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How To Make $500 Your First 30 Days On eBay

How To Make $500 Your First 30 Days On eBay

If you're reading this your probably a new eBay struggling to get sales. You list items, but nobody seems to buy them. Most likely it's because nobody is seeing them.

eBay's number one goal is to provide a positive buying experience to buyers. Because of this eBay would rather show items and sellers who are established and have a track record of providing a satisfactory buyer experience. As a new seller this will be an uphill battle trying to build some sales rank so that your items will be shown more prominantly in ebay searches.

It's kind of a catch 22. eBay won't show your items until you can prove you ship quickly and have happy buyers, but you can't get those buyers to prove yourself as a seller because eBay won't show your items. I have a strategy for new sellers which will not only help you build up your sales rank and seller metrics, but will have you making money while doing it. If you follow this method you can easily make $500 in your first month selling on eBay.

The New Seller Hurdle

I've already explained to you guys what the new seller hurdle is above. But how do you get past it? In the past I've actually bought hot selling popular items and sold them at a loss just to build up my seller ranking. With my last new eBay account I bought 150 iPod chargers. These were an item I knew that would sell. I paid $5 per charger and wound up listing them all at auctions for $0.99 cents. While some rose to $7 or $8 and were profitable, many sold for $0.99 cents to a couple bucks and I lost money on them. I didn't really care because the ultimate goal wasn't to make money, it was to build up my seller metrics and feedback.

I knew that even though I had a poor seller ranking, since it was a hot selling item if I ran auctions and priced my items low enough people would take a chance on a new eBay seller for a discount and I would sell those items. I quickly grew my feedback to over 100, I grew my seller ranking and my other items began to sell organically.

I have a better method for you guys though. You don't have to buy items to sell at a loss and lose money. I have a way you can build your seller ranking not only for FREE, but you can make money while doing it. To the tune of $500 per month even on a completely brand new eBay account. In the next section I'm going to show you exactly how I do it.

The Method - Make $500 Your First Month On eBay

Many of you may not be aware that Amazon sellers regularly give away products for free in exchange for the "buyer" to leave them a review of their product on Amazon. Amazon has become so competitive that it's basically a necessity that every new seller with a new product give away free units to build up some feedback, otherwise they will never rise in Amazon's search.

As an eBay seller you can take advantage of this. Signup for the free product giveaways. Get the free product, do your part and leave the seller a review, and then resell the merchandise on eBay. It doesn't matter what it sells for because you got it for FREE and it's 100% profit to you. As long as you make sure the shipping cost gets covered it's all money in the bank and it's a way to raise your seller rank and make money while doing it as opposed to losing money trying to do this like I used to do.

So how do you go about getting these FREE products? Two of my favorite sites to get free stuff from are ReviewKick and AMZReviewTrader. You simply signup for an account which is free. You'll then be able to browse and shop among all the free products, choose the ones you want, and request them. Within a day or so the seller will provide you with a promo code making the item free. You simply enter the promo code during checkout and it will make the balance $0 and you get the item for free.

All in all there's over 40 different sites and e-mail lists where you can signup for FREE Amazon products. As I mentioned earlier, my two favorites are ReviewKick and AMZ Review Trader but there's a ton of others and if you like you can get a list of over 40 sites where you can signup and shop for FREE AMAZON PRODUCTS!

Now for those of you who aren't familiar with Amazon FBA. Because of the high fees sellers pay Amazon for fulfillment products sold via this method typically need to be between $15 and $50 to make it worthwhile for the sellers and to cover FBA fees. What does this mean for you? This means your not getting cheap crappy products for free, your getting higher priced items. Now you probably won't get the full retail price reselling, however you can still get a pretty penny. Just to give you an idea the types of items I've gotten for free. Some items are $10 or $15 items like phone chargers, phone cases, etc. On the higher end however I've gotten purses and messenger bags worth upwards of $70. I've gotten beach tends upwards of $50, etc. These are some quality items you can fetch a pretty good price for on ebay.

GET FREE AMAZON STUFF TO SELL ON EBAY

How Do I Get Started?

So you want to start ranking higher on eBay? You want to start selling m ore on eBay? You want to make $500 within your first 30 days selling on eBay? Here's what you need to do.

