Companies & individuals who want to run tests on items to see their marketability are also more often turning to eBay, its far cheaper than normal marketing campaigns & is a very grass roots way of connecting with the people. So whether you sell for pleasure or business, whether its for small or big companies here are several hot tips for selling on eBay.

1. Buy on eBay! Why do I suggest buying on eBay if the title of the article is How to Sell on eBay? Well, there are two main reasons.  First, the more you buy, the more you build your feedback score.  And secondly, the better you buy, the more you profit when selling these products on eBay.

I’m a huge fan of sniping to win auctions on eBay.  To get the #1 eBay sniping software, visit HotSniper (click this link now).   You’ll win 99.9% of the items you bid on – and you’ll be shocked at the results!

2. Sell Hot Items: as often as possible try to keep an inventory of ‘hot’ items in your eBay store. If your mainstay is decorative plates this may be harder to do… but it never hurts to ‘cross’ promote auctions & offer a variety of different items for sale in different categories. It is as simple as searching google or a tech blog like engadget.com to see what items (usually electronics or children’s toys) are selling really well in the world at large. Now all you have to do is figure out how to get them for cheaper & resell these kinds of ‘hot’ commodities for a nice little profit.

3. Paypal, paypal, paypal. All I can say if you don’t implement paypal as an option (or the only option in most cases) then you are falling far behind in the eBay rat race. Paypal takes credit cards, allows buyers a feeling of security & allows you the buyer to get your hands on your money faster. Its as easy as a few simple steps to sign up for either a personal or business account & costs nothing. Sign up for paypal now & you’ll thank yourself later.

4. Use Systems. Any business person will tell you the key to great success in the world of product pushing is systems. Whether you use something more complex like terapeak to track your competition & what sells on eBay or just do the leg work yourself & keep it all neatly collected in a notebook, make sure to implement systems in all your eBay goings ons. Track sales prices of items, then subtract the cost of the item & listing fees. This will show you whether you are really profitable or not, you’d be surprised how many ‘major’ eBay powersellers barely make a profit because of their lack of good systems that show them how to cut costs & optimize their success.

5. Invest in a Great Camera. Easy as it sounds, do some research, pick a brand & get a good digital camera so you can take amazing pictures. Because in this business the photos really sell the item. My personal favorites are the Sony cyber-shot line of cameras or the Canon Powershot brand, they take amazing photos, have a lot of extra features & are relatively inexpensive.

6. Push that 100% Guarantee. Always, always, always offer your customers a 100% guarantee. It inspires buyer confidence & leads to much more click throughs to your auction listing. I’ve noticed return rates when you offer a 100% guarantee actually go down! The biggest percentage of customers returning items you will have to worry about (if you sell a good product) is between 3-5%. That is worth the boost in sales the 100% guarantee will give you.

7. Ship Well. Thats right, this is not the place to skrimp. When you ship, make sure you pack it tight & pack it right. This motto will get you far in eBay business when your customers happily unwrap their well packaged and attractive items instead of opening a beat up box full of broken parts. Also don’t wrap in toilet paper, paper towls or rags… I’m not joking alot of sellers do this to save on packing costs. Use bubble wrap, tissue paper or packing peanuts when shipping items. Also double check shipping addresses & offer tracking for free if it is a higher end item so nothing gets “lost in the mail”.

Implement these Hot Tips & you will see a boost in your sales & a jump in customer satisfaction. Remember, selling on eBay is like a game… so play it right & you’ll go home with the most monopoly bucks.

And don’t forget, use HotSniper today – you’re going to LOVE IT!

What the headings mean

• URL length shows how many characters (including the http:// at the front) the shortened URL generated for this site’s homepage was. The first figure is the base length (EG http://shortenme.net/ is 20 characters), the second number is the short code generated (this can vary from 4 to 6 characters at most services – popular services have used up all the 4-character ones already, so it might be good to start using a new service!  The result is that you can expect ShortenMe.net to change to 20+5 if this post is very popular!), and the final number is the total.
• Custom name – whether you can choose your own memorable short-code or not (rather than the random string of letters automatically generated). Not all services offer this feature
  .

It simple and easy to use.  For example, if I wanted to promote something at AdamGinsbergBlog.com I might use ShortenMe.net reduce the number of characters in the URL.  If you wanted to promote an Adam Ginsberg affiliate offer – or any affiliate offer for that matter, you could use a URL shortening service like ShortenMe.net to “mask” and shorten your affiliate link.

I purchased this service for 2 reasons.  First, I thought it would be cool to own a shortening website.  And, secondly I really liked the name.

So, try it out today and see how it works.  Go there now and have fun!

