Selling on eBay to Make Money
Filed under: Resale Rights on eBay, Research, eBay Research, eBay Strategy
I got my start in my home based business by selling on eBay and I started this Internet marketing venture at the prompting of my brother-in-law, JL Scott. He knew my family was just getting by on what my wife and I were making as high school teachers and asked me if I would be interested in earning some extra money by selling on eBay. My interest was peaked and my work from home business was born. The really cool thing about selling on eBay is that anyone can do it.
I am about to make a bold statement: there is only one way to make money on eBay. Just a quick scan at the eBay home page will show you at least ten different items for sale on eBay, but the keyword in the first part of this sentence is ‘sale’. To work from home and make money on eBay you must sell something. Many people are under the impression if you start an online auction on eBay the item will sell. That is not necessarily true. The item might sell, but without the proper eBay market research, it might not sell for the highest price possible. If you trying to establish an eBay business, then you will want every online auction that closes to close for the highest price possible.
To increase the closing rates and profits on an eBay auctions there are several areas that one should consider researching:
- Type of auction
Starting day
Listing duration
Ending day
Keywords
Staring price of regular auction, price of BIN (Buy It Now) auction
Listing enhancements.
I primarily have sold information products (eBooks) on eBay. Depending on how you want to run your eBay business, selling eBooks on eBay can run on virtual autopilot. There is software created and sold by Paul Ponna, called Auction Acrobat which integrates eBay, PayPal and Kunaki to automate the entire shipping process. Using an order fulfillment company like Kunaki will decrease profits because of a slightly higher shipping cost, but it frees up time to concentrate on converting eBay customers into customers outside of eBay.
Selling eBooks alone on eBay is not the only way to start an eBay business. I have seen eBay sellers, like myself, sell only eBooks and I have seen eBay sellers dominating a niche and selling one information product. For the second group, of eBay sellers, by selling eBooks, they increase their bottom line in two ways.
First, they increase the amount of money they make. Even if these sellers use a fulfillment company for these orders, they are selling the eBooks for no less than $9.97 and if they are selling 100-200 per month, that is between $997 and $1,994 in sales. So, even if the profit on each item sold was say $5, that would mean an extra $500 – $1,000 of income and it is on virtual autopilot.
Secondly, the additional eBook sales count toward PowerSeller status. There are several benefits to obtaining PowerSeller status on eBay, one of which is PowerSellers receive discounts on final value fees and listing upgrade fees.
Since these sellers have established themselves in a niche, they have credibility as an eBay seller and will be successful selling almost any eBook about how to sell on eBay.
Auto Responders and Blogs
Filed under: Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Optin List Building
My post yesterday was just a quick post to see if I had set up my auto responder correctly to broadcast my blog updates to my subscribers. Well, it did not broadcast as planned and I think I have figured out why. Let me explain.
It takes a while for the auto responder to “catch up” with what is happening in my blog and I made the post way too soon after making my blog post. Therefore, no one on my opt in list received an email about the update to my blog. Hence, I have something else to blog about.
Just another word about why auto responders are so cool.
My wife asks me the other day, “So is this email thing like a set it and forget it?” And I am sure you may have the same question. The answer is yes!! Once you set up a series of emails, the auto responder will send the emails out to every new subscriber in the order you originally set and if you get behind in making marketing emails and your current list will start receiving the new emails you create as you create them.
Before I started building my email list, by putting opt in boxes on my blog, web page and eBay account, I created about 30 marketing emails and sign up to my list to make sure they looked good and were being sent (which they did). This way, after I made the opt ins live in their various positions on the web, my subscribers would start receiving my emails and I would not waste a single subscriber.
Instead of subscribing to the email list myself, my auto responder allows me to test the email before I save it to my list, but I figured, I might as well get the same emails as the people I am marketing to.
A good friend of mine has been building an opt in list for a few months and has over 100 subscribers, but he does not have any follow up emails set to go out. I asked him, why don’t you start creating marketing emails. I explained to him how they will go out to all of his new subscribers as well as his old subscribers. He told me some lame excuse about not wanting to start to bother those people with emails after never emailing them for so long. I had to remind about another really cool feature offered by auto responders. In each email, a subscriber can “unsubscribe” or opt out by clicking a link contained in the email.
Anyway, that is all for now.
Figuring Out Word Press
Well, I have finally started to figure out this weblog thing. I added a blog to my site several weeks ago, but have not done anything with it until today. I hope what I am writing shows up on the blog and I hope I can figure out what in the world I am doing sooner, rather than later.
Products That I Recommend
Rob Benwell's Blogging to the Bank
Rob Benwell is only a mere 22 years old and has already made a fortune using this method. Early last year he sharing his secrets with the world in his highly successful Blogging To The Bank ebook and has made making money online a whole read more.
The 90 Day PowerSeller Challenge v3.0
John Thornhill is one of the top information sellers on the Internet. He consistent makes $100's per day from just selling eBook on eBay (R). In his book he reveals his eBay seller ID. This is virtually unheard of in the world of eBay, click here to read more.
Buying and Selling on eBay and the WWW
This is eBay (R) PowerSeller Richard Fenn's Complete Newbie's Guide To Selling on eBay and the World Wide Web. In it you will learn how to create and operate 2 sources of income! To find out more, click here.
