The eBay Affiliate Program

Many people believe that becoming an eBay affiliate is a cumbersome process and that diving into this unfamiliar world is beyond them. Good news. They are wrong! Becoming an eBay affiliate is an easy endeavor – you’ll be making extra money before you know it. In fact, you could make A LOT of extra money. eBay has featured multiple individuals that have made millions of dollars with their affiliate program. It’s actually quite a simple process. You place a link to eBay, or a particular auction or category on eBay, and a potential buyer will click on your link. If they end up buying a product, and many do, you will make a percentage of the overall price of the sale.

The eBay affiliate program can work for anyone. Most affiliates are webmasters, Internet researchers, online sellers and partners. You can promote the site with text links, a vast assortment of banners, eBay articles, placing classified links, etc. You can even download a snippet of code from eBay and place an entire category of auctions on your site. The content will update automatically so you don’t have to worry about spending time learning how to manipulate html code. The top 25 affiliates listed on eBay earn well over 100k per month in monthly commissions and most of them use a well-balanced mix of the above methodologies to achieve that success.

Affiliates can also cross promote other eBay sellers items and get commissions from these sales. However, eBay does not allow you to put these links on certain web pages such as My World, About Me and item pages. It is highly recommended that you take the time to read the affiliate terms and conditions thoroughly before joining and utilizing the program. This might take a little bit of time but it will be worth it in the end.

There are many other affiliate programs out there, but eBay has become one of the most popular, and profitable, opportunities available today. This is partly due to the myriad of opportunities that it offers. If you own a website that deals with fishing there are items that can be sold. If you have a website that deals with dolls with pink hair and red outfits there are items that can be sold. The possibilities are endless with this opportunity because it gives you the ability to reach a niche market. Affiliates can concentrate on a particular subject and sell what they know.

Most of the methodologies that eBay affiliates utilize are easy and automatic. You can offer millions of products and not have to worry about keeping track of inventory or shipping off products. Once the sale is completed, your commission percentage is automatically credited to you and is easily accessible at any time. How easy is that?

As of April 1, 2008, eBay is now administering its own affiliate program. It’s called the eBay Partner Network. They were previously utilizing a service called Commission Junction. eBay feels they can offer even more services to their affiliates by tackling this endeavor on their own.

Attention eBay Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com/.

Ways to List Items on eBay

Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications. Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, Shopping.com, and others. eBay Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California.

eBay offers four main ways to list items:

1. Standard Online Auction Format

The standard auction-style format is flexible and most of the auctions on eBay utilize this methodology. When you use it, you will be given many options, including giving buyers an opportunity to buy at a fixed price (Buy It Now), selling multiple identical items, and setting a hidden minimum-selling price (reserve price). This auction is probably the right format for you, unless you would rather offer your item only at your specified price, you are selling a vehicle, or you are selling real estate and want to advertise the property’s availability without running an auction for it. The auction’s duration can be specified and when the auction-style listing ends, the high bidder or bidders buy the item from the seller for the high bid.

2. Fixed Price Format

In the fixed price format, a seller lists a fixed price that he wants for the product and as soon as he finds a buyer who is willing to pay the price, he sells the product immediately. There is no bidding involved. You are offering one or more items for sale at a Buy It Now price. Many buyers prefer to buy in this fashion and the majority of these consumers prefer to utilize PayPal for payment. If you qualify, you can sell multiple identical items in one listing. You can also add the Best Offer feature to your Fixed Price listing. Best Offer allows buyers to suggest a price they are willing to pay for an item, and can be used with any listing that is not an auction-style listing. Best Offer is valuable if you selected Fixed Price to avoid low bids, but you are also willing to accept a little less money for your item. Potential buyers may submit only one Best Offer for an item, so you may receive offers close to your Fixed Price.

3. eBay Stores

An eBay Store allows individual sellers to showcase all of their items and tell potential buyers more about their business on their own customized pages. Buyers can learn more about sellers, their policies, and the items they sell in order to find great deals and make informed purchases. Many big-name retailers have eBay Stores and this methodology allows a buyer to compete right along side of them in this open marketplace. Based on data from an eBay Stores survey in June of 2005, 75% of eBay Stores sellers surveyed said that opening an eBay Store increased their sales.

4. Classified Advertisements

Many eBayer’s use classified ads to list items, services, or properties for sale in order to generate multiple leads. This format does not enable buyers and sellers to transact online through eBay nor is eBay feedback available. Interested buyers fill out a contact form and their information is sent to you. Please note that eBay’s privacy policy prohibits sharing the buyer’s information with third parties as well as use of the buyer’s information for any purpose other than communicating with the buyer about the item, unless expressly permitted to do so by the buyer. Failure to comply with this policy can result in the seller’s suspension or expulsion from the eBay community.

