Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Why The 1 Cent Auction Is Killing The Ebay Ebook Market

Writen by James Penn

*MYTH 1*

Selling 1p eBooks are ideal for backend sales and website sales.

Total utter rubbish! Do you honestly believe that people who pay 1p for an eBook will bother to read it? Maybe 5% will. But that means you have to sell 100 just to get 5 visitors to your website.

Not only that, but buyers of 1p eBooks are freebie seekers and not willing to loosen the purse strings so to speak. If you're selling an eBook for just £5 on your website, can you really imagine them whipping out the plastic?

The main reason people buy 1p eBooks are to build feedback points, they're not going to take a second glance at your eBook.

Instead, consider some SEO work on your site, write articles, submit to search engines, create a free viral eBook, participate in JV's, participate in giveaway promotions, get reciprocal links, invest in an affiliate programme, sig files on forums, (do not spam) pay per click advertising, create a newsletter and the most important of them all – continue to add more content to your site.

*MYTH 2*

Selling 1p eBooks are ideal for building a strong, positive feedback.

Nope, wrong again! eBayers aren't stupid. They'll see you're selling hundreds of items for 1p and they know the feedback comments you get mean diddly squat.

In addition to that, the majority of buyers aren't going to bother leaving you feedback for a 1p purchase, especially if it's of poor quality.

Instead, invest in a few resale rights products that you can sell for £2 - £3 - £4 and make a few CONSISTENT sales every day. If you just make 3 sales from one product per day and have 15 products that you're selling, then that's excellent profit potential and you're building a solid, positive feedback that will be respected by eBay members.

*MYTH 3*

Selling 1p eBooks will make me an eBay power seller and earn me respect from the eBay community.

eBay have set out certain guidelines that entitle you to power seller status.

To qualify, members must:

• Uphold the eBay community values, including honesty, timeliness and mutual respect

• Average a minimum of £750 in sales per month, for three consecutive months

• Achieve an overall Feedback rating of 100, of which 98% or more is positive

• Have been an active member for 90 days

• Have an account in good financial standing

• Not violate any severe policies in a 60-day period

• Not violate three or more of any eBay policies in a 60-day period

• Maintain a minimum of four average monthly listings for the past three months

Look at the second requirement.

Now, I'm no mathematician and I don't have a calculator handy but I work that out to mean that you would have to make at least 75000 sales (give or take a 0) every month for the rest of your eBay career to retain your power seller status.

Firstly, selling 75000 items per month is impossible and secondly, can you imagine dealing with all the questions from buyers, re-sending eBooks that were failed by your automation (if you have automation) and leaving feedback comments. Dealing with these many customers would be impossible and your inability to answer e-mails quickly and re-send items could easily lead to negative feedbacks – therefore disqualifying you further from power seller status.

"Achieve an overall Feedback rating of 100, of which 98% or more is positive"

James Penn is an experienced eBay seller who sells hundreds of eBooks per month. He also owns make money on eBay website http://www.auction-enterprise.com and he is in the process of attempting to become the biggest eBay eBook seller in the market. You can follow his success at http://www.powerseller-challenge.com You may also like a bunch of free eBay eBooks and you can grab them by visiting this link http://www.auction-enterprise.com/free-ebay-ebooks.html

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