Monday 16 November 2015

What's The Best Things To Sell On eBay?


Many people are making tons of money on eBay selling an assortment of items. You can make a great living from selling the most mundane of things, so if you have a passion in a particular niche it will be successful if you dedicate your time learning how to sell and sell better. We live in a world of consumerism But what are the best items to sell if you're looking to sell hot items instantly on eBay? The answer is electronics. Electronics are the hottest items to sell on eBay. There's a number of reasons for this, we live in the age of electronics, electronics are cheaply made, we use electronics on a daily basis, it's also the future. This niche isn't going to disappear for a while.

So you might be thinking that you're going to have to sell computer consoles and iPhone's to make any kind decent profit. Well you're wrong. Although you'd making an excellent living selling these items (If you could get hold of them), it doesn't mean it's the only type of electronics that could make an exceptional living from. You can carve out a niche for yourself just by selling chargers for the iPhone. Everyone knows the life expectancy of an iPhone charger. The length of their chargers is also a problem. People are crying out for longer chargers! That is just one simple idea for an eBay business. You can sell chargers for all the top selling mobile phones. Pretty simple huh? You can easily source these from Chinese wholesalers. A friend of mine just sold screen protectors, thousands of them.

Electronics are the most risky items to sell on eBay, due to their desirability and costs, so they're prone to theft and charge backs. But this doesn't mean you shouldn't sell electronic items. Reduce your risk by using the top selling electronics of today and sell the accessories for them. Screen protectors is an excellent example of this. Low cost to purchase, low cost to rectify if a customer "doesn't receive their item" low cost to package but you are reaching millions of customers who own a particular phone and more often than not, they'll buy more than one! 10c cost with a 50c sale price. Who can get those kinds of margins? Yeh, that's not big money but these kinds of items sell in the thousands monthly.

If you have an interest in a different type of electronics then think how you can use those items and sell the accessories that go with them. I'm a keen cyclist, I could branch out in to the data loggers, light accessories, satellite navigation. These items are so accessible to us small time sellers. It's just a case of a simple Google search.

Easy way to make sales fast.

Let's say you're going to sell mobile phone chargers. Buy your inventory. Lets say 100 chargers of the top 5 selling mobile phone devices now ( don't forget some devices have the same input ) then purchase 5 desirable second hand mobile devices, via craiglist, eBay, Facebook, Gumtree etc. These will be your "loss leader" sales. You then list these with a starting bid of 1c/1p  for 10 days. These will grab you a ton of traffic to your eBay account. Direct these consumers looking at the phone listing to your other listings by simply saying "Check out my other items" a fraction of those customers will no doubt buy a low cost accessory, they're already in the buying mode. It doesn't matter if you make a profit or a loss on the phones. Their sole purpose is to bring people to your eBay account. This is how you as a new eBayer make sales over the big sellers. Over time your eBay will accrue it's own creditability. This method is what supermarkets use and works every time. Seen that discounted TV in the window, gone in to buy at and also picked up a few more things en route to the checkout? Sure you have, we all have! You can adapt this for whatever you're selling.

Check out my other posts to learn how to become a better eBayer.

If this post helped you please share it using the like buttons below. If you have any questions leave a comment. Thank you!!

Tuesday 3 November 2015

Which is better Auctions or Buy it now listings on eBay as a seller?

Auctions and Buy it Now listings offer two different benefits of selling eBay. Neither one is better than the other, how you use them is what makes the difference. I use buy it now's a lot more than I use auctions but when I do use an auction I make them work for me. I'll show you how to use your buy it now's and auctions and when not to use them.

Everyone gets caught up in the thrill of seeing the bids go up on their auctions. I love hearing that little beep on my phone, letting me know someone has just made another bid. I prefer though, however hearing the cash register sound when my item has sold! The problem with auction as a seller is that they're a little addictive, we're all hoping at least two people battle it out at the end. Don't do this to yourself, unless you have something super rare, something that rarely comes up on eBay. This is where auctions are most valuable. All the feelings you get as a seller, so do the buyers. You want to create something they must have in order for the auctions to really work. No one likes being out bid either!

