Make certain to ship the product immediately when the payment has cleared. Send a message through eBay letting the buyer know the product has shipped and thank them.

When you receive feedback, make sure to follow up with a response. Positive feedback can simply be a thank you for your business follow up or response comment. This is a great way to build a good reputation on eBay and have a very profitable powerseller status or reach your goal to become a powerseller.

You can also use the Skype to post on your eBay stores.  This too will enable customers to talk to you directly.  Your true phone number and identity will still be protected.  Yet, you will have a virtual office phone to handle customers directly.

One trick to keep in mind though is to stay logged into Skype when you are available for phone calls.  Customers can leave a message but it is always nicer to talk to someone in person the first time that you call.

The best part of marketing your affiliate products on eBay is that you don’t have to have a lot of one product in stock.  The parent company will have the item in stock.  You should make sure that the parent companies will drop-ship directly to your customer.  Or you can purchase a handful of the products and have them at your home to directly ship to your customers from eBay.

You cannot link to an outside site to sell products on eBay.  You will need to write an ad copy and auction template that you can use for each specific item.  Then when the item sells for the retail value or even a little less, you can then order it through your affiliation link for your eBay customer.  This is a great way to pick up commission from your affiliate products.  For consumable items, you can build a very big repeat customer base for your eBay business.

You are selling more your auction template than your actual item.  The majority of buyers already know what they want to buy when they go to your auction.  Your auction fit the keyword that they searched for.  The decision then boils down to which seller looks most trust worthy and is offering the best deal for what they already want.  This means that your items can virtually sell themselves when you use eBay.

Dynamic auctions should have colored text at the minimum.  A picture attached to the auction.  Preferably you should post a gallery picture of the item.  Clearly describe the condition of the item, shipping and payment conditions and the amount of time it will take to get the item to them.  All of these will make buyers more attracted to your eBay items.

Draw the buyer into the ad with the first sentence.  Many buyers skip to the next auction for their item they already want if they’re not hooked within the first sentence.  When writing your eBay ad the first sentence is your most key sentence and you will increase sales if this sentence is effective.

Pricing should be reasonable for the value of the item.  If you price an item too low, people will think that you’re selling junk and they should buy from someone else that has a higher value.  After all why would you virtually give away an item that cost a lot of money?  Or the buyer will think that if they do enough research on the Internet they will find the deal you came across to offer the item so low.

Make certain that the auto shipping company is listed with the BBB and does not have complaints filed against them.  If they’re not listed with the BBB then you should find someone different because there are way too many to select from to go with one not listed with the BBB.

Be certain that the auto shipper conducts a vehicle inspection prior and after each delivery.  They should give you these inspection results in writing. 

Verify the contact information provided by the auto shipper company.  Contact previous customers and find out what type of experience they had with the auto shipping company.  If they cannot provide references and the contact info is not verifiable, it is time to go with a different company.

Did you know that auto shippers have to be licensed?  They are officially licensed from the FMCSA and should provide you with their MC number or their US DOT number when you talk to them.  If they don’t have a number to give to you, they could be a scam.

Follow these tips for selecting your auto shipping company.  You can save a great deal of time when your sales a huge and you are spending time posting auctions, providing feedback and gathering more customers.

eBay has now added the RSS feature.  You can use this feature for searches.  The first thing to do is make sure that you have an RSS feed reader.  You can locate these online for free so you don’t have to spend money to take advantage of other people’s auctions.

Next you will select keywords to search for in the eBay search area.  For example, if you collect Disney items, you can put Disney in the search.  It is best to narrow your search down to something more specific though like Cinderella Dolls.  This will keep your feed from being so huge.

Once you put in your search keyword, you scroll down to the bottom of the listing.  Use your mouse to click the RSS button.  Then set your RSS reader to check your subscriptions every half hour or so.  This will alert you of auctions that are recently posted.

Once the auctions are posted you can be the first to purchase the item with the buy it now features or to bid on it.  You want to try and find these steal and deals with the buy it now options instead of regular bids.  This will ensure that you can purchase the item immediately to turn around and sell it for a much higher price than you paid for it.  This will significantly increase your selling power as a powerseller on eBay.

This got me to thinking.  How could I protect myself from the small handful of shady buyers?  I was selling virtual game items that had closing bids as high as $100 on them and some more.  It was so frustrating to think that people could reverse the charges since it was a virtual item.  I had to brainstorm.

I auctioned off “certificates of ownership” as the actual item that was on auction.  With the certificate of ownership, the buyer would receive the virtual item.  But, the actual auction was for the certificate.  I created a simple certificate of ownership in Word and printed it.  I then sent it via delivery confirmation to the buyer.  I would also deliver their virtual item as well.  Later when a shady buyer tried to reverse charges, I had the necessary tracking number that PayPal needed me to produce to show proof of delivery.

To protect yourself as a seller, use certificate of ownerships with your eBay auctions that are for items that are virtual.  You can explain to buyers that they will receive the virtual item but the actual item for auction is the certificate.  Then you can send it to them using delivery confirmation and have a tracking number to provide to anyone that requests proof of delivery.

Now while this doesn’t sound like a lot to some, Ebay store owners know differently and a huge percent are not happy about and many want to hold a protest week which will include selling nothing for that entire week because they feel that Ebay does not listen to them and that only by hurting their bottom line will the auction giant finally glance in their direction.

