Ways to get more trafiic to your listings

This is one technique that I have noticed over the last year that has worked for me. I will give you the example of  how I made an immense increase to the amount of traffic to my eBay pages for over a year.
I can tell you I only realised this now as the amount has dropped of significantly.
I sell a lot of stuff to a limited audience so I price it accordingly (more about this in another blog). It means that I don't get heaps of hits on my auctions so my overall traffic is fairly low.
Last year I sold a heap of music memorabilia and also a set of Meakin China. These were all much sort after items and because of this I was getting a lot more hits on my pages.
Now I will tell you how I made much more from these Items than expected and how I got the side benefit of increased traffic for a long period of time.
So I will focus mainly on the J&G Meakin China. I bought this a set of approx 35 peices at auction for the sum of $278AU. Reasoning that plates sell for around $5-$10 and the tureens, Gravy boat and platters I could expect $45-$75 each for...... I was looking for about $300-$350 profit. I will tell you now I got over $700 profit! I naturaly expect to get premium prices for my items due to the quality of my listings but I learned a few things during the sale of these items. Here they are in point form, some of them I knew, some were new to me and some were just re-inforced.

1. DON'T FLOOD THE MARKET: Well this is fairly obvious but I see it time and time again. You should be looking on eBay and watching for prime times to sell your items. Look for times when there are few or none of what you are selling listed or they are starting at a high price. If someone has the same or similar items listed at a high price - Don't undercut, use the opportunity to get the maximum price for your item. Beat the competition by presenting your item better and by giving outstanding customer service.
2. BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR BUYERS: What I mean by this is if you have 100 of item X and you list them all at once and buyer A would like 50 but is a bit unsure of the quality or service they might only be willing to buy 10 at $10 each. If you list 2 of your items and they buy 1 for $15 and are happy with, it they will continue to buy from you at a higher price. I got so much repeat business with the Meakin China because of this.
3. GET THE BENEFITS FOR THE LONGEST TIME: During the Meakin experience I would go weeks without listing stuff and would be getting emails asking when I would be listing again. I would keep all my regulars informed and list a few hear and there. I always list enough so that my customers can buy multiple items to save on shipping. The Meaking china and the memorabilia I was selling got me so much more traffic that my presence on google searches astounded me. I would be doing research on a product I was selling and here on the first page of the google search are all my eBay listings. Wow! So all my items that don't get much exposure were getting a huge boost from my increased traffic.

So when you get onto something popular make the most of it.

Get cash back on all your eBay purchases!

Yamaha RZ250R 1987 RGV USD forks unfinished project RZ - eBay Yamaha, Road Bikes, Motorcycles, Cars, Bikes, Boats. (end time 13-Sep-09 17:20:14 AEST)

Sigh :s I really don’t want to sell this but room time and other projects dictate it is probably for the best.

No bids yet but plenty of watchers and heaps of enquiries…. Looking real good. As a result of one of the enquiries, I have found someone interested in most of my other parts in Sydney too. So all good in that sense.

It is Sunday morning, Sunday arvo is a high traffic time on eBay so I am expecting – maybe no any bids – but lots more questions and watchers.

Yamaha RZ250R 1987 RGV USD forks unfinished project RZ - eBay Yamaha, Road Bikes, Motorcycles, Cars, Bikes, Boats. (end time 13-Sep-09 17:20:14 AEST)

Get cash back on all your eBay purchases!

Update

Well it has been a while.

Since moving things have been pretty hectic and I have only started eBaying seriously again in July.

I did sell a Harley-Davidson for someone for over $9000....... I am listing a diesel trawler engine and a Diesel generator for another person too. I have also sold the remainder of the G & J Meakin "June" china, for a profit just shy of $1000.

I have been toying with the idea of selling stuff like motorvehicle for people on commission. In the last couple of days I have made up some flyers and set a commission plan..... just about ready to go!~

I think selling motor vehicles on eBay in my area would be worthwhile because we are somewhat isolated here in Bundaberg. I see the same cars and bikes in the classifieds week after week and this is costing them around $70 a pop! I am not scared to ship vehicles interstate and my customer service is top rate so I think I could move cars and bikes pretty easily. I could even deliver as far as Sydney for a little cheaper than freight, give me a chance to visit family and play some poker at the casino :).
I could even buy a car in Sydney dirt cheap and sell for a tidy profit here. Yeah yeah, I know I said the market is tough here but there just isn't enough cars in the $2000-$4000 range for sale. And by choosing the right car, should be on a winner.

Ok cheers for now, I PROMISE to update regularly from now on.

Don't forget to use kickitback!

Get cash back on all your eBay purchases!

Black + White (not just) Magazine overview

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

eBay buyer hot tip (how to pay less in an auction)

I am not going to tell you anything groundbreaking here, buyers have been saving themselves money from day one with this technique. eBay do everything they can to encourage you to pay more for an item, they cash in on the final value fees and PayPal fees. They do this by encouraging you to bid again "incase someone out bids you" or "Item is ending soon, bid more to ensure you win" etc etc......







I am about to tell you the secret, then I will tell you why and how it works. It is a technique known as "sniping", how it works is.... You find an item you want to bid on, decide what the absolute maximum you want to pay for the item is ( this is important and you must stick to it, dicsipline is the key here.), you then wait until the closing seconds of the auction before you bid.



May sound silly but here is why it works...






These are my own observations, I am not a qualified psycologist but even if my reasoning is not quite 100% here the results are the same. People don't have a lot of discipline in general and get carried away with auctions. I believe that the will to win gets people to bid much more than they first intend. They rationalise with themselves why a few dollars more is no big deal. EBay even re-inforces this by their "Congratulations, you won "x"item" emails.... In reality you didn't win anything. You were just the person who was willing to pay the most for that particular item, you could even be a big loser.... many times I have sold items that are freely available for much over RRP.... go figure. Do your research, decide how much the item is worth to you and then bid that! Don't look back... you win the auction, fine. You lose it no big deal.

