This is the best news EVER!
publication date: Jul 17, 2008
eBay Confidential eZine
16 July 2008
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Editorial: THE Best News EVER!
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Four Ways to Market ClickBank Affiliate Products Through eBay - Even After the Digital Download Products Ban
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eBay Buyer Gets Sued For $10,000 By Seller After Leaving 'Neutral' Feedback After Transaction eBay Bad Guys - Not All eBayers Wear White Hats!
Hi,
It's finally happened: eBay has admitted they may have
been wrong in causing heartache, loss of credibility, pain
and suffering, lost profits to previously loyal eBay sellers.
Okay, that introduction's a bit OTT and, all I really
wanted to say is that eBay have bowed to sellers'
complaints about neutral feedback scoring exactly the
same as negative feedback in a seller's overall positive
feedback percentage. Some time towards the end of
August only negative points will impact on positive
feedback scores and all neutral points previously
affecting overall positive feedback percentage will be
removed from the equation. So if you had 100% positive
feedback before the new rules came into play and the
odd neutral point has reduced your perfect feedback
rating, very shortly you'll be back to 100% - as long as
you don't incur negative feedback before the end of
August! So be careful!
Apparently, eBay is also considering a U-turn on recent
changes to how 'About Me' pages operate. A short
while ago eBay members could link to outside eBay sites
via their 'About Me' pages, and even include sign-up
boxes to outside eBay newsletters and mailing lists
which helped many sellers grow a mailing list for outside
eBay sales.
Very recently all that changed and today no links at all
are allowed in 'About Me' pages, no sign-up boxes
either. Also very recently, I received news that eBay
may be reverting back to the old system of allowing
outside links and sign-up boxes in 'About Me' pages.
If you're confused, don't worry, I'm confused too, and I
rather suspect eBay is also a bit shaky on what is and
what is not allowed in 'About Me' pages these days.
Give it a while, a few weeks at most, hopefully, let's see
how the old/new/forthcoming changes pan out in
practice. I'll fill you in on the details as soon as I have
them.
***
Four Ways to Market ClickBank Affiliate Products
Through eBay - Even After the Digital Download
Products Ban
***
There have been big changes at eBay lately, such as to
feedback, and also to digital products being banned at
the site. The digital download ban was bad news for
eBay sellers also marketing outside of eBay where, in
most cases, sales of inexpensive eBooks were designed
to grow a mailing list for outside eBay sales, notably of
affiliate products.
Alongside other important changes, it seems most
avenues for growing an outside mailing list 'on' eBay
have been effectively closed. But notice I said 'on' eBay,
not the same as 'through' eBay, because there are still
ways to grow a mailing list via the eBay system.
These ideas will help:
* You can create a signature file, detailing affiliate
products such as available at ClickBank, and append it
to all your outgoing answers to questions asked by eBay
members. WARNING: You must not do this via the
eBay message system; that is totally against the rules.
Instead, bear in mind that all questions sent through the
eBay system are duplicated in sellers' outside eBay
email boxes. This is the place to answer those
questions and where also to add the signature file
containing affiliate offers or invitations to sign up for your
newsletter or mailing list.
* You can create compliments slips featuring Internet
sites selling your own or affiliate products. The secret
here is to have several compliments slips created,
featuring lots of different products, following which you
personalise compliments slips to feature products most
closely resembling whatever someone has just
purchased from you on eBay.
* You can't highlight an outside web site in your listings,
overtly that is, directly through the eBay system. But you
can create a mini banner featuring your outside web site
url and use this as the graphic for your eBay shop. Just
be sure the url doesn't cover the entire banner, that
could look contrived and might be removed. Instead add
a neat graphic, position the url at the top, bottom or side
of the banner. Make the url readable, not overwhelming
to people visiting your shop.
* You can also add a copyright notice with outside web
site address to illustrations, somewhere unobtrusive and
unlikely to obliterate essential parts of your graphic. So
if you sell pet medicines, for example, and your outside
site is www.mypetmeds.whateversuffix, you could add
'Copyright: www.mypetmeds.whateversuffix' to scanned
images and photographs used in your listings.
Go on give it a try, all it takes is a little creative thinking,
and it could increase your profits considerably.
****************************************************
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****************************************************
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what you see, and decide whether to add a new string to
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All I can say is: eBay is good, Clickbank is good,
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**********************************************************
***
eBay Buyer Gets Sued For $10,000 By Seller After
Leaving 'Neutral' Feedback After Transaction
by Tim Gross
***
In a recent news story, an eBay buyer got sued for
$10,000 by the seller after leaving 'Neutral' Feedback
after the auction ended and the transaction was
complete. He didn't even leave negative feedback, just
'neutral'.
