eBay® PowerSeller Business Practices FOR DUMMIES®

Chapter 9. Building a Selling Strategy

You can buy the "inside secrets" of eBay from lots of places. Generally the "most-watched" items on eBay site are the Get Rich Now — Buy this and you'll be a millionaire e-books. Some e-book sellers try to convince you that only they have the surreptitious bits of knowledge — gleaned from years (months?) of experience on the site — that reveal what's really going on. Truth be told, the online retail market changes so quickly that eBay can barely keep up with it — the profile of the online shopper changes constantly. However, there are some basic laws of retail that do not change — and they may be new to those who haven't studied the cycles. How likely is it that anybody has the ultimate answer? Sure, mysterious rumors crop up — do you hear some eerie music playing? — magical means to sure-fire auctions. Start an auction at a certain day and time, and you'll automatically make more money? Please! The only one who rakes in profits with that information is the guy selling it to you!

To illustrate the variety of the strategies that actually do work, I include screen shots from my current ViewTracker eBay data. These graphs reflect real-time hits and traffic for my sales. At the end of this practice, I show you some more features of this service and how they can improve the bottom line on your listings. I also use a service — Terapeak.com — that provides site-wide data (Sellathon's ViewTracker is based on a seller's personal sales). ...