As you may be aware; Royal Mail increased it’s postage rates on 30 April.

The new rates for small packets are:

0 – 100g Letter (max 240mm x 165mm x 5mm)
50p for 2nd Class
60p for 1st Class
£1.45 for 2nd Class Recorded
£1.55 for 1st Class Recorded

0 – 100g Large Letter (max 353mm x 250mm x 25mm)
69p for 2nd Class
90p for 1st Class
£1.64 for 2nd Class Recorded
£1.85 for 1st Class Recorded

101 – 250g Large Letter (max 353mm x 250mm x 25mm)
£1.10 for 2nd Class
£1.20 for 1st Class
£2.05 for 2nd Class Recorded
£2.15 for 1st Class Recorded

0 – 750g Packet (over 353mm x 250mm x 25mm)
£2.20 for 2nd Class
£2.70 for 1st Class
£3.15 for 2nd Class Recorded
£3.65 for 1st Class Recorded

I currently sell a very wide range of products on eBay; from electric bikes costing several hundred pounds each, through my Genealogy Research and specialist Family Tree publishing service (I am a professional Genealogist), through handmade craft items, artist supplies, plants, software and information products and use my PayPal Business Account to accept payment for all of them.

I occasionally have a couple of niggles with PayPal but, in the main, PayPal is easy to use and efficient. The problem is that although PayPal’s standard Business Account fees are ok for large and medium payments they can become significant when selling low price items where item pricing is competitive and profit margins are wafer thin. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to discover PayPal run a Micropayments service aimed at processing payments of £5 or less.

If you convert a PayPal Business Account into a Micropayments Account then you will only pay 5p + 5% rather than 20p + 3.4% on each payment received. This means, for example, that if you sell an item for £2 you would only pay 15p rather than 27p in PayPal fees. If you are used to selling high priced products then a saving of 12p per item may seem insignificant… but if, like myself, you sell a significant number of items under £5 the saving can really boost your profit margin and give you a competitive edge over other traders.

To learn more about PayPal’s Micropayments Service go to: http://www.paypal-business.co.uk/take-micropayments-with-paypal/

Ever since eBay changed the rules on digital downloadable products I’ve been wondering whether to give their Classified Ads a go.

I’ve heard plenty of people making good money from Classified Ads, but I wasn’t sure they were for me until I read this great new ebook called Auction Classified Cash.

It’s a great little guide which gets right to the point, (no fluff here thank goodness!).  It will take you by the hand of how to set up your Classified Ads whether you are using eBay’s sell your item page or through Turbo Lister, and also the types of classified ads that make the most money.

I was really pleased to see some examples of real life ads that are currently making money as well.

Since Auction Classified Cash came out I’ve been happy to report that I’m now much more confident to place a Classified Ad on eBay and so far have been impressed with the results I’m getting.

The $9.95 fee for placing an ad on eBay has already more than paid for itself.

This book is great for beginners and intermediate’s alike.  Go and check it out for yourself.

Auction Classified Cash

Regards,

I hope that you had a happy holiday season.

The Christmas season is now finally over and the New Year has begun.  My eBay Watch List and my Credit Card are both maxed out and the Postman has stopped delivering parcels to our house at dawn “to free up some @#%# space in me van” and now delivers mid morning as normal.  I am desperately trying to find places in the Spare Room to store all the packaging material our presents came in (to save money when I start advertising stuff on eBay later this week) before my wife realises how much room it all takes up.

I must admit I am starting to suffer from virtual indigestion due to an overdose of clicking on “Buy-It-Now” buttons on the run up to Christmas and am starting to feel it’s time to begin changing from buying to selling again to start getting some cash coming in to pay for everything we brought.

As you may gather; I normally spend most of my time selling, rather than buying, on eBay so Christmas is always an interesting time as it is a few weeks each year when I see things from a buyers perspective.  Most transactions ran smoothly but we had a couple which required a brief email to the Seller.  It is when a problem occurs that you realise the importance of customer service and what a big difference it makes to the buyer and the feedback they leave.  One seller responded promptly with a personal email and quickly offered a replacement (even although one was not necessary in the end) while the second seller took a while to respond and just sent a pre-written response telling me to basically go away and wait 15 days before bothering them again.  OMG! Talk about waving a red flag to a bull!

As sellers it is good sometimes to see and experience things from a buyers viewpoint.

Anyway, time for me to start preparing some more eBay Ads and get some sales before that Credit Card statement arrives!

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year!

Sadly Negative Feedback is something many eBay sellers encounter.  I was recently selling several CDs on eBay UK as part of my Auction Income Formula coaching and things seemed to be running smoothly… Until I logged on one morning to see how my auctions were going and noticed that my feedback rating had gone down rather than up.  I quickly checked my feedback and there it was – my first Negative Feedback: “Don’t work!”

I was confused. eBay Policy clearly states that buyers should contact sellers to discuss any problems before leaving neutral or negative feedback so I quickly checked my Messages Inbox in my eBay account but there were no new messages.  I double checked my feedback again and the comment was definitely there.  I searched back through my recent sales and found the buyers details.  Edson does provide a sample email to send to people who leave negative feedback as part of his Auction Income Formula eBay coaching program so I sent the email to my buyer and politely pointed out that I would be happy to help them sort out any problem and that everything I sell is covered by a 100% Satisfaction Money Back Guarantee.

