Automating Your Ebay Business

They great thing about doing business on eBay is you can automate 70% of your daily chores after and before sale - and 100% if you selling information products. The things that you can automate are: Leaving feedback - you can setup you eBay business in such a way that everytime someone leaves a postive feedback, your automated system replies with a positive too. A great tip is to clearly state this on you auction. example: Thank you for looking at my auction, if you do decide to purchase, kindly note that I have a system setup that will automaticlly leave you postive feedback if you leave me one. This encourages buyers to leave feedback fast because your automated system will not only benefit them (As their feedback rating will increase), but yours too as they will be motivated to leave you feedback. Recieving feedback - You can also set-up follow up where you can set up a 3 day or 7 day period (You decide) that automaticlly contacts the buyer that hasn not left any feedback for you to take action and leave feedback. Again in this email, you can emphasize that your system will leave them an automatic feedback too. Purchase Thank You Letters - Thank you letters are a great first step when it comes to building a relationship with your customers. After each purchase, you can set up your eBay account to send custom thank you letters. Payment Recieved Letters - You can send an additional letter after payment has been received. This gives the buyer the peace of mind that they will soon be getting their product now. Now to automate all the things above, simply sign up with selling manager pro provided by eBay. You can even automate the auction re-listing process and send second chance offers. Its a great tool to grow your business and automate. I personally recommend it and you can get more information on it here: http://pages.ebay.com/selling_manager_pro/ But if you are selling information products - you are in for a treat Not only can you automate the above but 100% of your eBay business and by that I mean product delivery. All you need is MS Outlook - which is standard with every version of windows now and a PayPal account. So here is how it all works together: You setup MS Outlook with the same email you are using to send and receive payments through PayPal. So now when you press send and receive button on MS Outlook, you should receive payment notifications from PayPal. You setup two mail filters the subject line and message in body and create a reply text. For subject line use, Notification of a Cleared eCheck Instant Purchase Notification of an Instant Payment Received For message in body, User your auction title For reply text, (This goes automatically to your customer once they meet the above criteria) Insert the download link (To your product) so when your customer opens this email, they click the link and their it is - your product just got delivered. Once MS outlook receives an email with the subject line that was defined in the mail filters, it checks it with other filter (Message in body). If it they both match, MS outllooks sends a reply to that email from PayPal (Which directly replys to the customer who sent you payemnt) with the reply text you defined. To set up the proper email account on MS Outlook visit this great tutorial: http://products.secureserver.net/email/email_outlookexpress.htm To set up MS Outlook to automatically reply to your customer: Got to Tools Message Rules Menu Click on New and follow instructions NOW YOU EBAY BUSINESS IS AUTOMATED!

Top 5 seller mistakes to avoid so you can earn potential buyers' trust and make more sales!

