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Banish that bad word
publication date: Aug 30, 2006
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- Editorial
- A Dirty F Word that Got Thrown at me a
Short While Ago - And It Doesn't Stand for
Feedback!
- Free Traffic To Your Auction Listing With
eBay Blogs! by ChrisRyerson
- How To Find Low Cost Items That You
Can Resell For Profit by GreggHall
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***
Editorial
***
Hi,
I've chosen to feature an article rather than a
basic editorial this week, but I also wanted to
remind you about a new service I am offering
my readers at http://www.powerselleracademy.com
where I get to write daily about new
happenings on eBay and great ideas for
exploding your profits on the world's greatest
auction site. The site is brand new and
receiving great testimonials from early
members and there's a risk free trial
membership so it's well worth looking at. Go
more information.
If you are already an eBay Confidential
subscriber, you can upgrade to the website for
just £315! Just go to:
and enter this promotion code: ec2408mem
Happy eBaying and enjoy the website!
Until next time,
Avril
***
A Dirty 'F' Word That Got Thrown at Me
a Short While Ago - And It Doesn't Stand
for Feedback!
***
I got very upset today, but the whole sorry
event brought to mind something newcomers
should know about eBay's Feedback System.
It all started with a power cut yesterday just as
I finished uploading a web site and auto-
responder delivery system for a product I had
acquired just a few hours before.
The electricity went off for two hours just
before orders for the product began coming in.
My promise of 'One hour to deliver product'
following receipt of your order was delayed by
ten minutes maximum, so I added another four
free products to the site as a way of
apologising for this short delay.
Then my email box went down and I could not
access it for nearly two hours in the late
afternoon and that meant the auto-responder
system also stopped working. Now this was
looking serious although my host company -
Donhost - are always very fast to correct
problems like this.
Then I had a great idea, or rather I thought I
had a great idea, given I consider customer
care a vital part of my business. I went into
the email program I have with another
company, Constant Contact, and sent a quick
message to all my customers telling them my
business email box was down and saying I
could not at the present time provide buyers
with download details but I would do this as
soon as I possibly could. My email box came
back and I sent another email seconds after the
earlier one with download details included.
Everybody happy!
Except one person who accused me this
morning of sending apologetic emails just to
cover up the fact I had offered a product
without adequate preparation. Now that really
hurt, I have never knowingly told a lie to any
customers and, let's face it, my email box can
go down just as easily as anyone else's. Boy
was I hurt that anyone should suggest I would
lie about that!
Then it got me thinking about other things,
mainly eBay, and similar incidents I've
encountered over the years. A man who
phoned the day after he paid for a map, for
example, who asked if I could post it right
away. I offered to post the map the next day
and explained that we don't have a postal
service nearby on Wednesday afternoons. He
almost hit the roof, he went into hysterics, he
was yelling with 'F' words punctuating every
word, he told me EVERY POST OFFICE
WORKS ON WEDNESDAY
AFTERNOONS! I was lying he said, and he
left that same message in the neutral feedback
he left later that week.
My feedback to him and my comments to
explain the neutral feedback on my own
account? I just added the name and phone
number for my Postmaster, the one whose
Blackhall Colliery, CountyDurham, Post
Office really does and always has stayed
closed on Wednesday afternoons.
The point of this article is that you must not let
false accusations go unchallenged, you have to
respond to neutral and negative feedback.
This applies to false accusations as well as
those that really do project your own
shortcomings and result in negative feedback.
Other eBay members will appreciate you for
admitting you screwed up and earned negative
feedback, especially if you apologise and
promise to resolve whatever problem
occurred.
For false accusations, you should state your
side of the story and leave other members to
judge one or two neutral or negative feedbacks
against a mountain of positive entries. People
aren't daft, they know Post Offices don't stay
open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just as
they know my email box can go down just like
anyone else's.
So here's the advice I promised earlier. For
months I didn't realise that you can respond to
feedback left for you, whether good or bad or
neutral. The place to do it is inside your eBay
Account, left side of the screen click on
'Feedback', next page click on 'Go to
Feedback Forum to reply or follow up on
feedback'.
But here's a tip, don't get angry, but do get
your point across even if it makes the other
person look rather foolish as I did with my
Postmaster's phone number, for instance,
because, believe it or not my accuser really did
phone to check whether our tiny sub post
office closes on Wednesday afternoon!
***
Free Traffic to Your Auction Listing with
eBay Blogs! By ChrisRyerson
***
eBay has recently jumped on the blog
bandwagon. They have opened a new section
of the website called eBay blogs. This allows a
registered eBay user to sign up for and
maintain a blog. This is a wonderful new
feature and if you are serious about growing
your eBay business then you should definitely
consider signing up for an eBay blog. It is a
very simple process that almost anyone can
navigate through and easily set up your own
blog. You do not have to have any special
html knowledge. Just go to the following url
http://blogs.ebay.com/ and click on the large
button that says 'Start Blogging'.
What Are Blogs
Blogs are basically an online journal. They
provide a place where you can easily write
news and information about yourself and your
auction sales on a daily basis. The word blog
is a combination of web and log smashed
together to make a new word called blogs.