After exchanging a few emails we were able to resolve the minor technical problem with the buyers computer, the buyer was impressed with my helpfulness and customer service, recognized the problem was with her computer rather than my CD, apologized for leaving the negative feedback and said she would be happy to revise the feedback but didn’t know how.

Assuming that your buyer has not left feedback which breaks eBay rules (i.e. it is not obscene etc – in which case you can apply to eBay yourself to have it removed without the agreement of the buyer) there are 2 ways a buyer can change feedback they have left:  They can either add follow-up feedback or they can revise their feedback.

If they choose to add “follow-up feedback” then people looking at your feedback profile will see two comments; your buyers original negative comment and their new favorable comment.  However, even if your buyer adds a favorable follow-up comment, eBay will still treat it as a negative feedback comment when assessing your performance.

As a Seller you can however send the buyer a feedback revision request.  If your buyer is happy to respond to this then their original comment will be deleted and they can leave a fresh comment, and mark it positive, neutral or negative, as if they were leaving feedback for the first time.  People who then view your feedback profile will not see the buyer’s original comment; just their revised feedback comment.  If the revised comment is positive then eBay will count it as positive when calculating your performance.

If your buyer is happy revising their feedback this is much more preferable to them adding follow-up feedback.

Useful Links:
Circumstances under which eBay will remove feedback
How to leave “Follow Up” feedback
How to request “Feedback Revision”

Well things were looking good:

I had brought a few items on eBay to gain some feedback.

I had opened an eBay shop, subscribed to eBay’s Seller Manager and downloaded the TurboLister tool to help me create my listings offline.

I started customising the Sales Page Templates provided by Edson free of charge to his Auction Income Formula students.

After a short time I received an email saying Selling Manager and my shop had been set up so I eagerly logged into my eBay account and was greeted by my first surprise. Below the graph which would show me my daily/weekly/monthly sales was a table explaining that as a newbie seller I was limited to selling 100 items (or £3500 worth) per month.

I was unaware of this limit on newbies but I figured that I probably would not reach this limit for a month or two until I got “into the swing”. I therefore went ahead and started listing some of the software Edson had provided us with.

BANG! I had only listed about a dozen items when I hit another newbie limit:

 ”As a new seller you’ve reached the selling limit for the number of items you can list in this category. This means you won’t be able to complete this listing right now, but you may still be able to list other types of items in other categories. You’ll be able to list more items in this category in 30 days. Account privileges for new sellers are limited until they establish a good track record with us and their buyers. These limits help us make sure all new sellers meet their buyers’ needs in categories where buyers have higher expectations. Once you’ve been a seller for more than 90 days and you establish a good track record with your buyers, you may have your limits evaluated. “

 Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggh!

Oh well; I will have to concentrate on listing information products for the next 30 days!

Opening an eBay shop has many advantages.  It makes you look more professional and eBay gives your items higher visibility in search results. Having a shop also entitles you to discounts on Buy-It-Now Insertion Fees.

Let’s just concentrate on the Insertion Fee savings for a minute:

If you don’t have a shop the standard Buy-It-Now Insertion Fee is 40p

A “Basic Shop” costs £14.99 per month but you only pay a Buy-It-Now
Insertion Fee of only 10p

A “Featured Shop” costs £49.99 per month but you only pay a Buy-It-Now
Insertion Fee of only 5p

A “Anchor Shop” costs £349.99 per month but you only pay a Buy-It-Now
Insertion Fee of only 1p

Doing the Math on the above numbers:

The Break-even point for a “Basic Shop” is listing 50 or more items per
month.

The Break-even point for a “Featured Shop” is listing 143 or more items per
month.

The Break-even point for a “Anchor Shop” is listing 898 or more items per
month.

As mentioned above a “Featured Shop” will give your listings higher visibility in search results than a “Basic Shop” and an “Anchor Shop” will give your listings even higher visibility and so hopefully result in even more sales. Hopefully however you will find the above break-even numbers useful if you are thinking of opening an eBay shop.

As I mentioned in my previous post; I recently signed up to Edson
Buchanan’s Auction Income Formula training program.  I now have access to the Members Area and exclusive eBay Sellers Club and like what I see.

If you take a look at the Sales Page you will see that the training is
divided into 5 phases:

Phase 1 – Set Up eBay and PayPal Account
Phase 2 – Digital Product Set Up
Phase 3 – List It on eBay
Phase 4 – Traffic Generation
Phase 5 – eBay Extras

However, within the eBay Sellers Club Edson has also placed quite a lot of
additional training videos covering specific issues and teaching extra
techniques that his students (such as myself) will find useful when running our
eBay business.  These additional videos look like they will be incredibly useful
once I get my business up and running.

Anyway; I am currently working my way through Phase 1 and am very impressed with the easy to follow step-by-step way Edson guides us on what to do through his series of four “Phase 1″ videos.  There is a slight problem in that the videos feature the USA eBay and USA PayPal so some of the procedures (such as how to get your PayPal account verified) are slightly different for me here in the UK using the UK eBay and PayPal but I was still able to get the gist of what
to do.

Overall I am very impressed with the Phase 1 training material and have
already raised several questions in the eBay Sellers Club forum and received
helpful replies.

Stay tuned to this Blog to follow my progress…