Use Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer to make money on eBay!

In today’s difficult economic times - and when it’s more competitive than ever to sell on eBay - you must lower your costs to maximize your profits if you are going to succeed.  eBay fees are stedily increasing so it’ more important than ever to use 3rd party eBay listing tools to increase your bottom live.  With Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer, you have have incredible software that is a solution, a way to create quality listings quickly and easily without draining your budget.

To be successful you must adapt and change.  You also need to do things differently then way other people might be selling on eBay.  And by automating your business you will take it to the next level which will further set you apart from other people who sell on the world’s #1 auction site.

Scheduling

Scheduling allows you to list items in advance to go live when you want them to—which can help you maximize end-of-auction bidding and spread out your listings. eBay will charge you 10 cents per listing for this convenience—and when you multiply that by several listings, the cost quickly adds up. But Template Optimizer users pay no additional fee to schedule listings. So why pay for something you can get for free? You could use the money you save to invest in new inventory.

Image hosting

Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer image hosting can save you even more per listing—and help increase your profit potential. When it comes time to list new goods, you’ll want to reassure buyers that what they see is what they’ll get and Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer image hosting tools can help you do this. eBay will let you post one image for free, but each additional photo will cost 15 cents. To get Supersizing, you have to pay 75 cents per listing. with a maximum of 12 pictures per listing.  You don’t have to worry about these fees with Template Optimizer—or about counting images. Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer listing tools support up unlimited Supersized images per listing at no additional charge.

Professionally-designed templates

Another tool to gain customers’ trust—and save you money—is professional listing templates. Template Optimizer has hundreds of these customizable skins that will make your listings pop and add a professional touch. While eBay does offer these, they are hard to customize and come at an additional cost.  As well, they are not attractive. Template Optimizer offers hundreds of templates, so you’ll be sure to find the perfect design to suit your business. And again, you don’t pay any additional fees.

Take your online business to the next level

As you can see, Adam Ginsberg’s Template Optimizer not only makes it easier to list on eBay, it also saves you money. Are you ready to take your business to the nextl level? Be sure to check out Template Optimizer today!

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

What is the best day to end an eBay listing?  Did you quickly answer “Sunday”?

There are so many myths out there that tell you the best ending day - how about we just answer the question with the right information so you can immediately apply it and start to make money on eBay.

The best day to close a listing on eBay is:

Well it really depends. Not a straight answer, but hang in there and I will reveal some secrets to help you find the straight answer for your products.

THE MYTH

There is a myth out there that Sunday is the overall best day to end on eBay. This myth came from an announcement eBay made some time ago that the highest traffic on the site was on Sunday.

Since then, the myth that Sunday is the best ending day has spread throughout the discussion boards.

But highest website traffic doesn’t mean that everyone is making a purchase on that day. Perhaps some people are browsing for items that they will purchase later in the week.

While it may be different than popular wisdom, I am here to tell you that Sunday is not the best ending day for your listings if you want to get the most for your item.

The Best Ending Day Depends Upon Two Things

If it’s not Sunday, what is the best ending day? Is it the best if you get the most bids? Is it the best if you sell the most items? Or is it the best if you make the highest sales price?

My point here is that best for one person’s sales may not be for another person’s. What works for you and your product may not work for another seller.

Essentially, the best ending day hinges upon two factors:

Your selling strategy

Your product

Your Selling Strategy

As I pointed out earlier, what does the best end day even mean? What is best for one seller isn’t always best for another, because each seller has a different strategy.

Essentially, all selling strategies are founded upon one of two options:

High Volume, Low Profit
Low Volume, High Profit
Your selling strategy ultimately will determine your best ending day. If you are not sure which selling strategy you are using, let me point out some characteristics of each.

1. High Volume, Low Profit

This strategy is used when you have a very large inventory of the same product. You most likely bought in bulk, which means you got a low cost for each individual item. This means you are more concerned with selling all of your products at a lower price, just to make sure you are not stuck with a left-over inventory.

A research tool like Auction Optimizer (which has a 10 day free trial) can help you determine the best ending day for this strategy to ensure you are increasing your chances of making the sale on the first time.

So, if you are a high-volume, low-profit seller, then you want to select the ending day that increasing your listing success rate. This allows you to sell more products and re-list fewer.

2. Low Volume, High Profit

Use this strategy when you have a smaller inventory of the same product, or a large inventory of several different products. Doing this allows you to focus on maximizing your sales price, thus increasing money in your pocket.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to the best ending day, there is no general rule of thumb. And not just because it depends upon your selling strategy and your product.