ShortenMe.net

Get the New Social Media Magazine FREE Today at AdamGinsberg.com

Starting September 1st 2009 for all new publishers and October 1st for all existing publishers, eBay Partner Network will start paying for clicks sent to eBay sites. The price paid will depend on the traffic’s quality — the more incremental revenue the traffic generates for eBay, the higher the amount paid per click.

This new program is called Quality Click Pricing

With Quality Click Pricing, eBay will pay publishers for clicks sent to eBay sites and the amount paid per click (EPC) on a daily basis will depend on the traffic’s quality. The quality of traffic will be assessed using a number of different factors, including revenue from sales and the long term value of new users, as today, but also eBay advertising and PayPal revenue and other user behavior factors. Essentially, the more incremental revenue your traffic generates for eBay, the more you’ll be paid per click.

The key is “quality traffic” – and if you can make this happen you will have massive opportunities to take advantage of the new eBay affiliate program payouts!

See Adam Ginsberg Live visit Success Workshops – Click Here!

Properly used, YouTube can be a wildly successful promotional vehicle for savvy marketers who know how to use the web to build their brand and connect with their audience.

YouTube’s popularity is a clear sign that users love the visual impact that today’s broadband access and advancing technology provide.

Founded in February 2005 and purchased by Google in November 2006, YouTube has become a web phenomenon and a household name in only a few years’ time.  in 2008 more than 90 million viewers watched 3.5 billion videos on YouTube, averaging 41.6 videos per viewer.  In just the last 12 months YouTube has experienced tremendous growth that demonstrates the numerous marketing opportunities that this communiation medium can provide.  It has announced partnerships with the BBC, CBS Sports, and Apple; released localized sites in Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK; and premeired its first international film competition, Project Direct, with works from filmmakers around the world.

YouTube was also a major player in influencing the 2008 presidential election with the YouTube You Choose ’08 channel that enabled candidates to communicate directly with the voters.

YouTube clearly has a lot to offer savvy marketers, even those who don’t work for major corporations.  Steve, for example, is an up-and-coming musician trying to gain some exposure for his new band.  He’s heard that some youTube videos for popular artists and movies have received hundreds of thousands of views in a matter of days.  Steve would be happy with a fraction of this type of exposure.  He signs up for a YouTube account, gets his own channel and posts some of the band’s video clips and tour information.  To generate further buzz, he uses YouTube email and bulletins to spread the word, posts video responses to the videos of related artists and joins relevant YouTube groups.

Jennifer, the author of a new book, would like to use YouTube to promote the book with a book trailer.  With the help of her husband she creates a slick 3 minute video that’s designed to captivate the attention of viewers and encourage them to buy her book.  She posts her video to YouTube, tags it with the most appropriate keywords, and embeds the video on her blog and website.  In an effort to get even broader overage for her book, Jennifer also posts her video on teh other Video-sharing sites such as MSN Video, Google Video, Revver and Daily Motion.

In addition to the exposure it provides, one of the biggest advantages of YouTube marketing is that it’s free.  At no cost, YouTube enables you to:

• Host your videos, including movie trailers, book trailers, TV video clips, music video clips, software demos, presentation clips, political statements, instructional videos, and more.
• Promote your videos to a worldwide audience of millions of potential viewers.
• Create your own branded link. For example, check out Adam Ginsberg You Tube Videos
• Tap the power of social networking by allowing users to comment on and share your videos

Tag your videos with keywords that help your target audience

Even if you don’t have video content to post on YouTube, you can still benefit from its vast audience.  youTube also offers advertising opportunities for companies with an initial budget of at least $25,000 who want to target its demographics.  YouTube advertising options include:

• Display advertising, including skyscraper, leaderboard, large rectangle, and small rectangle banners.
• Custom brand channels
• Contests that encourage involvement and interactivity.

As of May, 2009, YouTube users were 54 percent male and 46 percent female.  Age ranges were spread rather evenly across all ages.  Note: twenty-one percent of YouTube visitors are over the age of 55.

YouTube can be serious business, and when you add to it the SEO benefits of posting videos online, you understand why the savvy marketer is using online video on YouTube in 2009 and beyond!

UPDATE: At a recent Search Engine Strategies conference an SEO guru talked of the value of video for improving one’s natural search ranking, and how engaging customers will be crucial in causing users to interact with your website.  Here’s what he said:

“…In the case of video, we believe that as one of the more important engagement objects, google has actually started to build it into the algorithm.  To us, that means if your website has engagement objects on it, video or mp3… it is going to be received y the algorithm better and your site will actually have an opportunity to rank better.

