SiteProNews

Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay.

For every seller who doesn’t like the idea that their item might sell for a far lower price than they intend, there’s another who wants to shift hundreds of the same item quickly. eBay tries to cater to all tastes. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and their advantages for you.

Normal Auctions

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: buyers bid, others outbid them, they bid again, and the winner gets the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions

Reserve auctions are for sellers who don’t want their items to sell for less than a certain price - a concept you’ll know about if you’re familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that the buyer will be told if their bid does not meet the reserve price you set, and they’ll need to bid again if they want the item. If no-one is willing to meet your price, then the auction is cancelled, and you keep the item.

Fixed Price (’Buy it Now’) Auctions

Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. You can add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that buyers can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. This lets you avoid all the complications of the auction format and simply list your items for how much you want them to sell for.

Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the ‘best offer’. This means that buyers can contact you to negotiate a price, which could be a good way to get sell some extra stock at a small discount. The only downside to reserve and fixed price auctions is that you pay a small extra fee to use these formats. In general, it is more worth using reserve auctions for higher-priced items and fixed price auctions for lower-priced ones - but remember that you can combine the two formats.

Multiple Item (’Dutch’) Auctions

These are auctions where you can sell more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don’t worry - everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that you can just say how many of the item you they have, and offer them at a fixed price per unit. Buyers can enter how many they want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.

Now that you know about the different types of auctions, you should make sure that the items you plan to sell don’t violate eBay’s listing policies.

---

Michael Tasker operates a successful information marketing business and continues to expand to various websites plus direct marketing channels as well. Discover the secrets to become an Ebay power seller in the new A-Z guide and power yourself into the 2% Ebay elite. The audio and transcript guide shows you everything that the elite use to generate a huge income selling on Ebay. Sign up for a free course at: http://www.goodbyemoneyworries.com/ebaycashpoint/ebaysign.html

Tags: auctions, ebay, Ecommerce

Online retail is booming, even in the current economic climate, and has been growing significantly year after year for the past 6 years. However the online shopping landscape is changing, with declining customer loyalty; larger retailers focusing on price alone, severe price competition, the increase in cost comparison web sites and multibrand synergies.

Similarly consumers shopping behaviors are constantly evolving, with consumers now normally researching prior to purchases on multiple sites, often referring to comparison sites, and using search features within sites when looking for specific products. Sites must no longer just offer the best value for money (including price, service, mix of products, etc.), but they have to offer an exceptional user experience, which engages the consumer.

So what are today’s online consumers looking for?

Price is the most important factors for the majority of consumers. To ‘catch’ these consumers, key web pages have to stress savings, but just ‘shouting’ about the price is not enough, consumers must be able to find what they are looking for, once on a site, with ease. And they must feel that the site is providing the right type of product information.

Research conducted by fhios has continually shown that consumers look for the following ‘reassurances’ when deciding to buy from an online retailer. These are listed from most important:

• That they are saving money or have value for money
• Free shipping, rebates/coupons, sales, etc.
• Privacy policies and guarantees, particularly early in the check-out process
• Order tracking
• Customer ratings and reviews
• Customer service, including live help, in-store returns, etc.
• Email alerts on promotions and offers

Interestingly, this prioritized list of ‘reassurances’ does change when considering ‘loyal’ consumers; once a relationship has been built between the consumer and the retailer some of the ‘reassurances’ are taken for guaranteed and other factors become more important. We have observed that customer ratings and customer satisfaction, as well as alerts are far more important for ‘loyal’ customers.

So in a changing online retail environment, there is the contradiction between ‘price hunters’ and ‘loyal followers’. To turn the ‘price hunters’ into ‘loyal followers’ is about ticking the primary needs of the consumer, and then ensuring the online experience goes beyond their expectations by building in loyalty programs to keep them interested.

To create an effective loyalty program, retailers need some kind of discount to lure customers into the program, but then they also need to create other means of locking the customers in (ensuring long-term loyalty) once they are part of the program. Retailers create these switching costs by moving beyond discounts to delivering an array of targeted benefits and services to their loyalty program members. Here are some guidelines we recommend to retailers:

• Provide benefits that appeal to each targeted group’s unique needs and desires.
• Focus on rewarding desired changes in behaviour, not just giving member’s benefits for taking actions they would have taken anyway.
• Encourage members to unify their purchases by offering increasingly valuable rewards the more they spend.
• Offer rewards that are cost-effective and provide both immediate and inspirational incentives.
• Influence customers at multiple points in their purchase decision-making cycle (for example, at home, when they enter the store, while shopping online, etc.)