1. If you don't already have one signup for an eBay and Paypal account.

2. If you don't already have one signup for an Amazon buyer account.

3. Visit ReviewKick.Com and AMZReviewTrader.Com and signup for an account. Then start requesting free products.

4. If you want access to more than 40 sites and e-mail lists which will provide you with FREE products click here and obtain THE LIST!

5. Start requesting free products sellers are giving away. Once you receive them list them on eBay. Don't copy the Amazon listing word for word but basically paraphrase the title, bullet points, and description

6. You can price items however you like. eBay will typically give you a recommended amount. Start there, if your items aren't selling start your auctions at 0.99 cents and charge enough shipping to cover shipping costs and just let the auctions go off where they may. Again, this is 100% profit to you so even if it sells for 99 cents that's 99 cents more than you had before. As you do this the more you sell the better your items will begin to rank and you'll start getting more views and more bids on your items.

***If your not being accepted into enough free product offers on AMZREviewTrader and ReviewKick get the list of over 40 sites and e-mail lists to get FREE stuff. The more you apply for the more you will get, it's a numbers game.

If you'd like to see this method in action watch the video below

eBay Best Practices - 3 Tips For Ranking Your Items Higher In eBay Searches

How To Rank Higher In eBay Searches

Want to rank your items higher in eBay searches? Today we're going to be discussing 3 eBay best practices which will give your seller account and your items a boost in eBay search.

We have all heard the term SEO. It refers to search engine optimization. Basically knowing what search engines are looking for to rank items high and then meeting those requirements in an effort to get your website, article, blog, etc to rank higher in searches.

Though many of us don't think of eBay as a search engine, eBay most definately is a search engine. eBay and Amazon are two of the largest search engines in the world. Only thing is they don't search the web, they just search products on their website. That said the same way SEO applies to websites, there's SEO involved in putting together an eBay listing and getting it to rise to the top of eBays page one in searches. But how do you do this?

In this post were going to discuss 3 tips for getting your items ranked higher in eBay searches. Now first off your seller rank and feedback plays a very important role. That's not something your going to be able to build or change overnight, but the sooner you get started the sooner your rankings will improve. There are some things you can put into action today which will give your items a boost in search. Here they are.

1. Offer Free Shipping

Whenever possible offer FREE shipping on your eBay listings. eBay outright tells us they give a boost in search to sellers who offer free shipping. Buyers also like free shipping because A. it's free, but B. it's easier seeing free shippign or even a flat rate shipping as opposed to making a buyer enter their zipcode in the listing to find out what an item will cost in shipping.

Just roll the shipping cost into the item cost. If you would normally sell a phone charger for $10 with $2 shipping, just make the price $12 and offer free shipping. Your still getting the same amount of money and your going to get a boost in search.

The only time I would recommend against doing this is on larger, heavier, bulkier items. Reason being it may cost $50 to ship an item to California from where you live but only $10 to ship it a state over to say Wisconsin. With an item which has a much higher shipping if you go towards the higher end more local buyers are way overpaying for shipping and if you go on the lower or medium end of shipping prices without a doubt you will wind up getting a buyer from the other end of the country and the shipping fee you charged will not cover shipping, you will be comming out of your own pocket.

Aside from especially large, heavy and bulky items I would always recommend offering FREE SHIPPING.

2. Accept 14 Day Returns With A 20% Restocking Fee

I know many sellers don't like accepting returns. I'm with you, it's a hassle and it costs you money. That said in order to be eligible to be a top ranked and power seller you need to accept returns.

One strategy I use to meet this requirement, rank my items higher while still discouraging returns is to accept returns for the minimum amount of time 14 days, while also charging a 20% restocking fee. Now if an item arrives broken or not as described you cannot charge that fee, however if it's just a case of buyers remorse or the person doesn't want the item, they can return it, but will be charged a 20% restocking fee. This greatly discourages returns. At the end of the day you may want to waive that 20% restocking fee to avoid upset buyers and bad feedback, however it does act as a deterrent from people buying items on a whim and returning for no reason.

