Auction Autopilot Blog

When you first began your eBay business, I’m guessing you used the basic eBay listing form to sell your first item.   However, if you are like me, as sales increased, you soon found that you needed a more powerful auction management system.  At that point, you probably subscribed to Turbo Lister, which is fine if you are only handling small volumes of merchandise.   However, if your business grows to the point that you are shipping several items a day from sales made on multiple websites, you need to consider a full featured auction management system.

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Whether you are an eBay newbie or a seasoned Power Seller, these two simple tips can keep you ahead of 90% of your online auction competition.  If you aren’t doing these two things, you can bet you aren’t making the kind money on eBay that you can.

Use Your Keywords in Your Auction Titles

This may seem obvious, but I am amazed when I see people who don’t do it.  More than 70% of eBay buyers use the eBay search feature to find the items they are looking for.  The basic search feature on eBay’s home page or listing page searchese all the auction titles for the keywords you enter.  If you haven’t used keywords that would normally be used by a buyer in your title, you could miss more than 70% of the potential buyers who are looking for your product.

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Have you ever wondered if your eBay selling expenses are too high?  Are there ways to reduce them?  Are you doing the things you need to ensure you are not paying more than you should, for your online auctions?

In the current economic slow (melt) down (the housing market falling through the floor, banks failing, companies closings, unemployment rates rising, etc.), it is more important than ever to get a handle on your expenses.   As a small business owner/entrepreneur, one of your jobs… in fact, one of the necessities of remaining in business… is keeping a close eye on your operating costs.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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