Sometimes it’s painful to look at your eBay cometitors’ listings, especially if they seem to be doing better than you are. It can make you feel defeated and wonder if you can really be competitive … WAIT A MINUTE! It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to look at your competitors’ listings on eBAY because that’s how you can figure out what’s working and what’s not working, then use all of that strategic intelligence to accelerate your own selling performance! So, put on your analytic hat and start learning from your competitors.

Analyse the competition

There are four effective ways to analyse your eBay competitors listings:

Visit your eBay category of interest and from the left menu tick the checkbox ‘Completed Listings’. This will show all the listings in your chosen category that ended recently. Look at all the listings with a green price. Green means that the auction or BIN listing ended in a successful sale. Evaluate, by taking notes, which products sold most successfully.

An alternative method to finding completed listings is to use eBay’s advanced search feature: search your desired keyword, checking the ‘completed listings only’ box and setting the minimum number of bids to ‘1′. (No point in looking at listings that received no bids.) Go through the results carefully (again ignore prices in red - when the price is shown in red it means the auction didn’t close with a sale.) and take notes. Both this method and the first method can be a bit tedious, since you have to do everything manually.

A third, newer, method is to browse your chosen eBay category and observe which listings on page 1 and 2 of your category have the longest end date. eBay now ranks listings based on how successful they have been in the past (they no longer rank listings based only on how soon the listing will end). By observing which listings on page 1 and 2 of your preferred category have the longest end date, you can automatically know which products / bundles are performing well. If you can beat those sellers prices (or offer, by selling a bundle with extra bonuses at a higher price) you can have your auction feature on the first two pages of the eBay results for as long as 30 days, receiving maximum exposure.

A fourth, more stable, method is to use market research services like the eSources Market Research Wizard. These services allow you to specify a keyword to obtain statistical data on success rates and average selling prices for your chosen products on eBay. Identify which categories are best for your products, which categories will yield the best sale prices, when is the best time to start and end your auction, for what duration, and much more.

Additional Strategies To Outperform Your eBay Competitors

Titles

Titles are incredibly important. They create the keywords that will bring searchers to the product. Copy the titles and look for commonalities. Are there keywords you should be using? Are they paying for bolding, a subtitle, highlighting? The eSources Market Research Wizard reveals how much extra return you can expect from each extra eBay listings feature, helping you maximise your spend.

Descriptions

How are your competitors descriptions written? Are they long, short, terse, friendly? How much information is given?

Time

When did the auction start and end? How long was the auction? What days of the week were involved? You can again try the eSources Market Research Wizard to reveal the best start and end times for your products.

Pictures

How many views are there? What kind of quality is involved? Anything special about the setting?

Price

What’s the price range? Do the variations in price correlate with condition of the item, special circumstances, special offers or anything else?

Shipping

How are your competitors handling shipping? Are high delivery charges correlated with lower pricing? If so, you know why the price is lower. Which shipping strategies seem to be working the best?

Analysis

Now that you’ve gathered the information, look for tactics that you can use to your advantage as well.

For example:

Are you using the keywords that successful sellers are using?
Are successful sellers consistently using any differentiating feature that you are not, such as subtitles or bolding?
Do your pictures measure up to photos from the most successful sellers?
Are your prices competitive? Is there a way to use price to your advantage?

Once you have a list of proven tactics, you may want to try them all together to get the biggest advantage or, if there is expense involved, you may want to test one or two at a time to see what works best for you, giving you the best cost/benefit ratio.

Take example from your successful eBay competitors and try replicating their strategies to your advantage.

Have you ever found yourself needed to make quick money? It could be for a family emergency or perhaps it was a unsuspecting bill that popped up. I’d say it’s safe to say that many of us have needed to make quick money at one time or another in our lives.

Here are 5 ways you can make quick money online. Don’t expect to get rich with these techniques. They’re techniques that will help you make some extra money online quickly.

They take some focus and determination although they’re not hard to do.