What if I told you that a few simple listing mistakes could have you losing potential sales without even knowing it? And that correcting these mistakes could instantly increase your chances of selling your items — and getting positive feedback? As with any large marketplace, not all eBay sellers are above-board. Just search online for "eBay fraud" and you'll find countless eBayers claiming they've lost money on fraudulent auctions. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) puts Internet auctions at number two on its fraud list. (I'll talk about number one in the next article.) With all that scamming going on, eBayers are becoming more diligent about examining auctions carefully and checking up on sellers before buying, so make sure your listings are squeaky clean and you'll convert potential buyers into paying customers! Avoid these five common mistakes — and signs of a suspicious auction — that could be costing you sales: 1. "Email me before placing your bid." Unless a potential buyer has a question about an item you're selling, there's no reason they should have to contact you before placing a bid. Savvy eBay buyers have come to see requests like this as the trademark of unscrupulous sellers trying to take the transaction outside eBay. eBay frowns on this since they lose their cut of the transaction, but also because buyers lose eBay's Standard Purchase Protection once the transaction leaves eBay. Smart shoppers know this means they'll be out of pocket if the transaction goes sour. By asking a buyer to contact you before placing a bid, you run the risk that they'll skip over your auction completely and go on to your competitors'. Even worse, they could report you to eBay! 2. Deals that are just too good to be true You know the saying: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"? A lot of shoppers flock to eBay looking for great discounts on particular products, and great deals are definitely out there! But super-cheap deals can sometimes have the reverse effect. Experienced eBayers will compare prices and shipping costs in the search results for items they're interested in buying. Those same experienced buyers also know that one of the most common eBay fraud complaints from buyers is "Item Not Received." If your prices are TOO low, you may scare off potential customers who wonder if you really have the item at all. To choose the right price point, check what starting price your competitors are listing and consider that some buyers may be suspicious of unusually cheap bargains. 3. Rude responses to negative feedback It's impossible to please everybody all the time, which is why you'll rarely find a high-volume eBay seller with 100% positive feedback. Most eBay buyers realize that a small amount of negative feedback doesn't necessarily mean a seller is untrustworthy — it's just a natural part of doing business. But how you treat an unhappy customer speaks VOLUMES to potential customers! By clicking on your feedback number in your "Meet the Seller" box, they'll be able to see how you've handled these sticky situations. Always respond to negative feedback by asking to be contacted so that you can fix the issue. Even if the buyer doesn't respond, potential customers will see you've made an effort to make things right! 4. Unusual payment requests A surefire way to turn potential buyers off is to make requests in the body of your listing like: Winning bidder please send PayPal payment to "myemail@hotmail.com" at the close of auction. Sending money directly to a PayPal account bypasses eBay's invoicing system. This separates the payment from the item that's being paid for, and makes buying from you more of a risk, since the transaction won't be eligible for PayPal's Buyer Protection. Other payment options that will likely raise a red flag for seasoned eBayers are: * Requests for instant cash transfer through services like Western Union and MoneyGram — these transactions are untraceable and cannot be canceled * Using a non-recommended escrow service — there are countless eBay buyers on the 'Net claiming to have been ripped off by fraudulent escrow services. Stick with eBay-approved Escrow.com. Keep your payment options on the up and up. Not only will your potential customers be more confident in buying from you, you'll BOTH be protected if something goes awry. For more on PayPal's Buyer Protection, go to: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/protections-outside 5. A suspicious buying or selling history Buying a slew of one-cent items has long been a popular method for sellers wanting to build up positive feedback to gain the confidence of potential customers. But having positive feedback isn't enough anymore. Cybercrooks have recently started using automated "bots" to buy up one-cent items on eBay in order to build up a positive feedback rating. Smart buyers now know they need to do a little more homework on sellers — especially before buying big-ticket items. A couple of clicks into your feedback rating and a few minutes of research will quickly reveal your selling history — including items you've sold in the last few months and at what price. (And if you've left feedback for items you've bought, potential buyers can see that too.) Be aware that if you've bought a ton of one-cent items to establish a positive feedback rating, you run the risk of buyers assuming you've used a "bot," which could potentially destroy your credibility. To help build your feedback rating quickly — and legitimately — simply handle all of your transactions responsibly. Leave positive feedback for the people you buy from and sell to — and request that they return the favor. Soon you'll have a positive feedback rating that PROVES your credibility, rather than calling it into question. More and more eBay buyers are probing deeper into seller auction listings and transaction history before forking over their money. It's crucial that you take the time to make sure your listings build buyer confidence... instead of eroding it with poor listing strategies. For more tips on how to build buyer confidence in your listings, go to: http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/selling.html

Add a "Listing Frame" to promote your eBay Store in all your listings!

Speaking of driving traffic to your other listings... If you own an eBay Store, consider adding a new profit-generating weapon to your sales arsenal by turning on the Listing Frame feature so you can promote your Store inventory in all of your current and future listings — automatically! And not only are Listing Frames a great way to drive more potential customers to your eBay Store, you can also use them as a way to put your weekly listings in front of more people — more often! The Listing Frame is a header that's placed at the top of each of your listings just above the item description. The header displays your Store name as well as a link to your Store’s home page. You can even customize the header and add your Store logo and a link potential buyers can click on to quickly add you to their Favorite Sellers list! In your Listing Frame, you can also include a maximum of five links back to your eBay Store. These links can lead to items from your Store inventory, or your About Me page, or any other Store page! For more on the Listing Frames feature, go to: http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/custom-listing-template.html

Use promotional flyers to turn first-time buyers into lifelong loyal customers!

