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"EBAY SELLING" EZINE

April 14, 2004

In This Issue:
Climbing The Himalayas In Search Of Shangri-La
Sometimes Technology Is A Curse!
Timing Is (Almost) Everything
FEATURE ARTICLE: The Absolute, Hands-Down Most Important Auction Success Skill
NEWS FROM EBAY:
1. Applause, Applause!
More Help For You ...
Interested In Designer Handbags?
2. Is eBay Popular Or What?
3. It's About Time!
From Our Humor Department: :-)

Climbing The Himalayas In Search Of Shangri-La

You might have noticed that there hasn't been an Auction Gold issue in quite a while. About 6 weeks to be exact. That's because I fell recently and broke my wrist and injured my back and side, so, I haven't been working much lately.

I broke it on a recent expedition. We were climbing in the Himalayas, seeking the lost land of Shangri-La. As I was inching my way up the side of an especially sheer cliff, a sudden shadow above startled me and I fell, damaging myself in the process. I didn't even notice the pain, because when I looked up I saw ...

All right, OK. So the truth is that I was mopping the kitchen floor and it was wet and my traction-less shoes (that were long ago consigned to the trash bin) slipped and I fell. But, I decided that's such a boring story that I wanted a more romantic one, hence the mountain climbing. :-)

Seriously, the only benefit I've found is a sincere appreciation for my normally robust health. Thank the stars every day when you and your loved ones are healthy and strong. We take our blessings too much for granted and pain does give you a certain perspective of gratitude. So, hug the ones you love and say a silent “thank you” for your health.

Sometimes Technology Is A Curse!

The CAN-Spam Act was supposed to help the spam situation. NOT! It seems as though the real spammers continue on, as always, while legitimate emailers get hurt.

Increasingly, ISPs are using filtering systems to try and keep spam out of your inboxes. You may also be using spam blocker software of some kind. Unfortunately, they also filter the e-mail that you want to receive - like mine!

To make sure that my newsletters are not filtered into your "junk" or "bulk" folder, please add all my email addresses to your list of trusted senders:

genius@auctionknowhow.com

Here's how:

Hotmail: Place my domains in your safe list. The safe list can be accessed via the "Options" link next to the main menu tabs.

AOL: Place my domains in your address book.

Yahoo! Mail: If one of our e-zines is filtered to your 'bulk' folder, open the message and click on the "this is not Spam" link next to the "From" field.

Other providers: If my newsletter is being filtered, try adding our domain from our newsletter's 'From' or 'Reply-to' address to your address book or contact list. If this option is not available, try moving the message to your 'inbox' or forwarding the message to yourself.

If subsequent messages continue to be filtered, call or e-mail your ISP's tech support and specifically ask how you can be sure to receive all e-mail from me. Follow their instructions for whitelisting.

It's a shame to bother you like this, but in this day and age, we feel like the dolphin caught in the tuna-spam net. We support fully "Can Spam"and the anti-spam measures of all mail servers and ISPs. But please do make sure that your
mail server or ISP is not accidentally keeping this valuable health and fitness information from you.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but these circumstances are beyond our control. All we can do is work together with the ISPs to shut out the spammers.

You can log in any time and see our newsletter archives by going to

http://auctionknowhow.com/AG

Timing Is (Almost) Everything

I recently had an email from a student who asked about a supply of Lord Of The Rings goodies. She asked about the wisdom of putting them up for sale now – or waiting. I advised her to wait, because it is 100% certain that unless the planet is destroyed by a comet, the sun blows up, or some other hideous disaster occurs, that there WILL be another big hoopla soon over the LOTR. We can count on a 3 volume DVD set of the movies – and probably the “gold” edition, the “platinum” edition, etc. So, why not time your auctions to coincide with this release?

My good friend, Barbara Ling, recently wrote an article on this subject which addresses this question so well.

I (recently) mentioned the joys I had, searching for great big bunches of Garfield "stuff"....and how I was able to discover there's a market for it. Remember, Garfield the Movie will be coming out later this year (as will Spiderman III, Scooby Doo II,
Maeke M.on.ey on the Internet 4392, etc. Okay, that last movie title was made up. :-)

How can you discover what movies are in the queue to be released? Simple! You can go to:

http://movieweb.com/movies/releases/month.php

for releases by month.