Article Copyright © Sellsi. All rights reserved.

Attention eBay® Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com.

Knowledge is Power on eBay

Per eBay, “knowledge is power…and it couldn’t be truer than when it comes to selling on eBay. Selling success is about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right product”.

The Right Place

eBay is the largest online marketplace in the world. Including the U.S., eBay has a global presence in 39 markets. A few of these markets include Singapore, India, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Canada and Taiwan. There are thousands and thousands of different types of items that are currently up for auction on the site. eBay has approximately 276 million registered users worldwide that trade more than $2,039 worth of goods on the site every second. eBay has hosted over 532,000 stores worldwide and has over 276 million registered users worldwide that trade in over 50,000 categories. eBay calculates that there were 637 million new listings added in Q4-07. At any given time, there are approximately 113 million listings worldwide, and approximately 6.7 million listings are added per day. Approximately 54 percent of eBay’s profit comes from international markets with the rest coming from the U.S.

The Right Time

Picking the right time to sell an item is a critical step of the auction process. Many items are seasonal in their marketability. You might have a great product at an even greater price but if you pick the wrong time period you will not reach the full potential selling price of an item. Be mindful of school semesters, vacation and travel peak times, holidays, celebrations, and those times when people prepare for them, sport seasons, and many, many other factors involving and influencing the timing of a prospective sale. You should also pay special attention to an auctions ending time. Does it really make sense to end an auction for a pair of custom oven mitts on Monday at 3:00 in the morning? Probably not. Your best bet is to end your auction on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

The Right Product

As mentioned above, eBay believes that one can achieve success if they are in the right place, at the right time, with the right product. Therefore, it becomes very important for would be and current sellers to do their homework and perform research into the nuances of the categories eBay offers. Sellers, if they master the act of choosing the correct category, can build “insider strategies” and insights that will give them a real, and potential profitable, advantage over other eBay sellers. Speaking of other sellers – if a “competitor” is selling the same type of item be sure to investigate which categories they are utilizing. Some sellers specialize in selling a particular product in a particular category. Other sellers place auctions in multiple categories. In the end, a seller must choose which item he/she prefers to sell. According to eBay, based on Q4-07 GMV, the following categories delivered $1 billion or more in worldwide annualized GMV: eBay Motors at $17.2 billion; Consumer Electronics at $6.8 billion; Computers at $4.1 billion; Clothing & Accessories at $5.6 billion; Home & Garden at $4.1 billion; Collectibles at $2.9 billion; Books/Music/Movies at $3.3 billion; Sports at $2.9 billion; Business & Industrial at $2.3 billion: Toys at $2.7 billion; Jewelry & Watches at $2.5 billion; Cameras & Photo at $1.8 billion; Antiques & Art at $1.2 billion; Coins & Stamps at 1.2 billion and Tickets & Travel at $2 billion.

Article Copyright © Sellsi. All rights reserved.

Attention eBay® Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com.

Future Trends On eBay

Every business strives to expand its market share and grow. Many businesses diversify as well – eBay is no exception. Over the last few years eBay has implemented many new features and these upgrades have benefited both the buyers and sellers. One may ask what futures trends and/or upgrades sellers, buyers and affiliates can expect from eBay. You might see changes in the four below areas:

1. Increase in costs – eBay, along with sites and/or services owned by eBay, such as PayPal, eBay Stores, half.com and ProStores, may increase their prices over the next few months. This will undoubtedly increase eBay seller fees and will require these sellers to re-evaluate their selling strategies. These cost changes are currently being debated all over the Internet – go find an eBay Sellers auction board and you can easily find someone that is upset about these increases in fees. eBay’s goal is to of course make itself the ultimate online marketplace for online buyers and sellers. To accomplish this feat, they will need to add additional functionalities to the site and sellers will have to help foot the bill.

2. Establish a market for charity listings – At times, like many other notable businesses, eBay puts a portion of its profit to good use. The company has raised over $34 million so far for charitable purposes. eBay makes great efforts to contribute as much as it can and support charity listings. The Giving Works icon next to a product is one-way eBay increases charitable auction traffic. Expect to see more of these types of programs at eBay. If able, you might even be able to participate in these events.

3. Increased communication between sellers and buyers – eBay is attempting to bridge the gap between sellers and buyers. The company has introduced a Skype feature within the listings that enables the buyer and seller to communicate during the auction process. Skype is easy to learn and is familiar to most people – it’s just like talking on the telephone at home. Another feature of Skype is a virtual chat window that many eBay users seem to enjoy. Instant communication can help buyers clear all doubts that they have in their minds about an auction and this leads to a faster sale and increased customer satisfaction.