Different consumer segments will respond differently to different types of rewards, it is just a matter of identifying the needs of the individual customer groups and focusing the loyalty program for that group.

Loyalty programs have much to offer retailers in terms of increased customer insight, improved reputation, brand equity, etc, as well as decreasing price competition, increasing customer retention, decreasing marketing costs and allows a more comprehensive understanding of the customer.

Dr. Philip Rhodes, Ph.D., FRSA, fhios Director of Research. Philip holds a Ph.D. in Information Design from the University of Portsmouth. He has extensive research and teaching experience in hypermedia design and information architecture. He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived and worked in Brazil. Before joining fhios, he worked with US solution providers Rare Medium and Sapient, as Director of Information Architecture. Specialising in offering user centric online solutions within the banking, education and telecommunications sectors. He also taught at several universities in Brazil and the UK, and has been widely published. Philip is the Director of Customer Experience Research & Design at fhios, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. (http://www.fhios.com/team.htm)

Tags: Ecommerce, online shopping

Are you frustrated with Clickbank? For years now they have been the “reigning champion” when it comes to payment processing with a built in affiliate network. Clickbank makes it easy to sell your digital products and take advantage of their affiliate army, numbering over 100,000. It’s simple really - you let others sell your products and they earn commission.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: click2sell, clickbank, Ecommerce, internet marketing

So you’ve decided you want to get started as a seller on eBay. There are a few things you really need to know before you go and throw yourself in at the deep end.

Selling on eBay.

First off, you need to know what it is you’re going to sell: what’s your speciality? You’ll do far better on eBay if you become a great source for certain kind of products, as people who are interested in those products will come back to you again and again. You won’t get any loyalty or real reputation if you just sell rubbish at random.

When you think about what to sell, there are a few things to consider. The most important of these is to always sell what you know. If you try to sell something on eBay that you just don’t know anything about then you’ll never write a good description and sell it for a good price.

You might think you’re not especially interested in anything, but if you think about what kind of things you usually buy and which websites you go to most often, I’m sure you’ll discover some kind of interest. If all else fails mention it to your friends and family: they’ll almost certainly say “Oh, well why don’t you sell…”, and you’ll slap your forehead.

Out of the things you know enough about, you should then consider which things you could actually get for a good enough price to resell, and how suitable they would be for posting. If you can think of something of that you’re knowledgeable about and it’s small and light enough for postage to be relatively cheap, then that’s great!

Don’t worry if you think the thing you’re selling is too obscure - it isn’t. There’s a market for almost everything on eBay, even things that wouldn’t sell once in a year if you stocked them in a shop. You’ll probably do even better if you fill a niche than if you sell something common, and believe me, the number of niches on eBay is absolutely mind-blowing.

Tax and Legal Matters.

If you earn enough money, you should be aware that you’re going to have to start paying tax - this won’t be done for you. If you decide to sell on eBay on a full-time basis, you should probably register as a business. Of course, even if you sell part-time or in your spare time on eBay, you need to consider these things. I’m no attorney - that’s just my opinion.

Prepare Yourself.

There are going to be ups and downs when you sell on eBay. Don’t pack it in if something goes a little wrong in your first few sales: the sellers who are successful on eBay are the ones who enjoy it, and stick at it whatever happens.

Anyone can sell on eBay, if they believe in themselves - and if you do decide it’s not for you, then the start-up costs are so low that you won’t really have lost anything.

If you’re ready to start selling, then the next thing you need to know is the different eBay auction types, so you can decide which ones you will use to sell your items. There’s plenty of information out there that will go into this topic in great detail. Just do on search on Google.

---

Clint Herman is a successful eBay seller with over 6 years experience selling on eBay. He also loves teaching others how to sell on eBay. He is the author of “How to Get Started Selling on eBay,” which is a beginner’s guide to selling on eBay designed for people who are new to selling on eBay. The guide is available at http://www.beginnersauctionguide.com/ar.html

Tags: ebay, Ecommerce

It’s common to see businesses obsessed with their “target demographic”. Tunnel vision leads them to blindly chase after a specific niche and pin their hopes and dreams that this ideal consumer will come knocking on the door.

The problem lies in competitive markets, where the target demographic is faced with a slew of options due to a saturated market place. What if APPLE solely focused its product development, marketing and advertising on age 18-24 year old, urban consumers?Not only would it alienate other demographics, but it would neglect other potential consumers who have a need for their products. APPLE created multiple commercials for the iPhone that showed a close up of a hand navigating through the phone with ease.

