eBay Affiliate Program - How you can make some dough from the world's largest marketplace!

Perhaps you've heard of 'affiliate marketing'. If you haven't (or even if you have) I'm going to give you a brief explanation. Basically you sign up for an affiliate program with any number of suppliers. Then you're assigned a unique tracking code. Then you refer online traffic to those suppliers using a link with that tracking code embedded in it, and the supplier pays you a commission for either the referral or a sale, whatever is outlined in their program.

It's a simple concept. It's basically 'word of mouth' advertising that you get paid for. Sounds good right? Of course it does :o) . There are affiliate programs for just about anything and everything.

Let's say you have an adidas website (like me). You're already getting traffic there. You may or may not 'sell' anything on your site, but you can still make some money. You do a search on the internet for 'idiots Affiliate Program' . On Google, it would return this page . As you can see, right away there are plenty of programs.

The first one is a program with a company called Soccer.com . Their program is described as "If you love soccer, have your own Web site, and would like to earn some extra cash, then our affiliate network is for you. Simply link your Web site to the center of the soccer universe and become a SOCCER.COM affiliate. By joining The SOCCER.COM Affiliate Network, you can open your very own online soccer shop and make money by providing Eurosport's best selection of high quality, hard to find soccer equipment on your own Web site."

They offer:

• You'll earn 7.5% commission on all sales originating from your site!
• Receive monthly commission checks for all commissions totaling over $25.
• Team-up with The Fabled Soccer Traders at Eurosport, the name that people have known and trusted since 1984!
• Take advantage of the support, encouragement, and expertise of your friends on the SOCCER.COM Affiliate Team!

Now I'm not trying to tell you to sign up for this program, and I get nothing if you do. It's just an example. So you put a small link on your Adidas site. Maybe something simple, like an image of a soccer ball with some simple text under it that says "Adidas Soccer Equipment". The link takes them to that Soccer.com site. If they buy something, you get paid. I know you just dollar signs right?

Now, my Blog is about eBay, so you may be asking yourself "what's he rambling on about this for?". Well eBay has an affiliate program too....YES, they do. That means you can cash in on the world's largest online marketplace without ever selling anything of your own.

eBay and many other retailers and suppliers don't want to get too mixed up in the business of paying affiliates and all that. So they utilize a third party company that offers marketers (like you and me) a chance to get hooked up with these great companies. eBay uses a company called Commission Junction . CJ offers programs with literally thousands of companies including CompUSA, eBay, Citi Bank, Yahoo, Buy.com, Home Depot, REI, Tommy Hilfiger, USA Today, Quicken Loans, Expedia, Zappos.com and many, many more.

Ok, so you get signed up with CJ (it's free), then you tell them you want to refer business to eBay. They give you a code to use for referrals. There are over 900 links they offer just for eBay so you can tailor it to wherever you think you might want to put the link. They even have links for eBay Canada (ebay.ca) and eBay Europe (ebay.uk) and many other countries.

Ok, let's check out the links.

First a text link: ebaystores.com

This one goes to the eBay stores section. If someone signs up for a store within 30 days of following this link, I get paid $30.00. Not bad eh? I want you to mouse over it for a second, and notice the code at the end. This is my referral code. This is how they track that I sent the person to eBay. Now when I create the link I can encrypt the code also so it looks like this:

Encrypted code text link: ebaystores.com

Cool huh? Another thing I did was if you click the first text link, you'll see it takes you out of the blog to the landing page. But, the second link I've elected to have it open a new page (my personal preference since I don't want my site visitor to forget where they started).

I think you get the idea. I'll put a few of the other eBay links so you can see what's available.

120x200

120x60

250x250

160x600

Alright, that's probably enough, you get the idea. You can get the eBay Affiliate Program detail HERE. They have all kinds of tips, tools and help to get you started and help you be successful. They'll outline the payment details and anything else you could want to know.

Later I'll go into some more ways to maximize affiliate income using some other tools and other sites. Good luck!

Time Savers for email

If you run a business online there is a chance you may run into one of the same problems I ran into. I needed more of ME! As my businesses grew, so did my customer base, and subsequently my email load. Nowadays, between all of my online business I get and answer literally 100-200 emails every single day.

