Auction Autopilot Blog

Skip McGrath made a post on his blog recently, recommending a couple of free eBay and PayPal fee calculators.  I thought I would pass them along to you and make one more recommendation.

Sometimes figuring out how much your eBay and PayPal auction fees will cost can be a little confusing.  Knowing the fees in advance is important, since it can help you decide the best (i.e. most profitable) price and format to list an item on eBay.

There are a number of free online auction fee calculators available, but many are out of date and don’t give you all the information you need.  One of the best ones available is the New Life Auctions free eBay and PayPal fee calculator.  The New Life Auctions tool will not only calculate your fees, but it will also show you how much profit you can expect to make on an item.  This handy fee calculator Includes the following features.

• Listing Format
• Auction Type
• Listing Upgrades
• eBay Picture Services
• PayPal
• Power Seller Discount

Michael Repzynski’s free eBay / PayPal Fee Calculator is another good tool.    It is a little faster than the New Life Auctions tool, but not quite as robust in its features.  However, it is still an excellent choice, if you are looking for something simple.

Doug Boudreau’s free eBay Fee Calculator is another good option.  There is also a free PayPal Fee Calculator you can use to calculate your PayPal fees.  When you check out Doug’s site, you will see that he also offers similar tools for Half.com and Amazon.com.

All of these tools have been updated to include eBay’s 2008 fee schedule.  No matter which tool you decide is best for your own needs, they can all help you get more control over your eBay and PayPal fees, ensuring you maximize your profitability.

Exclusive Special Offer! Learn the secret power seller techniques that get bids like crazy and explode your profits, in this FREE eBay Insider Report.

eBay Desktop is a free software application from eBay that you can install on your own computer. It allows you to do virtually everything you can do on the eBay website and a lot more. eBay Desktop is a great alternative to the eBay website. The application uses Adobe AIR, so it will run on both Windows (XP and Vista) and Mac OS X.

Some of the best features of this snazzy desktop application include, title and description search, browsing, watching and bidding. The software even includes search feeds, item reminders and persistent filters. It automatically syncs with the eBay website in real time, so there is no need to refresh to get updated information. Your recent item cache (listings) and outbid alerts, along with other critical data, are all updated automatically.

eBay Desktop was launched in beta about a year ago. Since that time, the application has been downloaded more than 1,000,000 times and has attracted a host of raving fans.  In the following video, Alan Lewis, eBay Desktop’s project manager, explains some of the benefits of the software.

eBay Desktop does a lot more than simply recreate eBay on your computer. It makes the whole eBay experience much more interactive, efficient and engaging. The following video will give a better idea of the power of eBay Desktop.  The latest version of the software (1.0.6, as of this writing), includes a new interface, so there isn’t a direct correlation between the video and the software you install.  However, the video will give you a good idea of the power of the application and spark some ideas about how it can help you make more money on eBay.

For help with the software, you can go to the eBay Desktop Discussion Board, which is essentially a forum that allows you to learn about the application from other eBay community members. You can search the forum for answers to your questions, which may already have been posted.  Or, you can post a question.  The forum is very active, so you should be able to get quick feedback from other eBay buyers and sellers.

eBay used Adobe’s AIR technology to allow eBay Desktop to do all the cool things it does, in real time. You will need to have AIR installed on your computer, before you can run eBay Desktop. However, the eBay Desktop installer will download both the AIR environment and the application itself, making the setup a piece of cake. Check out eBay Desktop and see what it can do for you.

Today, I would like to tell you about one of the best sources I have found for finding top quality, low priced products you can sell on your eBay auctions for tremendous profits.  Finding eBay hot items at low prices is one of the keys to creating a lucrative business on eBay.  You have several choices, when it comes to acquiring eBay products at rock bottom prices.

• Drop Shippers
• Wholesalers
• Liquidators

In order to acquire your eBay products with the least expense, you must cut out all the middlemen and work directly with the manufacturer or the manufacture’s distributor.  You will need to contact several wholesale sources, in order to identify the company that can supply you with your eBay hot items at the lowest prices.

Contacting product wholesalers will take some legwork.  However, finding the right source for a hot selling product is well worth the effort.  Once you’ve discovered a reliable source, it’s like owning a gold mine.  You can take as much gold out of the mine as you want, whenever you want.

I have scoured the Internet to identify the most reputable sources for wholesale products.  This is important because most so-called wholesale product sources are really middlemen disguised as wholesalers.  They buy from the real wholesalers, mark the products up and resell them to unsuspecting buyers.  Don’t cheat yourself out of more profit by dealing with these “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

It goes without saying that the cheaper you can buy your products, the more profit you can make.  The ideal situation is to acquire your products for 25¢ on the dollar and then mark them up 100%.  This is called keystoning.  If you follow this formula, you can still sell your products at a 50% discount below regular retail prices.  What kind of income do you think you could generate if you made a 100% profit every time you gave one of your customers a 50% discount?  Obviously, the sky is the limit!

