Tuesday 3 February 2015

8 Dolls That Sell Well on eBay

From the beginning, eBay's primary growth came from the 
collectibles market. There are two basic models for eBay 
sales: 

1. Currently available consumers goods. This is a price- 
driven model, and although smart sellers can earn above- 
average prices, buyers are there looking for a bargain and 
price is the #1 consideration. 

2. Other buyers are collectors, looking for one-of-a-kind 
unique items that they can't locate elsewhere. Here, price 
isn't as important as it is with consumer goods. The power 
of this market is obvious because, before eBay and the 
Internet, most collectors were confined to a local market. 

Dolls have always been big sellers as eBay collectibles and 
eight of them are especially strong sellers: 

1. The Cabbage Patch Kids began in 1978 and are never 
"sold". They are 'born' at Babyland General Hospital in 
Cleveland, Georgia and proud parents pay an 'adoption fee'. 
The Cabbage Patch Kids were one of the greatest toy 
phenomenons of the later 20th century. At one time, it was a 
common sight to see grown women shopping and lunching with 
their babies in hand. In restaurants, the Kids had their own 
chairs and were always appropriately dressed for the 
weather. 

2. Precious Moments began in the early 1970s when creator 
Sam Butcher began drawing the endearing teardrop-eye 
children as gifts for family and friends. Today Sam's 
Precious Moments artwork is among the most recognized in the 
world, and eBay prices reflect this popularity. 

3. Madame Alexander dolls were created in 1923. These 
beloved dolls range from Charlie Brown to babies and 
children to elegant dressed women to glamorous and famous 
women like Greta Garbo and Judy Garland. With all the 
varieties of costumes, a single doll can be a 1920s flapper 
as easily as a member of the court of Louis XIV. 

4. Lee Middleton dolls, according to legend, are so real in 
appearance that grown men sent for a rescue squad to save 
"the baby" from a locked car! Mistaken identity is 
supposedly a frequent occurrence and the dolls have been 
counted as "passengers" on airplanes and rescued from store 
countertops to prevent the 'baby' from falling. As one happy 
owner says, "These dolls are so lifelike it's uncanny." 

5. American Girl dolls are loved by millions of little girls 
(and grown ups, too!) They are not only from different times 
and places, but are ethnically diverse: Felicity from 
colonial Virginia; Josephina from the 1830's in New Mexico; 
Kirsten is "a pioneer girl of strength and spirit growing up 
in Minnesota in 1854"; Addy is alive in the 186o's, having 
escaped from slavery with her mother; Samantha is "a bright 
Victorian girl living with her wealthy grandmother in 1904"; 
Kit is growing up in 193os, during America's Great 
Depression; Molly lives in the 1940's while her dad is away 
at war; Kaya is a Nez Perce Indian living in the northwest. 

6. Hasbro dolls are one of the products of the gigantic 
Hasbro company, who claim to have been making toys for eight 
generations, including famous games like Monopoly, Scrabble 
and Clue. 

7. Bratz dolls, unlike older dolls like Madame Alexander and 
Cabbage Patch Kids, have no long history as favorite toys or 
collectibles. Nevertheless, their price has astonished eBay 
sellers and the Bratz collection was one of the 'super hits' 
of the 2003 holiday season and sales have been strong ever 
since. 

8. And, no surprise, Barbie is the best-selling doll on 
eBay. Since Mattel has recently announced that Ken and 
Barbie will no longer be an "item", dolls from the 'good old 
days' when the name "Barbie" was rarely heard without 'Ken', 
will inevitably become more valuable. 

Anyone who loves and understands the doll market, can do 
very well selling dolls on eBay. They've been strong 
sellers for the 10 years eBay has been in existence and are 
almost certain to remain popular for years to come. 

7 Tips for Selling Expensive Collectibles On eBay

Recently, a friend asked me to help her brother sell his collection on Lladro glass figurines on eBay. These are expensive glass collectibles and I knew nothing about them - but I don't have to. The principles for selling expensive collectibles on eBay are the same, regardless of what is being sold. 

Obviously, like any eBay auction, the seller must have a powerful listing with great pictures. This is always true regardless of what the merchandise is. Expensive collectibles offer splendid opportunities, but also need special precautions. 