If you notice, at the end of the commercial an incoming call is made from an adult. We can see this from the photo tag that is displayed on the iPhone’s screen. Clearly, Apple was targeting an older demographic with this placement. Although many young adults will race out to purchase the iPhone’s latest release, APPLE understands the need to appeal to multiple demographics with the same product.

Another typical scenario is often seen in the nightlife. Nightclubs focus their attention on attracting women to their establishments. This is in hopes that a viral effect will take place, increasing demand from men to attend a venue where a plethora of women exist. I’m not saying this strategy doesn’t work, but solely focusing on women for a night club will be detrimental in reaching several other demographics.

Does your business burn too many resources on a single niche? Are you at high market risk due to dependence on a single demographic? If so, its time to:

A) research a secondary and tertiary market
B) research how these demographics consume
C) connect with multiple demographics

If your product happens to be a video game system you would focus on the 10-18 year old, male demographic. However, you should also create/alter your product(s) to reach the 25-35 year old male demographic that enjoyed video gaming in their younger years. We saw Nintendo achieve this when they released Mario Kart. Mario appealed to an older demographic that consumed video gaming at a much younger age with Mario Bros. The point being, don’t allow fear of untested waters or tunnel vision prevent you from reaching new consumers and experiencing longevity within the marketplace.

This post was written by SEO Design Solutions‘ VP Mr. Shiraz Madan who consistently refines the focus of our collective marketing and branding efforts through bringing fresh insight and vision to broaden our business horizons. If your business requires a fresh perspective with new eyes, then feel free to contact us at 1 (866) 471-5377 to see what opportunities exist.

Tags: Diversify Your Marketing Portfolio, Ecommerce, Reach New Clients with Multiple Demographics, Target Marketing to Multiple Demographics, Tunnel Vision and Target Marketing

If you know what you’re doing, you can quickly find what you’re looking for on eBay. Here are a few golden rules.

Be specific: If you’re searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you’ll get further searching for ‘harry potter rowling philosopher’s stone first edition’ than you will searching for ‘harry potter’. You’ll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It’s a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can’t spell. Whatever you’re looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - the chances are that fewer people will find these items, and so they will be cheaper.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe your item, for example searching for both ‘TV’ and ‘television’, or for ‘phone’, ‘mobile’ and ‘cellphone’. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you’ll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD because you want to buy that CD, you should click the ‘CDs’ category to just look at results in that category. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don’t care about?

Don’t be afraid to browse: Once you’ve found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click ‘Browse’ and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay’s search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it’ll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say ‘anything can go here’. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for ‘car 195*’. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes (”") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for “Lord of the Rings” won’t give you any results that say, for example “Lord Robert Rings”.

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don’t want to appear in your search results. For example: “Pulp Fiction” -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become ‘(TV,television)’, which would find items with either word.

So once you’ve found your bargain item, bid for it and won it, what if it all goes wrong? Don’t worry - eBay has a thorough dispute resolution procedure, and we’ll cover it in some depth in the next article, so you’ll be prepared if the worst happens.

---

Clint Herman is a successful eBay seller with over 6 years experience selling on eBay. He also loves teaching others how to sell on eBay. He is the author of “How to Get Started Selling on eBay,” which is a beginner’s guide to selling on eBay designed for people who are new to selling on eBay. The guide is available at http://www.beginnersauctionguide.com/ar.html

Tags: ebay tricks, Ecommerce, Marketing

Are you thinking about upgrading your shopping cart so you can take advantage of today’s improved online shopping carts?

You might have started your adventures in e-commerce with a bare-bones system. But if you’re like most people, you’ve probably outgrown these simple carts.

If that’s the case, you need to consider these options:

31 Things to Look For When Choosing Your Next Online Shopping Cart…

1. Is the cart secure? Make sure the cart has verified security standards and is hacker safe. Those orders could be a major source of fraud that could run you out of business if you aren’t careful.
2. Can it import your existing client database?
3. Can it import your existing list of products and services?
4. Will it categorize your products and services so you can find items quickly?
5. Will it calculate shipping charges by different carriers, like USPS and overnight courier services?
6. Can it bill clients automatically each month if you sell recurring services like coaching, or products, like supplements?
7. Will it work easily with credit card processing companies?
8. Do they offer free product suppor
9. Could it offer A/B split testing of different ads, so you can test with ads are more effective?
10. Does it have an affiliate manager module to track orders made by your partners?
11. Can it send out automated messages so you can follow up with clients using automated messages and sales scripts that can save you time and make you money?
12. Are the prices reasonable?
13. Can you choose from a variety of services so you get the level of service you need?
14. Does it have features included, like affiliate program tracking and auto-responders?
15. Can it work with your website to do product upsells?
16. Does it offer coupons and discounts for consumers?
17. If you operate several companies, will they all work with one cart, or do you need additional carts? Good systems will let you take orders from different companies you own.
18. Has the cart been in business for more than five years?
19. Does the cart have testimonials from satisfied people in your industry?
20. Will it print an invoice?
21. Can I make the sales pages look like my website so it has the same colors, logos and layout so customers feel comfortable and has a positive experience?
22. Will it create a database of clients, prospects and newsletter subscribers?
23. Will it send out newsletters in HTML and TEXT?
24. Can it track undeliverable emails?
25. Does it integrate with QuickBooks so you can do bookkeeping faster?
26. Can you search by client name or client email address to find records?
27. Can you create reports to see the records of each person who bought a specific product?
28. Can you send messages to people who bought specific products?
29. Can you send personalized messages that include a person’s name, company, city and product purchased?
30. Can you become an affiliate of the shopping cart and recommend it to your clients?
31. Can it offer a security code to defeat spammers?

