New eBay Sellers - ALWAYS Use Delivery Confirmation!

I have been doing quite a bit of Christmas shopping on eBay and my packages are starting to arrive. I am shocked to see how many items I have received that do not have delivery confirmation or any type of tracking on them. Some of these items cost over $75.

I feel compelled to say {SHOUT}, "Always put Delivery Confirmation on your items!" 3 reasons.

1) If the customer inquires about their item, you can send the DC# and they can check the progress.

2) If the customer claims they did not receive the package, you can check the DC# on USPS.com and verify that is was delivered. If the customer files a claim, you will win if you have the DC#.

3)Dishonest eBay buyers have figured out the system. They know that if a seller ships an item without DC, it cannot be tracked. The buyer can file a claim for non-receipt and get their money back through Paypal - even if they really did receive the item. The seller will be out the merchandise and the package. In other words, there are rip-off artists on eBay waiting for you to send out something without tracking, so they can claim they didn't receive it.

eBay sellers, please please protect yourselves. Mail gets lost and there are dishonest people out there who know the system better than you do and they will take advantage of you. Spend a few extra cents per package and use Delivery Confirmation - it will save you time, money, and headaches.

If you do your shipping through Paypal, Delivery Confirmation will be included. If you use another shipping method, you can order DC forms here, or pick them up at your post office.

Related articles:

How to Get Free Shipping Supplies

Shipping Tip for Mailing Gift Cards

How to Charge for Shipping on eBay Auctions


Happy Selling!

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Finding Niche Products to Sell on eBay

Here is a cool technique for finding niche products to sell on eBay or Amazon. Sell accessories or complimentary products that correspond with expensive popular products that are selling like crazy. For example, go to Walmart.com, Target.com, Amazon, and the eBay main page and look at the products they promote on their front page. For example, let's say you go to Target.com and see they are promoting a Garmin GPS tracking system. That tells you that GPS systems are hot. So you piggyback off of this product and look for accessories to sell - mounting systems, cases, chargers, cables, map updates. There will be a market for these products, too.

Then go into your research tool (Terapeak, Hammertap, completed listings, whatever one you use) and research what the accessories sell for. Next, you would go online and try to find a supplier for the product, and determine if you can buy the item at a low enough price to resell it for profit. A supplier could be a wholesaler, a closeout center, outlet store, membership club like Sam's or Costco, etc. This is the hard part - finding the product at a low enough price to resell for a profit.

Keep in mind that niche products will change over time, sometimes only a few months. For example, a few years ago, a VHS tape rewinder or cleaner might have been a hot niche product. But now, it would not be. Same holds true for analog cell phone accessories - nobody needs those now.

Try using this technique and see what you can uncover!

Happy Selling,

Click here for a list of 395 eBay friendly wholesalers along with 5 important facts for choosing profitable wholesale products to sell on eBay.

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How to Sell on Etsy – Part One

Thanks to Lisa for submitting this guest post. If you have considered selling anything homemade, give Etsy a try in addition to selling on eBay.

Etsy is a terrific venue if you sell handcrafted items or craft supplies because Etsy is limited to just those categories. You have the advantage of a very targeted audience!

The down-side – the competition is quite fierce. Exceptional photos, unique, high quality items and creative marketing are your keys to success.

Below you will find the “basics” for getting started on Etsy.

An Esty shop is free. Shop set-up is fairly straightforward and Etsy makes it even easier by walking you through the process.

Once you have set up your shop, you can begin listing items. There are no auctions on Etsy.

The cost to list an item is 20 cents. If you have multiple of the same item, the cost is 20 cents per item, not per listing. Your listing is active for 4 months.

When an item sells, Etsy’s take is 3.5% of the selling price.

Sellers can accept Paypal, checks, money orders and any other forms of payment the seller has access to.

Feedback on Etsy is similar to eBay with the only exception being that sellers can leave negative feedback for buyers.

You can market your listings several ways on Etsy. Some are free and others come at a cost. There is no seller email marketing available on Etsy which makes social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) extremely important marketing tools for Etsy sellers.

