With 49 video lessons, each with an accompanying article great effort has gone into creating SkyHigh Auctions. The AuctionCUT competition is open until 6th March, midday GMT & you just need to register and give your answer in this thread to have a chance of winning.

Only lasting for ten minutes or so, there are no excuses for not listening. It’s main question is whether to start your auctions at a high or low starting price – With the advantages of both explained, you can download it at The Times Online.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong answer and the answers vary enormously, here are what some of our experts say.

Robert Frechette: eBay is one of the biggest opportunities right now. If you want to start a business, you can start today. I’m not in any way affiliated with eBay, so I don’t have a bias reason to say that. Once you start selling, you’ll have more ideas than you will time to implement. But, those ideas won’t come until you get started.

Brian McGregor:

• Always invite email communication before a sale is made. Be very polite and professional – this is your opportunity to influence a potential buyer.

• Use multiple item sales, not single items.

• Consider opening an eBay store, particularly if you’re selling information products.

• Keep promoting your eBay auctions or eBay store, for example always include either in your email signature.

• Be professional and try not to let emotions overtake you. For example, it rarely pays to leave negative feedback first – no matter how awkward the customer. If you do give a negative, bear in mind that you will probably attract a negative. You can circumvent unhappy buyers via your “thanks for buying/delivery instructions email”. Always request your buyer to contact you if they are not completely satisfied with their purchase, before they leave feedback.

Jason James: Remember to do your research! Looking at what sold in the past, is so powerful. Be able to leverage that data to optimize your eBay auctions is so powerful. So do your research!

Bob Hamilton: It all starts with moving forward. There are many, many people who want to try selling on eBay. Every single successful seller made the decision to step up and actually start learning and making sales.

Once you have started stick with it. Always keep an eye out for new trends and great buys on merchandise. We have found the grandkids/nieces/nephews are a great source of information regarding what is up and coming.

Locating and purchasing the right products for resale on eBay is critical. Invest the time to find the right products at the right price. They are out there – it just takes time and effort to locate them.

Avril Harper: Just do it! If you regard eBay as a numbers game and accept that some things you do will be profitable and others will lose you money you will never go far wrong. The only important thing to do is to expand on the things that do work and learn from whatever you do that doesn’t work. Keep on listing the profitable products, remove those that don’t work. Then keep on doing that and you really can’t fail.

Lee McIntyre: The biggest piece of advice I can give is to use eBay as a marketing tool. If you develop an effective marketing funnel, and then use eBay to drive traffic into that funnel, you’re going to dramatically increase your profits.

I’d also advise people to automate everything they possibly can. I’m one of the only people in my niche to use digital delivery and this gives me an incredible competitive advantage. While the competition are sending products manually via email, I am creating new products to take my business forward.

Skip McGrath: I am a big fan of niche marketing. I think too many sellers want to sell the latest or hottest product. The problem is that the hottest products have lots of competitors that drive the price down and you can’t source them at really good prices unless you buy in very large volumes.

Finding a specialized niche that doesn’t attract the big boys is the way to make higher and more reliable profits. Also people like to buy from sellers who specialize. Lastly when looking for a niche look for something that interests you and that you enjoy. Getting paid to do something you like is far more rewarding than constantly bouncing around selling anything you can make money on.

People are often sitting on a great niche and don’t know it. A gentleman called me one day and said “Skip, I am going crazy. I just don’t know what to sell.” I asked him what his hobbies and interests were. He said he had been involved with Amateur (Ham) Radio for years. I asked if he realized that vintage Ham Radio equipment was a huge seller on eBay. He said he didn’t realize it and that he had tons of old radio stuff in his garage and had lots of friends who did also. He emailed me about a month or so later and said that in just 3 weeks he had sold over $7000 worth of Ham Radio gear and in addition to selling vintage equipment he was now talking to distributors who could supply new gear.

Now, opening the question to you, If you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s new to eBay what would it be?

EDIT: And we’ve moved. Welcome to the new home for my blog.

Knowing When to Buy

If you are looking for a bargain, then you not only need to know where to shop but also when to shop. As is the case with any business, there are peak hours and learning what times you will face the most competition will greatly help in your search for a bargain. If you can determine a time where fewer bidders are shopping, you may stand a better chance of snagging one of the
day’s best deals.

Deciding Who to Buy From

When it comes to shopping, a bargain is only a bargain if it lives up to its name. Specifically, you can get a great deal on an item lacking quality, or you can get a good deal on a great item. Which is better? If your answer is the latter, then you’re already on your way to a successful bargain hunt. If you want to get the best value for your dollar, shop with a seller that you trust.
You can make an informed decision by researching the seller’s feedback, assessing their payment requirements and determining whether or not they are reasonable. If the seller is a business, you can check the company’s complaint record with the Better Business Bureau.

