Wednesday, May 25, 2011

How to Get Antiques and Collectibles to Sell on eBay to Come to You


Tired of competing with the masses to scout out products to sell? One of my favorite experts is now sharing all his information about how to get them to come to you. I've been reading the newsletters from Terry Gibbs for years, and he's one of he most knowledgeable, honest people in the business I know. Here's how to get his information..I'll let him tell it in his own words:

Finding Antiques And Collectibles To Sell On eBay

Many people who decide to make a living selling collectibles on eBay soon fail. I meet them in the line at the post office. They tell me they just quit their job in order to sell things full time on eBay.


I ask them, "What are you doing to find more items to sell?"

Only the people who can answer this question last more than a few weeks. The others soon run out of things to sell and just give up.

I got started buying trains and toys when I was in grade school.

My dad and I collected toy trains and we built up quite a collection over the years. We didn't have a lot of money so we ran ads, put signs up, handed out cards, networked and tried all kinds of methods to get people to sell us their trains to us.

We bought lots of trains and kept what we wanted then sold the rest in order to keep the cash moving. Over the past 34 years we refined a system that constantly generates calls.

Here's a short list of ways to find and buy antiques and collectibles. These 10 strategies will get you thinking about ways to get sellers to call you.

Remember, you are always better off making someone call you rather than competing with everyone else to call a seller. My system is all about getting your phone to ring with sellers on the line.

When you go to yard sales, auctions and antique malls, you are in a race against all the other collectors and dealers. When people call you it is because you have made them think about converting their unwanted items into cash by selling them to you. You are in control.

Sure, you can go to yard sales and rely on luck. But if you are serious about selling on eBay you need to have a steady stream of collectibles coming in. You can't rely on blind luck or getting there before the other dealers.

You need a system to get a constant stream of new items coming to you to sell.

Here are 10 quick ways to get people to sell you their antiques and collectibles. These will get you thinking about ways to make your phone ring. I buy and sell toy trains, but so you can better focus on what you specialize in, I have substituted the word widget for toy trains.
  1. Develop a marketing plan outlining exactly how you are going to make your phone ring.
  2. Have a strategy that will make the seller want to take your offer. This is the psychology of buying and creating a win-win situations. Nobody wants to lose. Make every seller feel like they are getting a good deal and they'll bring you more business.
  3. Ask the person in line behind you at the post office, bank, and supermarket if they have any widgets for sale. Being shy doesn't make you money!
  4. Show off the widgets you have. There are MANY ways to do this. Let people enjoy the widgets you have and your phone will ring with others wanting to sell widgets to you.
  5. Run ads that say "Top Dollar Paid For Widgets."
  6. Send a letter to local real estate agents telling them you pay cash for unwanted widgets. They often encounter people anxious to sell.
  7. Tell other widget dealers you will buy any widgets they don't want.
  8. Pay others to find widgets for you by offering a finders fee to anyone that helps you buy widgets.
  9. Send Thank You letters to everyone you've bought widgets from in the past, and remind them you pay cash when they get their friends and neighbors to sell you widgets.
  10. Network, network, network. It's not as hard as you might think it is to spread the word in a community that you are the person to call when someone has a widget to sell.
You can learn more about buying antiques and collectibles with my Collector Strategies Package. In the package you'll find more detailed examples of the above strategies, plus 73 more ways to get people to call you on the phone and offer you their items for sale.

The Collector Strategies Package also includes interviews with antiques dealers sharing their techniques, advertisements, and other materials designed to get you up to speed quickly.
The package is on sale until Friday, so act now before the price goes back up.


Terry  

Sunday, May 22, 2011

International Shipping Requirements Coming to eBay this August


eBay sellers who ship internationally: be prepared! There are new mandatory changes to shipping to certain countries coming this August 2011. While eBay says says sellers will have "the option to specify more international shipping carriers and costs" in listings starting in June, specifying "international shipping details on items offered to buyers in Australia, Canada and the UK will be required starting in August 2011."

So there will be certain information about international shipping required --  cost and carrier, specifically, according to the eBay Spring 2011 Seller update. But there is also a long list of suggested "best practices" for international eBay listings here:
 

Frankly, thinking about adding every one of those to each and every one of your eBay listings is enough to send some sellers screaming they are going to stay domestic. But, while the required elements of cost and carrier will be necessary come August, you don't need to add every one of those suggested practices right away. You could stagger the changes.