1. Price: decide the lowest amount you will accept for each figurine and set that price as a reserve. Then make your opening bid absurdly low - yes, absurdly. 

Example: if you will accept $1,000 - make your opening bid $25. There is no risk in this, because you don't have to sell unless the bidding reaches $1000, but the low price attracts buyers, (assuming there is demand, of course). 

Looking at completed eBay auctions allows us to track prices, Again and again we learn that starting the price where the seller hopes it will end is not a wise tactic. 

For instance, a seller wants to get $750 for his figurine. An opening bid of $750 won't attract nearly as many buyers as an opening bid of $25 and - surprisingly - the lower bid almost always gets higher prices. There is some psychology at work with the cheap price. It may not make logical sense, but it's the reality of life on eBay. 

2. Devote space in your auction listing explaining how you will pack your item to ensure safe transit. This is critically important because in the back of every buyer's mind is the dread of receiving a package that rattles. A collectibles buyer will inevitably be thinking of the hassle she will have to go through - and the possible loss of purchase price - if her item is broken. She needs to know that the seller has carefully considered this issue and has a solution. 

3. For the protection of both of you, insist that the buyer pay for appropriate insurance. Don't allow this to be an option. You definitely do not want the liability of a broken collectible that costs hundreds of dollars. In fact, if a customer objects to paying for insurance, this might possibly be a red flag. A genuine collector is very eager to add to her collection and wants her figurine to be protected. 

4. We can safely assume that every Internet buyer has heard stories of fraud on eBay and elsewhere on the Net. Therefore, anything you can do to prove the authenticity of your collectible is well worth your time. Is there a marking on the bottom? Do you have the original box or other container? Does it have a label? Is there a certificate of authenticity or an appraisal by a respected organization? If the answer to any of these is "yes", then be certain to emphasize your authenticity in your auction. Taking pictures of your proof is especially effective. 

5. I don't suggest offering a guarantee except in the most general way - that is, you, the seller, are telling the truth about the product. Anyone bidding on a collectible is knowledgeable and therefore they know what they're buying so there should be no reason for a return. If someone expresses dissatisfaction and mails your merchandise back, there is every likelihood of it being broken. You do not want the hassle of trying to collect on broken merchandise or putting yourself into a litigious situation with someone who refuses to believe that the collectible was broken via return shipping. 

Also, you don't want to take a loss on your eBay fees, which might be substantial if the price is high. 

6. With a really expensive item, always offer the option of an escrow service - at the buyer's expense, of course. They may not take want this service, but make certain they have the option. You, of course, know that your merchandise is legitimate, but the buyer isn't so certain. eBay recommends an escrow service that is available to all members. 

7. If you're willing to ship worldwide, you need to take special steps to protect yourself. In the US we have AVS (Address Verification System) which offers some protection. A very large portion of the fraud suffered by buyers occurs outside the United States and you are justified in protecting yourself. Losing the purchase price on a $5 item isn't such a big deal - but a $1,000 collectible absolutely does matter. 

Your bank can advise you on the time it will take to verify foreign funds. Be certain to let any prospective buyer know in your auction that there will be a delay if they are outside of your country. Do not let your merchandise out of your hands until you are sure! 

If you follow these 'rules', the chances of selling your expensive collectibles at the highest possible prices will be greatly increased.

How To Drive Traffic Away from Your eBay Auction

eBay is a one-stop solution to any one who wants to make money online. Whether you just selling a few unwanted items from around your house or your want to develop a work from home business, eBay removes many of the obstacles for you. Not many other websites can help you drive targeted traffic towards your sales, process the order on your behalf and accept payment though paypal. All you need to do then is dispatch the item to your winning bidder. 

And let's not forget the biggest advantage over selling on eBay. The majority of users have money in their hand just waiting to find the right item.

So if eBays so great why would you want to drive traffic AWAY from your auctions?

Well there are a few reasons why you'd be better off selling from your own website, rather than though eBay. Firstly & most importantly, think of all the listing fees & final value fees you could save if everything you sold on eBay you could sell on your own website. Personally it would save me thousands of dollars per year alone in listing fees.

Secondly, you'll be protecting yourself from eBay policy change. Imagine you were selling thousands of ebooks weekly and then suddenly eBay policy changed to prevent any ebook listings. 

