WhatReallySellsBlog.com

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I received an interesting email the other day I’d like to share with you because it keys in on something I did when I set up my new eBay account last month.?

First off, here’s the email:

James, Concerning selling on ebay, I’ve heard that to sell successfully you need a FB score between 50 and 100? What’s your opinion and why? What’s been your experience on ebay RE this FB score?

Pat

When I set up my cellar_door1 account in January I wanted to test two things:

1) How fast I could find profitable product to sell and get them listed and sold on eBay.

2) How fast I could build my positive Feed Back so I could begin selling.

I opened up the cellar_door1 account on January 9th, 2006. On January 11th I started buying so I could build my feedback. My goal was to get my feedback to 10 (10 is the minimum amount of feedback needed to list multi-item auctions)

On January 11th and 12th I bought several cheap ebooks for 1 cent to $1.00. I found these books by searching for the key phrase, “free shipping” and then using the search options on the left side of the screen I selected “Buy it Now” and Items Priced between .01 and 1.00.

I then just browsed through the search results and found cheap items I could buy for 1 penny to 1 dollar. I ended up buying 14 items for a total of $5.66.

Within 2 days I had a Feedback rating of 10. I didn’t start selling until a little over a week later because I was waiting for some products to arrive. When I listed my first product I had a Feedback of 12.

The first month that account was in existance I sold $1100.99 in merchandise. (actually, that was just in the first two weeks)

So, in answer to Pat’s question I think a Feedback of 10 is good enough to begin selling. Wayne Yeager of www.sellathon.com claims that having high Positive Feedback is way overrated. He has access to the data from millions of auctions — provided by users of his View Tracker software at http://www.sellathon.com/index.php — and after studying all this data Yeager determined that while Positive Feedback does have an impact on Final Value it’s not as much as most people think. According to Yeager, for every 1% increase in positive feedback, the final price of the item goes up by 0.03 percent.

That’s not very much. In other words, if Seller #1 has 50 positive feedbacks, and Seller #2 has a whopping 5,000 positive feedbacks, Seller #2 will realize just a 3% higher price for his item than Seller #1.

So if Seller 1 has an item that sells for $100.00, Seller 2 — with 5000 positive feedback — will realize only $3.00 more or $103.00.

It seems that people EXPECT positive Feedback so the impact on having a lot of positive feedback is minimal.

Bottom Line — Don’t let the lack of Feedback hold you back from selling on eBay. It just doesn’t make that much difference anyway.

If you’d like to take a look at all Yeagers findings go to: http://forum.sellathon.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=practical;action=display;num=1076960283

James

P.S. I’m testing out that new technique I told you about last issue. It’s looking good. I’ll have results in three days to share with you.

P.P.S. I almost forgot — I just started a What Really Sells on eBay Blog. Go check it out at http://www.whatreallysellsblog.com Be sure to add it to your news reader.

James Jones here from WhatReallySells.com.test2, check out this item that recently sold on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7588619003

Pretty boring stuff, huh. Can’t get too excited about a red Swingline office stapler can you?

Well, it just so happens this stapler has a very interesting story:

During the production of the movie Office Space, production designer Edward T. McAvoy needed a bright “fire engine” red Swingline stapler for a plotline that ran throughout the movie. McAvoy called up Swingline and asked if they made such a stapler. They unfortunately did not. McAvoy then asked: “Well, do you mind if I use your logo on the side of a stapler I’m going to paint red?”. Swingline didn’t mind. So McAvoy took 4 staplers down to a local auto-body shop and told them to make them perfectly painted, just like you’d paint a car.” Their handy work can be seen changing hands throughout the movie.

The Swingline in the movie was custom-painted by a prop designer. When fans found out they couldn’t buy one from the manufacturer, they simply made their own, creating a thriving market on eBay for Swinglines spray-painted red.

Now check out this listing:

bayit listings?

Note: You will need to log into your eBay account to see the lisings.

This seller has carved out a nice little niche in the “replica red stapler” market.

In 2002 Swingline bagan making the red staplers and they have quickly become the most popular item on the Swingline Web site at a price of $29 each.

The time to make money with this idea was BEFORE Swingline wised up and started making the official “designer” red stapler. The fellow selling these on eBay now may be opening himself up to charges of selling counterfeit goods (could you imagine going to jail for selling counterfeit staplers

But, there are plenty of opporunities just like this one. Just about any “cult” movie that attracts a small but devoted group of obsessive fans has certain objects that fans associate with the movie. And if not a particular object then quotes from the movie.

Have you seen people wearing T-Shirts that say, “Vote for Pedro”?

That line is from the movie Napoleon Dynamite. The observant entreprenuer who first started selling simple white T-Shirts with that quote made a fortune. (by the way, movie quotes generally can’t be copyrighted so you can’t get in trouble for reproducing them. Just don’t reproduce any of the pictures or trademarks from the movie.)

Another entrepreneur sold thousands of T-shirts with a logo of the ‘Bada Bing Nightclub’, a fictional club in the Sopranos TV series.

And when Seinfeld aired an episode about the phrase, “Yada, Yada, Yada,” it didn’t take long for the “Yada, Yada, Yada” T-Shirts to start showing up.

So, grab some popcorn, pop in the latest Blockbuster release, veg out on the couch and start brainstorming ideas. You might just come up with the next hot fad product to sell on eBay.

James

P.S. I just got off the phone with an eBay guru and he gave me an idea for a super hot product to sell on eBay. I’m gonna test it out. I’ll let you know how it pans out.

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Today I want to show you a mistake I made with one of my auctions. And why — in spite of this mistake — I STILL made 800% profit on the item.

Go to this link and view the 4 minute video that reveals my screw-up:

http://www.whatreallysells.com/sb-screwup/

James

P.S. Hey, cut me some slack — this is the first mistake I’ve made all year! (yeah - right

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Today I want to show you one of my eBay Profit Systems.

Go to this link and view the 3 minute 45 second video that shows how I’m profiting from this system:

http://www.whatreallysells.com/ebay-profit-system/

James