The Queen of Auctions, eBay Tips, Tricks

Lynn's eBay ezine Volume III,
issue number 48

Hi!

We made it!!! And on Indy's Birthday--we hit 15,000 in positive feedback. So exciting, but guess what....

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  • Lynn Recommends: Cindy Shebley's Special Offer
  • Special Announcement: Get a last minute tax deduction for 2007
  • Feature Article: Use Best Offers to Your Advantage!
  • The Queen's Update: Our 40th 100 Best Story from YOU

This ezine is published once a week.
December 20, 2007 Volume III, Issue 48

Dear eBayers,

...even though we hit 15,000, I couldn't believe it--my shooting yellow star did NOT change colors!!! I was totally expecting it to change--I guess we have to hit 20,000 to get a new colored star. Oh well!

It was still exciting and here is a screen shot.

So much has happened since my last ezine two weeks ago. It has been a whirlwind of shipping activity, getting ready for Christmas and cleaning up.

Indy sings in the Desert Children's Chorale choir and we attended three concerts in the past two weeks. The kids did a wonderful job and it helped to get us in the spirit of the Holidays.

My dad has been in town visiting, and Yes, as usual I have put him right to work. Unfortunately, he will be flying back to Bellingham when you read this ezine. Bummer! The best thing he did for me was to help me clean up my yard. It is funny, but because we are so concerned about our indoor eBay space, I try not to notice what is happening outside.

Bad idea. I moved into my house here about five years ago when Houston was only six and Indy was 3 1/2. They had so much toddler stuff--big wheels, cozy coupes, sand boxes etc. It has all been outside in our back yard for those five years. Well needless to say, the stuff was pretty ruined--definitely not in eBay selling condition.

I have also gotten pallets of overstocks from Gumps to sell on eBay and tons of huge cardboard boxes that couldn't be reused. Those were also piling up in our side yard. So, my mom and I called around and it was going to be about $1,000 to get it all hauled away. Yikes!

I asked my dad if he would rent a truck and do a dump run. He finally acquiesced!!! Yippeee.. So for $100 he got a 15 foot u-haul and we (mom, dad, me, Houston and Indy--even my ex-husband William helped) filled it up with all sorts of junk. Bags full of leaves (found under the pallets), drywall from a minor home remodel, broken toys and ruined pool floats. It was quite the scene...

Here is a photo of my dad and Indy when
it was time to shut the door!!!

By the way, anything that we thought could be fixed up and used by other children: bicycles, tables, chairs, little tykes kitchen, baseball hitting nets etc. we put out on the sidewalk by the garbage with a free sign. It was all picked up within 60 minutes. We were in shock!

My dad drove the uhaul to the dump and it only cost $31.00 to get rid of all that garbage. I am telling you, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. If any of you have neglected your outdoor space, I highly encourage you to take a day and clean it up--it was very (dare I say it) cleansing!

Well, back to eBay and how it has been going. We have been selling tons out of our eBay store. Remember those little girl dresses that I was going to list this past summer sitting on the beach in Bellingham? Well, I never got around to it and my mom listed them for me a few months ago. Well, they have been selling like hotcakes.

They were from the 1960s to 1970s and not very many sold at auction. But since we put them in our eBay store they have been flying off the shelves. I think it is because people are making vintage doll clothes out of them.

Here is Carmen trying to pull an order of fifteen to all be shipped to the same lady. She doesn't look happy does she? My mom ran into my office and said "Get in the eBay room quick--you have got to see Carmen knee-deep in little girl's dresses--and bring your camera!"

What has really worked for us this year is to do some "Best Offers." I wanted to share our success with you and how you can use it to your benefit in this week's feature article. So don't miss reading this one.

Check out this Elephant of an item (ha ha) that I just accepted a Best Offer for. Click here to see what it sold for. I am happy to report that my dad took it to the Post Office for us! Whew, just in the nick of time--before he left. That was one huge box!

Also, in the Lynn Recommends section, I want to show you how my friend Cindy Shebley has helped me with my eBay store. She also has a special offer for my ezine readers.