There is no way I could type these out and be efficient, much less get it done at all! The reality of my businesses are, that most customers tend to ask about the same questions and my answers are equally similar.

So, I use a program called 101 Clips. It allows me to have about 100 possible text clips as well as images, web addresses, phone numbers all with one click, inserted into your email or wherever you'd like.

Now no one likes to receive what they feel is a "canned email", not even me. :o) So I always personalize my responses a bit, adding a name or date that is relevant to that particular customer so they know it's not just "canned".

Another similar program is Short Keys . It works very similarly. Both have a free 'lite' version and a more extensive version for sale. Both are very inexpensive.

If you find yourself in this position, you should first do as I did, and find out why your customers all want to know the same thing, and why aren't they getting that information. You could drastically reduce your answering the same emails by giving your customers the information before they ask.

An example...many of my customers wanted to know when they would get their purchase after it had been shipped. So I put into place a system where once they had paid, they got a confirmation email (automatically of course). This email included the estimated delivery time and also told them they would be getting an email from the US Postal Service with a tracking number for their package. Then when I printed the mailing label, I checked the box that would email my customer the tracking label.

Of course, nothing is fail proof. Some people just don't read. And that's ok, they'll get one my emails sent at the click of one button and we're both satisfied. Go through each of the recurring questions and ask yourself how you can get this information to your customers before they feel the need to email.

Hope this helps save you some time and helps ensure your customer satisfaction.

FREE AUCTION TIPS #1-2 And 11 Time Tested Principles for eBay Selling Success

AuctionTip #1: How to Put an Attractive Background in Your Online Auction Ad

Have you ever visited an auction and noticed a peculiar and catchy background?

Here's how to do it...

First off, go background texture hunting at this site:

http://www.grsites.com/textures/

Once you find one- upload it to a free image host like:

http://www.theimagehosting.com/ or http://yourimagehost.com/

Now, for the moment you're been waiting for...

This requires HTML so don't faint on me. Make sure this is the first thing that appears in your ad html:

***background="http://www.yourhost.com/yourimage.gif">****

That's the code you'll need... between the asterisks and that's it! Drop me a note if you need help.


AuctionTip #2: The BEST Types of Products to Sell

Without a doubt, there are a few types of products you'll need to sell in order to become really successful on eBay…

Here are the 3 types of products you should try to sell if possible:

Consumable

Example would be anything a person would buy and use up and buy again. To say there is staggering potential for backend sales would be an understatement.

Information

Any product you would download or receive by floppy or CD is considered to be an info-product.

Though it takes some study and patience to reap the rewards of selling information effectively, in the long run it will be worth the effort.

Collectibles

EBay is famous for its rare items. Stamps, beanies, antique whatnots, you name it, and it's there.

Sentimental items carry with them the largest profit margins. When you're pulling in $100-200 profit margins or more, your volume doesn’t have to be heavy to get where you need.

If you want a brainstorm with a list of all the various products categories, visit the link below:

http://listings.ebay.com/

11 Time Tested Principles For eBay Selling Success

Without a doubt, something separates good sellers from the not-so-hot ones. It has nothing to do with magic either- it has everything to do with sound practice...

Here are 11 principles to live by when you start your auction business. They will work wonders for you...

1. Pick Your Niche and Define Your Market

This is ground zero for your success strategy. Find your own niche. Define your market. Then you can know the type of person you’re going to be selling to and the types of product you want to sell.

You're auction sales letters will be a hundred times better if you know the person who you are writing for.

Along with being in a superior position to take advantage of repeat business, the benefits from becoming specialized are endless-

We well be getting into this a little more later.

2. Your Vision

Know where you want to go with your business and why. Every business that thrives has a soul and a purpose. What is it that you want long term? Do you want to become financially independent?

What do you want short term? Do you want to make a steady income every week? If so, how much? Give yourself something to shoot for and try to surpass it.

Remember in the beginning to keep plugging away. The toughest time is at the start. Everyone has to serve as an apprentice before they can truly master what they do.

When you're starting out be willing to absorb every ounce of helpful information your brain can hold.

3. Order is the Foundation of Every Good Thing

One of your early foundations of success is order. Strive for efficiency in every aspect of what you do. If you’re lacking in a system of organization your whole business is going to be threatened.

