from overseas non-English speaking
buyers.
The majority of people opening your listing will
forgive most tiny language problems, they'll see
from your personal details that you are foreign and
most will be very impressed that you can converse
in their language. For the odd one or two awkward
ones who are offended by your pigeon Spanish /
Chinese / any other language than English, make
your first translation 'Please forgive any spelling
or grammatical mistakes. I am English, in the UK,
and will be pleased to help with any errors or
ambiguities in my description. Contact me for
more information'.
This is where to go to translate your text:
In French, 'I am English ...' is:
Veuillez pardonner toute l'epellation ou erreurs
grammaticales. Je suis anglais, au R-U, et serai
heureux d'aider avec toutes les erreurs ou
ambiguites dans ma description. Contactez-moi
pour plus d'information.
This is the wording you add to your eBay listings
on non-English speaking eBay sites.
Of all those translation services I found the last to
be the easiest, but try them all just in case another
works better for you.
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If the Bike Isn't Broken, Don't Fix It
***
Another important point I'd like to address
regarding recent correspondence from subscribers
is the subject of PayPal, with some of you asking if
I knew about the countless complaints people are
making about eBay's own payment taking service,
PayPal.
Those complaints range from PayPal accounts
being frozen, to money being taken out of accounts
without explanation, big time eBay sellers having
their accounts closed and thousands of pounds
disappearing into thin air.
Yes, I have heard those stories, and I have heard
others too, about which competitor companies to
use to avoid any of these awful things happening
to your PayPal account.
Some of you with years of experience of the
Internet will already have put two and two together
and correctly come up with four and you know
these rumours and remedies are put about by
unscrupulous marketers wanting you to follow
their recommendations, making decent
commissions for them when someone closes down
a perfectly serviceable PayPal account and moves
to another money taking service.
Of course PayPal does make mistakes, every
company does, but I really believe PayPal is one of
the most honest, scrupulous, genuinely
professional of all online money processing
services.
Just take most of these big-hype-problem-versus-
easy-solution scams for what they are and do what
you think is right, not what someone else thinks is
best for you.
To illustrate, years ago, just after I'd started
designing my own web sites and was very worried
about how they looked, whether the links worked
properly, and much more, I received an email from
a friend, actually a 'friend'. Saying something
like:
'Avril, those sites don't look good, the links don't
work on some browsers, and top marketers are
having the most terrible problems with (my
payment processor)'.
It continued:
'(Named Person, a big well-known marketer) has
just posted a comment at his forum saying how
sorry he is that people like you will never make
real money online. Go take a look (via a link that
takes you to page that recommends a particular
web site designer and specific payment service)'.
I followed his advice, it cost me just over £32000
and, guess what, though it looked lovely, my new
site was packed with bells and whistles that
increased my site's download time and included
none of the features I really wanted at the site,
such as articles, newsletter sign up pages,
recommendations for my own products. But it did
include a link for others to get their very own site,
just like mine!!!! And where did the commission
go when anyone signed up on that link? No, not to
me, but to the person who recommended the site
designer to me in the first place.
This is the exact same thing I honestly believe is
giving PayPal a big headache and generating lies
and defamatory comments they just do not
deserve.
Happy eBaying,
Until next time,
Avril
***
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***
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***
Advertise Your Business For FREE on eBay by
Peter Andrues
***
Want to post your website address right inside
your auction listing and have it exposed to the
millions of people who visit eBay each day?
I bet you thought that was against eBay's term of
service right?
Not exactly....
If you utilize a little known loophole in eBay's
listing policy you will have the opportunity to
expose your website to dozens, or hundreds of new
customers every day.
A quick look at the eBay linking policy shows that
you are allowed "one link to your email address
that opens an email client for potential buyers to
ask questions about the item in that listing". Now
many people simply use a text link saying email
me, and those afraid of an influx of spam email
might use a generic address like
ebayquestions@hotmail.com, but by doing that
you are missing a prime opportunity to advertise
your business directly inside your eBay auction
listing.
If you use a text link formatted like
ebayquestions@mywebsite.com your website URL
will appear right in your listing without violating
any of eBay's listing regulations. Any reasonably
intelligent eBayer will know that if they plug the
URL mywebsite.com into their web browser they
will be directed to your own private website.
I actually format my links like this: ebayquestions
at mywebsite.com. I have tested this format and it
actually produced 11% more clicks than the first
format and it cut down on problems with the email
harvesting programs running through cyberspace.
Most web surfers see hundreds of links a day
formatted generically and tend to overlook them.
My non-scientific guess as to why my clicks
increased is by using the word "AT", the format
looks unorthodox and attracts visual attention to
the text of the link itself.
So take a few minutes, revise your eBay listings,
and start generating some free traffic to your
website...all courtesy of eBay.
Article Source:
***
How to Get Bids on Your Auctions
by Michael Russell
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Getting bids on auctions on eBay or Yahoo can be
challenging . To get bids on your auction first you
must research the item you are about to list. This is
quite simple - just do a search on closed auctions.
eBay and Yahoo auctions let you do this on their
site. Look at all the prices the item closed at as you
will want to start your bidding at the lowest price
at which an item closed. If you want to add a "buy
it now" option, choose any price between the
highest price closed and the lowest price.
Next, take a look at the items that did not get a bid,
notice what they did wrong and then look at the
auctions that got bids and notice that they did right.
Use this to your advantage. Make your headline
similar to a winning headline and use the same
area the winning item was listed.
Next, and this is a most important tip, when
writing your description, write it as if you're trying
to sell an item to your friend. Give the condition
and tell the benefits of them having your item.
Now for shipping, keep the price reasonable and
say that you ship out within 2 days and offer
tracking. To really get bids, list yours as a featured
item, but this will cost extra. Also take some good
pictures so that who ever sees your auction can
view the item, as if they were looking at it in
person. Take your picture in a good lighting and
turn the flash off because it can cause glare. You
can take you picture outside or, if your item is
small get a desk lamp and adjust it so that it shines
on your item. A good background like a poster
would help too. The more pictures you take the
more confident the bidder will be in bidding on
your auction.
Offer more than one payment method. The more
options you offer the more bids you will get. Try
to start your auction on such a day that it will end
on the weekend because shoppers will have a
chance to see and bid on it. If you have past
customers, tell them about your new auctions.
They already know you and have done business
with you. You can also offer something free to the
winning bidder of your item.
A money guarantee can help you get lots of bids
too. Make sure to let everyone know they are
ordering through a secure server for credit card
payments. And if you have past eBay customers
write in your item listing that potential bidders
should view your feedback from all the other eBay
members. If you have great comments from your
past customers then this will help.
Don't use reserve auctions - people get discouraged
trying to figure out the reserve cost.
If you follow all these tips you should be getting
bids to all of your online auctions.
Article Source:
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