eBay Income Advanced: How to Take Your eBay Business to the Next Level - for Powersellers and Beyond

eBay Income Advanced:

How to Take Your eBay Business to the Next Level — For PowerSellers and Beyond

By John N. Peragine, Jr.

eBay Income Advanced: How to Take Your eBay Business to the Next Level — For PowerSellers and Beyond

Copyright © 2009 Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be sent to Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc., 1210 SW 23rd Place, Ocala, Florida 34474.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-123-1 ISBN-10: 1-60138-123-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peragine, John N., 1970-

EBay income advanced : how to take your eBay business to the next

level--for powersellers and beyond / by John N. Peragine, Jr.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-123-1 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60138-123-9 (alk. paper)

1. eBay (Firm) 2. Internet auctions. 3. Electronic commerce. I.

Title.

HF5478.P468 2009

658.8’7--dc22

2009012602

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my loving wife, two beautiful daughters, Teeny and Izze. This book is part of my legacy to them.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: What PowerSelling Means

Chapter 2: Pitfalls to Avoid

Chapter 3: Communication is the Key

Chapter 4: The Auction

Chapter 5: Lowering Shipping Costs

Chapter 6: Seller Beware: The Importance of Protecting Yourself

Chapter 7: Expanding Your Business to the Infinite Horizon

Chapter 8: Open Doors by Raising Your Status Quo

Chapter 9: Streamlining Your Finances

Chapter 10: Going Beyond eBay

Chapter 11: Advertise, Advertise, Advertise

Chapter 12: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Chapter 13: Finding the Best Products for the Cheapest Prices

Chapter 14: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Chapter 15: Developing and Using a Business Plan

Chapter 16: Evaluating the Success of Your Business

Appendix A: Case Studies

Appendix B: Where eBay Began

Bibliography

Author Biography

Foreword

Congratulations on your decision to start an eBay business! Starting your business can be one of the most stressful and exciting experiences of your life. Leaving the security of a paying job and jumping into the world of entrepreneurship can cause any normal person to miss a few nights sleep. Your friends and family may be helping the insomnia by telling you that you are crazy to take such risks in today’s economy.

You may have started out on eBay by selling a few things that were collecting dust around the house and after a few sales you have realized the potential and are ready to harness it. Many of us enjoy the thrill of reading those you’ve got cash e-mails as we drink our morning coffee. There isn’t anything more exciting than knowing you made money while you slept! Really, the grass is pretty green in these early days of Internet commerce. Each year, as the small mom and pop stores disappear from Main Street, new ones are popping up in the new virtual ‘Mall of America’ called eBay.

Some eBay sellers have grown and experienced the freedom of being their own boss, others have failed miserably and are going back to the nine to five routine disillusioned and broke. The failure rate for retailers is high, even with the enhanced opportunity for small business owners on eBay.

That’s because selling on eBay seems to be such a revolutionary way to conduct business that many people forget the basics. A start-up must have a business and marketing plan, enough capital to buy opening inventory, business licenses, and considerations about how and where you to conduct your business. You must have a road map for your business clearly thought out long before you take open the virtual doors. If you do not you are very likely to fail within your first few months.

I am not telling you these things to scare you back into that cubical-walled world – I am writing about them to congratulate you for choosing eBay Income Advanced to help you get started. Author John Peragine walks you through the necessary steps to starting a business. He includes chapters on:

•  How and what to write in a business plan

•  How to calculate your selling margins

•  How to figure out if your business is sound and making a profit

•  When, where and how to deal with your stock

•  Shipping tips and techniques

•  The automation tools necessary to running a day-to-day eBay business

•  How to list an item for sale on eBay

•  How to find inventory – to keep your shelves stocked

•  Sage advice on drop-shipping and other ‘too good to be true’ offers

•  Information about being a trading assistant

•  Much more on the routine of running an eBay PowerSelling business

eBay Income Advanced is a primer on how to take your eBay business to the next level and ramp it up to PowerSeller status – step-by-step. By reading this book, you are taking the first steps toward creating a lasting business on eBay. Remembering the fundamentals of business, you will know when to take the necessary steps towards growth and when to avoid unnecessary risks.