Now today, we haven’t seen it much as an incidence of ranking, mostly because not everyone is doing it… I don’t think we’ve yet seen even the tip of the iceberg.

In a year, if you don’t have video, if you don’t have engagement objects on your website, you are just not going to rank.  It will make you last among equals if you don’t have it.”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “How is it possible to have a civil war?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “How do you draw a blank?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “If it’s zero degress ouside today and it’s supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “If light travels faster than sound, is that why people appear bright until they speak?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “Is there another word for synonym?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “How would we know if a word were misspelled in the dictionary?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “How do you tell when you are out of invisible ink?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “Shouldn’t there be a shorter word for monosyllabic?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “How come you press hard on the remote when you know the battery is dead?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “Why si the word abbreviated so long?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “What was the best thing before sliced bread?”

Adam Ginsberg Ponders:  “Why do we wait until a pig is dead to cure it?”

Do you have a question for Adam Ginsberg?  Ask Him Here!

PS – These were all gathered together by my amazing 12 year daughter who was creating her uniquely written camp newsletter. So, while I do ponder these thoughts, I certainly can’t take credit for making them – nor assembling them all into one place. It’s great to have awesome kids!

Does anyone really care about Kate and Jon – and is anyone surprised they are getting divorced?  Or are they?

How did Oprah become the most powerful woman in America?

I really enjoy watching the UFC – it makes the WWE seem so “fake”.

Speaking of the UFC, does anyone really think that Frank Mir has any chance of defeating Brock Lesnar in UFC 100?

UFC 100 – holy shit…I remember watching the first UFC in my living room in Vancouver, BC.

I’m commuting to London, UK for the next three weekends.

When will President Obama take a real stand on the situation in Iran?

It’s not new news that politicians have affairs – but it does seem that more and more are getting caught regardless of whether they are Democrat or Republican…sex has no political boundaries.

At dinner last night I had to wait 45 minutes for my steak to cook. But, when it was cooked wrong they brought me a replacement steak in less than 6 minutes.

Does anyone really think Sarah Palin has a chance to become the next US President?

I love my new iPhone 3GS.

Wishing Steve Jobs a speedy recover from his liver transplant surgery.

Speaking of speed recoveries it would be great to see Farrah Fawcett gets well soon!

In the economic climate we live in, it’s more important than ever to take control of your own financial future – and there’s no better way to do this than by having an online business.

Does everyone make millions? No.  Is it easy? No. Do people blame others for their failures? Yes. One of my favorite quotes is:

“It’s never the bus, it’s the bus driver”.

Whether someone learns from me or some other “guru” online – and there’s plenty of them these days – all we can do is provide you with the insights, strategies, techniques, tools and systems for success.  But if you want to make money on eBay – or you want to make online…or you simply want to make money, you must put in the effort.

And, effort is only one part of the equation. You must have the right attitude, you can’t give up and you have to take responsibility for your own actions.

Listen up and pay attention – NOT everyone is going to be successful because not everyone is willing to do what it takes. Period. There isn’t anyone that can’t make a change in their life if they are provided with the right direction AND they have the desire and will power to move forward even when it’s not going their way.

Heck, I get my share of emails that say “I tried your program and it hasn’t worked for me yet”. And, I can understand the frustration that occurs when starting a new venture – particularly for someone who is learning something for the very first time. Even though the process might be simple – the effort it requires to sometimes make it happen isn’t always easy.

On the flip side, it’s incredibly rewarding when I hear from students that are truly getting what they want in their life – and what they deserve – as a result of an experience we’ve had together.  Recently I was in Sydney Australia where I was approached by Richard – a student who attended one of my 3 day workshops about three years ago.

At that time, Richard had 15 eBay feedback and was struggling financially. Today, Richard has more than 1500 feedback and is selling $100,000+ a month on eBay.

Aha, I’m sure the skeptics are saying!$100,000+ a month is sales – I wonder how much profit he’s making? Let’s say this – Richard is doing very, very, very well financially.

Note to self – why is it that it’s those skeptics that are not successful and always blame others for their failures…

Here’s a comment I just received on my facebook profile – you can read it yourself here: http://facebook.com/adamginsberg

Thanks Adam!

Adam… I read your book. Started ebay two months ago and I have 66 positive feedbacks and 100%. I am working on getting a steady supply of inventory which is tough. Selling and buying on ebay is easy (hard work – YES) but you have all the tools you need… THANKS again for a great book… it’s helped me. I have attained my first goal … Next is to become a Power Seller!

Matt Threlfall

And here’s a great email I recently received:

Hi Adam, Just wanted to let you know that We have over 3,500 POSITIVE FEED BACK, in 26 months from first attending your EBAY CLASS!

