Tuesday, September 8, 2009

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.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

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.

SV401431 SV401426

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)

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

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!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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

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