The greatest asset of eBay is its enormous size. That size is also its biggest drawback for the individual seller. How do you attract new business when you are a needle in a haystack? Every successful business owner knows how important it is to bring in new customers and keep the ones you have sold to coming back for more. John Peragine explains the basics of marketing to your customers.

I suggest you to keep this book near your computer as you continue to explore and grow your business. It is my hope that you are successful beyond your wildest dreams. I know this is a guidebook designed to show you how to build your enterprise and reach your goals. Once you have the nuts and bolts mastered, I encourage you to continue to grow your business. Continue reading every business book you can get your hands on; study eBay marketing, budgets, and even the legal guides. If you continue to study and learn, I know you will master the art of making money on eBay.

Cindy Shebley

eBay Certified Business Consultant

Author of The eBay Marketing Bible

www.clovercity.com

Cindy Shebley is an eBay Certified Business Consultant, Education Specialist and author who teaches throughout the Northwest. Shebley’s eBay career started in the late 90s as a way to liquidate inventory from her bricks and mortar store. Today, Shebley is an eBay PowerSeller who sells photography, video equipment, and supplies for eBay sellers.

As an eBay Certified Business Consultant, Shebley helps clients grow their businesses and teaches them the marketing techniques needed to stay competitive in today’s marketplace. Shebley is the author of several books on eBay, including Easy Auction Photography, How To Squidoo, and Five Steps To Success: Growing your Online Business and Increasing Your Profits.

Shebley hosts Add Video to Your eBay Listings a DVD course produced by Ghost Leg Media.

Currently, Shebley is writing a marketing guide for eBay sellers called The eBay Marketing Bible, which will be released early in 2009. More information about her can be found at www.clovercity.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Thousands of people go to eBay every day trying to find that special something, that magical it that is going to make everything better. More people have begun to value Internet commerce over traditional go to the store and buy it shopping.

It is easy to see why. The advantages of eBay over traditional forms of commerce are obvious. No lines, no screaming children, and no driving from store to store to make sure you are getting the lowest price possible. In short, shopping online provides the most stress-free, rewarding shopping experience possible, and as more of the world is becoming computer savvy, the online marketplace is expanding at light speed.

All you need to do to buy something online is to go to eBay or do an online search for whatever it is that you are looking for, and you will get many pages of search results. Most of the results for items through search engines such as Google will still result in links to eBay.com. Actually, eBay has become such a trusted brand that many people skip the search engines altogether and log on directly to eBay.com.

Tips from the Experts

I hate to be flip, but the bottom line is that it is strictly the dollar amount sold. What sets a regular seller apart from a great PowerSeller is customer service.

— Charlene Anderson

On eBay’s search engine, you can sort your search by quality (new or used) and price. You have the option of selecting whom you want to buy from and how fast do you want the item (shipping options), and presto, you are done. What would have taken hours of shopping around has just taken you about two minutes.

Many have been able to cash in on this opportunity and hundreds have been able to quit their day jobs by devoting themselves to eBay full-time. This transition does not just happen by itself, so before you quit your day job, read this book.

Creating a successful eBay business and becoming a PowerSeller takes plenty of time and energy. It takes knowledge, skill, know-how, expert advice, and considerable research. If you are already a business-savvy person, and you treat your eBay venture like the business opportunity it is, then chances are, you will do extremely well.

Thomas Edison, the famed inventor of the light bulb, once said, Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration. Edison worked tirelessly trying to produce a light bulb — something that he believed was theoretically possible, though it had not yet been done. Through sheer force of will and an iron determination, he refused to quit after failing countless times. He persevered all because of that tiny bit of inspiration; that little bit of insight that told him that his dreams might just be possible.

