My Auction Empires – eBay and Amazon Consultants

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In the second part of this mini series Do Something Every Day, I want to cover something that may seem very basic, but if we want to be successful with our eBay business then we need to take steps to learn how to do the basics to improve our business. Now before we get into the main parts of the article I do want to say there are times and places where I do suggest you need to out source some parts of your business, but for today I just want to cover some basics that you can learn.

So why do you need to learn new things everyday…….well by learning about ourselves and our business and finding out new ways of doing some aspects of our business, then we can move on and reach our goals. And as I mentioned before if HTML scares you to death…….fine out source the website design to someone who knows coding, but I do suggest you learn the basics, for example how to add the image tags to a picture…….the reason being you will be using tags like these on a daily basis so if you need to out source this simple task then it will cost you money plus you will also have to wait for someone else.

Another thing is learning to buy domain names…….again if you have to rely on another person then you could loose that domain name. Just spend a little time on sites such as Godaddy.com and they have simple to follow videos on how to buy and register a domain name.

Just learn how to do the basics and out source those big projects. But you will find by allowing yourself time each day learning how to do some basics in your business then when you need to add a tag or buy a domain name, you will do it in your sleep.

But also take time out each day and spend it investing in you as a person and if you just spend 30 minutes each day investing in you as a person then over a year you will have input many hours into yourself and over time this will show in both your business and personal life.

Now go, and invest sometime each day improving your eBay, and other online businesses.

Happy Selling.

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eBay Postage Label

For the past few days, there have been several blog posts and announcements on the eBay UK site that they are testing a new service called eBay Postage Labels where we can buy postage labels straight off the eBay Page without having to go through to PayPal., and will also be able to link your PayPal Account to allow automatic payments.

Also it has been said that they will be offering more carriers at present they only offer Royal Mail and Parcel Force. As yet there is no news who these other carriers are, but once the test period has been completed and everything works out, then the program will be rolled out to all of eBay Uk and we shall see who the other carriers are.

This is exciting news to both the small seller and the larger sellers out their as at times it can be a pain using the eBay Postage Labels service as each time you have to go to PayPal to use the service.

eBay around the world are always testing new programs and formats and hand pick across the sellers so that they can see if their new ideas work or not.

To see the full announcement about eBay Postage Labels please go along to their site by click the link eBay Postage Labels and there you can see a bit more information.

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footsteps

Today we are starting a new mini-series. All about how doing the small things on a daily basis will increase your business over time. As an eBay Consultant one of the challenges I have, is when talking with individuals or businesses is they want the big time that day. Sadly we do not live in an instant world and it takes time to build a business or part time income on eBay or any e-commerce platform. We need to take small steps each and every day.

But if we are willing to take small steps and do something everyday for our business we will find over time these small daily tasks will build and soon we will have a business that is making money, but we must be willing to yes we will do this. For example, if you were to spend just one hour a day on the basics of building your business over a month that is 30 hours of building for the long term. Yes it is that simple.

For today’s building blocks we are looking at some basic things, but we all need to look at these and ask ourselves are we doing these to build our business and if not why not –

  • Commit to learn something new each day to improve yourself or your business.
  • Commit to find out who your competitors are.
  • Commit to find a new product that you can research and add to our shop
  • Practise the art of talking a good picture – learn the different settings, how to use lights and back drops.
  • Learn the art of writing headlines and descriptions for your business.
  • Learn how to pack and ship and learn the art of only handling the item you are selling a few times. This one thing will save you hours of time.
  • Learn all about eBay.

You will notice there are 7 steps there. If you were to just apply those seven steps for each day of the week and repeat each week, over a period of one year you will have invested 365 hours of time into your own life and the life of your business. And you will see a huge difference in all areas of your life.

The job of an eBay Consultant is varied but helping clients take their business to the next level is one of the tasks that I love and seeing clients grow is so rewarding. If you are looking for help in either starting your business or taking it to the next level please get in touch.

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Life as an eBay Consultant has it’s ups and downs over the holiday periods. As well as offering Consultancy and Training on subjects as eBay, Amazon and Etsy I am still very active in sourcing products for not only myself but for clients as well. Yes it can get very busy when you have to balance your own business along side the “demands of clients” and it is all fun and yes means working into the wee small hours but I do not mind as I love what I do, and love helping my clients take their businesses to the next level.

But as I mentioned before the holidays are now gone, and it is time to get back to normal and rank up our selling and of course this means if we want to sell we need to source products and this is such a great time to find products as people are selling off presents they no longer need or want and also sell off their older items as they were given a newer one.

