Three Weeks To eBay Profits

This is the resource page for my book, Three Weeks to eBay Profits. The problem with any printed book is that things change after the book is printed –and things on eBay tend to change rapidly. This page lists changes, corrections and provides new and updated resources for the new eBay seller.

Rather than just a list of links, I have tried to organize the material into useful topics every eBay seller can use. I hope you find this helpful to building your business.

I hope you are following the steps in the book to build your eBay business quickly and profitably.

eBay Fees

eBay changes their fees from time to time and they may have changed since this book was printed. Here are links where you can access the current eBay fee schedule:

• You can access the current eBay fee schedule at: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
•  eBay Store fees are located at:
  http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html

Besides fees, eBay also changes their sales policies from time to time.  You can keep up to date with eBay announcements and fee changes by subscribing to our FREE Newsletter, The eBay Seller's News. The eBay Seller's News is the oldest and largest online newsletter for professional eBay sellers.

Bonding, Fraud Insurance & Customer Confidence

The leading company to insure against fraud and provide surety bonding for eBay Sellers is buySAFE. The #1 Reason to become a Bonded Seller today: 95% of online buyers prefer to buy from Bonded Sellers. buySAFE also helps to promote your auctions by listing them in their online store for free.

Contacting eBay

There are several ways to contact eBay. Of course most people try the online contact forms on the eBay.com web site, but unless you are a power seller, it can take some time to get a reply, but they do always reply.

If you are a power seller, you can log into your power seller page and you will see a special contact form just for you. If you are at least a Silver-level power seller, you will also see a phone number displayed on the page that you can call.

Another way to get a phone number is if you have an eBay featured store. The number you see when you click on your Manage My Store page will take you directly to store support --but those folks can also answer most other questions and/or refer you to other people as well.

It also pays to get to know a few people who work at eBay. The best way to do this is to attend eBay Live and smooze the eBay folks. Come up with a reason to collect their business card. I have over a dozen eBay business cards including two from very top executives. I don't call them very often and when I do it's for a good reason and I haven't been able to get help otherwise.

Lastly eBay does have a general phone number. It can take a while to get through all of the prompts and get someone on the line but it does work. The number is 800-322-9266. When you call them, be patient, it can take a while to get through to the correct department.

If you need to contact PayPal, their phone number is 888-215-5506 or 888-221-1161

Some FREE Bonuses for my readers

I recently finished writing a new eBook called Online Auction Photo Secrets that sells for $17. If you will sign up for my free monthly newsletter I will send you one for free. Don't worry --I am not going to spam you and I will not sell, rent or otherwise share your name in any way. I hate spam as much as you do. Once you get the 1st issue of the newsletter, if you don't like it, you can simply unsubscribe.

You can click here to subscribe and to download your free copy as a pdf file.

Automation

Anything you can automate will save you time. eBay has an integrated shipping system with the USPS but it is somewhat clugy and doesn't save you that much time. I speak from experience; we used it for a couple of months, then switched to Endicia. This is the company I talked about in the book.

If you are truly going to be a large eBay seller, then you must automate your auction launching, photo hosting and customer management. In the section on Automation I mentioned a company called Mpire. This company decided to leave the business and is now a shopping engine and no longer offers eBay tools. Here are three companies who offer a short free trial to get you started:

• InkFrog - This is my preferred automation partner.
• Vendio.com
• Auctiva.com

Vendio is the largest and offers the most sophisticated platform along with the largest menu of multi-channel selling venues. Vendio is used by many top power sellers and is good if you launch a large number of auctions a month. Auctiva is a free service, but somewhat limited, although this could be a good place to start. Of the three I recommend and use InkFrog.  (They charge $9.95 a month.)  eBay charges fees for photo hosting, scheduling and listing designer (templates). I find that the fees I pay InkFrog which includes these services easily pay for the service making it essentially free.