4. Selling from your own site – eBay has an option that enables webmasters to place code on their own sites and feature, or advertise, products or services that are currently being auctioned. It is estimated that 20 percent of eBay sellers place these links and sell merchandise via their websites utilizing this methodology. Expect this number to increase over the next few months. Webmasters can place any category, or all categories if they wish, on their sites and this enables potential buyers to browse eBay items without actually visiting eBay!

Some may argue that the above trends and/or upgrades are helping the buyer and leaving the sellers in the poorhouse. However, these changes will ultimately bring more traffic to the site. More traffic to the site means more visits to your auction. More visits to your auction means more sales. Remain competitive and as eBay matures your profit will increase.

Article Copyright © Sellsi. All rights reserved.

Attention eBay® Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com.

eBay Frauds and Scams

There are an infinite number of outstanding deals available throughout the genres and categories of eBay at any given time. The number of ways an honest auction patron can find to profit from trading in the eBay community is nothing short of astounding. Profiting through participation in on-line auctions and trading can be a simple hobby, or a complex business. The bottom line is that there are no ends to the opportunities that exist and continue to proliferate.

Even so, as with any free market arena, there always exist a certain number of sociopathic individuals and groups of predators who lurk in the shadows and devote the better part of their mental efforts to the planning, preparation, and execution of tortuous, fraudulent, and criminal acts against unwitting members of the community. It is unfortunate to say that the Internet is brimming with scam artists and flim-flam fraudsters who use their technical expertise and the innocent trust and lack of technical know how on the part of the general Internet population to maraud, pillage, and aggressively steal everything from personal profile information, to cold hard cash. The total number of losses suffered by everyday Internet users is calculated at many billions of dollars every year.

One should always remember that the reason people get taken, ripped off, and “conned” by scam artists, is simply because the victim doesn’t see the “con” coming. I say this and offer it to you as a caveat to keep in mind as you transact your business. If it comes to pass that you find you have become an Internet crime victim, it will be because you weren’t aware of the fact that you were being duped by the scumbag you were dealing with as it happened.

There is not enough room here to delineate the vast number of scams and variations that currently mar the landscape of e-commerce. There are, however, some that are simple, common, and at times avoidable.

One common scam that you should be able to recognize from a mile away goes something along the lines of the following scenario:

You are the seller of a high priced item, perhaps an auto, or a piece of electronic equipment. Upon the completion of your eBay sale, the buyer sends you payment for the item, but when you receive the payment in the form of a personal check, or money order, the amount of the instrument is far in excess of the purchase price for the item you sold. A good example is a sale I held where I sold a camera for $1,200.00. The buyer sent me a money order in the amount of $3,400.00. Upon receipt of the erroneous security device, I immediately contacted the buyer to alert him to the SNAFU. It was then that he attributed the mistake to his incompetent personal secretary and asked that I simply deposit the note into my bank account, keep a sum of money that would cover the cost of his purchase and an additional amount to compensate me for the inconvenience. He went on to instruct me to withdraw the remaining balance of the overpaid funds in the form of a cashier’s check, which I was to send to him via Fed-Ex along with the item he had purchased.

Alternatively, he suggested that I could also facilitate matters even more if I would be willing to have the overpaid balance of funds wired to him via a Western Union wire transfer. The entire matter was just a silly mix-up according to him. The local newspaper quoted an FBI spokesperson that week as saying that this was one of the most common and damaging scams that had been proliferating the on-line auction community for several weeks.

The big problem was when the check from the buyer was initially deposited into the seller’s bank account, it was often times a common courtesy for the seller’s bank to allow the seller to withdraw the overpayment and send it off to the buyer. Of course when the check ended up bouncing, the seller, who had already dashed off the funds to the scumbag buyer, was held liable for the entire amount of the bad deposit, along with the associated fees, and in some cases, sellers were even charged with felonious counts related to Forgery, Possession of a Forged Instrument, Theft, and a host of other life destroying criminal charges.

Scary? Oh, yes. True? Very much so. A good reason to stick your head in the sand and avoid the retail revolution of the new millennium? Heck no! But just as it goes with everything else in the big blue world we live in, you have to use your thinker, and be aware. Don’t become so cynical you can’t enjoy the benefits of this fantastic technological development. Don’t go skipping down the Internet super highway without paying attention to the traffic either. And always strive to keep yourself informed.

Article Copyright © Sellsi. All rights reserved.

Attention eBay® Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com.

eBay Auction Photos

Of all the factors that contribute to how well an item will sell during an auction period, some of the most basic, yet often times overlooked aspects of eBay listings are the photos that a seller chooses to use to show an item that is for sale. It would seem obvious that the photos of an item offered for sale would be important. Even so, as you look through the thousands of listings for auctions being held on any given day, you will see photo after photo that are rough, blurry, haphazard, goofy, and sometimes, not even a picture of the item being sold or any item that is even similar.

Thank goodness for the folks who live among us with brains that never seem to engage with the rest of their nervous systems. The photo is positively one of the most vital tools a buyer has in determining if he/she is interested in becoming a successful bidder, and to what lengths he/she is willing to go to ensure that his/her bid wins. Furthermore, the photo is not only a tool, but it is a tool that has been provided by the seller. This means that the buyer will naturally make judgments, not only about the item that is selling, but also about the credibility of the verbal and or written description that is also given by the seller.

A blurry, or shady photo, or a photo that is taken of the item without regard for its appearance (i.e., was it cleaned or dusted prior to the shot?), as well as evidence as to whether care was given to specifically show any damage that a prospective buyer would want to have disclosed often times does more to make up a buyers mind about buying the item than anything that a seller can write in the listing or say in a pre-sale email.

On the other hand, an item that is photographed by a seller who portrays the item as an object of value, an item that has been cared for, and an item that is worth the time taken to photograph it under the best possible conditions will often times bring a higher ending bid amount than similar items in as good or better condition that were photographed poorly.

To sum it all up, take the time to take photos of the item you are selling that are well lit, clear, focused, and the featured object in the photo. Also, take as many angles as you can to show the item from every direction. Finally, if there are any blemishes, or areas of damage on the item, take photos of these areas and include them in your listing with short truthful descriptions.

It is not uncommon for buyers to ask you to take a photo of a special angle, or point of view. Expect this kind of request and be ready to offer the service, or state well ahead of time in the body of your listing that the only photos that you will be presenting are the ones that are posted at the time the auction begins.

Article Copyright © Sellsi. All rights reserved.

Attention eBay® Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com.

Describing Items You Are Selling on eBay

Next to the photo that you provide for your buyer, the next most important tool you give to your buyers is the written description of the item you are selling. If you really go through the auction listings for any popular selling item you will start to see that many of the descriptions for the items that are being sold are not actually unique descriptions. Many times the descriptions are generic and pulled from a manufacturers web site only to be cut and pasted into the auction listing. This can work for items that are brand new and still in the box, as there should be little or no difference from one new product to the next. However, when it comes to collectables, antiques, high end sporting goods like competition class bicycles, etc., even the most minute difference in the tolerance of a critical part, or the slightest deviation from what would be considered a normal wear and tear pattern associated with some collectables can affect the value to such a degree that it might render a given item as being absolutely worthless, as opposed to being a fine example of the character common to the era.
If you are trying to start the type of eBay business that builds and snowballs into a respected, trusted, professional, enterprise that is known for its reliable auctions, and ethical approach to on-line commerce, take the time and the effort to examine and describe every aspect of the item in question from its basic measurements and dimensions, to any blemishes and/or damage that may exist, or offer the item on an “AS-IS” basis with no other descriptive statements.
Regardless of how you choose to proceed, my advise to you is to be honest above and beyond the expectations of potential buyers you may have contact with – even if that means saying that you don’t have certain information, nor the ability to find it. Honesty is not the best policy, it is the mandate by which your eBay business will thrive or whither on the vine.

Great! So, we’ve decided to be honest! The next question might very well be in what form do we present our honest and truthful descriptions to our lucky sellers?
There are a thousand different sites that will help you tweak your eBay auction sites into gleaming, steaming, beaming, dreamy HTML creations of fantasy that would have no problem engulfing a would be buyer and spiriting that person off into the nether reaches of the cosmos where magic and fantasy are the reality and your wildest imagination controls the hue of every sunset. Unfortunately, my experience has been that although these digital manipulations are showy and impressive, they do little if anything to actually focus the buyer on the quality and features of the item being sold.
An eBay seller would do well to gain a basic familiarity with the HTML language for basic text and site features, however, dancing pandas that sing the national anthem while morphing into 20 year old college co-eds throwing wads of cash around will not sell your father’s Canon AE-1 SLR 35mm Camera as well as four crystal clear photos, and a rundown of the features and usage history of that individual item. Really.
If you are ever in doubt, you can never go wrong by keeping your descriptions brutally honest and simple.
Article Copyright © Sellsi. All rights reserved.
Attention eBay® Sellers: Increase your credibility…and your bottom line! Sellsi™ helps build trust in online auctions. By representing only the best eBay® sellers, Sellsi has created a network of the most reputable merchants on the web. The Sellsi Seal™ instills confidence and adds credibility to the seller when displayed in eBay® auction listings. It’s an indispensable tool used to boost sales and increase positive feedback. Learn more at http://www.sellsi.com.