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Blink, Wave, Scream-It's Auction Time
Copyright (C) John Lundgren 2002- Permission is granted to reprint this article as long as the resource box is included. Please let me know when you use article by emailing me at: johnl42@yahoo.com ...

Cheap Cars From The Auction
Buy Your Next Car Super Cheap at an Auto Auction Auto Auctions have been popular for years. Many used car traders snap up autos at the auction for a fraction of the price that it costs on the outside market. If you want to save big on...

How To Upsell Your eBay Auction Bidders
How to effectively cross-promote items in your eBay Auctions to boost sales. Includes simple how-to instructions for eBay sellers. Now tell the truth- You sprung for that candy bar near the checkout line last time you went grocery shopping...

Starting Your Own Internet Auction Business
Many of us dream of owning our own business and taking control of our financial destiny but precious few of us ever dare to take that chance. Of those that do risk everything for the chance to control our destiny by opening up our own company,...

Use Auction Templates For eBay Success!
Auction templates are simply a must for successful online auction selling. One day I spent approximately 45 minutes writing a listing for an item that would make me about $5 in profit! I suddenly realized the stupidity of what I was doing. Here I...

Boost Your eBay Business To Power Seller Status
By  Mark Kenny
Added on 10/07/2006
Going once! Going twice! Sold! Sound familiar? It's the sound of a traditional live auction but, thanks to the technology of today, you can buy and sell 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many people have chosen eBay as a work-at-home career and many are quite successful at it. Gone are the days of hav...

Dropshipping: 10 Top Tips To Success
By  Mark Kenny
Added on 10/07/2006
Many entrepreneurs have found success in the dropshipping industry. For those who aren’t familiar, dropshipping is a business term used for a situation where a seller sets a retail price for an item, collects the payment, sends the wholesale cost to a dropshipper and the item ships directly from t...

eBay Business Secrets Revealed
By  Jason James
Added on 28/11/2005
Ten million-let me say that number again-over ten million people visited the Ebay website last month. With everything from online auctions to drop shipping opportunities, the Ebay business website has something for everyone. If you are thinking about joining in on the hysteria and trying to make you...

10 Tips For Selling Successfully On eBay
By  Mark Kenny
Added on 04/10/2005
Many people have chosen a work-at-home career and, thanks to today€™s technology, it's easier than ever. One such opportunity for entrepreneurs is available at internet auction site, eBay. The concept seems simple enough, but having an edge over the competition is always a good idea. For those w...

Mistakes To Avoid In Your eBay Auctions
By  Evelyn Lim
Added on 28/07/2005
Online auctions continue to grow in popularity as an easy and efficient way to make money on everything from unwanted household items to rare and expensive collectables and even to bulky items like cars.

Log on to eBay and you will see countless auctions on any item you can imagine. As eBay auc...


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What You Can Learn From Competing Ebay Auctions.

If you've a savvy businessperson, the chances are you've already taken a look at your competitors' auctions. What you might not have realised is just how much you can learn if you know what you're looking for.

To begin with, don't bother looking at listings that haven't ended yet - you don't know what's going to happen with them. Instead, use the advanced search page to search for listings that sold. Just go to the advanced search page, type in the keywords that you know will find your competitors' items, tick 'Completed listings only' and set the minimum number of bids to 1. Set it to sort by 'Price: highest first'.

This will show you auctions competing with yours that have recently finished, starting with the ones that sold for the most (ignore any with prices in red - they didn't sell). Go through and take a look, paying special attention to the following points:

Titles. What information do the top sellers of your item put in their titles, and what do they leave out? If your titles are very different to theirs, it might be time for a rethink.

Descriptions. You'll probably notice that the highest sellers haven't just copied text from the company's website or an Amazon.com review - they've gone to the trouble of writing a little about the item, and about themselves. Learn from their example.

Pictures. I can almost guarantee you that the listing will have very nice pictures - not catalogue quality, but good enough to see what you're getting. With items of any significant cost, you'll probably find more than one photo from different


angles.

Style. Is it written conversationally, or in terse businesslike language? The way you should write entirely depends on what the market seems to like - and the market seems to like what the top sellers wrote.

Time. It's pretty easy to ignore this as a factor without meaning to, but pay attention to when the top selling items' auctions began and ended. This might give you a few clues about the best to catch buyers who will bid highly on your item, and then you can schedule your items accordingly.

Price. If your competitors are selling using Buy it Now, you can see what the maximum is that they've managed to sell for recently, and set your own Buy it Now price slightly below that.

Shipping. Look around to see the sweet spot for shipping. If you can figure out a way to get your shipping costs lower than the highest sellers, then this is a great opportunity to differentiate yourself in the market.

Once you see what works, you can start to emulate your competitors - of course you can't just copy them completely, but you can structure your auction similarly and make sure it includes the same information.

If you want your items to do even better, then start stocking the items in your category that are the most in-demand. We'll show you how to tell what's selling and what's not in our next email.

About the author:

Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.