If this seems like an unlikely possibility, think again.  Savvy Ebay Power Sellers do this all the time, and you can too… if you know where to find the best deals.  One of the best sources of wholesalers, liquidators and drop shippers on the Internet is a service called Worldwide Brands.  The wholesalers in this directory represent more than 500,000 products and 1,000 brand names, so you will have plenty of great product choices, for your eBay auctions.  I highly recommend them!

New eBay sellers often neglect to put enough effort into creating exciting and informative eBay listings.  They think all they need to do is throw up any old auction and visitors will not only come, but bid.  This is just not the case.  The look and feel of your eBay auctions has nearly as much to do with the amount of bids you get, as the item itself.

Even though most eBay sellers begin as eBay buyers, many forget what it is that attracts them to one auction more than another.  Just think about the last item you bought something on eBay.  Were you able to choose between several of the same item?  If so, think about what it was that persuaded you to bid on a particular auction.  Here are some of the most important elements that influence most eBay bidders.

• Title - This should be a mini description of the item up for auction.  It should include as much pertinent information as possible.
• Description - Make sure you provide as much detail as you can.  The more information you can provide, the better your auction will perform… brand name, model, size, color, condition, year, etc.  Make sure your visitors have all the information they need to make an immediate decision.
• Photos - The more photos you can provide the better your auction will perform.  eBay bidders want details and nothing a story better than pictures.  Even a darker, off center, somewhat out of focus photo is better than no photo at all.
• Guarantee - Can you provide some sort of guarantee to the winning bidder?  If so, do it.  You will definitely get more people bidding, which will likely result in a significantly higher price.  And, as long as you have been completely truthful in your description, the likelihood that someone will return the item is very low.
• HTML - This will allow you to perform basic text formatting, like bolding titles, separating paragraphs and inserting blank lines.  Even if you only use a little bit of HTML, it can make a big difference in the look and feel of your auctions.  There are a number of basic HTML tutorials online, which you can find by doing a search.

The bottom line is that the appearance of your eBay auctions and the text you include can have a big impact on the amount of money you will make.  Remember, your eBay auctions will often be competing against several other online auctions, selling nearly the exact same item.  Spending a little extra time to make sure you include all of the elements above, will pay big dividends.

Eventually you will find yourself with a problem that will need an answer or some expert guidance about buying and selling on eBay.  Before you contact eBay directly, you may want to consider checking out the eBay Answer Center first.

The eBay Answer Center is a member-to-member forum, where eBay members can ask questions, give answers, and share information about eBay.  The Center is arranged by topic and designed for fast questions and answers, rather than discussions.  Some of the topics include Bidding, Checkout, eBay Stores, Feedback, My eBay, PayPal, Technical issues, Turbo Lister and many more.

Any registered eBay user can use the eBay Answer Center, so this is a great place to tap into the experience of some of the top eBay Power Sellers.  Each question can be answered several times, by multiple users, so you can get a lot of different perspectives.  eBay staff members also monitor and answer questions, so you know you are getting the correct information.

One of the great features of the eBay Answer Center is that you can add questions to a “watch list.”  This will allow you to see the answers to your questions on a continuous basis.  The eBay Answer Center is also searchable, so you may be able to find the answer to your question, even before asking it.

So, next time you have a question about how to sell on eBay, or any other question that requires an immediate answer, check out the eBay Answer Center.   It is a great source of free eBay secrets you won’t find on eBay’s help section or by contacting eBay directly.

Today, I am going to tell you about a technique you can use to accomplish three objectives, which are critical to “squeezing” the most money possible out of your online auctions.  I am going to show you a simple strategy you can use to:

1. Figure out the highest price your item is likely to get
2. Double the number of hits your auction receives
3. Instantly get “warm” buyers to view your auctions

Let me give you an example of how I use what I call the “Instant Page Views” strategy to accomplish these objectives.  Once you see how I do it, you will easily be able to incorporate this simple strategy into your own online auctions and make more money on eBay.

Recently, I ran an auction for a “Deni Scoop-Factory Soft Serve Automatic Ice Cream Maker + FREE Extra Speedee-Freeze Canister.”

This was a great little homemade ice cream maker.  You can check out the online auction by clicking on the link below or copying it into  your browser.

http://www.auctionautopilot.com/ebay-auctions/0303-deni-scoop.htm

I “relisted” this item because I put it up for auction once before, without selling it.  The first time I ran the online auction, I started it out with an opening bid of $0.99.  I like to start my auctions with a low opening bid to get the maximum number of people looking at them, as soon as the listings go live.  This particular online auction got a lot of attention.  By the time it was over, my counter indicated I had received 143 hits… pretty good visibility!

