Why 95% of eBay sellers a getting it wrong

eBay is the website that levels the e-commerce playing field. People can make fortunes from their kitchen table without the cost of setting up their own website and driving traffic to it, investing time in internet marketing that can be very lucrative but may not bea fruit for many months or loose all their friends trying to plug an MLM scheme. eBay has millions of buyers, you can have cash coming in from day one, and if you start off right, is completely self financing. Unlike many other online businesses, because there a physical product, it is more credible to a large number of people who would not see a value in a digital product.eBay is full of individuals making a difference to their income by what is in effect starting their own small scale business. In the current financial climate it is vitally important that this is done as profitably as possible, but yet 95% of eBay sellers are making at least one critical error every single time they list an item.The thing is, not only do they not know it, because they are still making a profit, THEY DON'T BELIEVE IT. Look at it this way - depending on where you list your item and for how long, you have an audience of up to 250m buyers, do you really want to screw up in front of that many people.......?You'll need an open mind and a pen. You won't need to write anything down, but it's handy to have something cheap to throw at the wall in frustration when you realise how much money you've been wasting. Without being guilty of stating the blindingly obvious, you will of couse need a PC or more attractive but less compatible Apple alternative, internet connection and eBay account.OK first up, there is usually some resistance to the idea that so many people are getting it wrong, so if you will indulge me I will provide a demonstration. Open up another window and go onto eBay, and in the search box type the word 'WOW' or for more giggles, 'L@@K'. How many search results have you got ? 15,000? 30,000? That's how may people have got this one basic thing wrong. When you are searching for something on eBay have you ever typed in the word 'wow' (apart from just then) and L@@K isn't even a real word - it will not help people find your item so why would you do it ?We're maybe back into blindingly obvious territory here, but as eBay is an auction site, if more people can find your item, more will have the opportunity to bid on it and increased bids will raise the sale price. Nearly everybody would agree with the last statement, so would it then make some kind of sense if I then said that you should only put words in the description that will bring buyers to your listing? There are as many if not more searches done on eBay than there are on Google each day - suprising, but true. Getting the right words in your title is so important when listing an item it deserves a little research, which can be a bit time consuming, but can be very profitable.So if we have acknowledged and identified there's a problem - we now need a solution. Folks I've discussed this with previously have put forward the points that they use the WOWs make people notice their auction out of a page of results or to fill up their 55 characters as they can't think of anything else to write. (There are other ways of making your listing stand out from others on the page (without spending any extra money on fees) more of this a bit later on), but if you run out of relevant words to put in you title here something that might help. Use a Keyword discovery tool to identify words that you might not have thought of. To find a keyword discovery tool just search the term on Google or try http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html (The one I use) and type the name of your item in. It will then give you a list of the internet searches that have been done for that item, and the words they used to find it. These are also the words you should be using in your item title, as you know people use them when searching for your item. (A bit of common sense is handy here, it is a sad fact that regardless of what you type in, a disturbingly large amount of people have done a search for that item along with some sort of sexual term or practice - and it's best not to use those words on ebay)

Combined Xmas/Birthday Presents can cause accidents in the home....

It's my wife's birthday today, and I'm writing this post while I'm waiting for it to be the correct time to get my 7 year old daughter up so we can wake up mummy with the worst cup of tea she's had since....well, last year.
I would not wish a birthday 4 days before Xmas on anyone and only think my wife is marginally luckier than the poor sods born between Xmas and New Year, who get treated like their birthday is an real inconvenience in the midst of all the festivities (for festivities read shopping).
As a boyfriend, and then husband, I have learnt the extreme folly of the combined Xmas and birthday present - that nothing, no matter how fantastic, is allowed, and that the punishment for such a folly is death. The trick is plan early, as not to get caught out and make near fatal mistakes such as having to wrap her birthday present in Xmas paper because there's none in the shops on 19th Dec. Same goes for the card - I have a theory that the card shops, when they make room for Xmas stock - only leave out the birthaday cards they could only possibly sell if no others were on display - knowing some badly organised and desperate bloke will happily give them half the contents of his wallet to ensure another years survival.
There is no easy path to redemption either - all the flowers are too 'Xmassy', and the possibility to take the love of your life out for a romantic meal on the 20th December is hampered by the fact that all the tables have been booked since August, and those of us who did actually book a table for two three months ago are then stuck next to a table of 22 cardboard box salesmen who's sole intention was to get drunk as loudly as posible and try and get get off with Sharon from accounts before the inevitable food fight. While this make-shift version of Planet of the Apes is being re-enacted 2 yards away you are stuck eating either off the Xmas menu (the culinary equivalent of the combined present) or from in reduced standard menu, which after a tip off from the card industry, is basically the shit they could only possibly sell when the rest od the stuff is off the menu.
I love my wife dearly, and as I leave now to play my part in 2008's crappest cup of tea, I salute her and all others who have a yuletide birthday, but beg of you one thing - if your other half turns up on your birthday with a very large box and a nerous expression on his face, please let him live.......