Don't forget that I have started selling manufacturer's new items under a new user ID. Check out my auctions at SmashinBeauty. You can get some great deals on brand new cosmetics. I was fortunate enough to work with Jen Cano from HammerTap on our new item strategies. It was a lot of fun and I learned a ton! Watch for a feature article coming up soon about this super research tool.

This week we have another great story about the things you all have sold on eBay. This week's story is about a Nativity set that returns to its home country. Read about it below.

And as an ending note, Happy Holidays!!! I wish the best for you and your family this season.

Here's to Successful eBaying!

Lynn Dralle, 'The Queen of Auctions,' Creator of the best-selling eBay Boot Camp in a Box and Boot Camp in a Box Lite.

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I met Cindy Shebley for the first time at eBay Live in Las Vegas. She is an eBay Guru that specializes in things I know nothing about--like photography, building web pages and adding video to your listings. I met up with Cindy again this past September when we were both asked to teach at the boot camp that Skip McGrath held in Anacortes, WA.

We taught a joint session on eBay Stores and I learned that you could have more than just your "About Me" page. Well, I hired Cindy to add some pages to my eBay store. Here is one she did for my new cosmetic business:

You can visit the page here.

Cindy is very talented and wanted to offer her new CDs and DVDs that show you how to add video to your listings. Check out her special offer here for my ezine readers.


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There are just a few days to get a tax deduction for your business for 2007. Boot Camp in a Box and Boot Camp in a Box Lite are two great ways you can expand your eBay business and get a tax break at the same time. (As always, consult your accountant for advice on deductible expenses.)

Remember, I am an eBay Certified Service Provider. eBay lets me put their name on all of my products. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I want you to be as successful as I am. Click here.

And remember, Queen's Court members receive a 15% discount on all of my web site store merchandise. That includes Boot Camp in a Box!

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'Use eBay's Best Offer Feature to your Advantage'
by Lynn A. Dralle, 'The Queen of Auctions'

I realize that this doesn't have anything to do with our feature article, but I just had to share this before getting started on my writing. My mom and I were at a garage sale recently and you know I always buy coffee mugs if they have a great theme, good signature or good maker's mark.

I was a little burned out (it was late in the morning) and my mom pulled out a "Diet Coke" coffee mug from a box on the ground. She said "You need this." Well, I do drink a lot of Diet Coke but not out of a coffee mug and I don't drink coffee so I didn't really see the point. I wasn't going to buy it, but then I saw two very saleable Lucy and Me (Enesco) coffee mugs so I made sure my mom didn't want the diet coke one and I threw it in with my pile. You see the mugs were 25 cents each so I wanted to buy four to make it an even dollar.

Well, guess what? As of this writing, the "Lucy and Me" mugs have NO bids and the Diet Coke mug is going nuts. Click here to see what it eventually sold for. It may be because I put advertising in the title. I don't really know, but eBay is continually surprising me and making me very happy!! Which leads me to a feature that I have started using within the past year that is also making me very happy--the "Best Offer" option.

I haven't been very happy with the new eBay Markdown Manager, and I haven't been happy with second chance offers either; but this past Fall, I decided to give the Best Offer feature a whirl.

It is funny, but I was actually sitting at my desk waiting to be interviewed by Griff and Lee. Click here to listen to one of the archived interviews. I still get a little nervous before each of these interviews so I decided to do a little eBay work to keep my mind off of it. There wasn't enough time to do any serious listing, so I started looking at my eBay store and focused on my higher priced items that weren't selling.

I started at the top and began revising any listing that I wasn't firm on for the pricing. I worked my way down the list until I got to the $99 items. Here is an example of how Best Offer works.

1) Click on your item or input the item number. 2) Click on "Revise Your Listing". FYI, you can only use Best Offer on fixed price listings (so anything that you have in your eBay Store is a candidate or anything at auction with a fixed price).

Once the "Revise your Listing" page comes up, just scroll down to the yellow heading that says "Choose How You'd Like to Sell." Click on the box that says "Allow buyers to send you their best offer." Once you do that, a screen like the one shown below will appear.

Now, you have three options:

#1: Let all offers come to you and you make a decision on a case by case basis. To choose this option, do not check either of the two boxes shown above. You can see on your "My eBay" page where eBay will tell you if you have any best offers.