Overnight your business would simply disappear & your income would vanish. It's the same with listing fees - A sudden hike in fees could wipe out your business & profit overnight.

With any business, especially an online one you need to safeguard yourself against measures that are out of your control. So by driving traffic away from your auctions to your own website you'll slowly start building up an alternative source of revenue. The following methods can be used on eBay. Some are on the borderline of eBay policy & you should check out any policy violation before using them. Saying that, a huge proportion of sellers use these on a daily basis.

1) Image Hosting

All the best sellers have auction templates developed to maintain a professional listing. And of course those sellers ALWAYS use images or graphics to accurately show the condition of the items their offering.

eBay itself allows you to upload the images to their servers, other commercial & free services are available. However really you want to store any images on your own server. Not only will search engine robots follow the links from your listings to your site (helping in improved visibility in any search engines), but many browsers will show the address of where the images are loading from in the status bar - For instance "Loading Image From http://www.visitmyshop.com" or "Waiting For http://www.visitmyshop.com". This is a great way for your visitors to see to become familiar with your site.

2) Feedback

Many sellers include their own website in the feedback comments they use. Strictly it is against eBay policy but many Powersellers use comments like "Thanks for your custom from http://www.Visitmyshop.com" as standard. This is perhaps one of the widely violated policies on eBay. I've never known of anyone receive a warning for this policy, but use it with caution as you could be the first.

3) Email Address.

eBay allows your listings to contain one email link address, in addition to the "Ask The Seller A Question Link" they already provide. Use the opportunity to show the an email account associated with your domain name for example sales@visitmyshop.com. The only condition about showing your email address is the one shown must also be your registered email account with eBay. Before you list it, make sure they match up.

4) About Me Page

eBay actually allows you to link to your own website from your About Me page, as long as the actual page does not directly offer to sell items. Therefore make it an information or about us page that you link to, BUT one where visitors can easily navigate to your catalog of items for sale. Additionally drive traffic to your About Me Page by including a link on every listings, for example "Click here to learn about me". An average basic shop on eBay will get over 1500 item views within a month. If you can drive just a small proportion of these to your about me page & then to your site you'll certainly see a difference in your non-eBay sales.

5) User Id

While eBay does not allow your user id to be that of an website, you should have it as closely to resembling your site name as possible. You CAN NOT attach .com, -com or *com to the end of your user id - this is strictly against eBay policy. However nothing would stop your id being VisitMyShop. The idea is to get your eBay visitors comfortable with dealing with you away from eBay.

I hope these tips help you drive traffic away from your auctions towards your site & lessens eBays grip on your business. Remember, Ignorance is not an excuse eBay accept if you do violate their policy. While you initially get a warning for policy violation continuous offences may result in your account being suspended. Having said that, eBay mostly rely on policing from other users to enforce their policy so as long as no reports you should be in the clear. 

Good luck with your eBay activity.

5 killer tips to get success with eBay

Secret #1: Find a ‘real’ wholesale and drop ship company

Do you know what one of the biggest problem is to be successful on eBay? ‘What should I sell”? I can tell you, I get many emails per day from eBay sellers, asking me what they can sell. Let me explain this more in detail. 

Let’s take John and David for example. Both are sellers and try to make money on eBay. Let’s start with John. He mainly gets his items from garage sales. So, every Saturday morning he gets up very early, hops into his car and drives around the neighbourhood to check out the garage sales. So he went last Saturday. John did not buy anything on the first two garage sales, but on his third garage sale, he found a little treasure. An old book from 1897 - for a bargain price of $10. Bingo! John was proud! ‘I can sell this for huge profit’, he thought and he went home. He took his digital camera and he made a high quality digital photo. It took quite some time but finally he was happy with the result. Then he had to upload this picture to his computer and he spent some time writing the sales copy. Late Saturday afternoon finally he was finished and launched this book onto eBay. 7-10 days later his item got sold for $75!! John is excited. He packs the item, labels it with the buyers address and then he drives to the nearest post office. Oh no, what a long line. After 15 min of waiting he could finally post this item to his customer! Wow, a lot of work for $65 profit? Don’t you think?