3. Use Terapeak

This is kind of hard to wrap up in a bullet point, I've made entire presentations and webinars on Terapeak and what an important tool it is to eBay sellers. Terapeak can help you with every aspect of your eBay business from finding you hot selling items with the hot selling or category research tools. It can help you analyze products your thinking about selling prior to buying inventory, and it can even help you source the inventory from Alibaba.

What I find most valuable about Terapeak from the persepctive of ranking your eBay items higher is the SEO and Product Research tools. The SEO tool will allow you to search a product or keyword and find out how much is sold in a given week, the sell through ranking. You can see the top 20 sellers ie your competitors. You can also find out what keywords buyers of your product are searching for and not only that but in the order of importance. You can then use those keywords in your listings title and description, putting an emphasis on putting the most important keywords to the front of the title. This gives a huge boost in eBay SEO or optimizing your eBay listing.

For those of you who aren't aware of Terapeak or who havn't tried it out you can get a FREE 7 day trial to test it out for yourself.

What happens if you don't pay your eBay fees and ditch the account?

What happens if you don't pay your eBay fees and ditch the account?

What happens if you don't pay your eBay fees? This is a question a reader recently sent us in. I'll post his question below and we'll touch on why this is a poor idea.

Not Paying Your eBay Fees? eBay Will Suspend You... FOR LIFE!

My girlfriend did this so I'm just wondering what the ramifications are. The fee's are over $50, but under $100.

First off this is a very bad idea, just pay the balance. Here's why. First of all only scumbags don't pay their debts. If you owe somebody money you pay them. That's integrity first and foremost. If someone owed you money you'd want them to pay so why wouldn't you pay when you owe someone money?

Secondly and more importantly however since integrity seems to be something many people don't care about these days is this. If you don't pay your eBay fees not only will eBay turn you over to collections, eBay will ban your account. For those of you who aren't aware an eBay ban is a ban for life, you will never get back on eBay.

While today your girlfriend may not care about eBay and may not have anything to sell or may not have a business which she would like to use eBay to sell her wares on, eventually some day whether she start a business or whether she just have an item laying around the house she would like to sell she will want to use eBay again. A $50 eBay bill is hardly worth losing an eBay account in life in my opinion. Your eBay account over the rest of your life is worth much more than $50 even as a casual user.

Lastly however and this is most important as it impacts others. She is putting anyone who uses the same IP address as her, anyone who lives at the same address as her, and anyone who has used her computer is now at risk of losing their eBay account. Many people don't realize just how sophisticated eBay is at tracking data about you from bank accounts you use, Paypal accounts you use, addresses and phone numbers associated with your account, phone numbers you've called customer support from and even the computer you've logged in on and the flash cookies and bios, eBay tracks it all and matches it to you as well as any other eBay accounts which have used that data.

If you've ever heard of people refer to stealth accounts it's people referring to essentially having to change all of this information so eBay doesn't match your new account up to any past accounts which have been suspended.

It just seems silly to walk away from such a small debt and throw away her ability to sell on eBay for the rest of her life as well as putting you or others eBay accounts at risk. If you have an eBay account, if you sell on eBay or if you plan on selling on eBay in the future I would highly recommend you just pay the debt for her to protect your own account.

eBay Sellers and Shipping to Business Addresses

Any Issues Sending To Business Addresses?

A reader recently messaged us to ask about any potential problems shipping to a business address. Here's what he asked and we'll answer below...

I've not experienced any issues so far sending an item to a business address, but I've just sent an item to a large corporation and I can imagine that it would be easy for the item not to get to the recipient - as it certainly would be delivered to the receptionist or mail room in the first place.
Is it possible or best to refuse to send to (some) business addresses?
Or are there generally no issues here?

Now I'll admit, I too get nervous when items go to a business or even an apartment building. You can't refuse to ship to an address just because you don't like the idea of it going to a business. Assuming this address is the one which came through on the order you must ship it there. Honestly in the grand scheme of things being shipped to a business address is actually probably in many ways safer than an item sitting on someone's porch. I would just make sure to message the buyer and give them their tracking. I know the buyer can see tracking within their eBay account but I get messaged for tracking so much it leads me to believe nobody actually checks it. I would also consider sending the buyer a message once tracking shows delivered letting them know. These few little steps will prevent the package from sitting for days and then being difficult to locate.

