Chrisha Playful Plush- eBay Seller Success Story

Angie sent in her success story:

"I have a success story if you'd like. I bought a Walmart plush at a thrift store for $.50 at sold it for almost $30 BIN." Here is Angie's listing:



Angie's price: .50
Selling price: $29.97
Profit before fees: $29.47

Fantastic! Some of those stuffed animals do really well. You can check out Angie's blog at Wylie Mom. She has a great blog about saving money with grocery coupons, sales, and other deals.

Click here for my free list of other thrift store items you can sell on eBay. Want to know about more thrift store finds to sell on eBay? Check out Thrift Store Goldmines, which contains 61 pages of items just like this. You may already have some of these huge money makers in your house, and not even know they are valuable!

Read More

iPhone Terapeak App for eBay Research on the Go

Thanks to John S. for sending in this tip:

"I don't know if you have an iphone or not but if you do or know someone with one, Terapeak has an app for it. They just released it and of course I had to get it. It is free but you do have to have an active Terapeak account. The app is awesome! Very fast even using the edge network. Has all the info you need to make snap decisions out on the hunt. It will search 7,30 or 45 days and give avg price, listings and sell thru % along with listings in descending sold price."

And according to ResearchAdanced.com, on their December 8th post, "Terapeak Marketplace Research, Powered by AERS, today announced the launch of an iPhone application that allows users to conduct eBay market research on the go. Available free as part of all North American Terapeak subscriptions, the application will see users simply key their search term(s) into one screen, and with one click access item-specific data based on 45 days of closed eBay listings."

How cool is this? I remember the days of yesteryear (like 4 years ago), when you had to guess, go with your gut, or just take a risk buying something to resell. Now you can determine on the spot in the store or at the estate sale if the item is going to be a profitable item on eBay. If you have an iPhone, you should definitely take advantage of this! What a huge time saver. Click here to sign up for Terapeak.

Read More

Flipping Listings - Keywords to Search #2

Flipping listings is a great way to make a nice profit with very little work and a small time investment. The most common stumbling block to this process is thinking of words to plug into the misspelling tool. Let me help you out! I have been selling on eBay since 2003 and have sold over 20,000 items, so I can make some great suggestions.

Every week I will be posting 5 brand names, words, or phrases that you can plug into a misspelling tool. You can just copy the list and keep these ideas in a spreadsheet or WORD document.

This week's keywords:

Citizens of Humanity

Estee Lauder

Dansko

Pfaltzgraff

Brighton

If you aren't familiar with these brands or items, take a moment to research them on Google so you will know what you are looking for. To learn how I flip eBay listings, click here for a free 5 minute tutorial.

Happy Selling!

Read More

Ice Breaker Bodyfit Top - eBay Seller Success Story

Paula in Lake Tahoe sent in this success story:

"This brand ICEBREAKER is a really hot seller right now.i bought this shirt for $2 and sold it two weeks later in a fixed priced listing for $39.95. I think anything made of Merino Wool does really well in general."

Here is her listing:


Paula's cost: $2
Sale price: $39.95
Profit before fees: $37.95

Great sale! I have not heard of Ice Breaker Bodyfit - I am guessing this is like Under Armour. Keep your eyes open for this one! For more items like this, check out my free huge list of thrift store items to sell on eBay. And send in your success stories!

Read More

eBay Cross Promotions Box

Are you aware of this setting and its effects on your sales?



You may want to remove the cross-advertising at the bottom of your listings as this area shows links to similar products by other sellers. You can lose the buyer here if they see something the competition is offering that they like better. The cross promotions box has advantages and disadvantages.

If you allow the cross promo box on your listings, buyers may click on it and leave your listing. But your listings will will show up on other sellers’ pages in their cross promo box.

If you don’t allow the cross promo box, traffic won’t leave your page, but your listings won’t show up on other sellers’ pages. So you have to decide if the possible traffic you may receive from other sellers is worth losing potential buyers to them.

This post is brought to you by Garage Sale Tracker - a cool new website that allows sellers to advertise their garage sales, and buyers to find sales in their area.

Read More

Strategy for Marketing eBay Items on Twitter

You have probably seen the share bookmarklet on your eBay items where you can automatically feed the links into Twitter. I don't find that strategy effective. Here is what I do:



Choose a product to promote

Search for the keywords on Twitter

Look for posts about the item you are promoting - how your product can help them

Send the person a message with the @ sign and a link to your item

You will need to shorten the eBay link with TinyUrl

Do this a few times a day to target specific buyers for specific products you sell

Be careful not to spam! Use discretion. For more cool tips like this, check out My Silent Team.

Good luck!

Read More

eBay Listing Types - Which Kind is Best?

I received this question from Billie:

"I need to tap into your expertise. I'm a little confused as to where to list items in my store. Fixed or store inventory? Is it true that items listed as store inventory very rarely come up in the ebay search, is it better to spend the extra money and do the fixed price to get more visability? Your answere would be greatly appreciated."

This is a common question among my coaching clients so I will give you my 2 cents worth, which may differ from other opinions out there.

Auction style listings and fixed price listings get more visibility in searches than store inventory listings. The downside is that they cost more on the front end. When you list an item on auction or fixed price, the fee up front is .55 or more, depending on your starting price and upgrades, and you pay that fee whether or not the item sells. When you list an item in store inventory, the up front cost is .03-.05 depending on asking price.

Here is my strategy. I use store inventory as a "holding tank" for unsold auctions. Let's say I find a great item,like True Religion jeans, to "flip" on eBay. (Click here for a video tutorial on how to flip listings.) I will start off running an auction. If the item doesn't sell on auction, I will move it to store inventory at a fixed price with Best Offer. At least the item is out there and has some visibility until I decide to put it on auction or fixed price again. You can move items around like this through your selling manager very easily.

Some items go directly into my store inventory. Let's say I find 20 of something at Big Lots. I will put one on auction, and the rest as a quantity in store inventory. Within the auction I will say, "Don't want to wait for this auction to end? Buy it now from my store inventory." So you can use your auctions to advertise other things in store inventory.

Running all auctions and fixed price listings gets expensive, especially if your items don't sell. Granted, the final value fee for store inventory items is higher (12% vs 8% for auctions), but you don't lose money on the listing fees.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each listing type. It is a gray area with a lot of variables. You will need to experiment and see what works best for you and find your own comfort zone.

Happy Selling!



Find sloppy listings and resell the items for way more than you paid for them! Click here to see my personal examples.

Read More