They are one of the latest crazes on the
internet because they allow anyone to easily
publish their own thoughts and content on the
internet.
Blogs are also wonderful for creating a ton of
extra traffic and visitors to your auction
listings. If you frequently post great content to
your blog it will quickly be picked up by the
search engines which will create more visitors
to your blog and your auction listings for free.
What To Blog About
Many sellers will instantly see the benefit of
having a blog. It provides an easy way to
interact with your customers. You can provide
updated information about your auctions, the
products you sell and general info about your
business. It might take a little while to get used
to blogging but typically it is very addictive
and once you start writing a blog it can easily
become a fun daily activity. To get the most
from your blog you want to think about
writing content that is useful to your
customers. For example a eBay sellers that
typically sells in one category or one type of
product can provide more information about
what thy sell. For example a seller who
specializes in model cars might take some time
to write a few articles or posts about building
model car tips. Another seller who sells
wedding related goods might write blog posts
about wedding planning. The point is you
want to make the content useful to your
customers so they will come back often. The
more you write good quality content and
inform your customers the more they will want
to purchase products from you. In this way
you can quickly establish yourself as an
authority on the subject.
One thing you will want to stay away from is
having a blog with very little useful content
and a lot of sales ads for your auctions. Sure
you can occasionally write a blog post to plug
a new item you have up for auction but if that
is all you do no one will visit your blog. eBay
is a very community oriented platform and the
more community friendly information you
provide the more potential and past customers
will come to your blog and possible visit your
auction listings.
Promoting Your Blog
Like any other site on the web your blog will
have its own unique url or website address.
You will want to make sure that you keep this
to hand and start promoting your blog. There
are a variety of ways that you can promote a
blog. Some of these would include submitting
your website to major search engines, and
blog/website directories. You can easily
further promote your blog by taking the
content or articles that you write on the blog
and submitting them to some of the major
article directories, such as http://www.ezinearticles.com.
Blog Comments
Another great way to promote your blog and
build traffic to it is to comment on other
people's blog. You want to be a little careful
about this and only post to other related blogs
and post meaningful comments. If you start
leaving a bunch of random comments that
have nothing to do with the blog or the post in
general then people will see this as blog spam
also known as splog content.
Blog Tags
Another useful feature that eBay has added is
blog tags. When you first set up the blog there
are some options to leave details about it. You
can also select tags that people will use to find
your blog. These tags are basically keywords
that people might use to search for your blog.
Using the example from above of the seller
that sells wedding related items the seller
would want to use common wedding
keywords in their tags section. They could
include tags like wedding, invitations, cake
toppers, and wedding planning. Then when
another eBay user searches for wedding
related blog this blog will show up in the
listing and again bring some free traffic to the
blog and potential to the seller's listings.
So if you don't already have a eBay blog now
is the time to get started.
Chris is a successful Webmaster and publisher
He provides more Auction selling tips and
tricks on the website.
***
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Readers may
have read in our recent newsletter that I am not
wholeheartedly impressed by eBay Blogs but I
do like the alternative provided by Google at
http://www.blogger.com. Try both, make your own
mind up, and get started using these great
traffic generating devices right away.
***
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How to Find Low Cost Items that You Can
Resell For Profit by GreggHall
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The key factor in the success or failure in a
business that specializes in closeouts,
liquidations, or selling products on eBay is
finding items at good prices that you can make
a profit on when you resell them. Contrary to
popular belief it is when you buy the item that
you make your profit as what you pay for
something is what determines how much your
end profit will eventually be. Here are some
good sources where you can find products to
resell cheaply and easily.
One of the best sources that I have found is the
local Pawn Shop. There are pawn shops in
just about every community and in many cases
are at a loss as to what to do with a lot of the
junk that they have accumulated. With the
exception of items like guns, electronics, and
jewelry they often are just keeping the stuff
lying around waiting on someone to come in
and find it. In many cases you can go in and
offer them a low price for a large bulk of
products that you can resell.
Local markets such as Flea Markets can be
another place to find items that you can resell.
A lot of times you will find people that either
don't really know the value of what they have
or they are getting out of the business and are
offering products at a cut rate price. If there
are some traders there that have large
quantities of items try to befriend them and
find out where they buy from.
Friends are another source that many people
overlook. Sometimes friends may have items
that they want to sell or they may know of a
source that has products available that you can
purchase and resell.
Place ads in local papers with headlines such
as 'I buy anything'. You will be surprised at
the response that you will get from placing the
ads and may receive a lot of useful products.
Don't overlook garage sales for finding items
to resell. I have found some incredible deals at
garage sales. I found a hope chest for $30 that
I resold for over $300! I recently bought three
collectible dolls at a garage sale that were still
in their original boxes and only paid $25 for
all three of them; they are worth more than
$50 each. Many times if you come up on a
garage sale that has a lot of good products that
you know you can resell they will give you a
great bargain if you buy it all.
GreggHall is an author living in Navarre
Florida. Find more at
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