As I’m sure you have noticed, eBay is a very fluctuating market. What works one month may not work the next. When I first started selling on eBay, I found that Saturday was the best day to end to increase my sales price. A few months later, it had changed to Thursday. A month after that, it was Friday.

So, the bottom line, is to remove the guesswork and rules of thumb and rely upon the facts using a research tool like Auction Optimizer.

Make the most of your auctions with research - Get Started Today with Auction Optimizer for FREE!

In October 2001 I created my first eBay listings.  I paid a lot of money to a graphics designer who created a listing template unlike anything that has ever been used on eBay. Those listings were the catalyst for what would become Template Optimizer - the #1 source for eBay template software.

I’ve read lots of reviews online for Template Optimizer - most have been favorable and some comments not so positive. This will be true when anything is reviewed on the internet.  But, the simple fact is this: Template Optimizer 8.1, which was just released in Beta, is the most powerful eBay Template Software every developed and released to the public. This isn’t a review of Template Opitmizer 8.1, and doesn’t provide a list of all the new features and benefits. I will say that this version of Template Optimizer has been build from the ground up. It’s not an “update” or “fix” or “add-on” to version 7.1 - but a completely new, revolutionary way of creating listings for eBay.

Since version 8.1 is still in BETA, you can check out Template Optimizer in it’s current form.  Then, once you’re in your account simply click on the “Try Template Optimizer 8.1″ link.  You can test and use the entire system for 30 days for $1. Check it out for yourself and see what others are saying is the “Biggest breakthrough ever” for creating powerful eBay listings.

Ok, now the purpose of this article.  What the heck are eBay auction templates in the first place anyway?

In simplest terms, an auction template is a specialized ad layout that an online auction seller uses to showcase any item they are selling. Some sellers will use the same layout (as their own customized template) for all their listings while others will use a variety of template backgrounds and layouts for a variety of items for sale.

An auction template consists of HTML code written to create the layout of the auction ad, customization, and image hostings.  The template will also consist of unique graphics.  A professional listing template will also provide you with ability to insert blocks of text that don’t change from auction to auction (such as general payment terms, etc.).

Are auction templates a necessity to sell in an auction format?
That depends on who you ask. Malcom Gladwell, in his NY Times Bestseller “Blink” says that you only have 7 seconds to make a first impression.  So, while auction templates aren’t really necessary, using a profession auction template will help you to distninguish yourself from your competition.

There are many reasons that sellers make the decision to work with an auction template. Here are just a few:

• To promote a professional presence to their prospective bidders.
• To reduce the necessity of retyping information that does not change from auction to auction.
• To reduce image hosting costs.

Let’s take a look at each of these in greater detail.

Use an auction template to promote a professional presence.
Let’s face it. A buyer’s first impression of an online auction seller is the description of the item being auctioned. We don’t click into an auction and immediately look at a seller’s feedback. We first look at the item’s pictures and read the details that are of interest to us. If a buyer sees a block of plain text, they immediately wonder if this is a new seller… or maybe someone that’s just quickly trying to rid themselves of a particular item. Plain text does not say “Hello. I am a seasoned seller that is going to deliver a top-quality product in a timely fashion.”

Use an auction template to reduce repetitive typing.
Successful auction sellers have a set of selling policies that they have created - and that they use on all their listings.  This would include “Shipping Policies”, “Payment Policies”, Terms, etc. When using eBay template software you’ll want to look for a system that stores this information for you and then gives you the ability to insert it into each listing you create.  Your time is important to you - and having software that quickly speeds up the process of creating listings.

Use an auction template to reduce image hosting costs.
On eBay, you pay for each picture you insert in your listing (after the first one, which is free). The cost of these pictures will vary depending on which eBay site you list on. As well, you are limited to only 12 pictures (max) per listing.  When you use eBay template software to create professional eBay templates you have the ability to feature your pictures, upload unlimited pictures per listing and NEVER pay eBay picture hosting fees. This feature alone can save the average eBay seller thousands of dollars in picture hosting fees ever year!

Now you should know what an Auction Template is. It’s time to decide which software you’re going to use to enable you to get the best value, the simplest to use, and most importantly the software that is going to help increase what you sell and for how much you sell it for.

Try out Template Optimizer today for only $1 for 30 days. Then, while you’re in your account, be sure to check out the all new, revolutionary Template Optimizer 8.1 BETA.