Also very soon people will be getting their credit card and store card bills, and will be looking to make some extra cash – so keep your eyes and ears open for people looking to unload some products. Also remember if you are a Trading Assistant get your name out and about as people will be looking to make that extra money.very soon,

And one of the harder areas an eBay Consultant has is when they need to sit down with a client either old or new and say to the client is it time for the product they are selling is put to bed and a new product needs to be found. Yes at times we all need to look at what we are selling and ask ourselves is the product still selling like it did a year ago. It can be hard and stressful for all concerned, but the end results can be outstanding as the old product was holding them back.

So let’s get back to work and start making that money and grow our businesses to new heights.

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Happy New Year

Well once again we are at the start of a New Year. The old has gone, good or bad it has happened and there is nothing we can do to alter that fact. Yes Ok we can always improve on areas, but a question I am asked time after time by my eBay Consultant clients is well about that or this that happened in our business, or do you think I should have handled that sale different. Well yes of course you might have done it different, but that was all in the past. Yes learn from past mistakes but do not keep going back to them, it only harms you and your business.

We are at the start of a New Year, and whole year set before each one of us to reach our dreams and goals. Do not let past hurts and regrets harm you and your business. Draw a line in the sand and step over it and start a fresh. In fact you can do this every single day. The past is history.

So as we move into 2012 what goals, dreams do you have for your business. It is good to write it down, first your big goals and then you will need to break them down into smaller bite sized chunks right down to daily goals that you can achieve to take your business to the next level and beyond.

For me I have many goals, most will be shared on this blog, and I hope over the months that lie ahead you will see these go from an idea through to a money making business – But remember goals are not always about making money, they need to be for all areas of your life both personal and for your business.

eBay is still going to be the main focus of my business for this year, both in selling and consulting with clients, but I shall be adding Multi-Channel selling as well – Amazon and Etsy, as I believe I am also my clients are leaving money on the table. So I will be blogging about my journey into this area.

Also I want to cover product sourcing, yes I have covered this before but I find this a major question in my role as an eBay Consultant. Time after time clients both new and old ask me “How do I find products to sell” So watch this space.

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As an eBay Consultant one of the things we need to do is always keep ourselves up to date with the latest happenings on the eBay sites around the world. When the eBay Multi-Variation listing format came out I went on several courses and did a few dummy listings, but at the time I was not selling anything that needed this type of listing nor were my clients.

Recently I took on a new client and this week they were selling items that called for them to be listed on a Multi-Variation format. And yes even eBay Consultants have a few panic moments when you are sitting their with a client and your mind goes completely blank, but as soon as I started it all came back in a flash.

eBay Multi-Variation listings save the seller time and money as you just do the one listing and pay the one listing fee for it could be hundreds of items, this is fantastic news.

One of the things I did find is if you are selling items with colour have that as your first choice and then do things like size etc second, this is so that you can match the colour with the picture, all will be explained as you do it.

Another tip you need to have one picture with all the colours on, I found the simple way was to go into a program like photo shop and cut and paste each coloured item onto one page and then save as a jpg and then when asked upload to eBay. You then need to upload each picture.for each of the colours, then add the costing for each colour and size (these can be all different prices if you wish).

 

Once this is done just add the description as normal and you are done. To help you understand this better I have included a video from eBay seller Support.

 

Yes it does sound a bit complicated but once you have done one or two you will be doing them with your eyes closed. Any questions please leave them in the comments below or drop me an email at info@MyAuctionEmpires.com

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In our final part of this mini series a common question eBay Consultants tend to get is “How long should the description be ?” As with most things in life and business, it all depends.

Your eBay description needs to be long enough to sell the item in a non threatening way, just write the description in a manner that you were telling your best friend about the item you were selling.

It often amazes me as an eBay consultant the problems people have when they need to write about the item they are about to sell online. When a client says they are having challenges with writing a description I often give them these tips.

  • Place the item on a table in front of them
  • Take a pad and pen and then write a letter to their best friend telling them about this item they have just bought. But they cannot send any pictures to the friend so the description needs to explain what the item is.
  • Also if there is any damage they need to put this in the description too.
  • Be honest and open and never over sell the item in the listing.
  • And as for length write enough sales copy to get your point across. Where possible try and use some bullet points to make your points stand out.

Andrew Milburn is an eBay Consultant based in the UK

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Welcome back to part three in our Mini Series on listing on eBay. Today I want to take a quick look at Deliveries. Although we work online and sell our products on eBay and other selling platforms such as Amazon….there is something we all need once the sale has taken place and that is a reliable delivery system. RoyalMail

As with most aspects of selling on eBay you need to think like a buyer, once the item has sold how fast would you like to receive it. And in most cases this would be as soon as possible. And you would like to receive it in a nice package with the item protected as much as possible according to what it is.