Tips from the Experts

A PowerSeller has to give customer service to keep at that level. In my case, to keep my PowerSeller level requires a lot of sales because I deal in small-dollar media items. I am not like some who can keep PowerSeller status by selling one or two high-dollar items. My average item sells for $5to $10, so I need to sell 150 items a month to compete at the lowest level of PowerSeller.

— Jim Stewart

To be successful as an eBay PowerSeller takes plenty of hard work and a tiny bit of inspiration that will tell you that your dreams, too, are possible. That inspiration, even if it is small when compared to the amount of work you will do, is vital, and without it, there is no drive to keep going when times get tough. This book can inspire you for years to come.

My advice is to read this book straight through. Then, keep it by your computer and use it as a reference book, turning to the relevant material as needed. Knowledge is useless if it is not applied. This is not the type of book that should be left on a shelf.

This book is my gift to you after spending thousands of hours talking to eBay experts who are successful every day doing what many people only dream of doing — making a fortune through their own personal eBay success story. The next success story could be yours.

This book is for those who have already gotten the basics of eBay business under their belts. This book is a complete volume that helps transform the beginner into a PowerSeller. You will find that becoming a PowerSeller is not as hard as staying a PowerSeller. The advice given here will give you that edge and staying power.

Thomas Edison’s story has become almost a modern-day fable, teaching timeless lessons on the value of perseverance and not giving up, giving inspiration for countless other dreamers like him. He once remarked, after finally succeeding and being catapulted to international fame, I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. But some of his critics and colleagues argued that it did not have to be as hard on Edison as it was.

A contemporary of Edison, Nicola Tesla, once noted about his fellow friend and scientist:

If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search… I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of his labor.

Tesla is regarded by many as the greatest electrical engineer of his time, and his theories helped usher in what came to be called the Second Industrial Revolution. He regarded Edison as a success story, but argued that success might have come much easier to him if he had listened to people who could have taught him that little bit of theory and calculation that he lacked.

Tesla argued that what Edison could have learned from others would have saved him years of aggravation and needless suffering. Being successful on eBay is essentially the same. You try by yourself to figure out all the things you are going to have to do to be successful with your online store. You can have sleepless nights, failures, and upsets before finally getting some amount of success for all your trials and labors. Or you can learn from those who have made all the mistakes before and learned how to be successful. They are living testimonies to the power of following your dreams. They are doing what thousands only dream of doing, every day of their lives.

This book is an invaluable tool that will save you time, money, and resources; it is the little bit of theory and calculation that will save you precious time and labor. Learn from it. Even if you have already managed to succeed in the eBay arena, you can use this book to become even more successful. Or even better, to learn some tricks of the trade to make your business run smoother and easier, freeing up time that you could be devoting to other things.

Use the knowledge within these pages to drive yourself to PowerSeller status and beyond. Some of the information can be found on eBay.com, but I have attempted to give you as much of the relevant information as possible in this book. Sometimes it can be difficult to surf through help pages to find the answers to your questions. Since some of the material can change quickly, I also provide you the Web page to go to find the most current updates.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

What PowerSelling Means

Tips from the Experts

Convincing the big wholesalers I was a serious business, even though I didn’t have a brick-and-mortar store, was my biggest difficulty. Once I broke through and convinced them I had a serious business, things fell into place. I have found that I can source from any supplier in my field. It took the two big guys in the business to say yes to me to open all the doors. So don’t give up on that first no. If I had, I wouldn’t have my business. I found a way that was a win/win for both of us. Find a way to work with the wholesaler so it works for both of you.

— Charlene Anderson

Tips from the Experts

The pursuit of maximum profit, fewest hours spent working, and happy customers. I’m always looking to improve on those three factors.

— Jim Cockrum

Tips from the Experts

Any seller can do the volume necessary to achieve PowerSeller status. The trick is keeping it. You must run your business with professionalism and treat your customers with respect.