Personally I get a bit nervous having a package shipped to apartments as well. Why? Because I visit friends apartments and see packages just willy nilly thrown on the floor in the entrance where residents or anyone walking by can just grab it. For this reason I'll typically require a signature on apartments or businesses, at least that way at a business there's some accountability for whoever signed for the package and in the case of apartments it either won't be delivered without the person or at the very least will be left in the apartment office. If it's a high dollar item or something I'm really worried about I may even spring for Fedex.

Concerned About Shipping eBay Item To Unconfirmed Paypal Member

eBay Selling Tips - Reader Question Answered

Okay so today I received an e-mail from a reader of the blog who is at their wits end with eBay and was seeking advice. So here's the situation. The eBay seller sold an iPhone for just under $700. A Chinese buyer with an address in Oregon purchased the item. Paypal and eBay were not showing the transaction as having officially cleared and were showing the hour glass so the seller didn't ship.

The buyer then messaged and basically gave a deadline saying ship before Monday or I will leave negative feedback. The seller later contacted eBay who told them the payment had cleared and that they should have checked Paypal.

I'll post the buyers story below but just a bit of commentary. First I applaud the eBay seller for not making the stupid mistake so many make which is shipping immediately before payment has cleared or even caving to buyer extortion and shipping even if payment hasn't cleared.

I do agree with eBay to the extent the seller should have checked Paypal but I can see where the confusion comes in where eBay itself is showing the payment as still being an hourglass which is strange.

Apparently eBay told the seller this is not feedback extortion and they would not remove the feedback. Now one thing for you guys to be aware of. A seller having a "verified" Paypal account isn't a requirement of Paypal  or eBay. Sure it's good it means they've hooked up a credit card and/or bank account and have gone a step further in confirming their identity but it's not a requirement to buy or sell on eBay. Many people outside of the USA buy items on eBay and have them sent to a mail forwarder, typically on the west coast for Asian buyers. In my experience generally in California but Oregon would not surprise me. This is really big in the basketball card category.

I think the best thing to do in this situation is to try to contact the buyer and request a feedback revision. Express your concerns as well as confusion about the payment not showing cleared, you may even want to send a screenshot showing that eBay still shows an hourglass. Apologize to the buyer, maybe even offer a partial refund in return for having the feedback removed. I know people hate losing out on money but honestly the harm of negative feedback will cost you more than throwing a few bucks back the sellers way or offering free shipping or a return on shipping.

If that doesn't work you may want to give eBay another call and see if a different eBay rep may see your side of the story and remove the feedback.

I sold an iPhone on June 6 via buy it now with immediate payment required for $699.99. The item immediately showed up under my "Awaiting Payment" tab. It had the hour glass that said "This item is pending payment through PayPal". A few days ago I received a message from the buyer that said, "SHIP before next Monday, otherwise I will complain in EBAY and add NEGATIVE." This morning, the payment still showed as pending on eBay when I received negative feedback. eBay shows his is a user in China who is trying to have me ship to an unconfirmed address in Oregon. 

I called eBay this morning and was told by the first representative that my feedback would not be removed. She was very unhelpful. I was then transferred to someone on the Leadership Team. This person explained to me that I should have checked PayPal to see that the payment had cleared. 

Which apparently it did. However, eBay still showed the payment as pending and the page clearly said "Do not ship yet." She also said that the buyer had not tried to extort feedback because he simply wanted me to ship an item that had been paid for. Am I required to ship to an unconfirmed address? My account is 15 years old. I've paid eBay untold thousands of dollars in fees. And this is the treatment I get in favor of a buyer with 3 feedback and a year old account. I'm incredulous to this whole thing.

eBay Buyer Filed Chargeback 6 Months Later

eBay Buyers And Chargebacks

A reader had messaged us asking for advice about a situation they are currently in. They sold a gift card in digital form ie delivered via eBay message as opposed to sending the physical gift card which would have given him tracking information to provide as proof for the case, it also potentially makes the transaction a physical good and not a digital good. Here's what the reader said...

