Buying At Auction 6 Hints To Make You A Successful Bidder

Writen by John Anderson

Buying at auction, be it for stamps or coins, antiques or even cattle, can be one of the most exciting and profitable experiences possible. It can also be expensive and utterly frustrating. The best way to come out ahead is to learn the tricks of the trade early. Here are some suggestions that should help you get on the fast track to success.

(1) Do your research. Knowledge is your most important tool, even more important than money.

(2) Learn how to be inconspicuous.

(3) Beware of zombies, shills and lunatics. The best way to avoid them is

(4) Hire an agent.

(5) Be selective. Don't be afraid to spend the extra dollar when something especially rare or in exceptional condition comes your way. You may never get another chance.

To elaborate:

(1) Every experienced buyer knows how important knowledge is. Questions of authenticity, condition, and rarity are always the key considerations. If you are fortunate enough to have both knowledge and money, you have the world by the tail. But even if you have limited funds you can still do very well if you know something the rest of the potential buyers don't.

(2) Once you have spotted something you want to buy, fade into the woodwork as much as possible. The last thing you want to do is attract attention to yourself or the lot you are interested in. After you've been around long enough, your competition will find out who you are. Until then try to keep as low a profile as possible and guard your information. Use a code system to keep track of your limits. I'm constantly amazed at how careless some bidders are with their auction catalogs and what they write in them.

(3) Zombies, shills and lunatics are every auction bidder's nightmare. If a zombie knows who you are, he/she will follow your every move. Their motto is: if that person is willing to spend a hundred dollars for a lot, I sure can afford to spend a hundred and ten. Most people know what a shill is. It is someone working for the auction house or seller who artificially pushes up prices by bidding against you. In order for an item to get a good price, two or more bidders must be interested in it. Shills are especially skilled at figuring out how high you are willing to go. Lunatics are the ones who absolutely have to have a lot and will bid whatever it takes to win it. The best way to deal with these three worthies is to hire an agent to bid for you.

(4) Agents are professionals who have developed skills at bidding at auction. One famous New York stamp auction agent was so skilled at hiding his bids that only the auctioneer and a few other people ever knew how he did it. As strange as it may sound, paying an auction agent the extra 2-5% fee may save you many hundreds of dollars or more in the long run. The zombies, shills and lunatics won't know who is bidding against them.

(5) Finally, one of the most important skills of all is the ability to recognize when to open up the purse strings. Condition and rarity are the two most important determinants of price. The exceptional item is always worth an extra bid or two. One customer who was examining my stamps at a national stamp show remarked, "I've been looking for this one for more than 40 years and you have a very nice copy. But I never pay more than half catalog for anything." I wished him well. It was a scarce stamp and I expect he'll still be looking if he lives another 40 years.

To summarize: knowledge is the primary key to success at auction bidding. Secondly, develop your skills as a bidder and buyer. Then, learn to recognize the individuals you will have to deal with on the auction floor. Cross them up and use and agent. And finally, know when to pay a premium for the exceptional item.

Best of luck!

John Anderson has been bidding at auction for more than forty years and has purchased hundreds of stamps, antiques and collectibles that way. Now semi-retired from stamps he is a full-time writer. His first novel, The Cellini Masterpiece, was published under the pseudonym of Raymond John. He is now hard at work on his second, and an auction plays an important role in the plot. If you would like to contact John or read the first chapter of The Cellini Masterpiece, please log on at: http://www.cmasterpiece.com

Making Money On Ebay Can Be So Simple Just Let Somebody Else Do All The Hard Work For You

Writen by Ian Major

OK, so you've been bitten by the eBay bug!

You've ransacked the attic, the basement and every other room in your home to find things to sell on eBay.

When friends and neighbors ask you where everything has gone, you tell them that you're going for the "Minimalist Look".

You've attended every Yard Sale in the area and some a lot further away.

Now your garage is so full of junk your thinking of having a yard sale of your own, but whats the point, you'd only buy it all yourself to sell on eBay.

You love eBay and you're determined to make a good living from it.

So things will have to change.

You've sold all of your unwanted belongings.