Let me reveal other dangers you need to be aware of
and how to avoid trouble.
First of all, I tell everyone who's just starting to do
business online in any way, shape, or form, that they
need to have thick skin.
No matter how good your intentions are, you're going to
run into troublemakers and it's not your fault. There are
crazy people out there, and online you can't control who
you come in contact with. Someone might accuse you
of ripping them off no matter how ethical you are and no
matter how hard you work at getting along with
everybody.
When it comes to getting sued, realize this: Anyone can
sue you for any reason. Whether they have a legitimate
point or whether they can win is another matter, and
that's what courts are for. If you're worried about being
sued, you shouldn't ever leave the house ... in fact, you
shouldn't even HAVE a house, because if someone trips
on your property and breaks their leg, they could sue
you!
My point is, it's not something worth losing sleep over.
As far as eBay feedback goes, it's true that some buyers
and sellers won't give negative feedback to anyone at all
any more, so the eBay rating system may not be as
helpful as you think, so beware of that as a potential
eBay buyer or seller.
The end result so far for the guy being sued (the news
report just came out yesterday about it) is that he's spent
$500 to hire a lawyer to defend him. In my opinion, you
need to consider these types of hassles no differently
than if you accidentally scratched someone's car and
had to pay for the repair, or your television fell and you
had to replace it.
Stuff happens... Be smart but don't spend your life being
scared.
Tim Gross has been successfully selling products online
since 1994, and has helped clients increase their online
sales by 400% and more using his proven strategies.
Get over 6 hours of Tim's complete video training free
***
eBay Bad Guys - Not All eBayers Wear White Hats!
by Lawrence Stainbank
***
You will have heard a lot about online fraud, it is the
classic case of the difference between perceived risk
and actual risk. Fraud does take place on eBay but we
have to get things in proportion. It constitutes a tiny
percentage of total transactions carried out each day
but, of course, if you are the victim you won't be caring
about percentages!
An analysis of deals that have gone wrong usually
reveals that someone didn't follow the safe path but took
a short cut or risk. A common example of this is where
the buyer sends a cheque and the seller delivers the
goods before the cheque is cleared and guess what?
That's right, the cheque bounces!
With PayPal it's a bit different, and a little safer, too.
Normally someone buys your item, you invoice them,
they pay, PayPal tells you when they have the money,
you send off the goods and you then, at some point,
draw down the money into your bank account.
Occasionally the bad guys intervene!
Let me give you the details of something that actually
happened to me recently. I sold an item recently to a
'gentleman' and received an email, which appeared to
be from PayPal, telling me that payment had been
received and gave me an address to ship the goods to.
My item had been receiving bids in $2 increments and
the winner's last bid was $40!
His final bid made me suspicious so I checked his
feedback score - only two entries, both negative!
I immediately checked my eBay account to find there
was no record of payment having ever been received.
The phoney PayPal email really looked the part - it even
clicked through to the PayPal website!
If you are just starting out on eBay you may be better off
selling only to customers within your own country. There
is nothing very wrong with selling overseas, indeed you
definitely should think globally, it's just that sorting out
problems when the sold item is thousands of miles away
can be problematic. This means it's wise to become
familiar with eBay trading by concentrating on your home
market before taking on the world!
You should dispatch the goods immediately your
eBay/PayPal account tells you payment has been
received - but only when THEY tell you. If someone asks
if they can pay by cheque tell them 'fine' but that they will
have to wait until the cheque is cleared before you can
get the stuff off to them.
If you trawl the web long enough you will find someone
somewhere that will have something bad to say about
PayPal. I and everyone in the business I know have
found that PayPal offers a first class, simple to use and
reliable service.
You must not let the threat of the actions of stupid or
fraudulent people put you off making money by working
online, obey the rules and you will find that it's quite safe
out there!
Please click through to
http://www.banswithbonus.com/new to find out more
about the amazing 'BANS' program and should you
decide to make money online from your home by using
this proven system, I will give you a copy of my book
'eBay My Way' with my compliments.
****************************************************
Don't Forget: SPECIAL READER OFFER...
A Complete Newbies' Guide to Making Money With
ClickBank by yours truly, is available at
www.meanderpress.com. Go take a look, see if you like
what you see, and decide whether to add a new string to
your money-making bow.
All I can say is: eBay is good, Clickbank is good,
together they're dynamite! Click here for more details: