Research is the Key to Profitable eBay Auctions

Every eBay seller should do some research on the items they plan on selling to help maximize their profit potential. This is even more prevalent for Trading Assistants since they never know what kind of items their client may have to sell. There are a several methods and tools to help you on your knowledge quest.

The easiest and cheapest (free) research is done by searching eBay's current & completed auctions. The completed listing results only reports the last two weeks worth of data. This method may be sufficient with items that are readily available and are selling well on eBay. Items that are unique or few available may require a longer duration of completed sales data to get a more accurate estimate of value. Several third party vendors supply this kind of helpful information.

Two well known programs are HammerTap & Terapeak.

Both programs feature extended historical data and advanced reporting. Sellers now have an abundent amount of information at their fingertips. Utilizing these tools will help you decide auction formats, pricing strategies and supply and demand info. Knowledge is power so start selling smarter!

Offline Marketing of your Trading Assistant business

Trading Assistants must market their eBay business for it to grow. So much focus has been to use online marketing methods, we tend to forget that there are many effective ways to market offline too.

Some effective methods of offline marketing are relatively cheap or free. As with any marketing effort you need to track your results. Always ask new leads how they heard of you. Write down your results to help analyze how effective each marketing campaign was.

Offline Marketing ideas:

• Business Cards: Every eBay Trading Assistant should have them. It is by far the best way to leave your business impression with anyone you come in contact with. I recommend not going too cheap with this. A professional looking card will go a long way. Use services like elance.com for design services and
  for print services if needed.
• Referrals: Your existing client base is a great resource for referrals. Keeping in touch with them will help generate new clients and remind them of your selling services.
  
• Flyers: Spread the word by using flyers. Tear-off flyers work best at local supermarkets. Some examples of printable flyers are available in the eBay Toolkit.
  
• Networking: Join business networking groups like your local chamber of commerce. These groups offer a great potential for leads and exposes you to new opportunities.
  
• Print Advertising: There are many options to advertise locally including the Yellow Pages, coupon mailers, placemat, newspapers, etc. You will need to budget & track your campaigns to ensure that you are getting a good ROI (Return on Investment).
  

A few more "Guerrilla Marketing" ideas:

• Classified Ad Screening: Monitor local classified & Craigslist ads for items you would to consign. Wait a week to pass and contact the seller if the item was sold. If it wasn't you can offer to help him sell the item. This tactic is effective but cold calling is not for everyone.
  
• Garage Sale Trolling: Visiting garage sales makes it easy to talk to potential clients. Simply offer to help them sell any higher end items they might have (not garage sale items) and hand them a business card.
  
• Home Sellers Direct Mail: Many people selling their homes are in need of TAs to de-clutter their homes before a big move. You can find them by driving around, newspaper ads, etc. A targeted flyer mailed to these prospects could prove well worth the cost of postage.

eBay To Go Widgets Marketing Tool

eBay recently released a new tool to help market your eBay listings and eBay Store. These creative tools make it easy for Trading Assistants and anyone else to showcase listings on a website or blog. Check out my To Go widget below:

These easy to create widgets are created by going to http://togo.ebay.com/ and following their step by step wizard. You can create widgets for individual items, multiple items, search, seller and eBay Stores. Take advantage of the free utilty now!

eBay Feedback 2.0 - Trading Assistant Status Hidden

Recently, eBay upgraded their feedback system. This upgrade features many improvements for rating sellers and overall useability. The only drawback I found with eBay's new Feedback 2.0 is that the identification of registered Trading Assistants is now hidden under the "More Options" drop-down menu (see below).

This makes it very difficult for users to know that you a TA. Two things that every eBay Trading Assistant should do is create a "me' page and let everyone know that your a TA on it. You should also use the TA Logo for listings that eBay has provided. I created a tutorial showing you how to implement the TA logo in your listings.

The more people who know what you do the better chance of getting more clients. Over the years I have landed a few clients just because they saw my listings or bought from me and were interested in using my services.

Is your eBay selling schedule independent of holidays?

Back in the early days of eBay selling most sellers thought that all your auctions should end on a weekend night. It does seem logical since many people are not at work during the weekend, but the reality is it doesn't really matter what day of the week your auctions ends on.

This makes even more sense for volume sellers and eBay Trading Assistants. Ending all your auctions on a Sunday night would create quite the bottleneck in the work flow process. Effective sellers try and balance out their workload so they are not spending two whole days packing and shipping after each weekend.

But what should you do about the holidays?

That depends on several things. If you sell worldwide, then a holiday in the USA doesn't necessarily mean a holiday everywhere (i.e. 4th of July). If you do sell only in the states then maybe it would be a consideration to not end your auctions on that holiday. Then again, with more people at home and the stores closed...shopping on eBay is only a click away.

This topic has been discussed many times on many different forums. Some say it doesn't matter if they end on a holiday, others say it does make a difference. I think it is really a matter of preference, but if you really want to know then run some auctions and record the results.

Is the eBay Trading Assistant business model dead?

That is the question many Trading Assistants are asking themselves after attending the eBay Live 2007. Even though I wasn't able to attend this year, other TA's who did attend stated that eBay had no TA booth as they did in the past. Also, there was a noticeable lack of eBay Drop shop franchise presence that dominated many of the vendors booths of past years.

This may be a sign that the TA business model has matured to the point that many of the snake oil salesmen have disappeared. Most have seen the retail only franchise "Drop Shops" come and go. Most of these shops have never seen a month in the black and corporate franchisees are re-evaluating their operations or just closing down.

So where does that leave us fellow TAs? No different then when we first started. For as long as people have items to sell and no time or knowledge of eBay, our services will always be needed. It has and always will be up to the individual to determine the direction of his/her TA business. TA's relying on eBay & retail stores to make their TA business successful will be painfully disappointed. While the definition of success is different for each person, the bottom line is to make a profit, help others and enjoy what we do.