This not only includes keeping things in their place but things like keeping income tax and business expenditures records.

4. Serve Your Customer With a Passion

In business your customer is the only thing. You customer is far more important than any product you sell. Strive to give them quality at every level of the transaction.

With online auctions most sellers have a hard time looking past the initial sell. As far as they are concerned after the initial bid the relationship is over. That is why most of them don’t do so swell when they try to make a business of this.

Look far beyond the first sell. It is only the beginning of a long mutually beneficial relationship.

5. Become An Expert In Your Field

Become an authority in what you do, wherever you choose to go with you online auction business. If you sell CD media supplies, you want to be thought of before anyone else.

When you become an authority in your field, a whole new universe of business and opportunity is opened up to you.

I buy certain types of things on eBay from the same sellers over and over. I wouldn't dare do business with anyone else, not when they have proven themselves and their product.

You want to earn that same type of position in the minds of eBayer’s for your niche.

6. Credibility- the Key Factor in Selling

Become trustworthy. Remove every doubt about your credibility any chance you get. You can do this through presenting yourself positively through your feedback, being passionately devoted to your business and by being an expert.

By making great complete ads and from answering emails quickly.

The X factor is the critical ingredient for online sales success.

7. Harness the Power of Technology

Use you existing software of the Internet to handle repetitive tasks. This will free you up to grow your business to a level...

One of my big sticking points is leverage. Leveraging means getting everything you can, out of all you got. When you use existing tools and methods for freeing yourself from repetitive tasks, you will compress time.

That means you will get more work done with less effort... and as a result you will make more money.

8. Get Everything You Can Out of All You Have

A wiser person than myself once said, "There are only two qualities in the world, efficiency and inefficiency, and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient."

Maximize results while minimizing your expenditures. This is the essence of what it takes.

Test ads ruthlessly to get more for your advertising dollar. Look for better ways to do business. So much can be do to get better and better returns. Set an ideal up for yourself and call it, "efficiency"- if you do this you will never become stagnant in what you do...

Always search for better and better returns for the amount of resources you put in.

9. Probably the Most Important Thing: Your Sales Letter

Your sales letter is your salesman. On the net, how you're potential buyer perceives you and your product is everything.

Copywriting is the art of showing you and what you sell to your buyer in the best possible light.

It’s the most important thing you have going for you. A carefully crafted sales letter can increase you results exponentially without having to spend an extra penny.

10. Shoulder The Risk in the Transaction

Risk reversal is on of the strongest free sales tools you have at your disposal.

When you offer your bidders a satisfaction guarantee, you are telling them that you are confident that your product can deliver, and if not you are willing shoulder the risk for them by giving them their money back…

Very rarely do they ask for one unless your product is poor.

This is one of the easiest ways to increase sales; if you have a good product to begin with, don’t neglect this technique. I see many sellers who don’t offer one when they could.

It’s a must to offer one with your Dutch auctions. A strong risk-reversing offer will clinch sales that pass others by.

11. Perseverance Will See You Through Anything

Perseverance is your greatest asset of all, especially when things get rough. To me, nothing is more fulfilling than meeting challenge head on and winning out.

Anytime you run into trouble or resistance in your business, accept it as a growth opportunity that you need in order to get to higher levels or success.

eBay...It's still "retail"...And that's ok with me

Years ago I worked in "retail". I managed several sporting goods stores and several bicycle stores, before moving onto restaurant management. Besides not enjoying working for "the man", I tired of the customers.

In retail, and in a management position especially, there is a lot of butt kissing that goes on. And sadly, some people just plain take advantage of a good business. Sometimes customers are just unreasonable.

But, I knew the game and I played it pretty well. I read all kinds of books on how to deal with people, how to relate, "How to win friends and influence people". And in the end, I was able to get along with just about everyone, nearly all the time. :o)

But I'd be lying if I said it didn't get old sometimes. And when I first started my eBay business, I naively thought I was leaving that world behind. Little did I realize at the time, that a business that isn't run face to face with your prospective customers, needs more good customer service than most others. There is no phone, no face, no voice...there's mostly only a picture, some words on a page and what you say in those emails.