Modern shopping carts, like MyEasyOnlineStore.com have all these features and more. Don’t buy a cart that doesn’t have these services, as you will surely need them.

Serial Internet business entrepreneur, Dan Janal has built multiple six-figure income businesses using MyEasyOnlineStore.com. Now, for the first time ever, he’s revealing the hidden truth behind automating your business, making more money online & enjoying the entrepreneur’s lifestyle. Get his free special report, “How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart” now at: http://www.prleads.com/meos

Tags: Ecommerce, shopping cart

As Ebay grows with 70,000 new customers everyday adding to the 277,000,000 registered users, the opportunity to sell a product to this growing market becomes ever more attractive. But this is not any market. Ebay is a specialised market, full of hungry targeted buyers seeking out products in over 50,000 categories.

Yet to make serious money selling on Ebay takes learning, skill and belief that is required to operate any business. To be an Ebay auction selling success, you can’t just submit a product for sale and hope that bids will automatically appear. There are proven methods to ensure that your Ebay auction will be more successful than the competition. There are certain techniques that you need to adopted to ensure Ebay is a lucrative money making opportunity for you, not just a trickle of money but enough for you to then consider becoming a fulltime Ebay seller and joining the Ebay auction elite.

The 5 essential secrets to Ebay auction selling success are:

1 Do Not Have An Auction Reserve Price - Ebay is removing this option from some of its sites which is a sign that you should follow suit. Ask yourself this. Why would you bid for a product that has a reserve price stuck on it? You would be bidding in the dark not knowing if the auction would actually result in a sale or not. Maybe the Ebay seller is just testing the market. You don’t know so make sure you don’t put a reserve price on your Ebay auctione as this will deter prospective bidders.

2 Keep The Starting Price Low - Why? It attracts interest, which attracts bids often at a much quicker pace which then builds momentum which can lead to an Ebay auction frenzy. Now would you like to experience that? Depending on the product, a starting price of .99 c has been proved to attract bidders very quickly. Even if the product is of high value, a low starting price can result in a flood of bids each pushing the bid price up. And remember, an Ebay auction of a product requires bids to be success. If a potential bidder sees that the item already has bids they will probably be more likely to bid themselves.

3 The Important Ebay About Me Page - You should see this as the opportunity to sell yourself, gain credibility so any potential bidder will feel secure and can trust you. Ask yourself, would you bid on an Ebay auction where the seller had no profile, no details, you knew nothing about them? You probably would not and move on to someone you can trust. You need to include details about you and your business, how long have you been registered on Ebay, where you are situated, specialisations etc.

4 Ebay Feedback - As Ebay is impersonal, any details that will give the potential bidder comfort should be made available. It is prudent if you leave feedback for the winning bidder as soon as the item has been paid for. This shows that you are on the ball and wanting to here the winning bidders comments whether they are positive or negative. Negative feedback need not be damaging. Ensure that you act on it fast and even if there is negative comment on your feedback, potential Ebay auction bidders will see that this is far outweighed by all the positive comments.

5 Ebay Shipping - You shipping costs must not be another income stream for you. Overpricing is against Ebay policy and you will be found out. Ensure if you are charging shipping that the cost is clearly stated within the item listing. Would you like to win a bid only then to find out that there is a large shipping charge which appears excessive? Avoid these two issues.

In order for you to distinguish and separate yourself from the vast majority of Ebay auction sellers and power yourself into the Ebay elite, these secrets are essential for your success. And once you achieve a reputation as an Ebay auction elite, the potential to make very large sums of money selling on Ebay will be freely available to you.