— Tom Orr

Becoming a PowerSeller is not as hard as you may think. If you sell on eBay on a regular basis, you can attain the status of a PowerSeller. The staff at eBay does a good job of monitoring accounts and reviewing them to see if they are eligible for PowerSeller performance on a monthly basis. The gross sales are assessed on a monthly basis. Once the eligibility threshold is met, an eBay seller will receive an e-mail indicated that they have reached PowerSeller status.

PowerSelling Tip

If you are concerned about getting your notification of Power-Seller status, you can go to the opt-in setting on your My eBay page. This will allow you to receive notifications about being a PowerSeller by any means you wish, such as e-mail, snail mail, or telephone.

There are several rules to becoming a PowerSeller, and they are as follows:

•  You have to have been an active seller on eBay for at least 90 days.

•  You must have sold on average a minimum of two items on eBay per month for the past three consecutive months. You must also maintain a minimum of four average monthly listings for the past three months. In addition to the monthly requirement, you must have also sold and average of two items per month for the past twelve months.

•  You need to have, at minimum, an overall feedback rating of 100.

•  Your feedback ratings must have an average of 98 or above.

•  Your Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) must have stayed at 4.5 or above for the past 12 months in all 4 classification ratings.

•  Your eBay Seller’s account must be current, which means that you must pay your bill to eBay on time.

•  You must be in compliance with eBay’s listing policies on their site.

•  Your eBay business must be in sync with eBay’s community values.

•  You must have sold an average of $1,000 in gross merchandise sales or at least 100 items a month for the prior three months through eBay or its affiliates: half.com, eBay express, or eBay motors. In addition, there is an annual requirement of a minimum of $12,000 or 1,200 items for the prior twelve months.

PowerSelling Tip

eBay uses total feedback when looking at PowerSeller Feedback and DSRs. PowerSeller Feedback uses this formula:

Total Number of positive feedback

Total Number of possible feedback (Positive and Negative)

Some of the requirements seem obvious, while others may need a further explanation and more in-depth work. Being an active seller for 90 days means having an active, paid-up account for three months. There is not much you can do to improve that area; you just have to wait.

You have to make sure that you have sold a minimum of two items per month for the prior three months and for the past twelve months. This may seem like it is the same requirement, but it is not. It is much harder to average two items per month for three months than to average two items per month for twelve months. You can have a bad month during a year and make it up over the next few months. If you have a bad month during a three-month period, it is hard to make it up. The key is the three consecutive months. This can occur at anytime, but must fall during a year when your sales are pretty even. Keep an eye on how many listings you are posting because it is just as important as sales for PowerSeller eligibility.

The truth is that you need to be selling much more than the aforementioned minimum, unless you are selling high-priced items, like cars or homes. If you are not meeting this minimum amount, you might want to look at what it is you are selling and decide whether it is a truly viable product.

You have to have a 100 feedback rating and an average rating of 98 percent. You will learn throughout this book that customer service is the key to becoming a PowerSeller and maintaining that status. Do not allow a bad feedback to go by without trying to resolve the issues to the best of your ability.

Detailed Seller Rating

A DSR is an indicator of customer satisfaction. A recent addition to eBay is the ability for buyers to leave an anonymous rating of your businesses performance in four different areas: items as described, communication, shipping time, and shipping charges. A buyer can leave these ratings without you knowing who left it. The ratings use stars 1-5. DSR will not affect your ratings, but it can affect your eBay reputation and is essential in your quest to become a PowerSeller. A rating is an overall feeling your customer has about their experience with you. DSR includes more specific areas that can give you an idea of where you need improvement.

You will learn how to boost each of these areas. You need to look at them from time to time and look for any trends. You want the average in each area to be at least 4.5 stars in order to meet the eligibility requirements to become a PowerSeller.

Here are some tips to help you keep your DSR scores where they need to be:

•  Item Description: In this area, you need to be careful how you are describing your items. You must be totally honest and describe your items as accurately as possible. You may think that by adding information or not being totally honest, will win you a sale. While in the short-term, someone may buy the