Now as I said, I learned a lot about relating to people along the way. But it takes a whole different type of knowledge to be able to write an email that will please everyone and doesn't imply a 'tone'. And believe me, I've flubbed this before.

All it takes is the slightest bit of sarcasm in an email to really upset a customer. The reason - they can't hear you. They imagine your smart *ss mouth running off at them and you raising your voice. When that wasn't your intent at all. Then they shoot back a snotty reply and then you're bitching at each other and it can get out of control quickly.

Ever get one of these emails? "WHERE'S MY PRODUCT, IT'S BEEN OVER A WEEK". What does that say to you. Well it's all up to your interpretation. But many people see the "CAPS" as "Yelling" in the email language. And the simple word "OVER" seems to imply they believe it's late getting their.

So you reply "You just paid on Wednesday, and I shipped it Thursday. It's not my fault, the Post Office is late!". Or something nice like that. And it quickly can get out of hand.

I can't tell you how many times I've typed, backspaced....typed, backspaced then re-typed only to read my reply to try to make sure there is no implied "tone" to my email.

It's really an interesting phenomenon, the interpretation of words on a page. I answer literally 100 to 150 emails per day for my current eBay business. And to do that, I have about a dozen "canned" emails that answer 90% of the questions that are asked. I've tweaked and tuned them over time based on customer reactions and questions. And I think they're pretty darn good. And just when I start thinking like that, someone will fire back a harsh reply stating "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? I WAS ONLY ASKING A QUESTION! IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HELP ME FINE!" Then it's two or three more emails to smooth over the hurt feelings that I never intended to step on.

So, my advice is, take it easy. Remember the recipient of your email can't hear your "tone" like when you speak. They will think the worst, so write the best. Because eBay is still basically "retail"...and that's ok with me.

eBay Live 2006 Hits Vegas !

eBay Live. Two years ago, I had never been. I didn't really care to go. I figured I didn't need to go. What was I going to learn anyway? But I kept hearing about it on the chatboards and people kept asking me if I was going...and in the end, I felt like I'd missed out.

So, last year in 2005 I decided I wouldn't make that mistake again. I planned the trip months ahead of time. And my plan worked. The event was held in San Jose, California. It was a relatively easy 6 or 7 hour drive from us, so no need to waste money on plane fare. Plus, because we planned so far ahead we were able to actually get a place in nearby (40 minutes) San Francisco where we had a timeshare property available. As it turned out, we went two days early, stayed the three for the event and then stayed two days after. What a great vacation! A full week in San Francisco and San Jose, and basically for free.

The event was absolutely awesome! I learned soooo much, and had the best time. I got tons of free schwag (goodies), and set up my businesses to reach the next level. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I certainly got my monies worth.

We visited several vendors that we were using, and met many others that we ended up doing business with this year. We attended free classes on advanced marketing techniques, product sourcing, tax issues for your business, advanced PowerSeller only classes and so much more. We participated in invitation only panels and made sure along the way to collect all the limited items being distributed. Those included the coveted eBay Live Trading Cards, and the Commemorative Lapel Pins from eBay and many of the vendors.




And to wrap it up a free concert and gala event featuring none other than the B-52's. We were 5 feet from the stage doing the "Rock Lobster"! What a great time.

By the time we got home I was looking up on the internet where Live 2006 was going to be held and made our reservations (again, free timeshare time) for the Summer stay in Las Vegas. We've already got our itinerary set and can't wait! Just a few more months and it'll be here. This year Huey Lewis and the News and Jerry from Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream... very cool :o) .

eBay Express - Friend or Foe?

Allright, enough history on me...for now anyway. :o) Let's talk about eBay Express. What is it? Is it another way for eBay to gouge me for fees? What's in it for me? Who, what, where, when?

Ok, let's get to it. In eBay's own words, "At eBay, we know that it's our job to help you grow your business by continuing to attract new customers for your products. After talking with thousands of real-life shoppers, we've found that many customers are looking to buy new, fixed price goods in a more conventional e-commerce experience. To meet their needs, we are building a new specialty site— eBay Express."

Designed from the inside out to attract and satisfy today's busy shoppers, eBay Express will streamline access to your products.

With eBay Express buyers will:

Get it new. Shop our vast inventory of brand new, brand name, and hard-to-find products.

