Monday, November 30, 2009


I stumbled on this one by accident. I had sold one of these a couple of years ago - found it in a thrift store for $1, new, had never been burned. It sold for about $20. I came across this one at Tuesday Morning marked down to $7. I actually bought it for myself because I liked the scent. Then I looked it up on eBay and found that it has been discontinued / retired and is selling for $30. So much for keeping it. Watch stores like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, and Tuesday Morning for this line of candles.

Happy Selling!

Saturday, November 28, 2009



A fair return policy on eBay is critical for building your customer base. Having a fair return policy creates trust between you and your customers. How likely are you to buy something from a stranger on the internet without being able to return it if something isn't right or if you change your mind about it? If you sell on Amazon, you already know that Amazon requires all sellers to offer a 30 day return policy. (If you have not tried selling on Amazon, click here for a great guide that explains it.)

A fair refund policy allows refunds within 30 days. Research shows that the longer the return policy timeframe, the LESS likely customers are to use it. There is no sense of urgency. They forget about it, put the item on a table and it gets covered with other things, and they find it six months later. Consider extending your return policy to 30 days.

Accept returns for any reason, not just if the item is grossly misrepresented, as many eBay sellers state in their return policies. It really doesn't matter why the customer wants to return the item, if they aren't happy, you lose as a seller. The buyer gets the last word, even if they didn’t even read your policy. You are risking negative feedback and losing a customer who will never buy from you again.

Make it clear in your listing that the customer is responsible for paying return shipping fees, unless it is the seller's error. (You sent the wrong item, etc.)

If an item is returned, you can always re-list the item again. Refund the customer’s money, and then go to eBay and find the item in your archived listings. Relist the item with one click, and you are done. You can still get positive feedback from the first buyer, especially if you promptly process his refund and include a professional email thanking him for his business. Make the customer happy and get positive feedback.

Happy Selling!

Friday, November 27, 2009

A guest post by a fellow eBay seller with lots of knowledge on collectibles and antiques. Enjoy!

Recently Suzanne asked if I would like to be a guest on her blog. Having seen her insightful comments on Twitter, I considered myself honored with the invitation. First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Norb Novocin, known as KnowsEbay on Twitter and by estateauctionsinc on eBay. With my wife, Marie, we have made our full time living on eBay for the last 12 years. We are considered million dollar Gold Power Sellers, with over 34,000 sales and still 100% positive feedback. We recently finished our first book, “Getting Sold on eBay -- A Treasure Hunter’s Guide To Making Money”, due out in February. Thus, we do think we have a smidge of knowledge about the subject Suzanne asked us to address, “What to Sell on eBay”.

Through the years we have tried many things, before we fell back into the HUGE niche we have found ourselves in, plenty of room for you to jump into it. What we specialize in is antiques, collectibles, the unusual, quirky and just plain different. We acquire our items from a number of sources, auctions, flea markets, yard sales, thrift stores, antique shops, consignments and have even been known to end up with some items from dumpster diving. We try to not spend more than 2 days a week acquiring items, as we need the additional time to get them up on eBay.

We look for items that are genuinely old or unusual and have trained our eyes to spot those. Before we trained our eyes, we found comprehensive books, like Kovel’s Antique and Collectibles Annual Price Guide to be valuable in educating ourselves as to what things are and their value. (We also use eBay’s completed auctions search engine to help value items.)



We tend to look for items that are not inundated on eBay, so once you have acquired it and listed it on eBay, you don’t have to fight a crowd in getting your item seen. When you do find that special item at one of the buying sources we mentioned above, try and follow this simple rule of thumb. Acquire the item at 25% or below the Kovel’s price, or 50% or below the average price on the completed items on eBay. (Don’t work off the top price on the eBay site, its easy to get burned at that way. Instead try and figure out a good average price of what like items have brought.)

You will notice we have been very vague on what items to go after specifically. That is because you don’t really know what you are going to discover when you go seeking items. Through the years we have found anything and everything and in turn have listed it. Returning customers love the eclectic and the surprise of never knowing what they will find. Some of our fun highlights, A Fully Mounted Buffalo Head, (It went to Germany.), The Keys To The End Of The World, (Russian ICBM Nuclear Bomb Launch Keys – you know the pair that the guys have to insert and turn at the same time to launch the missiles.)The United States Cold War Museum bought these. A Broken Bat Nailed together, ended up being a used game bat, used by Stan Musial. Found it at a Dr.’s estate sale for five bucks, it sold for $3,750 on eBay.

As you can see, we have been all over the map, just finding the genuinely old, the unique, the quirky and profiting from it. You can do it too. Just set your heart and mind to learning to recognize the unusual and get out there and start. Good Luck!!