I received an email today that a buyer of a $200 digital gift card that I sold back on December 3rd filed a chargeback today...a little over months later. I delivered the gift card through eBay messages but my message box doesn't show the message I sent as it only shows the last 6 months of messages so I have no proof that I delivered it. I also know the seller protection usually doesn't cover digital goods, am I just totally screwed here? Thanks for your help!

Unfortunately I don't think having that eBay message would have done you any good anyhow. In my experience whether selling Bitcoins or Gift Cards or XBox codes, you should always physically send the card, or code, or even a slip of paper but you must send something. Anytime an eBay/Paypal transaction has no tracking number it leaves the seller open to a chargeback. If the buyer claims they never received eBay/Paypal will ask you for tracking, if you can't provide it you automatically lose the case.

Unfortunately this is one of the pitfalls of selling digital goods and specficially gift cards. There's a lot of scams with gift cards both on the side of buyers and sellers.

Is it possible to get Unbanned as an eBay Seller

How to get eBay Seller Account Unbanned?

eBay's offical stance on this issue is that an eBay ban is an eBay ban for life, assuming it's not just a week or month long suspension. Is this really true? Can you really be banned from eBay for life for one mistake?

Sadly yes. There's really only one reason for a ban which is fairly easy to overcome and that is not paying eBay seller fees. If you don't pay eBay seller fees for a substantial period of time eBay will eventually ban your account. In some instances eBay will agree to let you back on once your seller fees are paid. Outside of that it's difficult if not impossible to get an eBay account reinstated.

We should learn a couple lessons from this. First off guard your eBay account with your life. I'm shocked by how many people nonchalantly sell counterfeit Minecraft or Star Wars toys and then cry when they get suspended. That is probably one of the most aggregious violations of eBay policy there is selling counterfeit merchandise. Not only are you cheating buyers, your also stealing from larger brands.

Guard your eBay account with your life. It's always worth losing a couple bucks over your eBay account. I see so many eBay sellers stubbornly stick to their guns on issues which whether they are right or wrong are goign to be decided in favor of a buyer yet they stubbornly refuse to cave, wind up losing cases, get bad feedback, bad DSR scores and in some instances have their accounts suspended.

Losing a couple bucks on a transaction is much better than losing eBay income for life.

As far as getting unbanned there's really only one way this can happen and even then it's a far shot but at least it's considered. You'll need to find the e-mail address of the CEO of eBay as well as the executive offices. Email them, kiss their butt and tell them what a huge fan of eBay and the eBay community that you are. Tell them you made a mistake, and also have a remedy in place for how you will prevent that mistake from happening again in the future. It would also be wise to have a business plan of what you plan to sell and how you plan to run your business as this is also something they will typically ask for.

If you provide all this someone will at least look at your account and seriously look at the reason for your suspension and the possibility of being allowed back on. Don't even bother calling eBay customer support as they won't even consider it and don't have the power to do anything about it.

This is really the only way to get your eBay account unsuspended and even then it's a long shot.

Getting eBay Feedback Removed

What Type Of Feedback Can Be Removed

I recently received an e-mail from a reader asking about the topic of having feedback removed. Before we get into his question I just wanted to briefly touch on the types of feedback which can be removed.You can read eBay's policy on feedback removal here.

Now in eBay TOS they are pretty strict and pretty specific about what qualifies for feedback removal. Simply saying the feedback is not fair is not enough to have it removed, and technically speaking so long as they don't use profanity, mention your name, address, or other personal info, or  put a link in the feedback technically speaking it can't be removed.

Aside from that in my experience the only time feedback can be removed is if the customer in a message says something contrary to what their feedback says, or if the customer is doing feedback extortion which is something like saying please ship overnight for free or I'll have to leave negative feedback or something along those lines.

Now in reality I've managed to get feedback removed that fell outside of these reasons. One huge tip I can give you is carry yourself in a very professional manner. We all know eBay is full of unreasonable and stupid buyers. It comes across in their messages and when you continue to try to appease them and they continue to be difficult eBay reps will see this pattern of behavior in their review of a situation and its often a reason for getting feedback removed.