As a business owner, you should always be looking for ways to promote your listings and increase your sales. But once you've actually sold an item, the opportunities to make money don't stop there... One great way to encourage one-time customers to become REPEAT customers is to put promotional flyers in the packages you ship to them. That way, you can drive your customers back to your eBay listings again and again, which can potentially double — or even TRIPLE! — your eBay earnings! Not only are these kinds of flyers a fantastic way to thank your customers for their business and encourage positive feedback, you can also use them to remind your customers to add you to their Favorite Sellers list. And THAT'S pure gold, because once your customers list you as a Favorite Seller, eBay will automatically email them weekly updates of any new items you've got listed. Plus, once your customers list you as a Favorite Seller, you'll get their email addresses, which means you can email them directly to build your relationship with them and send them more promotions whenever you want! Any way you dice it, the more you're able to communicate with your customers, the better the chance they'll buy from you again. The thing is, your customers are one of your most VALUABLE assets! They already know you provide quality products and top-notch service, meaning they'll be FAR more likely to buy from you than from an eBay seller they've never heard of before. After all, they've already come to trust you enough to buy from you. And trust is a HUGE component of the eBay seller-buyer relationship! And provided you've kept track of their buying history, you already know what kinds of items interest them, which means you have a good idea of what they might like to buy in the future! Presenting them with more opportunities to buy from you can potentially increase your sales — while costing you nothing in return. So the more ways you can find to encourage first-time buyers to become loyal, repeat customers, the better In order to make the most of your customers, be sure to send them promotional flyers with the following elements: Thank you! This lets your customer know you appreciate their business and shows them you are committed to meeting their needs, which lends to your credibility. Congratulations on purchasing product XYZ! Many buyers report feeling a rush of excitement when they win an eBay auction, but this excitement can dissipate by the time the item actually arrives in their hands. By congratulating your customer for snagging something of value, you can re-ignite the thrill of the "win" and get them interested in what else you've got to offer. It also helps to reduce buyer remorse, which can cut down on your refund rate if you accept returns. A little about me. Putting a face to your business makes it more personal and can help create a connection with your customers. By including a short biography about you or your business, you can show your customers that there's a real live person behind the listing. If you liked product XYZ, you may also be interested in... This is your chance to plug other items you have for sale — which is especially effective when they're related to the item your customer originally bought. Be sure to include a brief description, the URL to the online listing, and perhaps a small photo of the item. The key is to make your product blurb interesting enough that your customers will want to check it out online. This is also a good opportunity to remind your customers that they can get a weekly update of your items for sale automatically by adding you to their Favorite Sellers list! A discount on your next purchase! Offering a limited-time discount helps to create a sense of urgency to buy, especially if you compete with lots of other eBay sellers who sell the same kinds of items you do. It can really help your business stand out from the rest! On top of that, discounts are also a good way to liquidate slow-moving inventory, so you can replenish your stock with hot items that'll fly off the shelves! Putting flyers in your shipping packages is an easy — and inexpensive — way to follow up with your customer and optimize the final step of the sales process. If you're an eBay Store owner, you can learn more about using eBay's Promotional Flyer service by going to: http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/promotional-flyer-ov.html If you don't have a Store, or if you simply want more control of the look and layout of your flyer, go ahead and create one yourself! Just be sure to customize it with your name, eBay Seller ID, and Store URL, if you have one. It's also a good idea to keep your flyer to a maximum of one double-sided page in length. If it's any longer, you run the risk that it'll look like too much work to read — and chances are it'll go straight into the recycling bin!