Let’s look at David. He usually gets up very late – usually at Saturday around lunchtime. He is still in his pyjamas and he makes himself a nice cup of coffee and gets onto the Internet. He logs into his drop ship account and browses through some hot selling product. ‘Yes, I can sell that” - A nice laptop for a bargain price of $550 (wholesale price). But David does not have to pay upfront for this item, so he just downloads the professional digital photos offered by his drop ship company to his computer. ”Oh wait”; David has just discovered that this drop ship company has also a ‘ready-to-use’ auction sales letter available. That’s really cool …and David copies and pastes the source code of this letter into his eBay listing and he launches his auction. A Dutch auction, since the drop ship company announced that they have more than one of this laptop currently available. Great, David could sell 6 laptops. He hits the submit button for this Dutch auction of 6 laptops and enjoys his coffee (which is still hot by the way). After 7-10 days David has sold all 6 laptops for $830 each. All what David does is the following: He waits until he gets the payment from his 6 customers in his paypal account, sends the address of the customers together with 6 x $550 (wholesale price) to his drop sip company via paypal. He has made pure profit of 6 x $280 = $1,680 in about 25 min of work – total. That’s why David is a smarter eBay seller than John. I think the idea is clear …drop shipping can be the answer to your problem what to sell on eBay and it can saves you a lot of time too. No packing, posting etc. 

Secret #2: Have a professional auction listing 

A professional eBay auction site is like your business card. If you are serious selling on eBay you should show your potential customers that you are a professional seller and that you are selling high quality products. Please, don’t just upload a photo and type the text in the description box. Do your homework and learn some HTML. Look around there are many professional tutorials and ebooks around helping you in that matter. It’s definitely worth it. And you’ll be surprised, because if your auction listing looks nice and professional potential buyers stay longer on your site and usually it’s more likely that they place a bid.

Secret #3: The money is in the follow up

“Yes, I’ve heard this before”, you may say. But, this is a very important aspect of your successful eBay career: Follow up with your customers. Send them an email ~10 days after they have purchased the product and ask them how they are going with the product and if everything is all right. Invite them to have a look at your other auctions. (You have to be careful though not offending anyone, but if the products are related and you ask how they went with the product, that’s fine). I never got complaints by doing that and your customers are happy to get some “insider tips”. You’ll be amazed how many customers will buy from you again, since they value you as a seller. Keep in mind that it is easier to keep an existing customer, instead of getting a new customer. You could also send them a thank you gift in form of a downloadable digital information product. That’s easy for you and they get some valuable information. You’ll see that your existing customers will be very thankful and they feel good that they have bought from you and will do again in the future.

Secret #4: Sell internationally

This aspect is often neglected by many eBay sellers: Sell internationally! First, check with your drop ship company in which countries they are shipping and how much postage they charge to send the item overseas. If you have sort out these details, you can go ahead and list your item internationally. You’ll be surprised how many more items you are selling when the potential buyers see: Ship worldwide. Don’t miss this opportunity or you are leaving big bucks on the table.

Secret #5: Be creative – Be different 

How do you think your listing will be stand out from the crowd? Good question isn’t it. In my 4 years of being an active Power Seller, I have tried and tested a lot. First have the photo in the gallery; it just costs a bit more to list but these additional cents are well spend. A recent study has shown that people almost ignore listing without a picture in the gallery. So that’s mandatory! The next step is your title. Do you know that only the title is spidered by eBay when potential customers are searching for specific products? So, you have to make sure that your title includes as much keywords as possible. But be careful here, eBay does not like “keyword stuffing”. So, be creative and come up with 2-3 different titles for the same item. Try them all and you’ll see what works best. 

5 Great Hidden Resources For eBay Users

Many thousands of people making a living both buying & selling on eBay. Currently ranked as the 37 biggest site on the net (according to Alexa figures) eBay shows no signs of slowing down, even fortune 500 companies are opening eBay shops to sell surplus & unwanted stock. The following are five resources that I use personally & encourage you to use them to increase your eBay profits with ease.

Reports show that over 90% of searches on eBay are done using the search facility. What users do not know about eBays search factility is that by default it only searches the item titles - not the descriptions of the items. Remember this fact as it will show the significance of some of the resources listed below. 

