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Does this scenario bother you?
publication date: Jun 20, 2008
eBay Confidential eZine
18th June 2008
***
- Editorial: Who to Trust and Who Not to Trust to Value
Your Finds
- Online Product Niches on eBay - How to Find Niche
Markets
- eBay Going PayPal Only - Don't Worry - Sellers
Won't Be Affected
- Why Do eBay Users Refuse to Protect Themselves?
***
Hi,
Does this scenario bother you?
You go to a car boot sale, you catch an ornament
winking at you from the back of the stall, it's shouting
"Buy Me, I'm Precious", so you buy it and immediately
you know you've found something potentially very
valuable and all it cost was 10p.
You rush home to list it on eBay, AFTER you learn
more about it, AFTER you research its value of course,
because you don't want to make a mistake and let
some clever sort buy your product and resell it for
hundreds of thousands of pounds that should have
been yours.
But how and where do you determine what your item is
worth?
On eBay? That would work, especially if something
similar has already sold on eBay, in which case you just
check the completed listings, identify similar items that
fetched the highest prices, then model your listings on
the best of those most successful completed auctions.
But say your find is rare, you've never seen one before,
there's nothing similar online or in library books and
antiques catalogues. What do you do then to discover
how much your item is worth?
Who do you ask?
Well people you should trust, and people you should
not trust to give you a genuine valuation depend mainly
on those other persons' interest in the product
concerned. If those people set their own prices and
sell direct to the public, don't ask them; most will value
your item at the price they want to pay for it, way below
genuine market value and allowing three or four
hundred per cent profit margin for them.
So you DO NOT seek valuations at antiques fairs,
collectors' fairs, flea markets and car boot sales. Not
Ever!
But you can seek advice from people who do not set
their own prices and who rarely personally pocket the
entire profits on whatever they sell. That means auction
companies, for example, and eBay Trading assistants,
people who act as mediators between you the seller
and the eventual buyer. Auction companies and trading
assistants earn a commission on final selling prices
and, the higher prices go, the more money they get. It's
in their best interests to provide a realistic valuation of
your product on the off-chance you'll hire them to
handle the sale. Whether you do or not let them handle
the sale or do it yourself on eBay is up to you, but you
can usually trust valuations from major auction
companies like Phillips and Sotheby's, Bonhams and
Christie's.
Big auction companies have highly trained specialist
valuers, unlike smaller back street auction rooms whose
staff rarely specialise and who may be selling much of
their own stock alongside a few pieces from private
owners.
Which pretty much puts them in the same boat at
traders at boot sales and flea markets, people whose
valuations you should almost always avoid.
Happy eBaying!
Until next time,
Avril
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***
Online Product Niches on eBay - How to Find Niche
Markets
by Simon Slade
***
A recent survey of current and potential retailers shows
that, even in the current economic downturn,
entrepreneurs are still pushing forward knowing there
will always be niche markets. The survey was
conducted at the end of February amidst the cooling
commercial climate.
The survey showed that over half the respondents had
a business selling on eBay. When asked what kind of
goods they would like to source from a wholesaler the
respondents gave varied responses. That said, the
answers could be split into three categories. Some
wanted to sell products they already knew something
about, using their hobbies and pastimes as bases for
their businesses. Others more predictably decided they
wanted to sell 'hot' items. The third group were more
pragmatic, claiming that they would stock and sell
products that had the best margins and turned over
quickly.
Evidence show this third group will be the most
successful, followed closely by those that wanted to
sell goods they were passionate and knowledgeable
about. This is true across all trading platforms, on or
off eBay, and there are tools that can help measure
supply and demand of any given product across all
four English language eBay sites.
Hundreds of people go into business with a misguided
idea that they will sell the products with the broadest
popularity. They soon find that demand is saturated for
these products and they are competing with entrenched
and already profitable businesses.
It is possible to expose thousands of niches in 'The
Long Tail' (Editor: another name for a sub-niche
existing within one much larger general niche).
Choosing products from The Long Tail (Editor: like 'red
ballet shoes with gold buttons') is better than
competing at the congested fat end (Editor: for
example, selling shoes in all their various forms). If you
have no idea what to sell the best way to find niches is
to focus on a broad category such as collectibles
which will yield search results ranging from postcards
to toys. From here you can concentrate on one
narrower aspect or product.
This kind of research is not a one off magic wand. To
complete comprehensive research the user should
conduct market research over a sustained period of
time to track the trends and prices of the item they
believe could be profitable.
Once you find your niche market use either a
wholesaler, liquidator or manufacturer to stock your
shop. Start out by ordering a sample to ensure that the
quality is of a high standard. Then order wholesale to
secure the best prices available. It's best to use an
online wholesale directory when you get to this stage.
For more information about wholesale products visit:
***
eBay Going PayPal Only - Don't Worry - Sellers Won't
Be Affected
by Roberts Kukurs
***
Auction related blogs are full with news regarding the
recent announcement about eBay Australia going
PayPal only. Effective 17 June 2008, this policy states
that all goods sold on eBay.com.au are allowed to
have only either PayPal or Pay On Pick Up payment
option. Of course, credit cards also will be processed -
by PayPal.
