Making Extra Income With eBay Classified Ads

The eBay Seller's News, February 18, 2008, Volume 8, No. 4

Learn How To Sell More on eBay with The Newsletter for Professional
eBay Sellers by:  Skip McGrath

In This Issue:

Musings

1. Making Extra Income With eBay Classified Ads
2. Do I Have To Pay Taxes on My eBay Business?
3. eBay Niche Market of The Month: Selling Personal Services
4. Optimize Your eBay Listings for Search Engines
5. Where Does eBay Rank As a Shopping Site?
6. New eBay Wholesale Sources for Midmonth February 2008

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence.
To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." ~ Pearl S. Buck

Musings

In my nine years on eBay I have witnessed a lot of firestorms and read passionate board posts on a wide range of topics, but I have never seen as much turmoil as the recent changes to the feedback system has caused. It surely is the issue that just won't die. eBay has retraced their missteps in the past and changed policies they announced. We can only hope they will do so again if the firestorm over feedback continues.

I happen to agree that bad sellers who leave excessive negative feedback is a problem and eBay needs to fix this if they want buyers to come back. But it seems to me that eBay used a sledgehammer when screwdriver could have fixed the problem.

If you feel strongly about this issue, you should post on the boards, write about the issue in your blogs, post on other eBay blogs and even email eBay. Forget boycotts --they don't work. The best way to get eBay's attention is to write posts that contain logical factual arguments, in polite language and make suggestions. Rabid, fiery language in emails or blog posts may make you feel good to vent --but unfortunately it really accomplishes nothing.

I spent a lot of years in executive management in the corporate world. When people would come into my office with a complaint I would listen and then say, "OK - what is your proposal to fix it?" After a while the people who worked for me learned not to come to me with a complaint unless they also had a positive suggestion to address the issue. eBay is a corporation. We, the sellers are their customers and if they hear enough from us they will pay attention, but they will pay the most attention to those who approach the problem positively.

Last Friday, February 15th was the last day to get the special early-bird discount for our Las Vegas Wholesale Sourcing seminar at the end of this month. But since this newsletter comes out on Mondays, I have decided to extend the date until Midnight, this Wednesday, February 20th. So if you have any interest in attending, this will be the last date to get the early-bird special: Free hotel rooms for two nights at the Rio All Suite Hotel ($500 value) where the seminar is being held.

Click Here to read more about the seminar and up to $1000 in discounts. The seminar information page also has a link to the agenda and outline of the seminar.

Steve Lindhorst is one of the leading experts on eBay Motors. He is a frequent speaker at eBay Live, a National eBay University Instructor and a registered eBay education specialist. Steve has just released a new book called Showroom Secrets that teaches how anyone can sell cars on eBay Motors without ever buying or selling an actual car. Steve has personally made thousands of dollars a month with these methods. He holds nothing back and shares all his insider knowledge with the readers. So if you like cars and would like to learn how to earn an extra $1000, $3000 or even $5000 a month, check out Showroom Secrets.

Sherah Taylor is the publisher of the Auction Mom's Newsletter. If you would like to learn how she earns huge profits from buying at garage sales and selling the items on eBay, she has a great little book that sells for only $17.99 called Secrets of Garage Sale Bargains - Learn how the pros get the inside deals. I thought I knew a lot about garage sale shopping, but Sherah really opened my eyes and taught this old dog some very new tricks.

Let's get started with this month's issue:

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1. Making Extra Income With eBay Classified Ads

A few months ago I recommended a new membership training site that Jim Cockrum set up called My Silent Team. Over 300 of my readers have joined the site, where members can access a wide range of training material, tips and techniques by over two dozen leading eBay and internet marketing experts including material from yours truly. The feedback from my readers has been fantastic. Of all the programs I have recommended over the years, My Silent Team has received the most positive feedback.

Earlier this month, Jim put up a series of 4 videos that explain in detail how eBay sellers can take advantage of the eBay Classified Ads format to make extra money. I have known about the technique for some time but never tried it.

When you watch the 4 short videos what you will learn is that the technique is simple, but the devil is in the details. There are a few things that you have to do exactly right. So I spent about 1 hour watching the videos, taking notes and then researching a product to sell on Clickbank. I didn't want to sell some money-making scheme, but then I remembered a pet training video series I had bought a while ago to help train our dog. I put up a short classified ad with my personal testimonial and sat back and waited. During the period February 5th through the 16th, the hit counter showed that I had 72 visitors. I made $14.31 on each sale and had 14 sales for a total income of $200.34.

Now $200 may not light your fire, but this product had a very low cost, and remember I only invested about an hour of my time. My eBay fees for the ad were $11.65 ($9.95+bold+gallery), so my profit is $188.69 AND the ad still has 3 weeks to run. (eBay classified ads cost $9.95 for 30 days). At this rate I could end up making double this by the time the ad expires.

When people think about Clickbank they think about money-making programs and schemes, but there are literally hundreds of great-selling products on everything from pet training to learning languages, self-help and relationships, how to play golf, win at poker, fix a car, flip houses--literally almost anything you can think of, someone has written a book or produced a video on it and they will pay you a commission to promote their product.

This is just one of the many money-making techniques you can learn at My Silent Team. And, besides the hundreds of articles, training videos and bonus resources, there are active forums where I and other eBay and internet experts contribute where you can ask questions, get answers and share information with your fellow members.

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2. Do I Have To Pay Taxes on My eBay Business?

The short answer to that question is yes --but what kind, and how much you have to pay in taxes takes a little understanding.