Get it now. Everything on eBay Express is offered at a fixed price by experienced, motivated eBay merchants. Get what you want now— no bidding, no waiting.

Fill a shopping cart. Buy from as many eBay Express merchants as you want. Pay for everything—including shipping— in a single, secure payment using PayPal or your credit card.

Buy with confidence. Every transaction is safe, secure, and fully covered by eBay Express Purchase Protection.

Sounds pretty good so far huh? It does to me. Basically it's a new site, designed with buyers in mind. The best news of all...no extra charge to the seller. That's right, no charge. Of course eBay is banking on increased sales, which is a win/win situation for them. More sales equals more fees. For the sellers it means increased visibility at no additional cost. Can't beat it if you ask me. It also may eliminate some of your competition that you have on eBay, as not everyone will qualify to be listed on Express. Second best news...if you qualify, you don't have to do anything else to be listed on Express, your listings are automatically shown for you! It's getting better all the time.

Not a member yet? Sign Up HERE

eBay will be holding a workshop online to help sellers prepare for the initial lauch scheduled for the 'Spring', which is just around the corner from what I understand. You can read more about it HERE. They also held a 'brown bag' discussion in late January and you can read about that HERE.

There are a few requirements to qualify to have your items listed on Express.

Here are the requirements to participate:

• 
  1) A feedback score of 100 or more (98% positive).
• 2) PayPal Premier or Business account
• 3) PayPal account will ship to unconfirmed addresses
• 4) Be a US registered seller
• 5) List in fixed price format or Stores Inventory form
• 6) Fill in the item condition field in Item Specifics
• 7) Include shipping costs in your listing8) Provide a picture or gallery photo in your listing

Not too restrictive, but enough to make sure it's the upper tier of sellers.

Well that's the scoop on eBay Express. Check it out, it is rumored to explode eBay sales!

Best of Stores Contest on eBay

My last post was about eBay stores and how we learned about them. You can read it HERE. In it I went over how to open your own store, but that link again is HERE. Now today I just read they're having a 'Best of Stores' contest. I know they have it each year, but until this year we never really did anything special with our store so I never even considered entering.



There are several differnt categories, but basically the viewers vote, not eBay. So, if you're not entering your own store, be sure to vote for ours! :o) The store again is LowPricedMags .

If you're interested, you can check out some of the last year winners below.

2005 Best Shopping Experience
2005 Best Custom Pages

For this year's contest you can

eBay stores - how we did it

So somewhere along the line I learned about eBay stores. You can Open a storefront on eBay.com yourself by clicking the link. What we learned about stores that you may or may not know.

• Everything you list on eBay in any format will show up in your store.
  It's dirt cheap to list stuff in your store. I mean 30 days for .03 cents! Can't beat it
• eBay will pay you to send people to your store, when they make a purchase. Check it out HERE.
• The store opens up tons of new marketing opportunitites including building a mailing list (which I'll go over later), sending out newsletters and promotional fliers through email marketing, getting your listings picked up by search engines and getting you world wide web exposure and much more.
• You can customize them basically beyond a recognizable eBay store...almost like a regular website.
• You can get some pretty cool tools for monitoring store and page traffic for your store.
• You can set up your store to function while you're away with vacation settings and more!

So let's talk about these things a bit. I said everything you list in any format shows up in your store. But what about when you list something just in your store. Where does that show up? The answer is, they show up just like any other listing and are completely searchable. This is a fairly new change, but this update to eBay's policy should increase the exposure for store listings if it doesn't clutter and dilute the regular listing results. If you look at any given page from an eBay search, you'll have at the top "featured items". Sellers have paid extra to have their items appear at the beginning of the page. Then the next section has current auction and fixed price listings. Then after all of those there is a horizontal line and then all the store listings appear. Now if there are 12 pages of an item, the store listings may show up on pages 11 and 12 all the time, but it's more exposure than before - where store items would only show up if there were less than 20 items availalable in the other formats. There are also no gallery images shown for store listings in the regular search results. More on the increased store visiblity HERE

Next, let's talk price. It's next to nothing. I mean I listed 1500 items once, and it cost me $45. Compare this to listing 100 fixed price listings of items selling for $10. This would cost you .60 cents per listing or $60. For the 1500 items it would cost you $900 and the listing would be for 7 days, not the 30 day listing the store items are available. Pretty cool deal. Now the store isn't free, but they do start at a reasonable price, and they're free for the first 30 days!

