Hi, 

When you sell a product at auction on eBay, that is one just sale to the highest bidder. If a few hit your “Buy Now” button, that could increase your sales some, but it will  not make a steady income. The ebay marketplace is affected by the same influences that cause the ebb and flow of normal retail business in any city.

If you want to avoid riding that wave of uncertain income, you must have a  customer base of return customers looking for your products and ready to buy them. Your happy customer list will give you opportunities to market to them for years, or for as long as they stay on your list.

The Internet is full of stories about normal people making 6-figure incomes from eBay sales. Those successful marketers make it sound easy and often attribute it to learning a secret or accidently falling over a little-known technique that made all the difference. In reality, there wasn’t any secret or “Eureka” moment.

The had a responsive list and marketed their butts off to that list every chance they had. The “secret” they knew was that simple auction sales were NOT going to support them. They knew that big profits come from marketing to a list of previous customers who liked their products in the past and would be interested in future products.

A mailing list of customers who have deliberately filled out the opt-in form and requested to subscribe to your newsletter, blog or just to receive information from you, is the #1 hottest resource you can have in your business. With that list you can start a relationship with your customers that that builds trust and will make them feel like a part of your business, part of your virtual neighborhood.

If you are trying to start your first list, an effective way to do that is to sell your ebooks that have resale rights attached in separate auctions with an opportunity to get some free bonuses if they subscribe to your newsletter. Make your bonuses interesting and useful to your customers and they will subscribe, even if it’s only to download the bonuses.

When you have the subscription, send them the link to the download page. On that page, have links to your other business sites and opportunities to click on any affiliate products you are promoting.  Adding a surprise bonus to freely download off your page is also a good idea.

Since the number of your subscriptions and the size of your list depends on the number of buyers, you might want to pay close attention to the price of your ebooks. If you price too high, no one will buy it. If it’s priced too low, you will not make any money. Don’t forget about the eBay fees you will have to pay on each sale you make.

Before setting any price on your products, you have to make a decision about the purpose of your auctions. You can sell your products to either make the largest profit you can get or to build your list rapidly. Once you’ve figured out why you are selling your products in the first place, you can easily research your competition to find a good price point for your auctions.

If selling on eBay is your primary business, you should constantly check out your competition and analyze what they are doing. Watching other auctions for similar products as yours and taking note of what works and what does not is a valuable free marketing course.

List building on eBay is dependent on how you present your products and how you treat your customers both before they spend  money with you and definitely after. Be professional at all times. Answer questions immediately and treat your customers like gold. Your list will grow as a result.

 Until next time….

Alex Fyfe.