---

Michael Tasker operates a successful information marketing business and continues to expand to various websites plus direct marketing channels as well. A lucrative money maker is Ebay and now available is a A-Z guide on how to become part of the 2% Ebay elite. The audio and transcript guide shows you everything that the elite use to generate huge amounts of money selling on Ebay. http://www.goodbyemoneyworries.com/ebaysign

Tags: ebay secrets, Ecommerce, sell on ebay

I was absolutely shocked when I checked out a new client’s website. He is an author who wants to sell more books.But he doesn’t have an online shopping cart!

He expects people to call his 800 number and give him their credit card number over the phone.

He also asks people to send checks to his post office box.

While both calls to action might seen normal, they are so 1980!

In today’s world, people expect to pay online. And you as an author should have an online shopping cart in place to take their money.

Here Are 7 Reasons to Use a Professional Online Shopping Cart & Stop Taking Orders by Phone

1. People live in dozens of different time zones. Do you want to answer the phone at 2 a.m. your time because someone in England is having her first cup of coffee and wants to order your book?

2. People shop on weekends. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be out in my kayak on a weekend than sitting by the phone waiting for a book order.

3. Telephone tag. Let’s say you just appeared on a talk radio show and people are calling to order your book. They will get a busy signal since you can talk to only one person at a time. You’ll find that you have to call back a dozen people. If this happens, you run the risk of playing telephone tag - and possibly never connecting with them.

4. Expensive phone charges. When you return phone calls, you risk paying long-distance rates including international phone calling rates. Your cost of taking the order just jumped through the roof.

5. Too much time, not enough money. When you take orders over the phone, you have to be nice. There’s nothing wrong with being nice, but you have to engage people in a conversation: How’s the weather? Where are you calling from? How long have you been interested in this topic? If you don’t ask questions like this, people will think you are rude and might not want to buy your book! This all takes time. Is your time worth money? Well if you take 10 minutes to call someone and accept the order, you could be out $20 if you charge $120 an hour for consulting services. Now, if you have to make a lot of book order sales calls, you can be out hundreds of dollars.

6. When you only take order over the phone, you have to sell the person, not just take the order. Many authors are not comfortable selling on the phone. Or they are bad at asking for the order. You could blow the sale.

7. Too many mistakes. It is all too easy to misspell the person’s name, mailing address or credit card number. I call this unintentional dyslexia. You think you typed in “54″ and you said “54″ to the client, but you really wrote “45.”

If you had an online shopping cart, like MyEasyOnlineStore.com which is used by many authors including myself, you’d solve all these problems!

5 Reasons to Get a Professional Online Shopping Cart Now

 

1. Online shopping carts take orders 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without you being present.

2. It can handle multiple orders simultaneously. So if you get flooded with orders, your buyers won’t get a busy signal on the phone. Instead, they’ll get a confirmation note from the shopping cart that the order has gone through.

3. You can spend your time make money and creating new products, or providing services to your clients. You won’t spend time verifying orders.

4. No mistakes. People will type in their information correctly. If the credit card info is wrong, or if information is missing, the shopping cart will alert the buyer immediately.

5. Online shopping carts protect you from fraud. If the card isn’t valid, the shopping cart won’t let the order go through. On the other hand, if you get a bad check in the mail and you deposit it, your bank will charge you a fee. If you already mailed the product, then you will have lost the price of your product as well as the postage - and your time.

Add an online shopping cart to your website today and you will `sell more products and services while protecting your time and energy. And, it’s very easy to get started. Just go to www.prleads.com/meos for a special report on how to choose a shopping cart. You’ll even find information on how to get started today!

About the Author:

Author and Serial Internet business entrepreneur, Dan Janal has built multiple six-figure income businesses using MyEasyOnlineStore.com. Now, for the first time ever, he’s revealing the hidden truth behind automating your business, making more money online & enjoying the entrepreneur’s lifestyle. Get his free special report, “How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart” now at: http://www.prleads.com/meos

Tags: Ecommerce, online shopping cart, sell online

So now you have a potential eBay buyer checking out your auction. They’re obviously interested in the item you are selling, or they wouldn’t be checking out your auction. Let’s say they’re on the fence about whether to buy or not. So how can you nudge them and get them to bid or buy? Well, check out the tips below.

Increase your picture quality: It’s been said over and over - a picture is worth a thousand words. If your picture is not good quality then it probably won’t matter what you wrote in your description Maybe you missed something important that a good quality picture would convey. If you have bad lighting or a background that drowns out your item then it will be worth little to nothing to those checking out your auction. Make sure people can see what you’re selling and consider using multiple pictures to show different angles and aspects of your item.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ebay, Ecommerce, Marketing, paypal