So using auctions should only be used when you are selling something unique or you really have no idea what the item is worth. You should also list these items at a penny. Read my other blogs to understand why you should do this. Don't start your auctions with a starting bid, you are killing the buyers instantly and even if you get that starting bid, you've jumped the price of your item up, dramatically reducing your buyers interest. You need two people to start a bidding war. Remember when you use auctions, you're going to have to accept the end price.

So, don't be afraid of using buy it nows. If you have an item and you know what you want for it, then list as a buy it now for that price!! By using by it now's you dictate what you want for it. You'll also be happy for when it sells at that price. Do not use the auction and buy it now option, you're undermining your buy it now price by doing that. If you saw an item listed for $100 buy it now or you can also make a starting bid of 99c, which are you gonna choose? Does the item look like it's worth $100 now either?

Buy it now's are great if you want to make money fast. You'll have to wait for the auction to finish before you get paid, that if the winning bidder still want's it still too. Yep, people do have a change of heart if they win an auction that they placed a bid on over a week ago.

If you want to make money fast, list your item fast use buy it now. If you do not know what your item is worth then auctions are great for finding out. You're going to have to list your item properly for an auction listing to get the maximum amount of bids for you.

Please hit up the like buttons below or leave a comment below if you found this article helpful. Don't forget to check out my other posts.

I'm thinking of writing an eBook on how to start your first eBay business, giving you all the tips and tricks that you'll need to start getting those sales fast. If you'd liked to see this happen please leave a comment below.

Sunday 6 November 2011

3 Ways to Make Money On eBay

eBay was and still is the best place to sell your items that you've got lying round the house, in the attic or in the garage. eBay has evolved since it's birth almost 20 years ago, yes I did just say 20 years ago. It's not only evolved in terms of being more user friendly but it's opened up the doors to new types of business.

Many people have made a substantial income just from eBay. As the years have gone on these business modules have been tweaked, honed and perfected. Some people have even shared their ways of making a lot of money on eBay.

The great thing with this is that we can cut our learning curve right down and find out some secrets that could have taken years to find if we tried to start a business with little knowledge. As I said before there a many ways to make money on eBay. So here we're going to look 3 Different ways you can make money on eBay.


Buy wholesale: This is basic way to start a business in general. Buying wholesale products is a tried and tested method. The thing is now though, the Internet has given us access to a huge amount of wholesalers which makes it easier for us to make money online. I call this the basic way to make money because it is what people have done for years because it works. It's not complicated, you buy in bulk wholesale, then sell on for a profit. The great thing with wholesale is you can carve out a niche for yourself and specialise in one area. Also there will be decent profit margins for you to have. It does require upfront capital and storage space but you can start small and scale up. The great thing with buying wholesale is you are in control of your stock, your margins and your shipments. This is how the top ebayers make big money on eBay. These days you can start off small and most wholeslers accept minimum order of 1 unit! Ever seen those items that come from China and take 3 weeks to arrive? Well that's what the eBay seller is doing. They're just placing that one order and having it sent to you instead. Yep, it really is as simple as that. Wanna know where you can find wholesalers? Check out Salehoo they have one of the largest directories of wholesalers around the world. That method I just told you leads us on to the next method of making money eBay.


Dropshipping : dropshipping has been around for decades but eBay has exploded the dropshipping market meaning there's more than ever. Dropshipping works like this. A dropshipper is like a wholesaler only you can buy individual items from them, the dropshipper will also post and package your item sending straight to your customers door. They are built around doing this business model. They don't usually sell in bulk items, they rely on people making individual sales from them.

So the dropshipper holds the stock, you list the item you want to sell that they stock on eBay for more than what the cost to you from them, a customer then buys it on eBay, you then place the order with the dropshipper and they then send it out for you.