Thursday, November 26, 2009



eBay selling is a challenge all year. Here are a few ways to boost your holiday sales.



Use Buy It Now on all auctions from now until Christmas. Decide on what you will accept for a BIN price.People procrastinate. Offering BIN will result in more sales. (Just do your research and make sure you have your BIN price set high enough.)



Add Best Offer to all store inventory items. You don't have to accept the offers, but you will give your customer more options, appear to be a more flexible seller, and be able to capitalize on more opportunities to sell your items.



Know the shipping date deadlines. Visit the USPS website to see a chart with all of the shipping deadlines for the various services.



Stay focused on operating your business. Complete your income producing activities first before getting caught up in holiday activities like baking, shopping, wrapping, and decorating. You still have a business to run.



Stay caught up with your shipping. It is very tempting to want to list more and more items when sales are hot. You don't want forget the customers who have already paid you and are waiting for their product. The USPS is slow enough over the holiday season - don't risk a neutral or negative because you aren't keeping up with your shipping.



Set your limits. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed. Remember you are going to have to pack and ship everything in addition to listing, running your business, and preparing for your own family's holiday. Holidays are supposed to be enjoyable so avoid adding more stress.



Happy holiday selling!



Tuesday, November 24, 2009



eBay's default method in which search results are returned is called Best Match. The search results appear rather random - not in any particular order. However, the algorithm that eBay uses to create this order is somewhat of a puzzle. Instead of sorting results by ending time, price, distance from buyer, or another more obvious method, eBay uses its own "secret" algorithm to determine the order that buyers see search results presented. The challenge as a seller is to figure out how to get to the top the search results, Best Match. Some things we know:

Free shipping place you higher

Auctions appear before store inventory items

Item specifics - the more of these you fill out (those little boxes you check regarding style, size, brand name, etc) the higher your listing will place

Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs -those little yellow stars) - the higher your DSRs, the higher you place in Best Match

There are many more factors. Douglas Feiring has updated his eBook, Best Match Made Simple. The recent update came out on November 17, 2009. Click here to download the FREE 131 page eBook for more information about how to place higher in Best Match, and increase your visibility and your sales.

Also, click here for a 10 minute radio interview on eBay Radio with Griff and Lee regarding 5 ways to place higher in Best Match.

Have a great day on eBay!

Friday, November 20, 2009



I joined Griff and Lee Mirabal on eBay Radio this week and discussed "5 Ways to Increase eBay Profits." This segment is about 10 minutes long. These are easy things you can actually do on a daily basis. Increasing profits is not always about finding inventory at the lowest price - there are many other strategies for cutting costs to increase profit. Click here to hear the audio segment.

Happy Selling!

Thursday, November 19, 2009



Are you getting active on Twitter? Make this a daily activity. (15 minutes or so a couple of times a day. Don't get sucked in for hours.) When using social media for business, they key is to do a little bit every day. Keep following people. Some will follow you back. This segment will focus on how to "tweet" correctly.

One of the biggest things to keep in mind about Twitter is that it's a conversation. The fun is talking to one another. Reply often and be a real person with VALUABLE information to share. Everyone knows something they can share. Be nice, be professional, be sympathetic, be funny, and just be REAL. You don't have to just talk about your eBay store, I mean, you have other interests, right?

Don’t post updates from your eBay store, or otherwise, non-stop. Maybe a few a day, scattered here and there. I try to post mine at least an hour apart. Twitter users will stop following you if you update too often. Don’t be annoying. You can use TweetDeck to automate tweets at future times.

You want to entice your followers to click in your links and check them out. But make sure that your links are to quality information or something they can really benefit from, or people will stop following you.

Talk TO people, not at them. Interact with people by giving them an @ when you see something interesting on your feed. Maybe you will see a question you can answer. Maybe you will see a local news story that you can comment on. Or something makes you laugh. Give the user an @ reply and talk to them.

Click here to see the rest of the posts in the Twitter for eBay series.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

You might remember my post a few weeks ago about "Local Sources for Inventory, I Really Use Them!" Now I am going to show you another cool way to make money flipping auctions. You can do this from home, in your pajamas, 24 hours a day, without ever leaving your chair.

The purpose of this exercise is to find good, expensive items that will sell well, that are very badly presented by people who don't know what they are doing. Find it, buy it, present it better, resell it.

1) Think of an item you have sold that brought you a good profit, or maybe one that you read about here on my blog. Let's use cycling jersey as an example. (That is on my "things to look for list.")

2) So I put "cycling jersey" in the search box on eBay and got thousands of results. Now, sort them by "ending soonest." We don't care what is going to happen 5 days from now, look for items ending in the next few hours.

