Saturday, December 20, 2008

Ebay Sniper Get Items Cheaper And Easier

Writen by Anthony Kristovich III

If you're reading this, you must already know of eBay.com. Very few people don't. However, you may not be aware of auction snipers, or what they can do for you, so let me define it. An eBay auction sniper places a bid in the final seconds of an auction on your behalf. You may be saying to yourself that it's no big deal, you can bid yourself no problem. Well, read on, and you'll see all the great benefits to using a bid sniper.

The first benefit is convenience. The convenience of setting a snipe ahead of time and not having to be on the computer at auction close to put in a bid. So the natural question in most people's minds is they can just put in a bid far ahead of closing, no need to do it last-second. If you don't care about overpaying, this is the easiest thing to do.

This brings about the second benefit. Bidding far before the end of the auction close does nothing but drive up the price of the item for sale, and is a huge waste of money. When a person puts in a bid in advance, people have the time to bid that little bit higher than they really wanted to because, afterall, another dollar isn't too much. When you have 2-3 people doing this, the price of the item skyrockets and a lot of those little-bit-higher bids adds up fast. The only people that benefit from this are sellers and eBay(they get a percentage of the final sale price). Getting an item for a cheaper price is the main reason most eBayers use an auction sniper on a regular basis.

Still, there is a third benefit that many eBayers love -- your bid is not placed until near auction close, giving you as a buyer time to think over the bid and perhaps cancel the bid if you find one cheaper, or no longer have a need for the item.

Most eBayers have an eBay sniper to give them an advantage over those that do not. You either snipe or get sniped, it's as simple as that. Most people find out after losing out on an item how handy a tool it has become. It can make your eBay experience that much better.

Anthony Kristovich III runs the CodingCentre website. Software such as the eBay sniper Super Sniper PRO helps users snipe items from eBay very easily. You can get more information about this software at http://www.codingcentre.com.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Garage Sales Flea Markets And Special Events Oh My

Writen by A. Loya

The activity chart is an ingenious way to find, in order, events happening in your community throughout the day. Plug in 'www.noonernight.com' on your computer or cell phone and retrieve lunch specials, happy hours, music and nightlife events.

Unlike newspapers with static ads, noonernight.com utilizes dynamic time updates.

To see upcoming events, simply enter a zip code and distance. The day and current time are highlighted in a bar graph form. Each event submitted spans the designated time. So planning a day or week can be done at a glance.

Not everyone can afford to advertise his or her events in the newspaper on a daily basis, which is why noonernight.com was developed. To let the public know what's going on and when and where. A fantastic service for everyone to use.

Adding events is simple, fast, and free.

Noonernight.com is a great advertising and promotion tool that can be used to:

-Submit where your band is playing tonight.
-Advertise breakfast, lunch or dinner specials.
-Know about community events.
-Locate county fairs and festivals.
-List open houses.
and much more.

Log on to http://www.noonernight.com to see events in your area and add your event for free!

Leave the zip code entry field blank to view all submitted events.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Start Selling On Ebay Getting Started On The Right Foot

Writen by Gary Hendrickson

You've started your own eBay business and, even though it's part time right now, you know it's going to become a huge success. You are able to see the day when you can set your own hours, set your own dress code and call your own shots. The world is your oyster and you are raring to go. Just be careful you don't fall into the one of the major work-at-home traps.

Congratulations! But before you go any further, it's a good idea to insure that your new ebay business is built on a solid foundation.

One of the most often seen problems behind the failure of a home business is the lack of productivity. Many people, particularly when starting a part time eBay business, find that they just don't get things done.

When you have no one who you are responsible to, you may find that procrastination and poor time management begin to rear their ugly heads. It's important that you take some of the productive elements of a regular 9-5 job and incorporate them into your budding eBay business. Here are some pointers:

First: Setting a schedule can be crucial to your success. Simply saying "I'll get some auctions listed this evening" just doesn't cut it. It leaves too much room for something else to come up.