Dropshipping is a great to earn money on eBay if you are new to selling and business on eBay. You can literally start in the next hour. The hardest part of dropshipping is finding dropshippers. They rarely advertise themselves due to the nature of their business. They rely on eBay sellers making repeat business with them rather than ordinary customers making one order. Salehoo have a large list of dropshippers all over the world that you can trade with instantly.


ebooks: Where do i start with this one, hmmmm. This is one of the best ways to make money online. Digital products are one of the greatest phenomenons to come out of the Internet. eBooks are digital books, usually saved as a pdf file on your computer, that you read on your computer. With the e-reader market exploding, people are reading more and more on their handheld devices.

The important ones that you want to sell on eBay are eBooks with resale rights. This means that when you buy an eBook with resell rights you also have the right to re sell it, over and over again. Because these are digital products, you don't have to touch a thing. It can all be automated if you have a website but you can still make a lot of money from selling them on eBay. To find out the huge potential of making money with these Click Here!


Step by Step: If you looking for a more overall step by step guide that doesn't focus on one area and covers all aspects of making a lot of money on eBay then Click Here!

Wednesday 19 October 2011

How To Increase my eBay Traffic : 7 Traffic Sucking Tips Used By Powersellers

By increasing your traffic you will naturally increase your sales. It works in retail shops and it works online. eBay gets millions of views everyday. Here I'm going to show you 7 powerful ways to increase traffic which will make you more sales and more money.


One of the great reason as to why eBay is a great way to make money online rather having your own website is that eBay spends millions on advertising, marketing and constant site upgrades making it the best place to shop online. This means eBay does all the hard work for you bringing in tons of buying traffic. A keyword phrase here is "Buying Traffic" the majority people visiting the site is itching to buy something. This is the best type of traffic! All we need to do is get those eyes at our listings. So here we go, 7 secret traffic sucking tips the power sellers use.

Keywords:  The Keywords in your listings title are probably the most important part of your listing because of eBays best match algorithm. Your keywords make up a huge part of being on the first page of the the listings. Being on the first page of the listing alone will make a massive difference to your sales so make sure you use all the keywords (these are relevant words to your listing) possible in your title. You should use every relevant keyword, feature of your item to help it get picked up in multiple different types of searches people will enter. Things to think about when writing your title. Brand name, what it is, size, colour, model name/number, material, associated names (be careful with this one, don't use brand names similar or items that are similar ) Stick to what it is i.e Rollerskates - Skates - Roller skates. those are 3 keywords that will be used by people for the same thing.

Ramp up your listings: One of my favourite ways to increase traffic is by having a lot of listings. They must be in keeping with your niche though. Just by having 100 more listings, dramatically increases your views to your shop. eBay brought in a new rule about duplicate listings meaning you can't have multiple listings for the same item. i.e 10 separate listings for the same bucket or toaster or football, you would only be able to have one listing. All you need to do is find cheap items that are in keeping with your niche so they will be interested with your main selling items. So if you sell fancy dress costumes you can sell dvd's which are easy to buy in bulk cheaply,these will generate huge amounts of traffic and all you do is ask them to check out your other listings. You just need to think about your customers and what else they would be interested in. Then find products that you can source cheaply and preferably in bulk. You can find these items easily at Salehoo. Find 100+ products list them as auctions to keep them displayed for long periods and keep customers coming backto check on the listings, rather than buy it now's, which when bought are taken off.

Penny auctions: In keeping with the above Penny auctions are probably my best way to increase eBay traffic to your listings. If you combine the above with listing them at a penny this will dramatically increase your traffic. Everybody loves a bargain. People can not resist checking out an item listed for a penny.
There are many more ways you can pull in droves of buying viewers to your listings. This is often referred as a loss leader but the loss you make in the penny auction (which will be small or could even make a small profit!) will be made up by the profits you make selling your large profit items when the traffic you pulled in with the penny auction is directed to your better item. eBay is a numbers game that loves the snowball effect. More buying customers will attract more buying customers.

Auctions: Auctions are great traffic pullers as they do something to people, which makes them keep coming back to your listing so not to be outbid by the other person. The great thing with these is they will be on the full duration rather than ending when someone buys now. Many people will also "watch" an auction which will constantly bring them back to your listings. You should always mix up with your listings with buy it nows and auctions. You should always do testing with auction to find what the best items are that are pulling in the most traffic and making minimal losses.