So what is all this commotion about? Many express
allegations that eBay are using their Australian website
as a guinea pig to see how going PayPal only affects
the auction community. First Australia - then the rest of
the world - this is what people fear most. One thing is
for sure - it's already caused a huge wave of
disappointment and the Australia Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC) have received more
than 700 complaints from individuals and organizations.
Even Google have filed an anonymous complaint.
Most likely, Google didn't want to cause any
speculations about their plans to launch Google
Checkout in Australia. Anyway, it doesn't make the
whole picture brighter as their payment system had
long been banned from eBay and eBay going PayPal
only shouldn't directly affect Google's plans.
Whatever happens behind the curtains of these giant
companies, the only question for you as an ordinary
eBay seller should be - how will going PayPal only
might affect my auction income?
The truth is - and we have to admit it - PayPal is easy,
handy, doesn't reveal our bank details and the vast
majority of eBayers use it. Yes, there will always be
someone who's had problems with PayPal and can't
use their services.
But, as stated on eBay.com.au website - people paying
by PayPal are four times less likely to have a dispute
over the purchase. eBay sellers accepting PayPal
payments are about fifty per cent less likely to have an
unpaid item. PayPal is fast and more convenient for
buyers. And since PayPal is owned by eBay and you're
doing your business on eBay website - you feel much
safer being aware that the selling and payment
processing is being dealt by the same company.
Theoretically, the more options the buyer has - the
better it should be. There will always be people who
can't use PayPal for some reason. However, we have
to look at the average eBay buyer and admit that
PayPal is the most convenient payment processor and
nearly everyone uses it. So losing those few buyers
preferring checks over electronic transactions shouldn't
actually affect your eBay sales.
Robert Kukurs is Project Manager at:
http://www.spicyauctiontemplates.com - an online
eBayers' community dedicated to improving listing
quality and increasing auction profit margin.
***
Why Do eBay Users Refuse to Protect Themselves?
by Michael Ford, The Auction Inquisitor
***
I often wonder why eBay users fail to protect
themselves when free tools can easily stop account
hijacking and credit card fraud. Some members actually
refuse to use the tools that are given to them and
ignore fraud warnings when they see them. I commonly
see posts and message board rants about how evil
eBay or PayPal is when the person who is posting the
rant is the one responsible for their account being
hijacked and mis-used.
Are you one of these people?
There are many guides and posts about people
receiving emails from eBay and PayPal which make
outrageous claims like their account is going to be
disabled or asking them to update some information. I
am sure you realise by now, maybe too late, these are
not from eBay or PayPal but are Phishing emails. They
are sent by scammers who are Fishing for information.
They want to trick you into going to a look-alike or
spoof website where you will give the scammer your
password and other personal information.
What does the scammer do with this information? They
may use your good name and account on eBay to sell
items they do not have. They may steal your identity, or
they may use the information to target you for other
scams.
What can you do? There are a number of methods to
identify the fake emails such as making sure it has your
full real name and not a generic introduction like Dear
eBay User. That is a sure sign of a fake email because
the scammer only has an email address they bought
from a spam company or stole from the Internet.
Unfortunately this is not a reliable way to identify these
fake messages.
Scammers may find your real name on the Internet or
they may buy or sell real low cost items on eBay just to
obtain your real name and eBay registered email
address so they can target you for these scams with
believable emails.
Another security problem that very few people know
about is the Auto-Complete feature in Internet Explorer.
Normally, IE will auto complete a url that you type. If
you start typing the letters of a site you've visited
recently, such as www.e, for example, (Editor: or
virtually any letter following 'www.') it will auto complete
the rest of ebay.com for you. Now, what happens if
you previously clicked on a link in a fake email, then
realised it was fake before you entered your
information? Be Warned: Internet Explorer did not know
it was fake and will have remembered the fake URL.
When you now try to type www.e, your IE browser will
attempt to auto complete the entry with the latest
matching url which is the fake one that might look like
www.ebay.com.fakewebsite-in-china.cn and you will hit
enter before realizing IE auto completed a fraudulent
domain. Now you enter your information without
thinking about it because you believe you typed in the
URL when in fact, IE changed what you typed.
How do you protect yourself from this type of security
problem?
The answer is simple. There is a free toolbar that will
warn you if you go to a fake or look-alike website. No, I
am not talking about the eBay toolbar. That toolbar is
inadequate and does not protect you properly. The
toolbar you need is called the My Little Mole toolbar.
This free toolbar will warn you if you go to a fake eBay,
PayPal, Amazon or any of many thousands of other
fraudulent sites. It will also warn you about many sites
that are known to distribute viruses and scams that only
exist to steal credit card numbers.
If every eBay user had this toolbar, account hijacking
would no longer be so easy for the scammers because
every member would be immediately alerted when they
were tricked into going to a fake eBay site, fake PayPal
site, fake payment service, fake escrow company, fake
banking site, and more. I don't know why every eBay
member does not use this free tool because it can save
you from being scammed out of thousands of dollars
if a criminal takes over your PayPal account and drains
your bank account or transfers money from your credit
card.
The toolbar also has some useful search features that
allow you to instantly search Google, eBay, and
Amazon.
The toolbar is available at http://www.mylittlemole.com
There is a free trial so try it out. You can also see a
video demonstration showing how it works there.
You can find more information about how to avoid
auction fraud at www.auction-safety.org and
information on the book at auction-safety-kit.com
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