Before I listed the item the first time, I did some research to find out what a soft serve ice cream maker might go for.  This helped me decide to place a reserve price of $49.99 on the auction.  Whether you use a reserve, or not, you should always use a research tool to help you determine how to price your items.  HammerTap is one of the best tools available for market research.

The online auction ended with a high bid of $42.00, so my reserve price wasn’t met and I did not sell the item.  This didn’t make me particularly unhappy, since one of my goals is always to get as many hits as possible, even if I don’t sell an item the first time around.  The more hits I get, the more people are likely to see my “About Me” page, which will lead them to my website.  I’ll talk more about making money from a website in a future post.

PREVIEW:  You don’t even need to have your own website to make a ton of money with this strategy…. more later.

Since the auction didn’t end in a sale, I have relisted the item.  Now, here’s the tricky part.  Remember, I mentioned the last time I listed this item, it received 143 hits.  Well, of all the people that looked at the auction, 4 people bid on it a total of 23 times… must have been a mini bidding war going on!  Do you think any of these people might want a second chance at this item?  Of course they would.  So, being the conscientious eBayer that I am, I decided to tell each of the previous four bidders the item was available again.  Here’s the exact message I sent them:

————————– Message Start ————————

Hi,

A couple of weeks ago, you placed a bid on one of the items I was selling on Ebay.  The title was “DENI SCOOP FACTORY SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM MAKER.”  The item never sold because the reserve price was not met.  I decided to relist the item, without a reserve this time.  I thought you might be interested in bidding again, since the opening bid is more than $50.00 less than the retail price. You can check it out, along with my other auctions by clicking on the following link, or copying the link and pasting it into your browser.

http://www.auctionautopilot.com/ebay-auctions/0303-deni-scoop.htm

Please let me know if you have any questions.  Good luck bidding.

All the best,

Scott Memmott

http://www.AuctionAutopilot.com

————————– Message End ————————–

Can you see the method to my madness?  First, by listing the auction with a reserve, I ensured that the item would not sell for less than I initially thought was a fair price.  Second, since my “fair price” was higher than the market would bear, I relisted the item, with an opening bid ($39.00) close to the high bid of the previous auction ($42.00).  Third, I contacted the previous bidders to let them know the item was up for auction again, ensuring “warm” buyers would help kick off the auction with a bang.  The more interest you can generate for your online auctions right off the bat, the more success you will have.

To summarize the “Instant Page Views” strategy:

Step 1 - Do your research using a tool like HammerTap.

Step 2 - Use a low opening bid with a reserve price you deem appropriate, based on your research.

Step 3 - If your item doesn’t sell, relist it.

Step 4 - Contact everyone that placed a bid on the previous online auction for the item.

Step 4 is really the heart of the strategy.  If you do this one extra step, you will place yourself ahead of 99% of all the other eBay sellers.  It only takes a couple of minutes to send a quick “courtesy email” to your previous bidders, but it can pay big dividends.  You will instantly have “warm” buyers looking at your online auctions and they will already be primed to pay a high price.  Give it a try for yourself.

I ran across a post on Phil Dunn’s eBay Marketing Blog that got me thinking again about the importance of having reliable sources for products that will allow you to turn a nice profit on your eBay auctions.  It is not easy to find a steady supply of top notch products you can aquire at low cost, but sell for a decent profit.  Phil recommends a service called SaleHoo and I heartily endorse his recommendation.

SaleHoo allows you to get unlimited access to more than 5,000 wholesale product suppliers that are pre-screened, peer-reviewed and willing to work with home-based eBay sellers.  More than 50,000 people already use this amazing wholesale product supplier resource, so you know it has to be good.  And, I’m not just talking about eBay sellers.  Retail stores also use SaleHoo to find the best wholesale sources for products that sell like hot cakes.

Check out some of the amazing testimonials of regular people who are making consistent and sometimes very serous money, using SaleHoo.  These people come from all over the world, which goes to show again that it doesn’t matter where you live.  The internet is the great equalizer, when it comes to making money on eBay.  Check out the story of 17 year old Tom Ainge-Roy, from New Zealand, who consistently turns a profit of up to 400% on every item he sells.  And, there are many more, equally impressive.

When you check out the list of SaleHoo Suppliers, you will see that the database covers an amazing amount of products.  Wholesale suppliers include:

• Dropshippers
• Wholesalers
• Liquidators
• Manufacturers

SaleHoo also offers a number of excellent learning and training resources.  Their advice is easy to follow and jargon-free.  Some of the areas covered include:

• Finding & Sourcing
• Importing & Shipping
• Scam Prevention
• Business Setup
• eBay Selling
• Top Tools 

If you are unsure if SaleHoo is for you, I recommend you take the short video tour.  It will walk you through the main features and show you exactly how it can help you grow your eBay business.