It’s been just a year since I completed writing the First Edition of eBay Secrets.
A lot happens in a year- especially on the Internet. And even though I have added to this eBook from time to time throughout the year, it needed more than cosmetic surgery to keep it up to date. That’s why I’m writing this introduction.
Besides a few changes in formatting, there is a lot of new information here.
The most important change is in the section on “7 Really Powerful Ways To Start Making A Six-Figure Income On eBay And Just About Any Other Internet Auction Site Starting Right Now!” The ‘7 Ways’ are still the best ways to profit from eBay.
But I’ve included information on WHEN to employ each one. Timing is just as important to successful selling or buying on eBay as it is in the stock market.
One of the trends I’ve been keeping an eye on is the number of auctions that close successfully on eBay. When I first started selling books and collectibles on eBay in 1998 it was fairly easy to sell discards, household items and unwanted items. That’s no longer the case.
From February, 1998 (the date I started tracking closing ratios) to October, 2000 the closing ratio or CR’s (‘CR’ is the percentage of successfully closed auctions- not including reserve auctions) on eBay was approximately 80%.
What that meant was that for every 10 items you listed for sale on eBay, you would have successfully sold 8 of them. Not only that, but you would have had multiple bidders! In many cases, an average of 3-4 bidders per auction.
Of course, these are averages. If your item was rare or you were selling an expensive item at an incredible discount just to rid yourself of it, you would have probably received many more bidders.
The higher the CR the better chances you had of selling just about anything successfully.
If you wanted to start a business on eBay, you probably found a great deal of success, without much effort. Unfortunately the market on eBay has changed and the CR has fallen dramatically – down to 54%.
I don’t want you to get the impression there aren’t opportunities on eBay anymore...that’s not the case. But the opportunities change so frequently now that, for the average person, it’s simply harder to make money on eBay than it was a few years ago- even last year.
For example, the hottest opportunity (as I write this in April of 2001) on eBay is in hip-hop jewelry. Hip-hop stars are wearing outrageous styles of jewelry and a lot of people want that look.
I did a special report about this trend in my Total Internet Profits (TIP) report (http://GoBizInfo.com) on April 4th.
I also included reliable wholesale/manufacturing sources that my TIP Members could buy from. CR’s for hip-hop jewelry are 98% and even 100% for some sellers- at the time of this writing – and profits are an average of 400% per item, up to 1,000% (or 10 times cost).
In addition, hip-hop jewelry items are receiving an average of 10 or more bids per item! This is a VERY HOT item on eBay right now. Just do a search on eBay now using hip-hop keywords such as “bling-bling”, “iced-out” or “hip-hop jewelry” and you’ll see what I mean.
Does that mean you will be able to capitalize on this trend? I hope so, but you’ll have to check eBay to determine if your not buying into a declining trend.
I made a statement in the First Edition of this eBook to the effect that eBay and other trading communities or auction sites or central Internet markets – whatever you prefer to call them – are similar to stock exchanges:
They are central Markets where people communicate with each other in a free and open market then participate in economic exchanges (they buy stocks or they sell stocks in exchange for something of equal value, usually cash or currency).
And like stock markets, central Internet markets like eBay have bull and bear markets, ups and downs, and certain items that are a strong “buy” or a strong “sell”.
But unlike the NYSE or the NASDAQ there is still relatively little information about what’s selling on eBay- what’s hot – what’s receiving the most bids and what kind of volume each item is doing.
In other words, what’s in an up-trend and what’s in a down-trend, where the buying is and where the selling is.