Project Payday - This is an online program where you sign up to fill in offers for other people. There are several forums where people are looking to pay anywhere from $10 to $30 or more for someone to fill in offers from name brand merchants. Once you’ve “went green” as it is called, these people will make a payment to your PayPal account. I’ve tried it and although it is easy, it’s tedious to say the least. But I was able to make quick money online (within a few days) by filling out offers for others. If sitting at a computer for hours at a time doesn’t bother you or if you have a lot of free time, then this may be what you’re looking for.

Craigslist - If you live in a fairly large Metro area, chances are there is a Craigslist city near you. There are a lot of people who make money quick by constantly monitoring the FREE section of Craigslist. They then go and pick up the free stuff and turn around and sell it. Sometimes they post it back on Craigslist to sell it the same day they picked it up. This technique can make quick money in a day or two if you know how to work Craigslist.

Ebay - Staying with the Craigslist technique above, some of the people picking up the free stuff will post these items on Ebay if they can wait to get their money. Another source for ebay items is the other categories on Craigslist. It’s amazing, but a lot of people just want rid of stuff laying around their home. This is why they’ll give it away or sell it for next to nothing. Don’t get caught thinking you can only offer a 7 or 10 day auction on Ebay. They do have quick auctions. This will be your best bet if you need to make quick money and the item you’re selling is in demand.

Online Classifieds - If you have something you want to sell quick, but you’re finding that there aren’t buyers in your local market, try online classified sites such as Kijiji or U.S. Free Classifieds. I’ve had great results from both of these online classified sites when I needed a larger customer base to bring a better price on some unique items I was selling. Both have free versions that are just the ticket if you only have a few things you want to unload fast.

DigitalPoint Forums - Do you have some type of marketable skills? Most people do. Digital Point forums has a Marketplace section where freelancers can advertise their skills. You don’t have to be a professional to take advantage of this forums. There are people on there making money quick simply by rewriting articles for Internet publishers. Anyone can rewrite an article! If writing isn’t your thing, there are a ton of other services being offered there. I bet you can find something you can make money at on DigitalPoint.

If you find yourself in a bind between paychecks or you just wondering how a stay at home Mom can help out with the bills, the 5 ways above will help you make quick money online.

Just remember to plan out your strategy and take it slow until you get a system down. Don’t expect to hit the jackpot with any of these techniques. However there are a lot of people who are making steady incomes with ebay and craigslist. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a niche where you can make quick money online with you own home based business.

Most of us know by now that there isn’t just one way to make online but rather a plethora of ways. I’ve had people actually ask me to list the ways and it’s really impossible. Depending on the amount of money you want to make, there is always and will always be some way to make money online. This is great news for you of course! One of the most popular “jobs” to do lately or one of the things to get involved in is called an eBay niche store. These niche stores will allow you to place listings on a website that other people are selling. If someone visits your website and they click the leather seat covers for the mustang that seller ABC123 is selling, and they in turn buy those leather seat covers, you the eBay affiliate will earn a certain amount of money (usually a percentage) from the sale.

As everyone knows, eBay is the auction store. No one else could possibly add up to them. Not only do they sell anything under the sun that you could would or in some cases wouldn’t want, but they are also trusted among the auction community. One thing I have always been interested in getting in to when it comes to eBay is selling on eBay. Fortunately if you get one of these eBay niche stores, you won’t have to drop ship, you won’t have to buy any of the items, you won’t have to store any of the items because none of these items are your items! Talk about convenience. You get to take all the shortcuts and reap all the benefits!

Affiliates sell all sorts of items on these sites including any and all of the categories on eBay such as; art, books, business, cell phones, electronics, home and garden, jewelry, music, real estate, travel, video games and much more! So, how does someone become an affiliate and build one of these niche stores, exactly? Well that’s pretty simply actually! You can buy a e-course program that will teach you how to do all of this such as intro to eBay, make money from eBay, auction traffic, etc. They also teach you about other things that could potentially bring you profit as well such as Social Bookmarking techniques, Craigslist techniques, passive income techniques, provide niche websites, getting niche websites and much more.

