32. Provide prompt, punctual and courteous responses to any
questions your customers might have. People will probably want
to do business with you again if they receive a pleasant response
from you. -C.S.
33. Never forget that the customer is king. When in
doubt, always think like a buyer. If you do, you will be able to
better anticipate what buyers want and plan your business
accordingly. -J.G.
34. Treat your customers like you would treat guests in your
home. Be kind and understanding. Be willing to help them when
there are problems. -S.L.
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35. Eliminate the roadblocks to selling your products. If
a buyer wants to use PayPal to buy your product and you can't
accept a PayPal payment, that's a problem. It's a roadblock
to selling your item, making a profit and moving on to the next
sale. Take down the roadblocks! This is my golden rule of retail:
Make sure customers who come in the door have a way to pay, and
customers who leave have a smile and a full shopping cart. The
point is simple--sell your item, collect the money, and ship the
product. -D.E.
36. Communicate as soon as possible with all buyers who
e-mail you. If you make a mistake and something's not sent
when it should have been, let the customer know the truth.
Don't ignore questions or complaints. -S.L.
37. Schedule time once a week for posting feedback--no
more than 15 minutes. You have to do it to be successful. Create a
couple of generic feedback statements, such as "Great buyer,
quick payment, great trans," check the spelling, then cut and
paste these generic statements into your feedback submissions.
People don't care what you say, as long as it's positive.
-D.E.
38. Leave emotion out of feedback. Keep it strictly
business. -S.L.
Money Matters
39. Use QuickBooks or other accounting software to help you
keep your books in order for yourself and for your tax
specialist. QuickBooks allows you to input your inventory and
gives you reports telling you your average profit per item, as well
as how many items you sell each week. The program also gives you
statistics, your markup and a lot of other helpful data.
-M.C.
40. Open a premier or business PayPal account. Many
buyers limit their eBay shopping to those sellers who offer PayPal.
Using PayPal makes tracking sales, invoicing and bookkeeping much
easier. -J.G.
41. Pennies count. Keep track of expenses. The difference
in listing fees between starting an item at $9.99 and at $10.00 is
25 cents. That adds up to $25 if you're listing 100 items per
week. Also pay attention to hidden costs like shipping supplies and
postage. -S.L.
Competitive Edge
42. Once you've settled on regular inventory, use eBay
keywords, a pay-per-click banner advertising service, to draw
people into your store. See https://ebay.admarketplace.net/ebay/servlet/ebay.
-M.C.
43. Watch your competition. Search them out on eBay.
Follow their sales. Determine their best business practices, and
adopt them. For example, if your competition is offering goods
similar to yours at about the same price, consider driving
customers to your items by offering free shipping on some or all of
them. -J.G.
44. Don't be afraid to put some items away and wait for
your competition to sell out. Profits definitely rise when
you're the only source of a popular item. -S.L.
45. Cultivate your customer database--it's a gold
mine. You can use it to market any of your new items directly
to qualified customers. For example, you could send a monthly
newsletter to your database to describe your new products or to
give these customers discounts. But before you proceed with any
marketing campaign using your buyers' e-mail addresses, be sure
you understand and comply with the national spam laws.
-D.E.
46. Cross-promote with your e-mail signature. It should
read something like "If you need additional products or
services, please visit my Storefront at storefront.com."
-D.E.
Growing Your Business
47. Don't open an eBay store until you've had a
number of transactions on the site and you're comfortable
with the way eBay works. -M.C.
48. When you do open an ebay store, be sure you take
advantage of eBay's cross-promotion tools. These tools
allow you to choose which merchandise is featured in your store, so
you can choose items that might be of interest to somebody already
buying one of your listed items. -M.C.
49. Once you become a powerseller, consider using a service
like Endicia.com, which allows you to print your own
postage and delivery confirmations on one label and gives you a
separate expense line for your postage. -M.C.
50. Don't limit yourself to buyers in the United
States. Many brands that are popular and easy to come by in the
United States are practically impossible to get elsewhere. For
example, a friend of mine bought some OshKosh B'Gosh baby
clothes at a local garage sale and sold them on eBay to an eager
mother in Australia for a nice profit. And I bought model airplane
engines that are made in Germany at a local swap meet and was
surprised to find my biggest demand for these engines came from
buyers in Germany. -D.E.
51. Remember this simple rule for non-U.S. buyers:
Don't accept foreign currency; specify that you'll accept
U.S. dollars only. If a buyer sends you $20 Canadian and you were
expecting $20 American, you just lost about $8, depending on the
current rate of exchange. Always specify "U.S. funds
only." And consider the additional shipping charges that may
apply before you agree to ship the product outside of the country.
-D.E.
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