You can buy boxes, bubble wrap, and other packaging items from eBay and very often this is a lot cheaper than going to your local high street supplier.

Yes where possible re-cycle bubble wrap and boxes but always make sure the boxes and bubble wrap are in very good condition. We must remember that once the item leaves our hands it has to go through many different stages on it’s journey to the new customer and this may mean at times being at the bottom of a sack, subjected to rain, snow, water, sun, being thrown and tossed around. Protect your item as much as possible.

Delivery companies run massive businesses and they have very tight time limits so they need to move your items in the fastest way possible.

In future articles we will talk about how to prepare items for delivery, but today I just wanted to talk about the need to get the item out to the customer in the fastest way possible and the most cost effective that will allow your item to arrive in one piece.

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pictures images

 

 

In part two of this mini series I want to cover the topic of images and pictures that you use in your eBay business. This is another common question I get asked as an eBay Consultant. But as I mention in the previous article about Keywords, yes on their own these items can make small differences to your listings and each one is very important but when you group them all together they will make one massive difference to your eBay business.

The first picture or image that you choose for your eBay listing will be the one that will show up in the gallery – this is the picture you see when you do a search and eBay gives you several items to look at. So of course you want this to be your best image or picture. It needs to show off your item in the best way.

How many pictures should you use in your listing………and sorry I am going to say it all depends. It depends on what you are selling the the very often it will depend on the price point. Also take a look at what the other sellers are using. If the top rated sellers are using just one image, then follow them, but if they are using a lot of pictures also follow their lead.

(This takes us to another point, each eBay country has their own amount of free images you can use, and then each country allows different numbers of pictures in different categories – complex yes, but this is eBay. Learn the number of free images you have and if you need to “buy” an image pack work out if it is in your profit model. Also you can host your images and pictures on place such as Picasa etc for free – we will talk about that later in another article)

Where possible you need to use natural light as this gives the best effect for your pictures. Your pictures are the selling point of your listing. Yes you can tell people about your item but a picture will make them feel safe as they can see what they are buying.

In closing remember if your item has any marks or chips or special marks or detail take close up pictures of this.

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Quick Product Sourcing Tips

 

Product Sourcing, eBay Consultant

As an eBay and Amazon Consultant I am always being asked about Product Sourcing tips and ideas and how to find those items you can buy low and sell high. And before we get into the main part of this article that last part is the important bit, buying low and selling high.

You do not need fancy bits of kit to help with product sourcing nor do you need a degree while these may help at the end of the day you just need to remember buy low and sell high and if you follow that simple rule you are a good way there to make money week after week on eBay and Amazon.

Quick Product Sourcing Tips

Buy low and sell high – When you are out and about keep an eye open for shops and stores that are selling items off at a steep discount or buy 1 get one free. Here in the Uk I have seen some supermarkets even do buy 1 get 2 free. When you see the buy one get one free sale, remember you need to halve the retail price. For example let’s say it sells for £10.00, but because it is buy one get one free the cost is now only £5.00 each. Take a look and see what they are selling for on sites such as eBay and Amazon and see if there is profit to be made.

Recently I let a big opportunity pass through my fingers in our local shopping centre we had one of those discount stores that was closing down. I popped in whenever I was in town and spend some time doing some product sourcing, and from time to time I found bits and pieces I bought. Now this shop was in it’s last few days of being open and was the last in the chain of shops and they had all the stock in this one shop………………Lots of people and lots of rubbish stock this was stuff people had not bought from the past few weeks. But……………..there were 2 pallets of a well know make of maths sets.  I had a look on my phone and they retailed at £4.99 each on a regular basis plus shipping. 

The shop had them on sale for 25p each. Now I was thinking were these the real deal, it was something the shop would not normally sell. So I thought well I have got a £10.00 note in my pocket so bought 40 items and thought if they are not the same as ones I have seen on Amazon and eBay all I have lost is £10.00.

Anyway got home and listed them and yes they were the real deal and yes each one sold for £4.99 plus postage and packing. On Buy it Now and sold in hours. Next day went back with some more cash to buy a load and the shop had gone, the day I was there was the last day. 

So when you are out product sourcing there are times when you need to take that risk. If you see something when you are out and about I would suggest you spend what you can afford to loose when you are just starting out. Yes when you are product sourcing there will be times you get it wrong and when that happens keep the items as gifts or sell them at cost price.

Product sourcing is fun and over the coming weeks we will look at many different ways you can source products for your eBay and Amazon shops. Happy Product Sourcing

Andrew Milburn Is An eBay And Amazon Consultant Based In Lichfield Staffordshire.

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