Needless to say these packages, have everything you could ever possibly want to learn not only about how to make money on eBay, but online in general with different aspects, programs, options and techniques. These are my favorites. I call these “one-stop-shops”, because of you buy something like this, you won’t need to buy another program ever again! These programs are great for those of you who have 500 e-books (which you don’t use) on your computer as well as thousands of dollars of software and programs on your computer (which you don’t use either), simply because it’s all too overwhelming! Well now you can rest easy, with one program you can concentrate on what really matters, making money from eBay and making money online! There are people making up to $15,000 per month from these programs. One program. Lot’s of techniques. Lot’s of money. What more could you ask for!

Do you have an antique item or even several antique items that you feel are worth a significant amount of money:? It may be something you inherited or something you bought many years ago. If you have thought of selling these valuable items, it may be easier to do than you think.

Selling your antiques online is relatively simple. There are two basic ways of selling antiques online. One way is to set up your own website or a simple web page. Or you can use an auction site such as eBay.

Selling from your own web site

If you have a number of antiques you wish to sell, you can set up a web site or just a simple web page with a domain name for just a few dollars a month. The first thing you should do is to take photographs that show good detail of each antique piece you wish to sell. You should describe the facts about that piece, such as estimated age, value, place of origin, etc. You should also include shipping costs, handling costs, an email address and/or phone number for potential customers to reach you concerning questions or issues.

Once your web page is set up, you need to draw some traffic to it. You can connect with popular search engines such as yahoo and Google. You can also advertise locally, by placing fliers throughout your neighborhood or placing messages on online message boards concerning antiques.

Selling on auction sites

If you consider selling some of your antiques on auction sites such as eBay, you should do a little research first. Check out how similar items are being sold. If you see items that are similar to yours, take note of the price. You may want to offer a competitive price. You should also display good detailed photos of your items. In your description of the item, try to make your item sound special. Online auction sites can be very competitive in that they can be saturated with many items that are similar, so try to find a way to make your item sound unique.

Ebay is one of the most popular online auction sites. However, it is not the only one. You should investigate other auction sites and decide which one might be best for you. Whichever site you decide to use, be sure you understand all the rules and regulations that go along with the site. Also make sure you understand the percentages that the site will take from any sales you make.

Whether you decide to use an auction site or set up your own Web site, you may be able to make more money than you think. With just a little strategy and planning you can turn your antiques into cash.

Digital media is in many ways the ultimate product to sell and make money on eBay with. This is because there is virtually no cost involved in the obtaining and distribution of digital media!

A few things of note regarding digital media:

- It is downloadable via the internet, which means no packaging and shipping costs

- Because you can make it available via the internet, it can be easily automated for a nearly hands-free transaction

- Exact copies can be made at will, so you will never run out of inventory

The information you’re reading right now is free, but I used to sell it as part of one chapter in an eBook. I wrote the eBook once, digitized it, and put it on my website. From there the sale, distribution, and delivery of it was all automated. People came to my website, paid through my payment processor, and were directed to a page to download their copy, all happening automatically without any involvement from me.

In fact, I may very well have been in Las Vegas and living up the high life while all of that was happening!

The original copy of me eBook stayed on my web server. What you’re reading right now is an exact copy of what is on my web server. I could potentially sell hundreds of eBooks everyday, all without doing any actual work myself.

But where to get the eBooks to sell? Personally I recommend writing your own. Whatever it happens to be that you know a lot about, write about that!

I’ve written a few eBooks about selling on eBay. But I’ve also written about how to save money by building your own computer, internet marketing, filing chapter 7 bankruptcy without an attorney, and a few other subjects.

I’ve known people who have had great success writing about subjects that you might not think anyone would be interested in such as dog grooming, getting divorced without an attorney, car buying tactics, and even cook books. So don’t ever think that you don’t have something to write about!

eBay has a method to allow you to sell digital media hands free. Step-by-step instructions can be found on their site by typing in “digital media” from their help page. A couple things to note:

1. You need to have a verified PayPal account
2. You must list in the fixed-price format

Doing these two things allow you to completely automate the process.

Now that you know how to SELL an eBook on eBay, you might be wondering how you can go about CREATING an eBook. Well, that’s another article for another day. Suffice it to say that selling digital media like eBooks is one of the easiest ways to make money on eBay.