Set a schedule and stick to it. Maybe this is 9 to 3 when your kids are at school, or maybe late at night when the kids are in bed. Maybe you decide to get up an hour and a half earlier to work before going to your regular job. Regardless of the time you choose, make sure you honor it.

Second: Police your productivity. When working on your eBay business you're your own boss. There isn't anyone looking over your shoulder. This can be a great feeling, but it can also drastically reduce your productivity.

When you sit down at your work desk, make sure you're being as productive as possible. No computer games, no web surfing, no personal phone calls. It's not necessary your chain yourself to your desk - just be as productive as possible.

Third: Dress the part. This may seem silly to many of you, but it's extremely important. If you're dressed in sweats or your pajamas, your mind is much more likely to wander. It's fine to be comfortable, but dress reasonably.

Fourth: Create an effective work space. The basics of working at home can be more disruptive than you realize. If you're not careful your work can be interrupted every few minutes to deal with other things. If there's a television in the room or you're right next to the family phone, you're not going to get a lot done.

Set aside a quiet, out of the way space in your home and make it off limits during your work hours. This may be a spare bedroom, or just the corner of your bedroom. Whichever you choose, just make sure there's a door between you and the world.

Once you've established your workspace, go ahead and decorate it and keep it neat. Set up your space like a real office. Put up a couple of pictures, get a plant if you'd like, whatever you think will motivate you. Then keep your papers organized and your trash bin emptied. A nice looking, organized space will really contribute to your productivity.

Take your eBay business seriously right from the start. If you follow these tips, you'll find yourself getting a lot more work done, and that can mean more profit and more time to spend with your family.

Gary Hendrickson has been making his living selling on eBay for more than six years. He's the author of two eBay related ebooks, has a blog for eBay sellers, and is the owner of ColdItems.Com.

ColdItems.Com The Auction Rebel Blog

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Ebay Income Possibilities

Writen by Cassandra Stinchcombe

If you've ever read an article about eBay, you will have seen the kinds of incomes people make – it isn't unusual to hear of people making thousands of dollars per month on eBay.

Next time you're on eBay, take a look at how many PowerSellers there are: you'll find quite a few. Now consider that every single one of one of them must be making at least $1,000 per month, as that's eBay's requirement for becoming a PowerSeller. Silver PowerSellers make at least $3,000 each month, while Gold PowerSellers make more than $10,000, and the Platinum level is $25,000. The top ranking is Titanium PowerSeller, and to qualify you must make at least $150,000 in sales every month!

The fact that these people exist gives you come idea of the income possibilities here. Most of them never set out to even set up a business on eBay – they simply started selling a few things, and then kept going. There are plenty of people whose full-time job is selling things on eBay, and some of them have been doing it for years now. Can you imagine that? Once they've bought the stock, everything else is pretty much pure profit for these people – they don't need to pay for any business premises, staff, or anything else. There are multi-million pound businesses making less in actual profit than eBay PowerSellers do.

Even if you don't want to quit your job and really go for it, you can still use eBay to make a significant second income. You can pack up orders during the week and take them down to the post office for delivery each Saturday. There are few other things you could be doing with your spare time that have anywhere near that kind of earning potential.

What's more, eBay doesn't care who you are, where you live, or what you look like: some PowerSellers are very old, or very young. Some live out in the middle of nowhere where selling on eBay is one of the few alternatives to farming or being very poor. eBay tears down the barriers to earning that the real world constantly puts up. There's no job interview and no commuting involved – if you can post things, you can do it.

Put it this way: if you know where to get something reasonably cheaply that you could sell, then you can sell it on eBay – and since you can always get discounts for bulk at wholesale, that's not exactly difficult. Buy a job lot of something in-demand cheaply, sell it on eBay, and you're making money already, with no set-up costs.