1) FatFingers

How professional a seller are you? Do you check your listings before submitting them or even does someone else proof read them for you? With millions of listings on eBays networks of sites at any one time, a small proportion of these listings contain errors - & a misspelt word is about the biggest error you can make. 

Imagine your selling a Sony Television for example. What if you misspell the item as Sony Televisoin. Anyone who searches for the term "Sony Television" simply isn't going to be presented with your item. Only those eBayers who search manually though the category will find your items. Needless to say that if people can't find your item, they're unable to bid on them.

FatFingers is a service you can use to find all misspelt variations of a term. Why would you need such a service?

Well obviously if an item has low visibility on eBay it's also likely to have zero or few bids enabling you to snap yourself up a bargain. I've known people use this service to make a full time living, purely buying items cheaply and relisting them without errors. 

Details at: Fatfingers.com

2) eBay Pulse

Back to the search facility eBay pulse shows you the top 10 searched keywords in every category. It's a real gem of a service, obviously by looking at the most widely used search terms you can see what eBayers are after. And if your selling in this category, by inserting some of these keywords within your title your items will be seen by more users.

The only thing to watch out with this service is make sure the keywords are relevant to your item, IF NOT DON'T USE THEM. How many times have you saw listings such as "SONY PANASONIC LG WIDESCREEN DIGITAL TELEVISION GUIDE", - listings such as these are well thought out to earn high visibility from the way users search. Anyone searching for the items with any of the keywords will uncover your listings. 

While it may lead to a high number of views, firstly fellow users will get annoyed if they find your item completely unrevealed to what they searched for, Secondly keyword spamming as it is known, is against eBay policy and will lead to your item being pulled. I use pulse daily with all my listings but make sure it's relevant to your item first.

Details at: pulse.ebay.com

3) Keyword-Pro

Keyword-Pro is a commercial subscription service which is similar to eBay pulse. However, the main difference is Keyword-Pro offers a much more in depth list of relevant keywords. It lists the top 50 keywords for every category for both eBay.co.uk & eBay.com. This is a great addition, especially if any of the terms found in eBay pulse are not relevant to your item.

Keyword-Pro is available as both a web service or as a small program that downloads the list onto your P.C. It's data is updated weekly to keep you informed of the latest search terms.

Details at Trading-Web-Solutions.com/keywords

4) Selling Manager

When you first open a selling account on eBay, options listed under the sell tab of eBay are enough to get you by. However, you can upgrade to a more in depth service known as Selling Manager. As eBay describes the service "eBay Selling Manager is our online sales management tool for medium to high volume sellers". It allows you to track every eBay sale, customise your feedback comments, print shipping labels & much more. It saves me about four hours a week tracking orders and watching my sales.

Selling Manager is FREE on eBay.co.uk & has a small monthly charge of on eBay.com (after one a month trial free). Once I moved over to Selling Manager, there's simply no way I would go back.

Details at: Click on services once you've logged into your eBay account. 

5) eBay Popular Products

Here you can see, directly from eBay, what the most popular products are in several categories. an invaluable tool for an eBay seller.



I hope you find these services useful & time saving in your goal for a successful home business on eBay. Remember, your most important resource is your time when your starting or building up an online business & if you discover any site, person or opportunity that can save you time give it the attention & serious consideration it deserves. Every top Internet marketers constantly educate themselves by purchasing & reviewing almost every new product released. The way I look at it, if an ebook costs $197 and the information within the ebook saves me this or allows me to make an additional $197 it's well worth it - once you can do it once you'll be able to repeat the exercise over and over again making repeated profits. If you discover a precious eBay related resource let me know & I'll consider revising this list for future editions.

4 Steps to eBay Affiliate Success

Getting started with the eBay affiliate program is as simple as 4 easy 
steps. eBay knows you have a business to run, so they have created a step-by-step guide to see you down the road of success. With the eBay Affiliate Program, you could bring in an extra $25,000 a month, as well as gain access to many tools and strategies that will optimize the working of your website, its effectiveness with search engines and on the Web in general. Getting started in a successful venture has never been so easy. 