As for me, I plan to wait until early June to start revising my listings with the new information, because eBay's update indicated they will be giving us new fields or other tools to make those specifications.

Happy selling!

Friday, May 13, 2011

Thrifty Design Finds with "Mr. Goodwill Hunting"


I just found a fun new blog with great tips about thrift store finds: it's called "Mr Goodwill
Hunting," and it's by a guy named Rashon Carraway, who finds all kinds of great design items, home
decor and also clothing at thrift stores and especially Goodwill.

He was on the Nate Berkus show today -- here's a screen shot from his blog:



He redesigned a room on the show, transforming a space with drab colors to a cool hangout with rich
browns and bold orangey throw pillows, all with his finds for under $300.

You can check out his blog at http://www.rashoncarraway.com/.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

eBay's Changes to My eBay: the Good and the Not So Much

eBay has made a few changes to My eBay, some of which seem good (like how you can now see 3 years of purchase history), and others are pissing people off (like taking away the Selling items from the Summary page).

I am wondering if people with Selling Manager Pro do not see these changes to the Selling items in the Summary Page, because I am able to see my Selling items fine on the My eBay page as I always could.

I did click into "Purchase History" and saw there were many pages available for you to see your past purchases. So that change seems good, but I don't know why they would make it harder for people to see their active Selling items from the My eBay page. Anyone from eBay care to shed light on why they did this?

eBay announcement about the change: http://announcements.ebay.com/2011/05/new-my-ebay-features-make-shopping-and-selling-on-ebay-even-easier/

AuctionBytes article about the change:  http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2011/5/1304972219.html

eBay Discussion board where people are griping (for the most part) -- as in "Where the Heck are My Active Selling Items???": http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Seller-Central/Where-The-Heck/520281418

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Revise Your eBay Items to Meet New Item Specifics Requirements

Do you need to revise your eBay listings to meet the new eBay Item Specifics requirements? If you list in the following categories, and specifically the subcategories mentioned, you may need to:


- Cameras & Photo
Updates to Camcorders; Digital Cameras; Memory Cards; Lenses

- Cell Phones & PDAs
Updates to PDAs

- Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
New values, tailoring of recommended item specifics

- Video Games
Updates to Video Games

- eBay Motors
Cars & Trucks and Motorcycles:
New values in 'Type of Vehicle Title'.

- Sporting Goods
Winter Sports > Snowboarding> Snowboards: Converting from Item Specifics to Custom Item Specifics

You can get more details from eBay here:
http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/CategoryUpdatesSpring2011.html

Personally, I list a lot in the Clothing category, so I am going in and looking at each individual clothing listing I have and seeing if there are Item Specifics for me to add.

It can be a pain to do this major overhaul, but if you do it a little bit at a time throughout your day, while you are doing other work, it's not so bad. Best of luck!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

eBay's New Ad Campaign for Drop Off Stores & Trading Assistants

eBay is launching a new ad campaign to push Drop-Off Stores, where people can take their stuff and have someone else list and sell it for them, and also its trading assistants, AuctionBytes reports. Leveraging the need a lot of recession-weary folks have for cash, the slogan is, "Unlock the hidden cash in your home. Millions of people want your stuff." 

Read the complete article about it here: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m05/i02/s02

ProStores Offers First Month Free and No Transaction Fees Until 2012

eBay's ProStores service is offering one free month, and no transaction fees until 2012. Get the details here:

http://www.prostores.com/ecommerce-online-sellers.html

(ProStores offer a range of store types with a sliding scale of monthly fees, starting at $29.95 a month for up to 250 products in the store, up to $99.95 a month for up to 100,000 products. Get the details at the link above).

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Attention fellow eBayers and friends: If you have/sell plush toys, please help the kids of Alabama that have lost so much. There is a organization here on Facebook that is facilitating the efforts: Plush Memories Lost Toys Search Service.


Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Plush-Memories-Lost-Toys-Search-Service/174981884572


Please help if you can!

New Issue of Yard Salers Is Out: Making Money with Metals -- Silver, Gold, Brass - Plus New Flips Contest

The new issue of the Yard Salers newsletter is out. In this issue:


Feature Article: Profiting from Sky-High Metals
Affiliate Marketing for Morons - Coming Next Issue!
Flips/Flops Contest: Brass Yields Gold, a Delft Tile Cleans Up, Muppets Christmas Video Brings No Cheer, and More
Reader Mail: Great Site for Book Sellers, SimpleBooklet, Alll My eBooks, and More