Bring your hard work back: One of the best lessons I learned when eBaying is bringing your customers back to you. You are missing a massive opportunity if you just let your "buying" customer walk out the door ( so to speak ) with their bought item. Make sure you leave a business card in the packaging with every order and make sure you also give the customer a reason to come back and buy from you again or encourage them to get a friend or relative to buy from you. Offer discounts on their next purchase or throw in a free pen or keyring with your eBay name on it. This is probably the golden egg in any business. Many successful eBayer's, shop owners, website owners, make so much more money than you is because they have returning customers they don't need to rely on new customers because their original buyers keep coming back.  John Thornhill  shows you how to bring customers back over and over again reducing your overheads and increasing your profits.

Auction a luxury item: Big big companies do this all the time. They don't give away cars, large sums of money, holidays for the hell of it. They are a marketing tactic that attracts eyes to the business and putting them in the public eye, sticking in peoples minds bringing them back to the business long after the item is given away. So how can you use this in your eBay listings? If it is in your budget to give something away ( which you won't necessarily be doing ) then this is a great way to bring ridiculous amounts of traffic. This will work all year round but will probably work best at Christmas time if you can get hold of the must have toy and list it for 1p. This will get you serious amounts of traffic fast. The item will no doubt get bidded up to if not more than what you paid for it!

Think seasonal: There are multiple "buying" times of the year which we must take advantage of. These are the times when society tells us we must buy. Christmas being the most obvious, some business's only earn a profit in this month! This tells you how powerful these buying times are. You will naturally make more sales around Christmas time but try and sell something Christmas themed or normal Christmas buying items - tinsel, wrapping paper, Christmas hats, decorations. Just to pull as many people in to your listings. Do the same for all the other buying times of the year - Valentines day, Fathers day, Mothers day, Easter, Summer Holidays, Returning Back to school, Halloween, Fireworks night! This will bring you in buying traffic all year round.

If this post helped you and gave you plenty of ideas and techniques to think about please give this page a facebook like. Thank you!

You can also grab a copy of my FREE eBook Decisive Descriptions by clicking here






Sunday 9 October 2011

How Can You Make Money on Ebay? : Dropshipping

There are many ways you can make money on eBay, you probably know a few already but do you know how to make money from the comfort of your own home, without ever having to post a single item, with the option of selling an array of items? A way you can start with little start up capital? If not, then the answer to this is Dropshipping. Not sure of what the concept is? Sound a bit risky? Well here's how it works.


Instead of buying products in bulk, like from wholesalers, dropshippers will sell you single/multiple items at a discounted rate (Not quite wholesale and not quite retail the price, it will be somewhere inbeteween) They stock the products. You only buy from them once you make a sale from say eBay or your own website. When you purchase the item from the drophipper, you pass the dropshipper your buyers delivery details and they will deliver your ordered item straight to your buyers door in clean plain packaging. This sounds a little too good to be true? Well it isn't, this is how dropshipping works.






This is how many people make money online from the comfort of their own home. There's no need to have large upfront capital, like you would need if you planning to buy wholesale. There's no need to have storage space as the dropshippers stock the items and they also package the item and send it out.


So what are the draw backs?


To make you realise this is a serious business module i'll show that there are some drawback to dropshipping. These draw backs don't stop people from making a serious amount of money online.


  • Small profit margins - As I discussed previously, you will be buying your items at a price somewhere inbetween wholesale and retail, so there will be a smaller profit margin than if you were to buy wholesale, but as you know with wholesale you have to buy in bulk. So lets say you're selling a toy car and the retail price is $20 the dropship price is $13 and the wholesale price is $5 dollars you might thinking you're missing out on a potential $15 profit. Well no note really because remeber with wholesale you have to buy in bulk. So there will be a time delay before you could see a profit. You'll also have to store and post your wholesale stock. So those smaller margins you make with dropshipping, just means you need to make more sales to see the same returns wholesale would bring you.