A quick check of Ebay’s message boards and you will see everything from Greedbay to Feebay being tossed about as sellers express their anger. This is to be expected considering that fees are raised every January and the last fee hike took away massive profits from lots of sellers and also the fees were for every seller that time.

Some wonder if these fees are to cover the new Ebay Express which many don’t even understand. Express is supposed to be a sort of Ebay spin-off retail version. Most if not all of the items are new and you purchase as you would from an online store. No bidding or waiting for an auction to end.

Considering that this is precisely what the Ebay stores are supposed to do you have to agree with the sellers and wonder what is the point of Ebay Express? Lots of sellers say that they have removed their listings from EE due to the fact they are not selling much if at all their and do better with their stores.

I don’t see this fee increase breaking Ebay even though some hope that it will because those who get mad and run to other sites quickly realize that no one was kidding when they said Ebay is the ONLY game in town. So far in 10 years nothing has come to compete with Ebay. Sure Yahoo, Amazon, Overstock and many others have auction sites but none have had the success that Ebay has had.

However Ebay seems to have lost site of both buyers and sellers and many are feeling like cash cows as it seems that no problems are being addressed but Bill Cobb is just raising fees and this is causing major anger across the board.

Small though it may seem the fee hike is more than 200% more than sellers were paying. If someone listed 400 items at $0.02 in one week in the past it would cost $8. Now if someone did that same thing with products over $100 it will cost them $0.10 each coming to a total of $40 for that one week. Under a $100 and it would cost $0.05 which is still too much for some.

This adds to the $15.95-$499.95 that store owners are already paying monthly to have a store. Then of course they also have to pay final value fees (FVF) which were also raised. Final value fees is the percentage that Ebay charges you when your item sells. So if your item doesn’t sell Ebay still makes their money from you listing the products. If the item sells they make their money from you listing the products AND you pay them more money because the item sold.

The fees are getting out of control and it is getting to the point where honest sellers are not even making a profit on their items. A lot of store owners are deciding to just open up their own online store because the monthly fees are cheaper and they don’t pay fees to list each item and they keep 100% of what they sell. Less fees.

In what seems to be a bit of a confusing letter, Bill Cobb blamed the fee hikes on Stores overtaking auctions and that this fee hike is to make people sell less items in their stores and I guess put more up in auction?? Well if fixed listings are a problem what is the point of EE (Ebay Express)??

Of course dissatisfied store owners feel that this is just Ebay’s way to make an extra buck off of them and it doesn’t look good for them that they have been a little disappointing in the stock market.

Macromedia contributing writer Eric Ott of WebAssist (who looks somewhat like actor Bill Pullman on Macromedia’s web site) gives us a great tool to use for creating eBay stores. It’s called Contribute 3 and is new from Macromedia.

The program uses cascading style sheets to easily put together great-looking eBay Stores.

There is no doubt about it—eBay is a great marketplace for commerce—but up to this point it has been a real challenge to differentiate your listings from the millions of other listings on eBay.

WA eBay StoreBuilder for Macromedia Contribute 3 makes it easy to create professionally designed online storefronts for your eBay Stores account.

With WA eBay StoreBuilder, you can create custom page designs with point-and-click ease by choosing from over 800 layout combinations. Once your custom page is automatically generated, you’ll personalize it in Contribute 3 with the simplicity of working in a word processor.

Publishing your page to eBay is a one-click operation—and you can view the results immediately. WA eBay StoreBuilder also includes an eBay Stores Page Manager so you can alter the order of pages in the navigation, make them active or inactive, remove them, or open them back up for editing.

To link to Eric’s complete article, more detailed information about Contribute 3 and related downloads on Macromedia’s web site, click here.

With all of these posts talking about how great eBay Stores are and how you should open one, you might be asking, “What if I am looking to buy an item and I want to see if there’s an eBay Store for it?”

There’s an eBay store for just about everything!

Just click here for the eBay Stores main page. You’ll see a list of various types of Stores on the left. Everything from books to stamps, tickets, toys, jewelry and music. There are lots of categories and some stores are featured on the page with a little blurb about what they have to offer. If you opened an eBay Store your store would be listed here for Buyers to look for you. It’s also a great resource to see how other Sellers set up their stores and can also help you find items you are looking for.

Another cool thing about eBay Stores is, you can search for items within the store. For example, here’s a cute eBay Store I found called Jake’s Dog House – Cool Stuff for Cool Dogs. I absolutley love dogs, in fact I love all kinds of animals, but I have three cool cats at home. So what’s a cat lover to do on a cool dog eBay Store?

Jake’s eBay store offers products for cool cats, too. I just clicked on the “Cats in the Dog House” link and found some nifty toys and treats for cats. Are you a dog owner looking for a collar for your dog on Jake’s site? Just click on “Collars and Leashes” and you’ll get over 1,000 auctions just for collars and leashes alone! From the Chromebones Swarovski Crystal Bling collar to the much less expensive Speedway Bow, they’re all here and at great prices. Jake’s site offers lots more pet products, including grooming tools, toys, treats and apparel.

As as eBay Store owner, you can add your logo, the eBay Power Seller logo and much more to your eBay Store. Jake’s Dog House is a perfect example of a successful, fun and jam-packed with fun goodies eBay store! Thanks, Jake!