Thanks,

Gary Swaney

Sometimes students will ask me why I do what I do.  Well, there are many reasons, but one reason is that it’s incredibly rewarding to see people change their lives in such positive ways.

If you have your own success story, I’d love to hear it – just post it on this page!

I have had a chance to use Bing.com to search the web and I’m very impressed.  In reality, it beats Google in important areas. It will help Microsoft gain share in the search business. It’s surprisingly competitive with Google. It’s simple, easy, intuitive and fun to use.

Bing has only been available to the public for a short time and is already gaining market share.  Beginning June 3rd Bing became Microsoft’s new default search. Here’s a couple of facts, insights and thoughts about Bling search.

In search presentation, Bing wins. It uses technology to display refined versions of your query down the left side of the page. For example, I searched for the game “iPhone 3Gs” on Google and Bing. While Google gave me good results, Bing gave me a menu of “related searches,” that included Walkthrough, News, and so on.

Bing also shows a useful “Related Searches” box.

Bing has pop ups that show an excerpt of the text on a search result if you hover over it. This saves a lot of time if you’re not quite sure if you want to follow a result.

In the content of search results, Bing is not consistently superior to Google. In many searches I did (not the sample searches Microsoft sent me), the Google results were more relevant and useful. Not by miles, mind you, but in many cases Google delivered the goods just enough better than Bing to make me question the wisdom of adopting Bing as a replacement search engine. Just one example: Searching for “Best house paint for humid climates” gave me better advice links at the top of the search results with Google than with Bing.

When searching for product reviews, Google’s search result pages were just slightly better than Bing’s — although, again, not by a lot. However, Bing also collates user and expert reviews on many products, and this gives you a great overview. This feature doesn’t always show up, though; and I wouldn’t even have known about it had it not been for the Wired review of Bing.

When you want to shop for an item, both services have very strong “shopping” tabs that organize results well. Google gives you seller ratings, which Bing doesn’t. But Bing offers a cashback program, which is hard to beat.

And in some searches, Bing won on results outright. When searching for “Facebook sandberg” on Google, the top link was a story from 2008. On Bing, the top item was “News about facebook sandberg” with three sublinks to very recent articles. When searching for “Obama Supreme Court,” Google did show news results, but the top link was a day-old story. Bing’s was from 32 minutes ago.

To be fair to Google, you can also click through to Google News on any result and sort results by date. But that’s extra clicks. Bing is more aggressive about including news.

All search engines have their strengths, and many of Bing’s lie in areas where Microsoft has its own content companies. For example, Microsoft owns the airfare prediction service Farecast, and it includes Farecast buying advice whenever you search for airplane travel. Bing also displays some medical data inside the search engine itself.

Bing also does very well in at least one area where Google should do better. The video search result page for “Thomas Jefferson” in Google gives you a vertical list of videos. On Bing, you get a big grid that’s easier to scan, and a list of related videos on the left for “George Washington,” “James Madison,” and so on. The search results are about equivalent, but Bing’s presentation is far superior.

You should use Bing

As I said, it’s fun, intuitive AND different.  After using Google for so many years it’s nice to have a different search experience.  The new game in search is parsing information and displaying it in the engine itself (see Wolfram Alpha for the extreme example of this). Both Google and Bing, and other search products, have areas where they will collate and format information for you, instead of just linking you to external pages where the data reside. Bing does an extremely good job at this in several popular areas — like product reviews, movie listings, weather, travel, and stock prices.

While the service doesn’t reveal all its riches at once, it rewards exploration and yields pleasant surprises to users who poke around.

Google keeps improving in the area of in-search collation and display as well, but Bing makes Google look complacent, and that’s not good for Google. For the moment, Bing’s on top in this game. Try this search engine. I do not think you will regret it.

Check it out at http://bing.com

A few weeks ago I learned that Danny Gans had died because “Danny Gans” was one of the most talked about keywords on Twitter. Then, we had an earthquake in Los Angeles and immediately (literally within moments) there were updates on Twitter…Whether it’s a sporting event or a news update, you can get the most current, up to date news on Twitter with real people reporting real results.

CNN is now reporting that people in Iran are posting updates on Twitter with crucial information – and this is particularly important since Iranian authorities have banned Western journalists from covering political rallies. Even though websites and newspapers have been closed by Iranian officials, people are still able to spread the word of what’s going on via Twitter.

Although officials would not say whether they were communicating with Iranians directly, one noted that the United States is learning about certain people being picked up for questioning by authorities through posts on Twitter.

“It is a very good example of where technology is helping,” the official said.