  • Broken items - Many dropshippers won't take returns, so you will need to take these as a loss and issue a new product. You do not have control of the packaging procedure a dropshipper follows and you can control the person handling delivery. This is part and parcel with selling it can happen even with wholesale items, if they get damaged in transit you need to swallow it and take it as a loss. The time and effort it takes to try and resolve the issue with who's to blame, its is just simpler to just send another product straight out. This will happen rarely but you need to be prepared for it. Have a kitty for returns and broken items.


  • Wrong orders sent - This can happen as dropshippers deal with hundreds if not thousands of orders it can sometimes happen that they send out the wrong product. It my time of dropshipping this happened very rarely. Customers can understand errors are made, so by being prepared that there are some losses in selling you can issue another straight out.




  • Out of stock - Because you won't be holding stock (Although it is a good Idea to stock a few of your best sellers ) you need to keep an eye on your dropshippers stock levels. If they are out of stock of your item you've just sold on eBay, you can always ask your dropshipper when they will be getting new stock in. Sometimes, they can have the item back in stock within a couple of days so you can still place your order. Or you can ask your customer whether they would like a refund or another item. Communication is so important.


  • Finding them - Dropshippers are hard to find in the search engines with the keyword "dropshippers" there's good reason for this. Would you want dropshippers easy to find? Ofcourse not! Dropshippers are only interested in resellers ( you ) not people looking to buy items at a discounted price for themselves. So they don't actively try and rank in the search engines, if they did they would dilute their market and become an unattractive dropshipper if everybody was using them.


So there's some of the main draw backs to dropshipping. All dropshippers are different and you'll have to come up with your own criteria of what makes a good dropshipper and whether you'll use them. So is it a viable way to make money on eBay? It certainly is! It is best to start off small and slowly build business, the more money you can set aside to use for your venture the better, although you can start with as little as $100. So lets look at why this a great way to make money online, at home.


  • You work when you want
  • Low start up cost's
  • No need for storage
  • No need to buy in bulk
  • Make money at any time of the day
  • Work anywhere in the world
  • No need for a website
  • Make enough to pay your phone bill each month, or earn as much as you want.
  • Sell a variety of products.
  • No need to spend your time posting and packaging




The eBook Dropship 4 idiots show's you dropshipping's full potential and how you can seriously profit from it. By reading this eBook you'll understand where people go wrong and how to avoid their errors. It will show you more than just finding a dropshipper and listing it on eBay. They have a set out business module that you can follow. It will show you the bigger picture than just selling through eBay, by having your own website too. Ways to pull in traffic to set you apart from other dropshippers who are like the other 95% relying on people searching through eBay. This eBook also comes with a free 200 dropshipper list with every purchase. ( Finding 200 dropshippers through Goolgle will take you months! ). If you want to know more of what dropship 4 idiots will teach you Click Here!

Monday 19 September 2011

How to make money on ebay : Sell other people's stuff!

eBay gives everybody the opportunity to make money from the comfort of their own home or a way to expand your existing business. There are many ways you can make money there. Buying products wholesale and selling them on for a profit, is the age old tested method of making money. It works offline and it works online but what if you haven't got the space to stock products or the upfront capital to buy in bulk? Can you still make money on eBay? Of course you can, one of those ways is to sell other peoples stuff, this is called  a Trading Assistant. Although you may love to sell on eBay, many people don't . Some people don't have the time to sell, some people are to scared of the world wide web and some people are just plain lazy. There is where you can make a tidy profit with little upfront capital, selling people's upfront items. The great thing about this method is that you probably have family members that would love to earn some extra money selling their stuff sitting in the garage or in the attic, they just need to sell it. That is where you come in.


You can set this up with just an ordinary eBay account which is great if you're just starting out and going to sell some of your families items first or if you already have gained experience selling on eBay you can join the eBay Trading assitant programme.


How this works: You list other people's items on eBay and deal with the post an packaging and paying the selling fee's. You then get a percentage of the profit which is agreed with the owner before selling. Your postage and packages costs will be covered as you will set the postage and packaging costs in the listing. You can always offer pick up.


What you'll need to set this up.