Visiting Yard Sales is taking up all of your spare time and your income from eBay does not match the effort you're putting in.

What you really need is someone who will:-

Give you access to a product that has a good profit margin.

Stock that product for you.

Mail the product to your customer when you make a sale.

Sounds like a tall order doesn't it?

Yet this exactly what you get when you use a wholesaler who also dropships.

Dropshipping

So what exactly is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a way of selling and distributing products whereby the supplier of the product (the dropshipper)sends the goods directly to the end user (your customer) on the retailers behalf (thats you).

OK. So instead of constantly trying to find items from yard sales etc you simply study a list of Dropshippers and decide what product or products you would like to sell on eBay.

Quite often the Dropshipper will supply you with all the sales material you need to create your eBay Gallery Picture and eBay Sales Page.

The dropshipper stocks the product so you don't have to.

You put your chosen product up for sale on eBay, somebody buys it and eBay provides you with the buyers name and address. Now you simply contact your dropshipper and give them the name and address of your customer and the details of the product they have bought and the dropshipper will deliver it to them.

At this point you pay the dropshipper for the product.

The great thing here is that you got payed by your customer before you had to pay the dropshipper.

So your customer pays you the retail price for your product, you pay the dropshipper the wholesale price and you keep the difference as your profit in addition to saving time and effort.

Dropship Directories

Go to your favourite search engine and type in Dropship Directories and you will find that there are dozens and dozens of them to choose from.

A word of warning here. Most of these directories are a waste of time, a waste of money or both.

Quite often what you will receive, should you buy one these directories, is a list of "Middlemen" not true wholesalers.

I don't need to emphasise that you will make more money if you by direct from the wholesaler.

My first recommendation is to thoroughly check out any Dropshipping source that you might be interested in.

For example.

Can you find the product cheaper via another Dropshipper?

Are their postage and packing charges reasonable?

Do they carry ample stock of your particular choice of product/s? (There's nothing worse than selling an item only to find that your Dropshipper is out of stock and you are unable to provide your customer with the product they have paid for).

My second recommendation would be to check out the Dropshipping Companies at:-

http://www.worldwidebrands.com

To sum up.

Don't Stock It.

Don't Mail It.

Don't Pay For It, Untill You Have Been Paid.

Leave it to the Dropshippers to do that for you!

So the next time you're looking for something to sell on eBay, give some thought to using Dropshipping as a way of making you're eBay experience a whole lot easier and a whole lot more profitable.

For 12 Killer Dropshipping SECRETS for eBay Sellers visit:-

http://www.ebay-articles.com/12-Killer-Dropshipping-Secrets.html

Ian D Major is the creator of http://www.eBay-Articles.com, the one stop resource for information, reports and articles about all things eBay.

To subscribe for free to eBay-Articles and get Articles, Reports and Bonuses delivered to your inbox weekly, just send a blank email to:-

ebay-articles1@majorian.par32.com

CopyRight 2005 Ian D.Major

How To Find And Buy Digital Items On Ebay

Writen by Donny Lowy

Digital items are special files or information that you can access online. For example it can be a software package that you can install on to your system after paying it at eBay. All these items are sold on eBay at a 'buy it now" price, that is, you are not required to bid on that item, you can instantly place an order.

Digital items can be found by browsing on eBay's category listing or searching by keywords. While going through the lists of items you may find a "digital item" filter on the left hand side of the page. You may not find such filters on all pages. If you click the "yes" button on this filter, you will see only digital items. The best keyword to search for digital items is to type 'digital item'. Then select the option 'search title and description'. Digital item sellers use these words in their description.

It is not difficult to view and differentiate a digital item since eBay flashes a standard message "This is a digital item" at the top of the item description. Review the listing properly to see if the item is of real interest to you and is easy to install. For this check "file type and requirements" portion to see if this item is compatible with your computer system and software. Now that you have decided finally to buy this digital item, click the link 'buy it now'. Since you can instantly place order and can download, you need to pay the seller immediately too. For this you can use "PayPal" which will help you to pay quickly and safely online using your credit card or bank account number. After receiving the payment the seller will instruct you either to visit a website and download the file, or will send the item to you on your preferred email.