Promoting Your Auctions

I have been a big fan of Sellers Voice for over a year now. Putting audio in your auctions is quick and easy --and it works. I have performed blind tests in my auctions both with and without audio, and audio wins every time. It easily pays for itself and anyone can learn to use it within 5 minutes. You can get a 3-week trial for just $1 by clicking here.

eBay Links

eBay makes some of their links very hard to find and their site map leaves a lot to be desired. Here are links to frequently used pages. Set up a folder called eBay Links in your Favorites List. Click on each of these links and just add them to this folder for quick access whenever you need them.

eBay Rules and Policies

Keeping up with all the rules and policies on eBay can be a challenge. You should get in the habit of checking the eBay Announcement Board at least once a week, twice is even better. If you don't the first time you will learn of a rule change is when one of your auctions is cancelled for violating it. The best way to find out about a rule or policy is to visit the eBay Help, Rules & Policies page. There you will find an overview of the rules and policies, popular FAQs and a search bar where you can enter a topic. For example if you wanted to learn about selling tobacco items, just type that into the search bar and it will take you to the policy on selling tobacco and tobacco-related items on eBay.

Branding and getting a professional look and feel

Templates only go so far. You will eventually want to set up a professional-looking eBay store, and have the design match your auction templates, About Me Page and a web site if you have one. Simply the best designer (and the most cost-effective) I have found is Frooition.  They not only do templates, they will do a complete eBay store design.

Taking Great Photos

In the book I told you about the EZ Cube Photo System. It is simply the best system that allows anyone to take professional-looking photos for their eBay auctions.

You can see all of the EZ Cube models at EZauctionTools.com where they offer discount pricing on the complete line of EZ Cube light tents and complete sets. Be sure and look at the eBay Drop Off Store kit, which contains everything a consignment seller would need.

Insurance

Did you know you can save up to 60% on the cost of shipping insurance --and if fact you can even make money on insurance. For example, I personally made over $2,200 in 2005 by using the insurance services of Discount Shipping Insurance (DSI). They recently changed their name to Shipinsurance. Their rates are up to 60% lower than UPS or the Post Office. People gladly agree to pay the standard postal rates and you keep the difference. Also when you have a claim you don't have to wait as long to get paid.

Research Tools

We covered the importance of product and market research in the book. eBay has announced a new research tool, eBay Marketplace Research, listed in the table above. The other two popular services are Terapeak and HammerTap. I like HammerTap the best, but both research tools each have their fans.

With either one you can find the best items to sell, find out what they are selling for, the best days and times to list them, a recommended starting price, and how much and who the competition is. If you click on this link to HammerTap you can get a special deal for my readers. It is a 2-week free trial and a $5.00 a month discount if you sign up for the service.

Other Ways To Make Money on eBay

As I pointed out in the book, there are also ways to make money by using eBay to build a customer list that you can later market to from your web site. But you have to follow eBay's rules.

A couple of years ago a fellow named Jim Cochran wrote a book called The Silent Sales Machine Selling on eBay. It became a best seller --selling over 80,000 copies. Jim recently updated the book and the method of getting sales from both bidders and non-bidders still works today. I use these methods myself. Jim has also just released a new book, called Turning Auction Traffic into Cash. Both of these programs are very legitimate, used by thousands of sellers and comply with all of eBay's policies and regulations.

If you also want to learn how to sell effectively on eBay, read about The Complete eBay Marketing System. If you know how to sell on eBay and just want to learn how, what and where to buy products to sell on eBay, just click here to read about The Wholesale Buying System.

Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is another great way to make money on eBay without investing in inventory. Drop Shipping is a selling technique whereby you find a seller with goods they will agree to ship directly to your customer once they are paid for the goods. Here is how it works:

• You first list and sell the goods on eBay.
• When the item sells, you collect the final value plus the shipping cost from the buyer.
• Next you send the money for the lower wholesale cost (plus the shipping cost) and the buyer's shipping address to the wholesale drop shipper.
• The seller (wholesale drop shipper) then ships it direct to your customer.
• You keep the difference between your wholesale cost and what the buyer paid you.

This is a great way to sell. The only up front investment is the few cents for eBay listing fees. This sounds easy --and it can be, but there are some caveats. The problem is finding reliable drop shipping companies. Most of the companies that advertise their services to eBay sellers are not reliable. They ship late or ship the wrong product and you get the bad feedback --or, even worse, their products are priced so high that you can't make any money.

The best way to drop ship profitably is to deal directly with the manufacturer of a product...not a wholesale middleman. This way you are getting the lowest possible price ---and a unlike a distribution warehouse, a manufacturer a direct relationship and has fewer customers (you). This will usually assure you good service.