A eBay account
A good Digital Camera
A set of scales to calculate postage costs ( Optional )
Postage and Packaging Materials - You can get boxes for free from your local shops. One great packing item I use is couriers Pallet Shrink Wrap . This is great stuff to keep your boxes more secure and to minimize damage in transit. It also looks very professional.
Some Pens and Paper.
Business cards - As you get bigger you can expand by offering business cards.
A printer to print sales.
This is great way to earn an extra income you can decide whether you want to work part time or expand. The great thing with this is you do not need to buy upfront stock for thousands of dollars that could maybe never sell. Minimal storage needed (You could always let the owners store the item and you only collect when its sold).


To learn more on this method and to maximise your profits then read The Ultimate guide to becoming a eBay trading assistant






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Saturday 10 September 2011

How to make a lot of money on eBay

Once a apon a time there was a way to make a lot of money on ebay, very easily, very, very easily! I myself found this method too late, to take the full advantage of this easy money. I was sure though, that there must be a way this method could still make a lot of money and the more I delved the more I found how powerful eBay is and the different avenues you can take once you're an established ebayer. So you probably want to know this business module that was making people 6 figure earnings, pre 2008.


With the internet came a whole host of new digital merchandise. Mp3,software, websites, hosting, website templates, the list goes on but one of the greatest things to come from this new wave of digital products was eBooks. eBooks are a digital book that you can read on you computer usually through Adobe, which is free. So if someone bought an ebook online, because Adobe reader was free and already on most people computers they could read them instantly. No need to buy something or download various things to make eBook work. The great thing about eBooks was that a buyer could receive them instantly via their email address or encrypted download link.


Ebooks evolved over the years and authors realised the power of giving resale rights to their eBooks. Not to sure what "resale rights means"? Well, when you buy an eBook you do not have the right to sell it unless it has resale rights, if it does then you can sell it for whatever price you want.

Now eBooks are digital products so you can copy them on your normal PC or Laptop (if the ebook has Resale Rights) so if you sell it you have a copy of it still. Are you getting the picture now? If you have an ebook with Resale rights you can sell it over and over and over and over and over again and remeber what I said? The buyers can receive them instantly via email.


This made them a massive hit on eBay as savy sellers in the know, were buying up eBooks with resale rights and selling them, then buying more with the their profits and obviously selling the ones they already had again. This method could be started with just one ebook. You sell that 1st one for what you paid for it, still have a copy, buy another eBook with your profit and then you have 2 and it then just repeats itself over and over again. Heck you can even buy 20,000 ebooks with sale rights for just under $30! Now, that will get you going.

Imagine if you just sold them for $1 each, or sold bundles of 10 for $2 each or just kept selling the whole bundle for the $29.95 you paid them over and over again? Can you see how powerful this is?


If you still don't know how this could make a lot of money on eBay then I'll try and make it a little clearer. As these could be sent and delivered in an email, there were no postage and packaging costs! And thanks to websites such Aweber the whole of your sales process could be automated and upsell and down sell could be intergrated. You didnt have to do a thing other than set it up.

I have seen many people make 6 figures from this method in under a year because of the numbers game you can take advantage of on eBay.

Unfortunately eBay put a stop to this in 2008 (temporarily) by putting new rules in regarding digital products. The new policy ment that digital prodcuts had to become a physical products, this just meant you had to copy them on to a CDR and post it in the mail.

The method still works but you now have some postage and packing costs and the cost the CDR's.

Because of this method my eyes were opened to how much you can really make from eBay, no longer is it somewhere you just sell your secondhand items.

The great thing with eBay is that it does all the hard work for you in terms marketing and attracting buying visitors to the site,(somwthing that is difficult if you own your own website) making your job easier. The other great thing with this method is that it utelises the power of ecommerce. Remember this can be automated, meaning you can get on with what you love to do, rather than conventional eBay selling meaning you're still dealing with the sale long after you've sold the item.

Now this is a great way to start making money on eBay, with very little outlay and something very manageble from your own home. If you took this to the next level and sold them on your own website, the original money making method comes back in to play as ecommerce doesn't make you turn your digital products in to physical ones, so the automation of the method is reapplied.