If you want to dip your toe in the water before you commit to actually buying anything, then you can just sell things that you've got lying around in the house. Search through that cupboard of stuff you never use, and you'll probably find you've got a few hundred dollars' worth of stuff lying around in there! This is the power of eBay: there is always someone who wants what you're selling, whatever it might be, and since they've come looking for you, you don't even need to do anything to get them to buy it.

So you want to get started on eBay? Well, that's great! There are only a few little things you need to learn to get started. Our next article will give you the low-down.

Cassandra Stinchcombe - Why waste another penny on eBay eBooks, when you can get everything you need to know for FREE. Check out our 75+ articles today. eBay Selling | eBay Buying

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Losing Sales By Overcharging For Shipping And Handling

Writen by Steven Woodward

As a serious seller on eBay you're familiar with their fee circumventing rules. If not, visit: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-circumventing.html.

In a nutshell their rule is that you are not allowed to put an item up for bid for a penny and charge $100 for shipping and handling (S&H) in an attempt to avoid the transaction fee. Since we are not trying to avoid fees we all follow the rules – right? To a certain extent yes, but many sellers are still stretching the bubble by over charging for S&H in an attempt to maximize their profits and losing bidders in the process - the end result is the opposite of what they hoped for. Ultimately they reduce their sales and although these efforts fit within eBay's policies, when extreme, they are considered an unfair practice by many buyers.

I'll give you an example. I play in a Texas-No-Hold-Em poker game once a month - just a bunch of friends who get together, play a little poker, talk about their lives and have some fun. I thought it would be nice if we had some 'professional-style' poker chips so went to eBay to buy some. I like to think of myself as an intelligent eBay shopper so I watched the auctions for a few days and noticed that the final price averaged $60 for the chips I wanted (retail is about twice that at a local store). The market was determining the price, or was it?

As I watched these auctions I noticed an interesting problem, the shipping charges varied greatly. For the sake of this example let's say one seller was offering S&H at $20, another at $30 and one $50. We'll call them Seller A, Seller B and Seller C. As a buyer, if I was willing to accept the price determined by the market – in this case $60, then the final cost of the item from each of these sellers would be:

Seller A: $60 + $20 = $80
Seller B: $60 + $30 = $90
Seller C: $60 + $50 = $110

I did some additional homework and discovered the package would weigh 17 pounds, the size would not increase shipping costs and the sellers were all in my state. I went to the UPS and Fed-X web sites and plugged in the needed information for shipping cost estimates. The results were $11 and $17. All things being equal the total cost of the chips should be around $71-$78. So which seller's auction did I bid on? Only one – Seller A – and I got the chips for $52, plus S&H ($72). If I hadn't won that auction I may have bid on Seller B's but probably would have lowered my total bid amount by $10. Seller C's auction closed without a singe bid.

Seller A got my business, Seller B may have, and as far as I was concerned, and apparently other bidders, Seller C can go pound sand. The outcome of this example should be pretty clear and it should be obvious by now that you don't want to be Seller C. Although you may get an occasional windfall with less savvy bidders, in the long term your sales will be much less than that of other sellers of similar items.

That's not to say you shouldn't recoup your shipping and handling costs in the process. We're not in business to lose money, but make sure you are not trying to pad your 'profit' at the expense of loosing bidders and ultimately sales. Take the time to do similar research on your own items and market niche and find out where you stand with your shipping and handling charges. If you're fair to your customers they will think better of you for it and in the long run your sales will be better.

© Copyright 2005 Steven Woodward - All Rights Reserved

About the Author:
Steven Woodward is the owner, editor and publisher of the Auction Sellers Network (ASN); a web site for individuals and companies who are serious about utilizing the online auction marketplace for their business. In addition to topical articles, ASN provides an extensive resource center, news feeds, member forums and classified ads. For more information or to become a member please visit http://www.AuctionSellersNetwork.com.

No permission is needed to reproduce an unedited copy of this article as long the About the Author tag is left intact and included. We do request that we be informed where it is posted and reciprocal links will be considered.