Viewing that link shows that The Rock (an actor, not an inanimate object) will be starring in 'Walking Tall' at

http://movieweb.com/movies/film.php?1186

Now. Go to eBay and search for

"The Rock"

You'll see over 1,400 items returned. I would bet that once that movie is released...you'll see a whole lot more!

Where else can you see upcoming film releases?

http://us.imdb.com/Recent/USA

lists them all the way until the end of the year. Are you a Disney seller? If so, Mulan II will be released in Video in September!

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0279967/

(and joy of joys, Donny Osmond will still be doing the singing voice for Captain Li Shang!).

What do you *do* with this information? Well, think to what you sell on eBay. Can you tie any of it to any of the sure-to-be-popular movies you see in the release schedule? If so, you can prepare for your sales *months* before your competitors! It can truly be a valuable time saver...take advantage of that.

Barbara is the author of two OUTSTANDING auction books:

24 Hour Ebook Digital Product Creation: Here is the very best product you can sell on eBay because you own it, so there are no inventory costs and no shipping. (What can be better than that?)

http://www.auctionknowhow.com/ebooks/24hours.shtml

eBay Search profits: Easily and simply get high listings on Google for your eBay products, listings and pages!

http://www.auctionknowhow.com/ebooks/ling.shtml

FEATURE ARTICLE: The Absolute, Hands-Down Most Important Auction Success Skill

Let's say that you list a book or a piece of jewelry on eBay. You've researched before you listed, and it seems to be an in-demand item. So, you cheerfully put it up and wait ... and wait ... and wait. But nothing happens.

So, you relist it.

And nothing happens.

So, in despair you give up.

But, do you know WHY it didn't sell? Was it your

* Title?
* Price?
* Poor pictures?
* Weak description and unanswered questions?
* Your reserve?
* Your shipping costs?
* Timing?

Or something else entirely. The point is, you don't KNOW why it didn't sell. And unless you know, absolutely and beyond a doubt, you're just floundering in the dark, guessing and hoping.

Not exactly a good biz model, is it?

I like this quote:

“A single measurement is worth a thousand opinions.”

For a long time in my business, I didn't know how to get answers to these kinds of critical questions, but now I do – and it has made an enormous difference in my profitability. The answer is simply this ... test. And then test some more.

Recently I bought the best book on testing that I have ever seen! Not only that, it's cheap and comes with a fr*e testing script.

Here's a great example of why it's important (taken out of the book itself):

Scenario: You sell a $50 product, and convert 1% of your visitors. 100 visitors will earn you $50. How much of this is actual profit will depend on your costs. If it costs you $40 to get these visitors, you're making a profit of just $10.

In other words, you'll need a lot of traffic to make a lot of profit. If you wanted to make $1000/month profit you need at least 10,000 visitors/month. And getting that many unique visitors can be hard work.

But, what if you raise your conversion rate from 1% to 2%? Now every 100 visitors gives you 2 sales, so now your sales are $100, but the cost of your traffic is still $40. So your profit is now $60. In other words, you've just increased your profit from $10 to $60, without spending any more money. In other words, your increase in profits is $500%!

Better still, if you could go from 1% to 3%, your profits are now $110 ($150 in sales - $40 in costs), so your profits have risen by 1000%.

Now if you want $1000/month in profits, you only need 910 visitors, instead of 10,000.

This book has taught me how to test so many new things like product and book titles, backend sales, email and how to follow up on visitors without it.

It explains about how to figure the element of “chance”. Let's say 100 people sign up for your newsletter based on 2 different ads you've run:

Ad A: 53
Ad B: 47

Is this a REAL result, or is part of it due to chance? I've never understood how to figure this before. (It's chance, in case you were wondering. :-)

It has a fr*e script that comes with it and does some really cool stuff. Naturally it does split testing (you have 500 visitors and 250 go to site 1 and 250 go to site 2). It also does surveys and shows us how to use the information. It does a great thing with a timed script which creates urgency. The visitor clicks on the script and gets a timed page which gives them one hour to buy your product at a special price, or whatever you set up.

This isn't some simple little book that you read through in 45 minutes. I've now read it four times and know I haven't mastered all of it. I just feel like I've gone from Testing Kindergarten to Testing College. And, if you get it, be sure to get the script now. Several times I haven't downloaded something because I thought I'd get it when I needed it – then I go back, and it's gone.