Email marketing is a very effective tool. Let's say you're me and you sell magazine subscriptions. I promote my mailing list in my listings and in my store and on my about me page. And I get maybe 5 new subscribers a day. Now that's not a huge number but my list has grown to well over 2000 people. Now that's not a huge number, but when I send out a newsletter or flyer I see an immediate impact on my sales. But you have to grow the list and continue to provide something of value in the information you send. You can't just market, market, market to them. It gets old. Try to offer information that is valuable to that particular mailing list, so your subscribers look forward to receiving your emails and will open them.

Allright, moving on. Store customization. Our first store we've had for several years and have done very, very little to customize it. In fact just this past year did I finally figure out just how 'custom' you can make them. You can see our first store for All_that_and_more! HERE. Now check out our new store for LowPricedMags HERE. It's completely custom. Quite a difference isn't there? It has made a huge impact on our sales and we're going to take a second look at the first store soon. The magazine store we completely did away with the 'look' of eBay, at least on the homepage. We saw a huge increase in combined purchases. People get into the store and just shop. We love it! If you have questions about eBay stores or anything 'eBay' feel free to email me .

My best eBay Trading Assistant deal ever!

It was a warm summer morning, when rounding the corner at the local drive-in turned swap meet, I saw it. My gold mine... :-) Actually it was just a large delivery type truck with a roll-up back door. There was a crown gathered so I hurried on over to see what all the hub-bub was about.

It turned out to be a whole truckload of Adidas and Taylormade golf clothing, shoes, hats and accessories. They were selling the stuff really cheap, and I was excited. I bought 40 Taylormade hats for a dollar each, knowing they'd sell for $8-10 on eBay. I bought an armful of shirts for $5 each and soon had spent my pocketful of cash (a few hundred dollars). I couldn't imagine they'd sell all of it, so I found a woman who seemed to be in control (partially). I found out she managed a local thrift store, got her card and headed home.

First thing Monday morning I was waiting at the door. After they opened, I gave Margaret a few minutes to get settled and then approached her. My plan was to offer her maybe a few thousand dollars for whatever she had left. I knew I could sell it for much more. She recognized me and we began to chat. Turns out the thrift store was part of my Church and I didn't even know it. They fund a local soup kitchen and emergency services for our local community. She told me how she had 3 or 4 other buyers coming in that wanted to buy all of the golf stuff she had. They had offered her $5000 and another $7000 at the swap meet. I was surprised because although I knew there was value in it, I didn't see that much potential.

She must have read my face, because she then pointed out the two full truck container loads in the parking lot. The truck she brought to the swap meet was just a sampling! Now I saw the potential! It had to be actually probably $100,000 worth of stuff I estimated. Turns out all of the goods were donated by Adidas/Taylormade to the Church to clean out a warehouse. All of the merchandise was prior year, or production samples, or salesman samples. Both men's and women's, hats, shoes, shirts, pants, shorts, skorts, jackets, sweaters...

There were two issues for my new friend. One, she had no place to keep all this product. She told me she had to return the truck containers in two days. Second, although she knew they had value, she was in a very low income area of town and it would take forever to move the product piece by piece and in her neighborhood she would get very little money for the items that way. Second, although she knew she had to do something with the product, she knew the value and although the $7000 would have been a huge boost to the sales (over 2 months sales worth), she saw the bigger potential.

And then it clicked for me. I knew I didn't have the money to compete with the other buyers, but I did have something they didn't (as far as I knew). I had eBay. I told Margaret that I sold stuff on eBay for a living, and that the golf shoes she sold me the day before for $5 I would sell on eBay for $50. That the hat she sold me for $1 I would move for $10. She couldn't believe it. So I made my move. I told her, I would take all the product. I would help her store it, sort it, and I would sell it all. I would split the profit with her 50/50 on whatever was made. I told her it wouldn't be quick, but it would be a steady supply of money for the store for the next year or two.

