Succeeding with Ebay Auctions

by Jason James

Ebay just seems to be another one of those darling Internet phenoms like Google that just seems to do no wrong. With nearly 15 billion in sales last year and over 10 million visitors every month (and still growing!), it seems like Ebay might be taking on giants like Wal-Mart in a few years. Ebay auctions can be very profitable for sellers but it takes hard work and sacrifice to make an Ebay business successful. To people first entering into the world of online auctions, the most important thing might seem to be the product itself. The better or more popular the item, the higher the bids should reasonably be. As true as this seems, succeeding with Ebay auctions is actually more complicated. Marketing is a part of any business and definitely plays a huge role in separating a successful one from those that fail. In every form of marketing, the main point is to inform the customer of the advantage they receive by using your company to buy a product or service. To make money on Ebay and ultimately succeed, you need to focus on the product description. After all, people cannot actually see or touch the items they are buying using Ebay auctions. All that they have to go on when deciding whether to bid (or hopefully, how much to bid!) is a picture and your product description. You have to inform them about your product and convince them that they are getting more by buying it from you than someone else selling the same thing. Feature Product descriptions boil down to three things: Feature, Advantage, and Benefit. An Ebay business must accurately describe the features of a product to the customer or risk negative feedback or even no bids for an item. Describe the features of your item using positive (not inaccurate or overly fluffy) words so that they clearly understand everything about the item but still feel good about it. Advantage What advantage does this item have over similar items that may be listed with other Ebay business owners? You have to convince the buyer that your item is superior to others like it and therefore demanding of a higher bid. This may require some creativity on your part but just remember to be honest. Benefit Your customers will want to know what benefit they receive by buying this item from you instead of some other Ebay business owner. There are a couple of options here. First, you could focus on the benefits of doing business with you and tell them why you offer superior quality and service compared with your competition. A return policy is a good idea to focus on and will help your customer feel more secure about doing business with you if they know that they can return the product if it not what they were expecting (of course if you remember to be accurate when describing the features, this should rarely arise and is therefore a fairly safe policy to incorporate that definitely helps build a positive feedback rating). Secondly, you can also focus on the item itself. How does this particular item benefit the potential buyer? Is it rare or come with some verifiable but interesting history? In all honesty, you can be fairly creative here as well. Just don't promise something that your item cannot possibly deliver upon. Ebay auctions are a new and rather odd way to buy things. Not seeing or touching the products requires a bit of faith on the part of a buyer. Build that faith and trust with your customers by delivering the best description possible so that they can literally visualize this item and how it will benefit their lives. Your Ebay business will succeed if you remember to incorporate feature, advantage, and benefit in every product description. About the author: Jason James website 'The Auction Resource Network' reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay. Claim your FREE 'Top 10 eBay Selling Secrets' eBook: www.auctionresourcen etwork.com