Note: This script will NOT work on eBay. It has to be on pages where you are in control - like a website.

I spoke with the author and he is planning on raising the price soon, so I bought the reprint rights so that I could keep it at $27. It's the best money I've spent in a long
time!

http://www.auctionknowhow.com/cgi-bin/links.cgi?l=4

People are always raving about traffic, traffic, traffic. It's much easier to get a higher conversion rate from the traffic we already get than it is to get lots more buyers.

NEWS FROM EBAY
1. Applause, Applause!

eBay has recently updated its “gallery pictures” option, and sellers can only be pleased. I consider that adding a gallery picture to your listing is one of the few enhancements that has really paid off for me, time and again.

First, they've enlarged the pictures. Go here to see an example (keywords: designer handbags)

http://www.auctionknowhow.com/cgi-bin/links.cgi?l=2

eBay now offers a Picture Gallery link so that buyers can easily switch between pictures and regular links/descriptions. Look at the top for

“List View | Picture Gallery”

All items, regardless of whether Gallery was used, can be found in Picture Gallery. However, listings using Gallery will be displayed first for added visibility.

And by the way, how do you know if a gallery picture pays off for you in expanded profits? Testing is the only certain way.

More Help For You ...

Did you see the link to the page?

http://www.auctionknowhow.com/cgi-bin/links.cgi?l=2

Well, the eBay link is really:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%
2Fws96
2F&krd=1&from=R8&MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSo
rt&query=designer+handbags

GAG!!! Not only is it miserably long, but often folks don't realize that they must copy ALL lines. They highlight it, or click on it – and get an error page, so they give up and wander away. If YOUR links are like this, you're losing business.

The solution: my brilliant tech, Jeremy, created a free script you can use to fix those long links. Instead of that miserable eBay link, I can use the much shorter auctionknowhow link above. If you'd like this script for yourself, it's freely available to all readers of this ezine, so help yourself:

Explanation:
http://cyberws.com/info/affiliates/dlinkmin.shtml

Download:
http://www.cyberws.com/files/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=9

Interested In Designer Handbags?

Perhaps you should be. They are really hot sellers on eBay. The REAL ones, that is, which aren't so easy to come by.

I have started adding articles to my Auction Genius Course site, and there are two here:

http://auction-genius-course.com/wholesale-purses.shtml

http://auction-genius-course.com/wholesale-handbags.shtml

The second article has some designer sources in it and even though you might not want to invest with the 'authentic wholesale' site, it has some great information on this subject. Don't miss it.

eBay has introduced the “eBay Shop” just for buying “all things eBay”. 10 years ago this auction site didn't even exist! Do we live in a fast paced world or what?

http://www.theebayshop.com

3. It's About Time!

eBay has introduced some keyword updates to make searching more efficient. Up until now, if you typed in the keyword “bracelets”, for example, you would miss every single listing which had the singular “bracelet” in it.

Now they are searching singular & plural together, as well as alternate spellings.

From eBay: “Plurals: If you search on the keyword Wheel, search may return results matching Wheel and also return results matching Wheels. This will only apply to certain keywords.

Alternate spellings: If you search on 4x4, search may return results for 4x4 and also 4wd. This will only apply to certain keywords.”

If you wish to limit your search to bracelet only, put your words in quotation marks.

From Our Humor Department: :-)
If you think YOU'RE having a bad day ...

In a hospital's Intensive Care ward, patients always died in the same bed, on Sunday morning, at about 11am, regardless of their medical condition. 

This puzzled the doctors and some even thought it had something to do with the supernatural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths occurred around 11 am on Sunday, so a worldwide team of experts was assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents.

The next Sunday morning, a few minutes before 11, all doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible phenomenon was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books and other holy objects to ward off the evil spirits.

Just when the clock struck 11, Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward and unplugged the life support system so he could use the vacuum cleaner. 

Still having a bad day?

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill in Alaska was $80,000.

At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers.

A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.

Still think you are having a bad day?

Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places.

Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman. 

Still think you're having a bad day?

Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn, Germany.

Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two hopeless protesters were trampled to death.

What? Still having a bad day????

It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. 

There now, are you feeling better?