There are two types of taxes that affect eBay sellers: State Sales Tax and Federal Income Tax (including state income taxes if your state does that). Let's look at each one:

State Sales Tax - If you sell goods on eBay or the internet and ship them to someone in your same state, then you have to collect (charge the buyer) sales tax and pay that tax to your state. However, if you sell less than $4 million in annual sales (I think that covers most of us), then you do not have to collect or pay sales tax on sales where you deliver the goods to an out-of-state address. For example, if you live in Virginia and you sell something to someone else in Virginia or to someone out-of-state that asks you to ship it to someone in Virginia, then you need to collect sales tax from the buyer and pay it to the State of VA. But, if you sell the same item to someone in Florida, you can forget all about the tax.

Federal Income Tax - The Infernal Revenue Service (IRS) requires all taxpayers to declare any income they made and pay tax on that. Having said that, although technically you owe taxes on any and all income you make, the IRS routinely ignores amounts less than $600 a year. So if you sold the occasional thing on eBay, made money from a garage sale or your daughter earns extra income from babysitting, you can pretty much not worry about it.

But I am hoping my readers make more than $600 a year, so how do you figure out what you owe? The amount of money you take in from your eBay sales is called your gross income. From this you subtract your eBay and PayPal fees and the cost of the items you sold. This is your adjusted gross income. If you are not incorporated, you would then fill out a document called a Schedule C (you can download a copy from www.irs.gov). This is where you list your other business expenses such as office supplies, a deduction for the office space used in your home, ISP fees, mileage to drive to the post office to deliver your packages, the portion of your phone bills used for business and dozens of other expenses. When you subtract these expenses from your adjusted gross income this is the amount of money you will pay taxes on.

This is a very short and basic description of how it works. If you would like to read more about how you can save taxes on your eBay income, check out Dianne Kennedy's excellent book, Tax Loopholes for eBay Sellers at my eBay Book Store.

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3. eBay Niche Market of The Month: Selling Personal Services

Do you have a skill that you can sell? For example, can you write a resume? Do you own a high-quality photo printer that you could print professional-quality photos for people? Can you build a website or design an eBay store? Do you know how to work Google AdWords or Yahoo PPC campaigns? Or maybe you know how to set up custom My Space pages. Can you copyedit a book? Can you design logos, letterhead or business cards? Are you a quilter or expert embroider- could you design and produce personalized quilts or event quilts (weddings, anniversary, baby, etc.)? Are you an artist --could you paint a portrait from a photograph?

I think you get the point. Most of us have some type of learned skill that other people will pay for. If you look on eBay you will see thousands of listings by people with skills and services that other people will pay for. But what if you rack your brain and you don't have a saleable skill? Well if you know how to sell on eBay, you can represent people who do have those skills by placing eBay listings and eBay classified ads for them. For example there are a lot of sellers on eBay who represent artists and craftspeople. It's not that these people couldn't learn how to sell on eBay themselves --it's just that there are a lot of people who don't want to bother or maybe they don't have computer skills and have no desire to learn them. All of these folks are candidates for your business.

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4. Optimize Your eBay Listings for Search Engines

Have you ever done a Google or Yahoo search for something and noticed that items available on eBay are among the highest placed listings in the results? Here is an example. I did a Google search for a product that I sell on eBay, the EZ Cube light tents. This is an image of the top 4 search results on the page:

The first result was my website at www.ezauctiontools.com. The next one was a product review that I wrote and the next listing was one of my listings on eBay. Several of the listings further down the page were also for my listings on eBay and some other listings on eBay for similar products.

Getting your auctions found by search engines can really help your sales and is not that hard to do. The details are a little long for this newsletter, but eBay has a great tutorial in the Advanced Selling Area of eBay Seller Central. Here is a link to optimize your eBay listings for internet search engines.

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5. Where Does eBay Rank As a Shopping Site?

Despite falling listing volume and all the problems and issues surrounding eBay, eBay is still the number 1 ranked shopping site in the world. Here are the standings from www.ranking.com:

eBay ranks number 8 overall, but all of the sites above them (1-7) are either search engines or social networking sites --not shopping sites. eBay is still, by far the number one ranked shopping site. I don't have room for the full chart, but you can see it at www.ranking.com. Interestingly, the number 2 shopping site is Amazon way down at number 24 --well below eBay.

If you own a website and want to see its ranking, just go to ranking.com and type your URL into the search box. It will show you the rank of your site. If you want to update the info just click on the site and a page will open where you can update your information. Then you can get a seal to put on your site that shows your ranking. This website, skipmcgrath.com, is currently ranked 49,409 in the world and 23,174 in the United States. Rankings change daily based on traffic. For example a few days after this newsletter goes out, my ranking will increase slightly due to the increased traffic from readers.

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6. New eBay Wholesale Sources for February 2008

Park Designs sells several beautiful lines of kitchen pottery with both country and modern themes.

Animal-related products seem to come and go, but this year the hot item is pigs. Yes, I said PIGS! At the last gift show I visited, wholesalers were selling statues of pigs, watering can pigs, garden pigs, pottery pigs and even carved wooden pigs. Be the first to sell pigs on eBay. Here are five websites that offer hot-selling pig merchandise:

Gardenage Supply

Aldik

Sisson Imports

Caffco International

The Encore Group

Craft supplies are big sellers on eBay. One of the leading distributors is DBC Wholesale.

Choices Quilts sells a line of manufactured quilts, runners and wall hangings.

Attitude Tees, Inc. sells tee shirts with clever and ironic sayings as well as a line of NFL, NBA and MLB tee shirts, hats and jackets. Click on the link that says Wholesale Opportunities at the top of the page.

Village Farmhouse sells original primitive signs, artwork, boxes and clocks all designed by Chris Palmer.

That's it for this month. If you are looking for wholesale sources, don't forget to check out our FREE Wholesale Search Engine.

Skip McGrath
The eBay Seller's News

P.S. If you missed the last issue, click here to read it.