Senior officials say the State Department is working with Twitter and other social networking sites to ensure Iranians are able to continue to communicate to each other and the outside world.

At a briefing with reporters Tuesday, spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States was monitoring the situation in Iran through a number of media, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, but deflected questions about the State Department talks with Twitter.

“We’ve highlighted to them the importance of these social media,” Kelly said of the conversations with Twitter executives. “This is about the Iranian people. This is about the giving their voices a chance to be heard. One of the ways that their voices are heard are through new media.”

For example, senior officials say the State Department asked Twitter to refrain for going down for periodic scheduled maintenance at this crucial time to ensure that the site continues to operate.

“They announced they were going to shut down their system for maintenance, and we asked them not to,” one official said, adding that the discussions were meant to “highlight to [Twitter] that this was an important means of communication, not with us but horizontally in Iran.”

The situation in Iran is a real-world example of the State Department’s efforts to increase use of technology in diplomacy, including social networking sites, Web video and text messages to reach large numbers of people who would otherwise be difficult to reach.

It’s uncertain what the long term prognosis of Twitter will be, but one thing we know for certain is that the “word of mouth” impact of people and the ability for their message to be spread instantly to people around the world via the Internet, is here to stay.  And by the looks of it, Twitter – in one form or another – might be the leading catalyst.

For more information on how to best use Twitter in your online activities, visit http://adamginsbergblog.com/category/twitter

It’s good to know that there are no eBay fee changes in this release.

This set of eBay changes will do three main things as follows:

eBay is making it easier for buyers to ship as well as give buyer incentives which should result in an increase in more sales. Here’s how they plan doing this:

—New item page rolling out. New photo zoom coming later this year. Get your listings ready now.

My thoughts? I really like the new item page layout. It’s simple and easy to see. For TemplateOptimizer.com users – (Template Optimizer is the #1 eBay template software) – please note that we have upgraded Template Optimizer to work seamlessly with eBay’s new item page layout. The templates look better than every!

* New eBay product pages surfacing to more buyers. To make sure your items show up on these pages, use product details (formerly called pre-filled item information).

My thoughts? Anytime you can increase your exposure on eBay, you should do it.  I like this but I hate when eBay changes the name of what they call something.

* New way to list in Fixed Price lets you offer all variations of one product e.g. color and size in a single low-cost listing.

My thoughts? This is a huge benefit to sellers who have items like this.  Finally eBay is allowing something that should have been allowed years ago.

* Buyer incentives and loyalty programs expanded to drive more traffic.

My thoughts? I’m not a fan of anything that drives more traffic to eBay after the initial sale.  I’d rather send the customer to my non-eBay internet business after I have made that initial sale for a variety reasons.

2. Key information to set buyer expectations and help reduce your costs

My thoughts? I have been teaching sellers to do this for years so I really don’t think it’s a big deal.  See my comments below:

* New Smart FAQ answers buyers top 20 questions before they contact you.

My thoughts? Big deal.  You can today, and always could, add your own frequently asked questions section directly into the description area of your eBay listing.

* Package tracking information available in My eBay print labels on eBay and tracking shows up automatically, or you can upload the information.

My thoughts? This is good news for everyone except those of us who ship with fedex.

* Return policy and handling time required for new listings and re-listings beginning June 15. Deadline for updating your Good Til Cancelled listings extended to mid-September.

My Thoughts? Again, no big deal. eBay is requiring what I have been teaching to students for years..include your return policy and handling time in your listings.  Congratulations eBay!

* Use Item Specifics. Now in some categories, you can customize when the available choices don’t apply to your item.
* Category and Item Specifics changes now consolidated with the rest of updates find out if your listings are impacted.

My thoughts? Item specifics help you get more exposure and sell more, so use them whenever you can.

3. Other updates to make selling on eBay more efficient

* New, more efficient process for handling disputes.

My thoughts: Anything that makes it easier to handle a dispute is a good thing – let’s see how this rolls out.

* Selling Manager FREE for all sellers with powerful new Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro applications.

My thoughts: I think it’s good for sellers to use eBay Selling Manager but would not use a paid version of the system.  Template Optimizer will include a simple, easy to use version of Selling Manager that will be available at no additional charge to all Template Optimizer users.

* Easier, faster way to pay shipping, print labels, and update buyersright from eBay.

My thoughts: Same as before – what about fedex users?

So eBay is rolling out changes starting the week of June 16th.  They are simple and basic – most of which will not have any impact on AdamGinsberg.com students who already understand this valuable information that eBay is finally making a requirement to sell on the site. I do like the new item listing form – I think it will end up with better exposure and more bids…at least I hope so!

Read more at AdamGinsbergBlog.com