I had a specific issue where I sold a used item, it was clearly described as used. The customer threw a fit because it was used. I explained the title, description, and photos, as well as item specifics all clearly stated the item was used but none the less I was happy to accept a refund including shipping even though it was the buyers fault. The buyer continued on a tirade for about 3 more messages to the point of saying used items should not be allowed to be sold because they could have germs. Now keep in mind this was a collectible item think sports cards, so not even something that someone would put in their mouth or on their body. I pointed out the craziness of the messages to an eBay rep who also saw all throughout the process I was cordial, helpful and offering to make the situation right despite the buyer being at fault. eBay removed the feedback no problem.

My point is, try to keep your buyers happy. When they are not happy go out of your way to make them happy. Play the long term game not the short term game. So many people are unwilling to take a $3 loss for shipping, but don't realize that a negative feedback in the long term is going to hurt them and cost them more money than $3 in that it will cost them sales and hurt their rank in eBay.

At all times however carry yourself in a professional manner and do right by your buyers. eBay can and does see what's stated in messages and it's a big factor in having feedback removed.

How I Do $250,000 a Month Selling Alibaba and Ali Express Products on eBay & Amazon 

Have you tried your hand at selling on eBay but not had much luck? Chances are your selling the wrong products and not putting your listings together in a way that eBay ranks them high in searches. Without traffic going to your listings they aren't going to sell. 

Watch this great webcast on eBay selling. This video breaks down exactly how to find hot selling products guranteed to sell. Never buy inventory that doesn't sell again. This method uses a program called Terapeak which allows you to pull past eBay sales data to find out information such as the best time of day and day of the week to list your item. Most buyers of certain items tend to buy at the same day of the week and same time of day. This program also shows you possibly most valuable of all the top keywords for your product. You'll know exactly what terms the buyers of your items are searching for and will therefore be able to put those keywords in your listings title which will in turn help you rank higher in eBay searches.  

You can know before even buying a product how many similar items are sold per week, the overall sales, and even the sell through rate. You can even take a look at your top 20 competitors and try to replicate what they are doing to be successful. 

More than anything though this video focuses on how to find hot selling products, and then how to source them cheaply on Ali Express and Alibaba. 

Watch this video and see how someone does over $250,000 in sales each month using these methods. 

If your interested in trying out the analytic website featured in this video you can get a free trial by clicking here.

 

eBay SEO Optimization - How To Find Best Keywords

How To SEO Your eBay Listing

How well are your eBay listings ranking? Are your items showing up on the first page of eBay? If not chances are you aren't optimizing your eBay listing to it's full potential.

Though many factors come into play for eBay SEO such as seller metrics, description, pictures, item specifics, and other elements, one of the most important aspects to ranking high in eBay searches or mastering eBay SEO as they call it is using the optimal keyword and title structure in your listings titles.

How am I able to get my eBay listings to regularly on the first page of eBay searches? I use Terapeak to pull data on what terms eBay buyers are searching for in an effort to get my listings to climb to the top of eBay's first page.

Terapeak offers everal tools which are very helpful in doing this. The first tool is the eBay SEO tool of Terapeak as seen in the screenshot below

eBay SEO Tool

As you can see here as we'll a search on the word "watermelon slicer" and you'll see how Terapeak is able to pull up relevant search terms as well as a descriptor to tell us the context of the word whether it be a brand, material, or other descriptor.

Sample eBay Keyword SEO Report From Terapeak

As you can see in the image above we see the word "stainless" and "steel" refer to the color and material while words like "slicy" refer to a specific brand of watermelon slicer. We are also shown the number of sellers selling items with this keyword, an average sale price, and a few pictures of several of the product.

It doesn't just stop there though. Terapeak also has a product research tool in which we are able to see the keywords in order of importance. The goal when putting a eBay listing together is to try to put the most searched keywords as close to the front of the eBay listing as possible. It's oftentimes also not a bad idea to try to repeat the number one searched keyword at least twice at some point during the title.

eBay Product Research

Now you can still use SEO tactics in your eBay listing without Terapeak, however it's somewhat like trying to find a destination without a map. Without Terapeak we can make educated guesses about what keywords customers will likely be searching but we don't know for sure. With Terapeak we know with certainty what keywords customers are searching for, but not only that, we also know in order of importance in eBay's eyes.

If your interested in giving Terapeak a try you can get a FREE 7 Day Trial.