Billing on Etsy is monthly. Paying your bill is an easy manual process through Paypal. Etsy does not provide automatic withdrawal for bill payment.

Part One of How to Sell on Etsy should answer most of your basic questions and help you get started (etsy.com). Stay tuned for more details on marketing your Etsy shop and exciting tips and tricks for selling success in Part Two of How to Sell on Etsy.


Click here to visit Lisa's Etsy shop.

If you would like to submit a guest post, follow these guidelines and send it to me at ebaycoach@yahoo.com.

Limit your post to 300 words.
Topic must address selling online, eBay, or other helpful eCommerce tip.
Include a link to your website, blog, eBay store, Etsy store, etc.

Happy Selling!

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Snug Wow - Could This be a Hot eBay Seller?

One of my clients told me about this video. Now I would like to meet the genius who came up with this. I think they have a great product idea!

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How eBay Helped Me Pull $62 Out of Thin Air

You may have heard me talk about selling gift cards on eBay. Here is my most recent sale of Starbucks gift cards, which I obtained FREE by using Swagbucks:



This is the strategy. Sign up at Swagbucks. You earn points for using their search engine. You don't have to use it exclusively, but just use it a few times a day.

Once you have 130 points, you can redeem a $10 Starbucks Gift Card. The Starbucks cards are the only ones on Swagbucks that are NOT e-Cards. In other words, you get an actual gift card in the mail in about a week. Every other gift card on Swagbucks must be redeemed online - such as at Target.com, Amazon.com, etc. And with e-Cards comes shipping fees on the merchandise you are getting free, so your "prize" can actually be eaten up paying for shipping. (I found this out the hard way.) The Starbucks card is is an actual physical card that you can sell on eBay.

I usually wait until I have a few and sell them as a batch. That reduces your listing fees, final value fees, and Paypal fees. And always use delivery confirmation when shipping a gift card, so you can prove that the item was delivered to the buyer.

Click here to sign up at Swagbucks and start earning points for Starbucks cards to keep or sell for cash on eBay!

I am a big believer in multiple streams of income. This one is easy. It cost me zero dollars to accumulate these gift cards, which I then sold on eBay and my profit after fees was $62.00. Not bad for something you can do without ever leaving your chair. So far this year, Swagbucks gift cards have helped me earn over $800 on eBay without doing more than creating a listing for a gift card and mailing it.

Do you like free stuff? Check out these articles on how to get more freebies you can resell on eBay or Amazon.

How to Get Free Gift Cards

How to Get Free Grocery Coupons

How to Get Free Items to Sell on eBay

Happy Selling!

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eBay Seller Success Story - Girls North Face Coat

Thanks to Tara for sending in her success story on a North Face girls coat. Tara writes, "I sell everything and anything on eBay, lots of thrift store items, and this item happened to be one of them. The thrift store across the street from my work has tons of name brand items - and all their kids items (no matter what it is) are only $1! So when I found this girl's North Face jacket, I figured I'd at least make $10 on it. I took it home, OxiCleaned it to get all the stains out (which works WONDERS!) and see for yourself the final bidding price. keep in mind there was still a minor stain or two which I had listed. Honesty never hurts!"

Here is Tara's listing:



Tara's price: $1
Selling price: $51
Profit before fees: $50

Fantastic sale! Some related winter items to look for at thrift stores:

Down Vests

Men's Blazers and Sport Coats

Rothschild Coats

Check out my huge list of thrift store items to sell on eBay.

Want to know about more thrift store finds to sell on eBay? Check out Thrift Store Goldmine, 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!

Happy Selling!

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Free eBay Research Tool - Bay Estimator

The eBay Labs Estimator is a free tool that helps you optimize your keywords in your eBay item titles. The trick with writing titles is writing them in a way that buyers will find them in searches. You have to think like a buyer, not a seller. Titles should be written for the search engines, descriptions are written for humans to read. Here is a great video that demonstrates this tool.



Click here to try eBay Labs Bay Estimator - it is free.

Click here for the written version of how to use Bay Estimator.

Happy Selling!

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