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Using Selling Manager To Boost Your eBay Home Business

By Vickie Sayce in Ecommerce

One of the wonderful things about eBay is that they offer a wide variety of different tools to help sellers generate more business. One of the more popular tools that eBay offers its sellers in the eBay Selling Manager, which is a sales management tool that can help you manage your auctions more efficiently. eBay also offers a more inclusive version of their selling tool, called Selling Manager Pro. Both of these tools do come with a low monthly fee that is added to your eBay statement, unless you run an eBay store, in which case it is free.

Deciding which version of the eBay selling tool you need can be tough. To start out, go for the basic package. You can always upgrade if you find you need to later. At the present time, the basic version is only $4.99 per month, so it won’t put a big dent in your budget. If you have a small to medium amount of sales to manage per month, this is all you need. You also get a 30 day free trial with the basic version, so if you decide it’s not right for you and your business needs, you can cancel before your trial is up and not waste any money.

The Pro version offers more tools for higher volumes of sales. If you have a large inventory to manage, the Pro version is probably a better choice for your business. At the moment, the pro version is just $14.99 per month, and it also offers a 30 days free trial. The basic Selling Manager is also free for basic store subscribers, and the Selling Manager Pro tool is available for free to those with a premium or anchored store.

Both tools have software that needs to be downloaded to be utilized. Both software programs support just about any operating system, so you shouldn’t have a problem with compatibility issues. Once the software is downloaded, your eBay selling links will automatically be replaced with your Selling Manager links, making it easy to use the selling tool with your current selling methods.

The software makes it easy to list and re-list your auctions, view scheduled listings, sold items, and closed auctions. You can track your sales, sent bulk invoices and e-mails to customers, and easily leave feedback for all of your buyers using the software. For record keeping purposes, the Selling Manager also lets you download or import your sale information to your computer or into a new Excel spreadsheet, making it easy to track your sales for tax purposes, or for your bookkeeping needs.

The Selling Manager can make boring and tedious tasks quick and easy to manage. You can keep track of your auctions with ease, and stay in contact with your buyers with the click of a button. This eBay tool makes it simple to manage your eBay home business right from your computer without needing to log into eBay, and can boost your efficiency, working like a dedicated employee for you around the clock.
If you want to make money on eBay while still raising the kids, visit http://AuctionPaydayKidsPlay.com to find out how. Vickie Sayce (dotcom) teaches others how to get started on eBay, and has been buying and selling on eBay since 2001. She has written a very informative book on starting an eBay business to make money from home while raising the kids.

On eBay, Pricing Is Key To Selling Your Items

By Vickie Sayce in Ecommerce

Pricing your items that you want to list on eBay can be difficult for those who have never done it before. List your items too high, and you won’t receive any bidders. List your items too low, however, and you run the risk of not making money - or worse, landing yourself in the negative. If you consistently price your items incorrectly, you can find yourself with little to no business, or owing money at the end of the day. Pricing your items correctly from the get go can severely cut down on how often this happens.

When you have done your research and know what items are popular on eBay, you should know what items you are looking for and their average selling costs. If not, you need to look up the most popular items on eBay by category, narrow down the products that you are interested in selling, and figure out what the average final selling price for each item you are interested in is. When you have a general idea, then you can start looking for where to purchase the item.

Purchasing items to resell on eBay can be tricky. You don’t want to spend too much money up front and risk having overstock that doesn’t sell, but you also don’t want to spend more money on each item by buying less at a time, leaving you a smaller margin of profit. The best route to go is to find an item you want to sell going for at least half the price of what you want to sell it at. This gives you plenty of wiggle room to make money, without setting your starting bid to high.

When you list your items on eBay, list them as low as possible for you to break even. This includes your final value fee, your listing fee, and your shipping costs, along with the total price you paid for one item. If the item you are selling cost you $50, and additional costs, including eBay fees, totals $10, then the absolute lowest starting price for your item should be $60. This way, if only one person bids, you will at least break even on the transaction.

If you are feeling a bit risky, you may even want to list your item slightly lower than what your total costs for it are. Starting your bid lower than the other bids for the same item on eBay can get you more hits, and in turn, more bids. Many sellers often balk at the idea of setting their starting bid too low, but really, these are the sellers who probably see the most money for their auctions. Buyers are drawn to what they think is a deal, and once they get caught in a bidding war, there’s no telling how high the final price could soar.

Be cautious not to set your starting bid too high, or you could effectively drive away potential bidders. Bids that start close to what the final price of the item should be, or bids that are significantly higher than the starting bids for the same items from other sellers, are far more likely to be passed over with no bids.
If you want to make money on eBay while raising the kids, visit http://AuctionPaydayKidsPlay.com to find out how. Vickie Sayce teaches others how to get started on eBay (VickieSayce.com), and has been buying and selling on eBay since 2001. She has written a very informative book on starting an eBay business to make money from home while raising the kids.

Cancelling A Listing On eBay

By Vickie Sayce in Ecommerce

When you are running your own home business on eBay, you may find occasionally that you’ve listed something in error, or someone wants you to split an auction, so you need to cancel a current listing you are running. Cancelling a listing is easy, it’s perfectly okay to do on eBay. There are some things to know before you start, however.

Cancelling a listing is not necessary if you simply need to make changes to your current auction. Simply go in and edit the erroneous information, and it should be updated immediately. If you are making a drastic change, however, you must have no bidders on your auction to do so.

Cancelling an auction simply because the bidding price is not high enough is against eBay’s terms of service, and can get you suspended or banned from eBay if you do so.

If you need to cancel your eBay auction listing, log into your account on eBay. Visit your selling section, and you will see a current list of all the items you are currently selling, both active and inactive. Find the listing that you need to cancel, and copy the item number of that listing. Visit “Related Links,” and choose “More.” You’ll see an option for ending your listing early; this is where to input your auction number.

If your listing currently has bids when you want to cancel it, you have the choice to either cancel all of the existing bids, or award the item to the highest bidder. If you have decided to cancel all of your bids, or you had no bids before cancelling the item, you will then need to explain to eBay why you are cancelling the auction. After you submit this information, the listing will be cancelled.

Reasons for cancelling your eBay auction may include restructuring a listing for a potential buyer - for instance, if you have multiple items in one listing, and a buyer only wants to purchase one of the items, you may want to “split” the auction for them and create a new listing so that they can purchase the single item. There is no guarantee that the buyer will bid and purchase the item, however, so exercise caution, because the potential buyer is not required to bid solely because you created a special auction for them. You may also want to end the listing early to award the item to the highest bidder if you have reached the price you were hoping for, and want to hurry up and ship out the item.

It is also important to note that eBay does not refund the listing fee for cancelled auctions. While you won’t have to pay a final value fee - unless you award the auction to the highest bidder at the time of cancellation - you still have to pay the original fee that you were charged when you listed the item. This is usually very small, but for larger auctions, this may be something to consider before cancelling an auction if you don’t want to lose a lot of money.
If you want to make money on eBay while raising the kids, visit http://AuctionPaydayKidsPlay.com to find out how. Vickie Sayce teaches others how to get started on eBay (VickieSayce.com), and has been buying and selling on eBay since 2001. She has written a very informative book on starting an eBay business to make money from home while raising the kids.