#2: "Automatically accept offers of at least" a certain price. To use this option you will check that first box and input the least amount you will take.

#3: Finally, you can check the box that says "Automatically Decline Offers of less than" and you input your price.

I always choose the third option and I will explain why. If you choose the first option, you will be wading through a lot of offers that you already know that you won't accept. If you choose the second option, you may leave money on the table. Let me show you this with an example.

My mom decided to sell a cranberry Mary Gregory pitcher that had belonged to my Grandmother. We priced it at $499 and it didn't sell for over a year. We finally added the "Allow Best Offer" feature this summer. We said to automatically decline offers of less than $399. If we had said to automatically accept offers of at least $399, we may have only gotten $399 for it. The lady who ended up buying it input an offer of $450. It was so close to our asking price that we immediately took it.

Here is a tip. Try and put in odd numbers for the decline amount. For example, for the elephant that you saw pictured above, I said to decline anything less than $74. I do this because I believe that people will offer amounts like $25, $50, $75, $100 etc. The lady that bought the elephant obviously kept trying in dollar increments until her offer wasn't automatically declined.

She offered me the very least I was willing to consider. Now, at this point I could have countered, but let me tell you, I was so glad to be done tripping over that "white elephant" (well he is actually brown) in the eBay room that I was happy to take her offer!

Here is another example of an item that we recently sold. It was a figural Victorian toothpick holder. My minimum amount to decline was $74.00. Click here to see what it ended up selling for

Click here to see what it ended up selling for.
You will see the best offer price under my original asking price.

My plan before the holidays was to get through my entire store list to the $49.99 price points and add "Best Offers" on those items that I am willing to deal on. However, I didn't get past all of my $99 items-I actually only added that feature to about 20 items. AND Look, I sold two of those in the past two weeks. So, I highly recommend that you do this to some of your slow moving merchandise also.

Here's to a very successful 2008 on eBay and off!

Happy eBaying!

Lynn

WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Lynn's past ezines here.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR ON YOUR WEBSITE? Yes, you may - just as long as you include all links as they are and append this complete blurb with it: The Queen of Auctions and eBay Power Seller, Lynn Dralle, publishes 'eBay Tips & Tricks' a weekly ezine with 10,000+ subscribers. If you're ready to jump start your eBay business, make more money and have more time, get your FRE E tips now at www.thequeenofauctions.com

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I am happy to present our 40th story for The 100 Best Things You've Bought or Sold on eBay! Look below for the story of a Nativity set that returns home to Italy. Click below to read...

Click here to read the story...

Please patronize Elizabeth's auctions (booklovertoo) and her eBay store (Booklovertoo Antiques Collectibles) and make her business this year even better. Thanks!

A big thanks to everyone who has already submitted a story! We are looking for more great stories of your eBay adventures. We know there are many great tales out there, so please submit your story along the lines of the stories from the 100 Best Books and a great side story with photos will help. If we use your story, you will receive a $35 merchandise credit on my web site and you will have your story featured--along with your user ID--in my ezine! It may also eventually end up in a published book!

By the way, when I mention my ezine readers' user IDs with links to their auctions--it actually helps their sales! Amazing how that works. Click here for the guidelines for submitting your stories.

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eBay PowerSeller and third generation antiques dealer, Lynn Dralle, is the creator of Boot Camp in a Box, the home-study course where you can learn to implement the Dralle Method to maximize your eBay profits.

If you liked today's issue, you'll love this step-by-step course that is guaranteed to be the most complete and enjoyable guide to selling on eBay that MAKES YOU MONEY.

Read all about it here.

The Queen of Auctions also offers articles, teleseminars, how-to books, tracking guides, DVDs, eBay Boot Camp training and other resources to help entrepreneurs make their eBay business a six-figure sales machine. Click here to learn more.

The Queen of Auctions/All Aboard Inc.
PO Box 14103
Palm Desert, CA 92255
760-345-9355
Lynn@TheQueenofAuctions.com


Happy eBaying!!

Lynn


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Lynn is an experienced eBay Power Seller, author and teacher. If you want to know the eBay tips, tricks and tools that Lynn uses for buying and selling at online auction click here.

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