She barely hesitated. She said "done deal" and shook my hand. Little did I know what I was in for. I just found two years income without putting out any money from my own pocket. She and her staff spent the next month sorting the product right there in the store. Boxes floor to ceiling absolutely everywhere. She was getting heat from every direction to get it out of the store. So we got a storage unit nearby. It was packed floor to ceiling front to back.

I started out one box at a time. Each box had maybe 40 shirts in them. I checked out the competition on eBay and picked a medium start price to feel out the market. Turns out they shirts sold pretty consistently for about $15 each. So we got $7.50 and the Church got $7.50. They were selling the shirts in the store for $2.00 so my new partner was elated. Once I got more and more product up we were making about $1000 a week, so $500 each. I was pleased and they were ecstatic. A great deal for everyone. It has been over two years now and we're still selling this product. We still have 200 or more auctions up per week. We have an eBay store and an outside website. This one project has taught me more than any other. The supply has definitely gotten thinner, but we're still making $500 a week or so, and giving them $250 of it. This was our first PowerSeller business and continues to keep us in Silver PowerSeller status. You can check it out HERE. To learn more about becoming a Trading Assistant read this post to my blog HERE .

My eBay education continues...as a Trading Assistant

I continued the "thrift store circuit" for another year or so. During that time I got involved in eBay's Trading Assistant program. A "Trading Assistant" is someone who will sell your items for you, generally for a commission. As I was going to garage sales, I'd tell people "hey, if you don't sell this, let me know and I'll sell it for you on eBay".

Pretty soon people were calling me on a regular basis. I even went so far as to run an ad in a community newspaper advertising I was a Trading Assistant. I can share my ad with you if you're interested. I got a great response to that as well, at least several calls a week.

Another trick I had was to contact people before they had their garage sales. How? Well in my city, the Pennysaver comes out on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. It would list maybe 50 garage sales coming up the next Saturday or Sunday. They always have the address because they want you to come. I did a zip code lookup online, based on the address and city and that was all I needed. I wrote this great letter explaining how I could sell thier valuable items for them if they didn't sell or if they wanted me to take a look at them before the garage sale, they could call me. I used all the PowerSeller logo's and Trading Assistant Logo's so it looked very professional. It cost me .37 cents at the time, so I spent maybe $20 a week to mail 50 letters and I usually got anywhere between 5 and 10 calls back. That's a pretty good ratio I think, 10-20%! Sometimes I'd get calls from their neighbors or friends who they had given my number to, and I was getting calls months after I quit this marketing technique.

I hung flyers up everywhere, at churches, schools, laundry mats and just about anywhere you'd find a public bulletin board. Honestly, I don't think I ever got a single call from one of my flyers.

Point is, all this marketing stuff I found on or through eBay. Start HERE . I also spent a lot of time on the eBay discussion boards. If you're trying to grow your business or just get a question answered, these online forums are extremely helpful. Another great resource were the Groups . I joined several groups for Sellers, PowerSellers, Trading Assistants, Store Ownwers, and I browsed many more. Just reading what others had to say, soaking it all in, good and bad. Learning...

Now being a Trading Assistant involves a lot of differnt dimensions and you can run that business in several differnt manners. I personally chose to charge a flat percentage and I paid all the fees - both eBay and PayPal from my commission. I also chose not to charge anything else. No up front fees for making the ad, or picking items up. So bottomline, if it didn't sell, I lost money. But I was pretty good at what I did, and rarely would I take something that didn't sell. And in the long run, I think I got so much TA business because people liked the concept of my business. If they didn't make money, I didn't make money. It definately made me more attractive than some of my local competition.

If you look around you'll see mosts TA's charge between $5 and $10 just to make the customers ad, whether or not it sells. Then a large majority of TA's pass all the fees associated with selling an item on to the customer. Then they charge their commission of 30-50%. I had a sliding scale that I changed depending on circumstance, but in general, items under $100 I charged 30%, $100-$500 - 25%, $500 - $1000 - 20%, and it ticked down from there.