Donny Lowy runs http://www.closeoutexplosion.com an online wholesale and closeout business that supplies eBay sellers, retailers, and flea market vendors.

The Top Sellers On Ebay Amp What We Can Learn From Them

Writen by Sydney Johnston

A fascinating eBay case study is the number one seller on eBay, a little outfit called Marie's CDs, but is better known under its old name "1 Cent CD." Jay and Marie, current ID "jayandmarie", are an institution on eBay and are a big part of what makes eBay such an amazingly popular phenomenon.

This little company is literally an eBay dream come true. They started small out of their home in California in 1999 and began growing quickly. To date they have completed over 1 million auctions on eBay and have a feedback rating of 177,018 with 99% satisfaction from their customers!

When I say grow, I mean it in a Jack and the Beanstalk kind of way. Their business started out as a little fly-by-night outfit and has now sold over 1 million dollars (yep, that's $1,000,000) annually for the past three years… Let me repeat that: over a million dollars in sales each year for three years running! Now THAT is growth!

They employ several people, have three small buildings in southern California, and ship items all over the world (mainly CDs). They got their fame from their auctions for CDs that start at only a penny…

What can we learn from this fascinating case study? What do Jay and Marie actually do?

Well, for one thing, they have huge numbers of auctions. Today, they have 83 pages of auctions listed. eBay lists 50 auctions to a page, so that is over 4,000 auctions.

Secondly, they offer great value, because their CDs begin at one cent. Yes, all of them.

None of their auctions has a reserve. Does it pay off? You betchum! Today, looking through 4 pages of eBay auctions, only 3 of them had no bids - so far.

And, naturally, their great feedback and reputation work heavily in their favor. After all, how many eBay sellers have 177,000+ feedback points with over half a million transactions completed.

This case study shows all of us how smart marketing and a great business model can pay off on eBay - and ecommerce, in general.

Sydney Johnston, the AUCTION QUEEN, was one of the original sellers on eBay and has been selling on eBay since the winter of 1996. She is the originator and teacher of the famous Auction Genius Course, a powerful 16 hour multi media seminar on the Internet that teaches her students how to sell on ebay.

A Plan For Making Money Using Online Auctions Like Ebay

Writen by Dennis Watson

In this article I will provide steps on how you should go about implementing this plan. This plan is not for everyone but if you enjoy shopping and flipping products you will have fun and make some money. Start off buying low cost items to test the water. After you feel comfortable go for the more expensive items, this is where you will make the most profits.

Getting Started:

Search for and then sign-up on several on-line action sites.

Scan items of interest and do some research on what items are selling. It is very important that you research the products to ensure that you are getting a fair deal. And watch out for over inflated shipping cost. Many times shipping cost can be negotiable.

Only bid on an item that is to expire in 10 minutes or less, also bid on items that have not received any bids and are due to expire. And only if those items meet the criteria mentioned before.

Place your bid and in most cases you will win the auction.

Purchasing: After purchasing the item tell the seller that you need to wait 7-10 days before you receive the item. Most of the times you will not need to give an excuse why but if you do tell them it's a gift and you do not want the recipient to see it. After you have resold the item send the original seller your buyer's address for shipping. If you are not comfortable with this approach, go ahead and have the item sent to you first. This will indeed cause more work on your part.

Re-selling (Flipping): Using the same information in the seller's ad, repost the item back on the auction site. By now the item has received a few interested buyers from the prior sellers marketing and you may get the person you out bid to place a higher bid right from the start. Be sure to price the item at the price you paid for it.

In Conclusion: Now there are some risks in doing this. You have not seen the item and this could cause you to reimburse the buyer if the item is in bad shape. Also, you risk over paying for an item causing you to take a loss. Also, the seller may not want to wait in sending the item to you, which will cause a little more work for you. The good side to that is you will be able to inspect the item before shipping it to the next buyer. I usually bid on hard to find dishware or specialty items like, The Pampered Chef, Candle-lite, and Stampin' Up!, the options are endless. Give it a try, start off slow and buy low cost items at first. Good luck!

Dennis Watson has been helping others promote their products or services for years through his Free Classifieds website http://www.zeoh.com/