We all know what a sniper is, it’s a soldier that stays hidden and waits until he has a clean shot as his target.

Did you know that snipers also operate on eBay?

An eBay sniper is a third party that will enter a bid on your behalf in the last moments of an auction, leaving you to go about your routine as normal. Some people may think “wow what a good idea” and in theory it may be, but in practise is it really that good? You see, for a sniper to operate on your behalf you have to give them the item number, your maximum bid and (more alarmingly) the username and password to your eBay account.

We should all be aware of Identity Theft and never give our details out. I don’t even let windows remember the passwords to my eBay or PayPal accounts. So I would never give them to any third parties, and I wouldn’t advise you to either.

A spoof email is an email from someone pretending to be somebody else, i.e. eBay, PayPal or your Bank. The reason for them sending spoof emails is that they want to get your details, passwords etc so as to steal your identity.

It’s not every day that I receive a spoof email, but I do get quiet a few each week. The latest one says it’s from “secureATpaypal.com” and it’s entitled “Important Information Regarding Your Account”.

The first mistake of the sender was sending it to an email address that isn’t linked to my PayPal account. So there’s not a chance of me opening it.

However, when I get any suspect emails there are a few simple little things that I check.

1, If it has any attachments I DO NOT OPEN IT, as neither eBay or PayPal send emails with attachments. Many viruses are passed by attachments and I never open any emails that have attachments unless I know and trust the sender.

2, I check the email address it was sent to. If the email did come from eBay or PayPal it will show your email address. Many spoof emails will read “Not Set”.

We all know that the competition for sales on eBay is very high, so whenever you make a listing, you should always think like a buyer. You can only make sales from your sales page and you need to get your potential customers to open it. How?

The 1^st most important thing is the title; you have 55 characters, including gaps between words, to say what the item is. In the title you should use as many keywords as possible as most initial searches are based on them. As an example, I’ve found these two listings on eBay just now;

250+slow cooker recipes

250 Delicious Low Fat Slow Cooker Recipes Cook Book CD

It’s the very same product in both listings but I’ll be highly surprised if the top one sells, or even gets looked at. As it only has 2 keywords, cooker & recipes, the chances of it being found are much less than the one on the bottom. The slow, in its title is lost as the seller hasn’t left a gap between 250+slow. The bottom one is much more likely to be successful as it has many more keywords. Just think of the search results for that title; Low Fat, Slow Cooker, Cooker, Recipes, Cook and Book are all good keywords that’ll get the item found for so many different searches.  

Isn’t it frustrating, when your eBay listings just don’t seem to sell. Well I’m about to give you a little tip that may help you make the sales. Before you make your listing, do a little research into similar sales of the item you’re selling. On eBay there’s an advanced search function, which allows you to search not only for current listings, but more importantly, it allows you to search the completed listings as well. Why search the completed listings, you may ask. The answer is simple, it will show you whether the item sold or not, and if so, for what price.

All you need to do is click on the advanced search link, which is right next to the main search button. Next you’ll come to a page where you enter the details of the item you’re researching. Enter some keywords for the item in the first section. Then in the second section (Search including), you have Two check boxes. Click on the box for completed listings and then click the search button. You’ll then see the search results, which tells you if the items had any bids on them and if so, how many. It also displays a little Sold box, under the amount of bids, if the item sold.

In April 2008 eBay changed the policy on the sales of digital items, eBooks. As they thought it may lead to feedback manipulation. Thousands of sellers were affected all over the world, many of which threw in the towel. This in turn left a gap in the market. During my 30 day eBay suspension, as mentioned in my last blog posting, I received an email telling me about a man called Dave Nicholson who had a solution to the problem; he’d produced a package called Digital Media Solutions which not only told us how to get around the problem, he showed us how to do it in short videos.

If we turned our eBooks into physical items and sent them via the postman, then we could still list them on eBay. But how do you turn a digital item into a physical one? Well that’s where Dave Nicholson came into it. His Digital Media Solutions supplied a series of files that were formatted to make a disc auto run once inserted into a PC. Following the videos that he supplied it was quite simple to place the chosen eBook into its correct folder along with bonus items, back end sales and other promotions, including my newsletter. Once the files were constructed all I had to do was burn them to a CD Rom.

So there I was, selling eBooks on eBay, along with the other items of stock that I still had. The difference with eBook sales was that there wasn’t a need to post them, as it was all automated through emails and download links. Because there were no postal charges it enabled me to list items on eBay.com as opposed to eBay.co.uk, which is a much bigger market place, as the sales are world wide.

Within a few short months of selling on eBay.com I was selling enough items each month to become a Powerseller, which I did. Then in April 2008 eBay changed the policy on the sales of digital items. As they thought it may lead to feedback manipulation. I withdrew all my adverts that would’ve ended after their deadline, so as to comply with the new policy. However, one of my auction items had had a couple of bids on it so I sent the losing bidder a second chance offer, after the policy change. What a costly mistake that was. Within an hour of sending that 2^nd chance offer eBay suspended my account for 30 days, for feedback manipulation. I phoned their help desk only to be informed that because I was suspended for a policy breech I would have to wait the 30 days before any communications would be allowed.

Whilst browsing eBay I came across an advert for The 90 Day Powerseller Challenge. I didn’t have any thoughts of becoming a Powerseller at that time, but the eBook seemed to have a lot of information that would help me. So I bought it, and it was, and remains to be, the best purchase I’ve ever made.

The eBook was easy to follow and full of relevant information. It explained the eBay rules on becoming a Powerseller and how that could be achieved. But more importantly it gave me some guidance on when and how to list my items for sale. Once I put that into practise I noticed my sales improving.

When I made the purchase I was told that it came with resale rights. “Resale Rights?” “You mean the Author will allow me to sell this eBook over and over again?”, “and keep the money for myself?” Yes, Yes and Yes again.

As I read more and more of the eBook it got me thinking about selling it, along with other eBooks, as once you’ve got them they don’t need to be replaced. Unlike the hardbacks and paperbacks that I was selling.

I was selling books and gift items to schools, play groups, nursery’s, nursing homes and offices. It was all going ok, but I had to tie up all my money in stock, and run up a huge bill on my credit card. No stock = No sales = No Income.

 Then my car started breaking down and put a major strain on my finances. Not only in the repair bills, but also in the loss of earnings. Then one cold winters day it coughed, spluttered and died. I was towed by the AA to my local garage where I was told that the car would cost nearly twice its value to repair. I just couldn’t afford to do it. Sure I could’ve bought another old car but with the expenses and experiences of one old jalopy I wasn’t about to do it again.

This left me with a lot of stock that I couldn’t sell as I could no longer complete my rounds. So I turned to eBay and started selling my stock off. Which was slow to start with, but it did start selling once I’d made some adjustments to the prices to allow for the postage costs.

This is my 1^st blog posting and boy oh boy has it caused some wear and tear of the grey matter. After months and months of thinking about setting up this blog, I’ve finally had the push I needed to grab the bull by the horns and go for it, 2009 WILL be a lot better than 2008, of that I am sure, after all it was the only new years resolution that I made.

In my blog I intent to share my own stories of what did work (and some of what didn’t). Along with News & Views and I’ll even be writing about some of the eBooks that I’ve read and how they’ve helped me.

I will try and keep the readers informed of changes to eBay policies as and when they’re announced, and find ways of getting around the changes that they make, so that we can continue to build our businesses without to much stress while we strive to become successful, or even more so.

Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Until next time, Barry Wells