How to Protect Yourself as a Buyer

As a buyer, you are forced to deal with the harsh realities of purchasing something sight unseen. With the online auction process, you are putting your faith in the seller and sending money without, in most cases, ever having seen the product. When you shop at a traditional store, you get to see the product in person before buying, but the internet is an entirely different concept.
In order to protect yourself as a buyer, you should carefully choose your payment method. Many buyers prefer to use PayPal, which offers a dispute resolution process in the event that an item is not as described or not delivered. Some buyers opt for paying via credit card, which offers another level of buyer protection in that most credit card issuers also offer a dispute process that is designed to resolve issues relating to quality, delivery, refunds and other disagreements that may arise during the course of a transaction.

However, a script from Johan Terpstra – a moderator over at the digitalpoints forum has changed all this. This will soon change many forum launches. ICO-Content is a script provided for webmasters using Vbulletin or other forum software which automatically posts to forums, using Yahoo Answers as relevant content.

You can find out more details at: http://www.icomotion.com/ico-content/index.html -

Overall, Highly recommended. Even John Reese recently sent an email to his list about this ground breaking software saying the following:

Recently a guy from the UK created what I think
is one of the most powerful software tools ever
created for Internet Marketing purposes — and
I’m not joking!

He created a GENIUS TOOL that will automatically
populate a discussion forum with QUALITY targeted
content! It will actually automatically create user
accounts and then make posts from them.

It is seriously one of the most BRILLIANT tools
ever made for Internet Marketing.


“In addition, for the period of 7 weeks, you will have personal access to me via a private email address for advice on any of your own auctions. Millions of people place items for sale on eBay, and in reality hope for the best. By applying the principles I give you in the e-class, together with my personal guidance, you will increase the success rates of your
auctions to levels you never thought possible”, Brian tells me.

Brian has ran over 4500 auctions and his monthly newsletter has an audience of well over 10,000 readers so he’s very well positioned to teach others how to use eBay. You can check out more details about Brian McGregors eBay course here.

If so many others offer gift towers, what will make yours stand out above the competition?  It’s simple.  Customization will make your product the best option for shoppers who want to personally choose exactly what’s included in their gift.  A tower gift is simply three or more treat-filled boxes that are stacked atop one another and sealed with a ribbon and bow.  Most specialty catalogs offer these towers with preselected goodies, but you can offer something different to your customers.  Perhaps your shoppers will want to give all milk chocolate treats or maybe they prefer a more personalized variety according to the recipient’s taste.  It’s important to note that individuals have different preferences when it comes to the food that they eat, which is why it is so important to offer customization.

The best way to advertise this type of product is to use the word ‘customized’ or ‘made to order’ in the item title.  Be sure to point out the size of each box and provide a quality photo of how the finished product will arrive.  To avoid having the chocolate melt, it’s a good idea to offer express shipping.  In the item description, provide a list of the available food selections and allow winning bidders to make their choice.  Do not include anything that will spoil, needs to be frozen or refrigerated or may otherwise have problems with shipping.

Does a gift tower have to include food?  Absolutely not.  You can offer a gift tower with toys, beauty items, fashion jewelry or any other small items that you can easily fit into a box and still offer a nice presentation.  By providing more options, your listing will attract new buyers and thereby earn even bigger profits.

When listing a ‘made to order’ item on eBay, it’s important to follow their terms of service in how you present your listing.  If you are providing a customized product, which is the case in this scenario, it’s essential to point this out as opposed to presenting the listing as a ‘choice of’ auction.  Customized products have and will always be a popular gift idea, especially as the holidays draw near, but they are also excellent products to offer throughout the year and for every holiday.

Current eBay policy recommends that sellers provide food in a sealed container, clearly indicate the ingredients and/or expiration date and also advises sellers to check with their home state regarding license requirements for the selling of food items, which may include a food-handlers card and/or other necessary licenses.

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Needless to say, if your ever in need of help online check out Guidos site.

Normally, spoof emails are easy to spot as they always begin Dear Member� or the smarter ones have the text “This email is sent to username”� , with someone elses username. However this one, actually contained my genuine eBay username & refered to a product I’m auctioning right now. Scary Stuff – click on the image to see the email full size.

Is this a new trend we’re seeing, if so it’s quite concerning as I’m sure a lot of eBay members would have fell into this trap. Fortunatly, my host uses Mailscanner which picks up on spoof emails and redirection attempts before they are delivered to me, otherwise my eBay account could have been compromised easily.

As usual with spoof emails, I’ve forwarded it to eBay & am letting http://www.phishfighting.com/ deal with it.