eBay Talk

It is imperative to know your market. In order to do that, you need researches(and I mean more than one research). Perform a quick search using the Advanced Search function available for eBay users(normally on the top right-hand corner of every eBay page) to look for completed auctions. This function provided by eBay is totally free and relatively painless process. Key in the name of your item, for example, you are planning to research on Sony Ericsson Z610i mobile phone, instead of keying in “mobile phone” or “Sony Ericsson”, why not key in "Sony Ericsson Z610i"? This lets eBay search engine narrow down the results to a specific model of Sony Ericsson’s.

When you get the results page, click on Completed Items(under the display heading) and sort the results by Highest-Priced. Ignore the listings that never received bids, those are failures. Scrutinize the most successful sales and see what the starting price and selling price were, at what price range the item was normally sold, in which category the item was listed, as well as find out how the sellers have described and promoted their items so that you can learn from them and apply it to your listings, but DO NOT copy and paste, make sure you write your own description, because buyers tend to look for a listing with an unique and different description.

Research is a challenging task, but it is definitely imperative. Not only a research helps you in setting an attractive price, it also gives you a better idea of which category suits your item more.

People always asked me to recommend a good payment gateway to accept online payments. Besides Paypal, 2CheckOut and StormPay have been doing a great job to secure certain percentage of the market share. Not forgetting the newly emerged Google Checkout. We all know they are good, that's why I'm not going to recommend any good payment processor today.

However, I'm going to NOT recommend a new payment gateway that I've recently come across. The name is AdvantageProcessors. When you enter the site, everything looks just fine, but when you wanna find out more information about the products and services they are providing, you get peanuts. Let me just rephrase this, before you purchase a product/service from a company, you definitely find out who they are, where they are and how to contact them. There’s NO company name, NO address and NO contact number. AdvantageProcessors is so not convincing that makes me doubt their trustworthiness.

The only way to get in touch with them is by submitting the contact form, hey, they can’t even afford to hire a customer service personnel? And we are talking about business here, of course we need to be serious.

Therefore, stick to your current payment processors. Why turn to a payment processor like AdvantageProcessors? I love Paypal and 2CheckOut.

So what have we learnt today? The moral of the story is, provide as much details as possible in the auction descriptions. Among the vital are the item, payment and shippping details. The clearer, simpler and easier to locate the listing information, the less likely you are to confuse, disappoint and send off the bidders. If your listings make bidders think twice, you already lose half of the battle.

Forget about eBay for a moment. "Getting paid to blog" is the recent trend in the blogging world. If you like blogging/writing, why not get paid for doing so? I love getting paid to write.

The service is called Blogsvertise. Sign-up is particularly simple. Just fill out the form and submit your blogs for review and approval. Once approved, your blogs will be placed in the queue, and Blogsvertise will email you the tasks to write about in your blogs. You can write anything about the advertiser however you want, even complain. You won't be penalised.

How do you get paid? Paypal definitely. I believe you have been enjoying the great Paypal features and you know it well. Payments are made only after 30 days you accomplished your assigned tasks.

The current payout rate is ranging from $5 to $10 per post. Not bad for an additional side income, besides eBaying.

What are you waiting for? Stop writing and blogging for nothing, let's do it for money. Cheers!

It's been a long time since I last updated this blog. I was terribly busy with work and personal issues. I've finally got myself reorganized and I'm back. Stay tuned for more updates and tips.

May the Love, Peace, and Joy of Christmas be yours always.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

eBay will be discontinuing the eBay Keywords program at the end of September. The program, which allowed eBay sellers to bid for keywords for text ad placements, will be phased out as follows:

Sellers who have participated in the eBay Keywords program will receive an email with more information about the closing of the eBay Keywords program.

News announced on August 23, 2006 01:00PM PST/PT

Link to this announcement

Terapeak, licensed by eBay through the auction site’s data licensing program, is one of the best eBay research tools on the market.

The Victoria, British Columbia based company provides pricing, keywords, category and many more types of research data on the eBay marketplace. The research statistics and marketing data are generated from Terapeak's "smart seach" data-mining tool which accesses data from closed eBay auctions in most of the major product categories.

Terapeak helps eBay sellers sell more effectively by giving them the information they need to accurately understand and predict the performance of their eBay listings. It also helps determine the best time to list products.

If you are looking for answers to the following questions, Terapeak is the tool that you need to succeed in eBay sellings.

This is my 1st blog ever in my life. How am I feeling? I'm just getting a bit nervous, excited and don't-know-where-to-start... duh!

Who would think that an online trading community created by Pierre Omidyar in Sep'95 has now become the unbeatable auction site with more than 200 million users? I bet nobody did. Well done, eBay!

The Old saying "If you think you can, you can" does not apply to 21st century anymore 'cause Pierre never thought he could, but he made it. :)

Anyways, this blog talks anything about eBay, the greatest online marketplace ever.

So, feel free to drop a line or two. Make yourself at home.

Cheers!