Step# 1 

To register for the eBay Affiliate Program simply to go http://affiliates.ebay.com/ and do a little research. When you have seen the unlimited opportunities for success that the eBay Affiliate program affords its members, you will next want to click on the ‘API Program Join Now’ button. At this point you will be prompted to select the platform you would like to join with. The platform you choose will influence the tier and type of business your eBay Affiliate Status becomes. Each platform offers unique advantages, and should be considered carefully. Once you have selected your program platform, simply click the Join Now button for that particular platform. 

Step# 2 

After you have completed your application, the eBay Affiliate network you 
choose will send you an email with your login details and instructions on getting started. The application process itself is easy, and simply requires some information about your business. This information helps eBay optimize the tools and guidelines they provide you for your success. The application takes only a few minutes, and is not sold to competitors. The Affiliate network you chose will be in touch with your personal information and you can get started with your successful new venture. 

Step# 3 

Once you have received your password and login information, you can proceed to the affiliate network site http://affiliates.ebay.com/tools/ to find eBay banners, text links, and search boxes. This website offers detailed tracking statistics. The tracking statistics will help you see which products and companies are performing best. This information will help guide you as you develop your affiliation with eBay, and will enable you to make the best decisions for your website’s performance. 

Step# 4 

The last step to success with the eBay Affiliate Program is to further grow 
your eBay strategy using the affiliate website and all of its many features. 
The affiliate website will not only get you started down your road to success with eBay, but they will provide you with invaluable tools to maximize your strategy. These tools and kits will help you transition into the affiliate member you want to be, and will continue to keep you updated so you stay current with trends and technology. 

These 4 easy steps take you from learning about the eBay Affiliate Program, to being a super successful eBay affiliate. 

Growing eBay Sales with Top Customer Service

Painters were at our house this weekend, doing the trim outside and a few rooms inside. My wife provided most of the direction, but I asked the head guy (and owner of the company) to pay attention to a few details for me. 

The whole experience reminded me of how critically important it is to pay attention to customer requests when dealing with eBay sales. On the Web (and with email) it's easy to lose contact with customers and forget to address their concerns. 

Make sure you don't fall into this trap. You may not see the results directly, but your customers will become upset and you'll eventually lose business - like my painter has. Not only did he lose business, he lost a valuable referral source. 

He started to lose me when he failed to record my suggestions and concerns. I didn't get into interior design much, choosing between mauve and tope, but I did have some input as far as the whole project goes. 

I wanted them to make sure they cleaned up the "misses" on the outside, where some black trim paint accidentally hit the white house paint. I needed them to unstick some of the windows and put all the screens back, as well. 

When the project started wrapping up, it was obvious that the lead was ignoring some of my requests -- namely the screens and window unsticking. I loved the work, but I wasn't so hot on their finishing skills. 

From a customer service perspective, the timing couldn't have been worse. Just when the painters wanted to consider it a job well done, I was having second thoughts about their competence. 

That sinking feeling should not have come at the end of the project. The lead should have been going out with a celebration rather than with some gripes. He should have lead me around, showed me how great everything looks, showed me the extra work he'd thrown in, and gone down my list of requests one by one, demonstrating that he met my needs and respects my wishes. 

If he performed these "finalizing" customer service/marketing steps, he'd have my 100% recommendation. I'd rave about him to friends, pass out his business cards and even write up a testimonial for him. I'd offer to help him out with his advertising materials, in fact. We'll certainly have more painting jobs in the future, and I'd like to stay on good terms with him. 

On eBay, the same steps need to be followed in order to build business and collect loyal customers that rave about you. You need to send customers follow-up emails that confirm what they bought, what kind of deal you're giving them (on shipping, bonuses, etc.), and how you appreciate their business and would welcome any questions they may have. You need to offer them targeted cross-sell and up-sell items as they bid and shop. And, you need to quickly address their concerns as they come up. All this attention and service ensures that your customers refer you to others, leave positive feedback, and return to do more business with you. 

Don't be like my painter. Pay attention to detail and your business will grow at a healthy pace. 

About the author:
Phil Dunn, author of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing (McGraw-Hill, July 2015), is a marketing writer and strategic consultant. He helps people persuade, influence decision making, and close business with the written and spoken word. His business, Synapse Services Co. (http://www.qualitywriter.com), produces direct mail, brochures, scripts, newsletters, white papers and related collateral for Fortune 500 companies like Pitney Bowes, Hewlett Packard, IKON and Microsof