I made special contracts with different customers and I learned some valuable lessons. My first large customer was a local golf driving range, that wanted me to move their excess demo clubs and past years inventory that was quickly becoming dated. Because of the high selling price of these items and large volume they gave me, I agreed to a flat 15%. Later I figured out that between eBay and PayPal I was paying out 10% and only making a little for all my hard work. But, I learned a lot from it, and still made some money. Other customers I negotiated flat 20 or 25% contracts depending on what they had to sell and how much they had to sell. Over time I figured out it wasn't really worth listing anything that wasn't going to sell for at least $50-$75. I became more selective about what I took on, and as I got smarter, I made more money.

I mentioned a contract for Trading Assistants, and I can share mine with anyone who wants one. It's a Word doc so you can modify it to fit your needs. All in all, being a Trading Assistant taught me how to run a business on eBay, not just sell stuff. And in pursuit of this, I landed my best deal ever...until next time.

My humble eBay beginnings

7 years ago, I like many people had heard of eBay, but didn't really know what all the hub-bub was all about. But, I'm a digger. That is, I dig for information, pick things apart and in the process I learn.

I saw some real value in eBay when I found some things in my house that sold rather quickly and fairly easily. Soon I had moved out to the garage to look for valuables. If you've sold something on eBay before you understand that first buzz you get when you make a tidy little profit by selling something online. Like other things that give you a buzz, it's addictive.

In my past life I had managed bicycle stores and sporting goods businesses as well as managed restaurants. In fact I was managing a restaurant when I had first started selling stuff on eBay part-time. A buddy of mine had been selling things online pretty regularly for a year or so and suggested I hit the thrift stores in my area to look for things to sell.

Jackpot! Like most people I stuck with what I knew...Sporting goods. I found a nice Taylormade golf bag marked $5, some snow skiis, a hockey helmet, and a Nils ski suit. I left 20 minutes later having spent about $30 total. I headed home and got my ads up right away. The golf bag went for over $50, the skiis $40, the helmet $20 and the ski suit....$125! I made over $200. I was definitely hooked now and needed more. I started hitting what we called the 'thrift store circuit'. I made my rounds through about 20 different thrift stores in and around San Diego county. I bought bicycle clothing (jersey $5, shorts $4 would sell for $15 -$20 each), sporting goods equipment, anything I knew about I could see the value in it. I started spending a few hundred dollars a week, rolling my profits from week to week, and making $500 to $700 a week when I got lucky. Then my habit took me to garage sales and swap meets. I spent every spare moment looking for things that I could turn a profit on. I loved it.

After a year or so of this, and coming off a work-related injury (restaurant) I absolutely dreaded the idea of going back to work for someone else. I told my girl friend that I thought if I gave it all my attention, that I could make my eBay business income, match my regular job salary. And I never went back to that job.

Today, eBay has tens of millions of registered users located in all parts of the world. Also, it turns out that people spend more time on eBay than any other online site, making it the most popular shopping area on the Internet!

What does this mean for YOU!

You probably guessed it. This is the largest and easiest market place to sell your goods and services for EXTREMELY low costs. And it doesn’t take very long to figure it out!

Think about it for a minute.. there will be MILLIONS of hungry buyers viewing your auction listings within minutes.

There are literally thousands upon thousands of people making their living on eBay right now!
So your first task is to go signup at eBay as a registered user, its free. Go here: Sign up for a FREE eBay account here

Introductions....by eBay Jay

Allright it's cheesey, eBay Jay. But somewhere along the line calling clients and associates started using the nickname to remind themselves of who I was, and I started using it myself to remind them of who I was. You know when you call someone and say "Hi John, it's Jay" and there's that long pause...or worse they say "Jay who?". So I tweaked the greeting Bond style. "Hi John, it's Jay...eBay Jay". Inevitably they'd reply "oh yeh, Jay, how are you?". A longwinded explanation, but I tend to be that - longwinded.

I don't profess to be a writer persae, but I do have lots of thoughts and I try to get them out as best I can. I've been selling on eBay for...sheesh 7 years now. I've sold a bit of everything. I run two fulltime Powerseller businesses with my wife and I do work for others on their eBay businesses and websites as well. I may not know everything about eBay (most certainly), but I do know quite a bit about the whole online auction business as well as website design and the business of managing them online. I have 5, errrr 6 websites. Some make money, some don't, but we'll get into that later.

So, that's a bit about me. I'll get into more later. Welcome.