So how do you find these manufacturers? The best service is a company called WorldWide Brands. They are a certified eBay provider. They contact manufacturers first and ask them if they will agree to drop ship their products directly to eBay sellers. They have a group of employees who are constantly adding new products and sources. I have used them to find three different products that I can sell at very nice profits on eBay.

On page 81 of Three Weeks to eBay Profits, I mention a product from WorldWide Brands called the Drop Ship Source Directory for $69.95. This product is no longer available. WorldWide Brands has just released a new product called OneSource that replaces the Drop Ship Source Directory. It includes access to drop shippers, light bulk wholesalers, large wholesalers and a built-in research tool that helps you determine the best products to buy before you make a commitment. My readers can get a $20 coupon by clicking here.

The final piece of advice for working with drop shippers is to look for products that will sell for over $50. You don't want to be listing dozens of low-value goods where you only make a few dollars on each auction.

Beyond eBay

I feel very strongly that eBay is the easiest way to get started selling on line. But once you get your eBay business up and running, there are many more ways to sell. Most professional eBay sellers opt to set up a web site. Once you have a web site you can market products directly to customers, sign up for advertising programs such as Google AdSense and join affiliate programs that will pay you a commission when people click on banners on your site and then purchase something.

There are hundreds of "make-money-get-rich" schemes on the internet --Many of them are a complete waste of money and some are even scams. All of the programs listed here are from companies and people that I know and trust. They all offer a money-back guarantee and they actually honor it.

I have personally used these products and services and have no hesitation recommending them to anyone. Having said that, a lot of times a program will sound good and it will also be good, but it may not fit your actual needs once you get it. Therefore, you should never hesitate to ask for a refund if you are not happy with your purchase.

Absolutely the best place to learn about selling on the Internet is from The Internet Marketing Center. They are the oldest and best source of up-to-date legitimate programs to help you get an internet business up and running quickly --and to make money with it. Just a few of the things you will learn include:

• How even a complete beginner can now build a web site in less than 48 hours.. for LESS than $100.
• Where to track down 1,000s of FREE and dirt-cheap sources of traffic for your site.
• How to find a targetable niche market that you can sell to almost effortlessly.
• Why selling just ONE key product is the key to most successful online businesses.
• How to leverage the sales from that one key product into a lifetime of repeat sales and referrals.

and much-much more...

Setting up a web site

You can set up a pretty nice web site with some of the template companies such as CityMax or Bigstep, but if you want a really professional-looking ecommerce web site you really need some help. hiring a web designer is expensive. If you want to do that, Anthony at Pro-Impulse Design can do it for you, but there is a middle way. I used a company called PowerSellerBuilder to build my new web site Firepit-Grills.com. Take a look at it.

The Bright Builders platform is a template built site you build yourself, but you get help. They assign a coach, a technical rep and a professional designer to take you beyond the templates. Best of all they have their own credit card processing company or you can use PayPal's new Pro shopping cart and just have PayPal process all of your payments.

I have just set up a joint-venture with them so my readers will get special pricing. Just go to PowerSellerBuilder.

The other system I like is BeBiz. This is the web builder used by the Internet Marketing Center that I mentioned above. If you use this link, they will waive the startup fee for readers of this book.

Once you have a web site, a great way to earn income is by placing Google AdSense ads on your site. Michael Cheney has developed a set of easy-to-follow videos that step you through how to earn income on any web site with Adsense. It's called AdSense Videos.

eBay Coaching

If you are really serious about building a large eBay and internet business, look at my eBay coaching program where you can get a personal coach and mentor who used my proven methods and has been personally trained by me. I also work with Bright Builders for this program Just give them a call at 1-800-578-3449.

Selling Information Products on eBay

Since Three Weeks to Success on eBay was published, I have released a new product: How To Create & Sell Information Products on eBay (and the internet). I am not talking about creating crappy eBooks or money-making schemes. This is a complete course in how to make real products that people want. Take a look at the information about How To Create & Sell Information Products on eBay.

My other new product is my first eBook - a course called: Ten Little Known, Highly Profitable eBay Niche Markets Anyone Can Do. If you are just starting out on eBay and not sure what to sell, this book can help you get started in some ready made niches.

Thank you purchasing my book. I hope the book and the resources on this page and other areas of my web site help you grow a large successful eBay business.

Skip McGrath