OK, so we have decided how much we want to pay for an item........ let's say for example, Motor Magazine with a report on the Ford Falcon BA XR6 Turbo. Well you really want this because you bought one of these cars second hand and are really into it, you decide you would be willing to pay $36 to have this magazine, taking into account the postage is $3.10 you go and immediately bid $32.90.... right? Wrong! Remember what I said about peoples competetive nature? Lets look at this situation hypothetically. The auction has seven days and some hours left when you see it, the opening price is $7.99, you bid $32.90..... bidder #2 comes along and bids $8.50, then for some strange reason (this happens all the time) bids again for $11.50. Oh well they think and leave it at that. The next day, bidder #2 is online again and decides to have another crack because they have talked themselves into paying $16.50......... still no good........ another couple of dollars won't hurt, then bids $17.89, they might quit here, they might not. So if there is no more action you are paying $17.89, which you think is OK because you were willing to pay $32.90. Like all sellers we love a bidding war, it ensures we get the maximum price for an item.

Ok, so lets look at the same auction and see how you could save yourself some money. Bidder #2 bids (the opening bidder here) bids their $8.50. They are winning the auction and all is good. You are watching this auction and plan to be online around the end time. Ok so the trick here is to bid in the closing seconds of the auction. This gives bidder #2 no time to think about bidding again! you bid your $32.90 and the item is yours for $8.75! nearly half the price which you would of paid.

Ok. I hope this helps someone out there and remember when you are bidding on one of my auctions . Bid High and Bid early :D

Click on kickitback icon to save on eBay purchases and up to 15% shopping online

Earn money back when buying online!

http://stores.ebay.com.au/Mick-and-Roxanes-place

Black + White magazine on eBay

This is my Favourite thing to sell on eBay.

Black + White (not just) magazine ran for 89 issues, spanning the summer of 1992 to it's final issue (#88) in December 2006..... doesn't add up? the first issue was number 00 the second being 01, bit quirky but kinda cool....

There are also special issues, which are as follows The Album, Heros Angels Devils, The Masters Vols 1, 2 and 3, The Naked + The Nude, Sportbook 2003, The Atlanta Dream, The Sydney Dream and The Athens Dream. Black + White also have publish books, Intimate Portraits, Starlust, Peekshow, Sex and Models Only: .

To see details on individual issues please visit http://www.studiomagazines.com/htdocs/homepage.htm . You will notice that a some of these magazines and books are available as back issues, at prices over $35 for regular issues and around $99 for special issues.

There is a good market for these on eBay and when listed well, can reach quite high prices, again this is very hit and miss. You can relist several times before selling an issue and then out of the blue there is a huge bidding war. I usually start the auctions for these at around $15 and I wait till there aren't too many available on eBay before I post them....... rather annoying when somebody lists exactly the same items as you straight after at $0.99......... I just don't see the need to list them so cheap, especially in times when the market is flooded. But thats OK if they are cheap enough I buy them myself!

I will be posting more on this subject later so stay tuned and have a happy new year.


http://stores.ebay.com.au/Mick-and-Roxanes-place

Earn up tp 15% money back when buying online and cash back for Ebay purchases too!

Earn money back when buying online!

Intro to our eBay biz

Hi. this is my first blog! I will be blogging here on a regular basis with updates on what we are doing with our eBay business.

It is Christmas time so things are going a bit slow at the moment. I just recently opened an eBay store after several years of on and off eBaying.

Three months ago I would of told you I was an eBay expert, I have learned so, so much more in those three months and realise, now, that I have much more to learn.

I am a bit of a bike and car nut and if you know anybody else with this affliction you would know that they end up hording lots of spare parts. I have found eBay a very profitable way to get rid of these bits n pieces, often I have listed something just because I could not bear to throw it out because I just knew there would be somebody desperately searching for this part. So I list widget A for $1.99, just enough to cover listing fees etc and then find out there are two or three people desperate for said widget....... Bidding war ensues and I am sometimes a hundred or so dollars richer, have made someone very happy and I have saved some of our valuable resources from the scrap heap!

The other item that makes up a majority of my eBay business is magazine back issues. As you probably guess.... yes car and bike magazines. I started selling off my stacks of car magazines to, again, clear clutter. I was happy to find that although a majority don't sell in the first listing, a small percentage go for very good prices. Which makes the whole exercise worthwhile. Once I ran out of my own magazines I ended up buying a couple of collections, about 5000 in one of various magazines such as Wheels, Motor, Auto Action, Two Wheels and Revs, dating back to the early 1970s. The second collection I bought, about 10000 was mainly Autosport (UK magazine) dating back to pre WWII and Auto action...... Unfortunately I left most of these in Sydney when I moved to Queensland but I will be getting them shipped up in the new year. Then there will be a SERIOUS amount of listing going on!

Some of these magazines sell for $30+, I feel that not only that it is good to get paid for my work cataloging and listing these magazines. It is also good that they are going all around the world to people who care about them, a lot of these are historically significant.... I mean, I can read reports written on the day, anything about Fangios whole career. I have the whole career Jack Brabham chronicled in these publications, plus Gilles Villeneuve and anyone else you like to think of. What to read magazine articles on the Ford GT40s at Le Mans...... I have it all.

This is not all of my eBay business, check out my next blog for more.

Happy Holidays

Michael and Roxane

http://stores.ebay.com.au/Mick-and-Roxanes-place

http://www.kickitback.com/?how=addalink&rid=129732 get cash back on your eBay and online purchases