3) I found this listing, with many fatal errors. Click on the photo to enlarge it an look at these issues:



a) no brand name in title
b) the keyword "cycling" not used in title
c) no measurements of garment given on listing
d) background of photo is distracting and unattractive (ok, it is really awful)
e) no returns accepted (affects your sales!)
f) shipping time is 7 business days (I can do better!)

According to my Hammertap research, I can sell this same item for around $20. I can buy this item for $8.99, retake the picture, rewrite the listing, and make a profit of about $10 for about 15 minutes of work. $10 for 15 minutes of work equals a pay rate of $40 an hour. That is called working smart instead of working hard. $40 an hour working from home, in my pajamas if I want. I use a free auction sniper program to set up my bids and walk away. (There is a reason not to bid until the last seconds, which is what a sniper program does.) This takes me about a hour a week and I make several hundred dollars a month with this technique.

I do this weekly and many times make 3-4 times what I paid for a item, just because I present it better, do the research, use more powerful and popular keywords, ship faster, and have more accommodating customer service policies.

This strategy is also called eBay Arbitrage. I found a great eBook that explains exactly how to do this. Some people do this full time and it is their only source of eBay inventory. Click here to check out the eBook and add this technique to your eBay bag of tricks.

Happy Selling!


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Are you into estate sales? Or maybe you want to learn about estate sales, but have no idea where to start? Some people just love the thrill of the hunt and looking and all that old stuff. It can be fun.

AuctionZip is a cool website that provides information on local estate sales and live auctions. Just enter your zip code, and you will get a calendar like this:

Then, click on the links on the calendar to find out where and when the auctions take place. It will look like this:

Then, click on the auction you are interested, and you get all the details, including an inventory of what will be there. It looks like this:

Now for the best part. Click on VIEW PHOTO GALLERY (if offered), and you can preview what is going to be up for sale. It looks like this:


So, for example, I see they have a lot of vintage books. I am not a book expert. I also see that they have some vintage gas station maps. I know about those - they can go for between $50 and $100 on eBay depending on the year and where they came from. This is where you will spend some time researching the items before you go to the estate sale to figure out what you should spend and how much you can sell the items for. I call this eBay recon (reconnaissance).Exploring in order to gain information. And you can do this from home. So check out AuctionZip.com to see what is happening in your area. You might find some real gems hiding out there.

Happy Selling!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Tammy sent in this success story:

"Hi Suzanne, I wanted to give you an update on the Camel hair coat I e-mailed you about earlier this month. I paid $7.99 for it at the Goodwill thrift store, it was in mint condition and sold it on eBay for $244.00!! Here is the link if you'd like to share it on your blog. (By the way... I would have never known camel hair was something to look for if it wasn't for listening to your podcasts! Your information has helped me greatly.)"



Men's Camel Hair Coat


Wow, outstanding sale!! Yes, camel hair is a great find and sells very well on eBay. For those new to my blog, click here to check out my podcasts, especially the episodes regarding selling thrift store finds and used clothing. There is a huge demand for gently used items on eBay.

If you have a seller success story you would like to share, send it in to me at ebaycoach@yahoo.com.

Happy Selling!





Learn more about selling used thrift store items on eBay - check out my colleague Brigitte's book - Thrift Store Goldmines

Sunday, November 15, 2009



The movie New Moon opens on Friday so this fun giveaway is just in time! The winner will receive the New Moon book and one tube of DuWop Lip Venom V. Lip Venom V is a shimmering crimson lip stain suspended in a venom-laced liquid lip conditioner with a super potent bite (watch out!), and contains argan, avocado, olive oils and vitamin E. Retail value of this giveaway is $27. Great gift for your favorite vampire or Twilight fan.

To enter, just leave a comment below. For extra entries, help me promote this giveaway by doing any of the following:

(Please remember to put an email address in your comment, or make sure it links to a place where I can easily find your email! I need a way to contact you if you win.)

Post on your blog
Post on Twitter
Post on Facebook
Post on a forum or group (Facebook, Yahoo Groups, etc)
Stumble this post
Digg this post

Be sure to leave a comment for each extra that you do, and your email address so I can contact you if you win! Good luck!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Crystal sent in her success story:

"Raggedy Ann and Andy Crib set. This I just took a chance on, but bought this 11 piece set for $14.99 and sold it for $50.00 just a few hours after I listed it."




Raggedy Ann and Andy 11 Piece Bedding Set


Crystal's cost = $14.99
eBay sale price = $49.99
Profit before fees = $35

Great sale, Crystal.

This post is in honor of my childhood friend, Tom, whose birthday is Thursday, 11/12. Tom claims that I threw his beloved Raggedy Andy in the creek when we were kids. I have no memory of this. I guess I was mean back then. Happy birthday, Tom!





Learn more about selling vintage items on eBay - check out my colleague Brigitte's book - Thrift Store Goldmines
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