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Here's What I Use to Help my eBay Selling

by: Brian McGregor

I get many requests about the systems I use in running my own eBay and internet business.

To give you the answer in one place, here is the software which I use daily in my own business.

I should point out that much of my own activity is now to do with selling digital information via eBay and from websites i.e. ebooks and software, which is why some of the software programs I use are concerned with this activity.

General productivity

Shortkeys
This is lovely utility which saves me hours of time each week. It is perfect for those occasions when you are required to key in information to websites. For example, how often do you key in your name and address, or a username and password, or an email address?

With Shortkeys, you associate 3 or 4 unique keystrokes with a string of frequently used information. Let's suppose I want to have a shortkey for my email address, and I set this as ##z1 in Shortkeys. Whenever I am required to key in my email address, in Outlook, on web forms, in Word documents etc, I just type in ##z1 and Shortkeys instantly replaces that with my email address.

There is an uncharged version called Shortkeys Lite which has a limit of 30 items. The full version of Shortkeys allows you an unlimited number of items.

You can get it here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrshortkeys.htm

Download Accelerator

If you regularly download ebooks or software, and it seems to take forever, you will find Download Accelerator is a useful addition to your portfolio. Download Accelerator increases download speeds by up to 300%, regardless of the speed of your internet connection. I don't know how it does it, but I guess 89 million users can't be wrong!

You can get Download Accelerator on 14 day test here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlraccelerator.htm

Ebook Production

Acrobat Adobe
I create all my ebooks in pdf format as this file can be read by anyone with Acrobat Reader, and this includes Mac users too. The way I create an ebook is to write it in Microsoft Word first. Once I'm happy that the Word version is exactly how I want it, I use an integrated converter which takes the Word file and converts it automatically into a pdf file. This conversion preserves everything which appeared in the Word document, including headers/footers, page numbers and web links.

You can read all about Adobe Acrobat here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlracrobat.htm

If you are considering developing your own ebooks using Acrobat, the most cost effective way of purchasing it is to buy online from Adobe's US site, and select the download option. To buy the download version this is the place to start: http://www.workwinners.com/nlracrobat_dl.htm

At 167 Mb, Acrobat is quite a large software product. If you would therefore prefer to buy the boxed CD version, the cheapest way in the UK is to get it from Amazon. http://www.workwinners.com/nlramacrobat.htm

ebook Covers
It is a fact that showing your ebook in 3D form so it looks like a book really helps to boost sales. Compact Draw is the software I use to create my ebook covers. You can try it for 30 days here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrcompact.htm

Website creation and maintenance

Website design
I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to design websites, and indeed to create eBay auction description pages. Dreamweaver is a premium web design product, and unless you're going to do serious website design I wouldn't advise you to acquire it.

It comes in boxed form, and Macromedia will channel any UK purchasers to a UK based reseller. The cheapest way in the UK is to get it from Amazon. http://www.workwinners.com/nlramdream.htm

Image Manipulation & Optimising
I use Paint Shop Pro for picture manipulation and for optimising. This is important for auction pictures, as eBay have a size limit of 50KB on any pictures which you want to upload to their Picture Service.

The authors, JASC, have just released Version 9 of this software. I find Version 8 is perfectly acceptable for everything I want to do, and it's cheaper than Version 9.

You can't now buy Version 8 from the author's USA site, which is unfortunate as this was the cheapest way of buying the product before Version 9 came out.

The good news is that Version 8 is currently half price at the author's UK site, as you can see here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpsp.htm

It's available for trial at the UK site, and I recommend you test it to see if you can work with it.

Website upload
Cute FTP is probably the best known FTP software. I have used it for several years and have been very satisfied with the software. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrcute.htm

Website hosting
ProWebSpace are excellent and reasonable web hosts which I have now been using for over a year. I transferred to them from another host with whom I was having lots of problems. Now, I have a better service, and it's at one third the price! Of course, you can get web space for nothing from a variety of ISPs. Take a look at http://www.freeisp.com

You only need companies like ProWebSpace if you intend to "go commercial" in your internet activities. If you do, it's important to have a paid service as this gives you the right to kick b**t if ever you experience hosting problems. If you would like to know the hosting company who I moved from, email me. If you think you need professional hosting, this is definitely where I would start. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpws.htm

Newsletter and other Mailings

As my newsletter has grown, I've tried various ways of managing my mailing lists. I currently use Press-Manager, and have found their service to be very easy to set-up and to use. It's a web based service, and all mailings are performed from their site. This means there's no software to be installed, I can manage my mailings from any PC and my ISP no longer bears the mailing load. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpm.htm

Autoresponding

You may know that the use of autoresponders is one of the keys to marketing on the internet. I use Promasoft, and have found it can easily handle everything I want. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpsoft.htm

I hope this glimpse into the systems and services I use has been helpful.

Good luck in your own internet business developments and in your eBay selling.

About the author:
Brian McGregor specializes in showing website owners how to make more money from their sites by applying inventive and original use of eBay. For a free copy of �The eBay Traffic Funnel� which shows you how to use the power of eBay to make more money with your website, visit

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Getting Great Deals on EBay
by: Lorraine Venner

I love getting a deal. I try to smell them out from miles away. I love frequent garage sales, flea markets, closeouts, and more -- but found that I could much better by simply buying through online auctions - if I shop carefully.

Getting a deal out of EBay auctions is an art. Buying from auctions can be a costly proposition or a very economical option depending on your tactics. Buy wisely by learning from my (sometimes costly) experiences.

1. Is the Seller Trustworthy?

Both EBay and Yahoo auctions have seller ratings. Read these and their associated reviews. If the seller has a great rating from buying and a poor one from selling, you probably don't want to buy from them. Look at both praises and complaints as they may or may not apply to what you are bidding on.

2. Read the Description Throughly

It is very easy to read what you want to see in an Ebay auction rather than what is actually written there. Read both what is in the Ebay description and what is NOT in the description. Often your mind will want to fill in details with what is your dream interpretation. You need to re-read the description until you find out whether what you are searching for and what the seller is selling match.

* Used or New?

Is the item you are buying used or new? If it doesn't say new, you are most likely buying something that is used.

* Real or Fake

Is the item you are interested in "real" gold, sterling silver or pearls? For example, a description saying: "gold necklace for sale" does NOT say 14 kt gold or 18kt gold. That most likely means a gold COLORED necklace which may or may not have actual gold metal. This also applies to pearls as many call plastic fake pearls simply "pearls".

If the seller is selling beads, those beads could be plastic, glass, stone, scrap metal, crystal, chips, wood, clay, gemstone or some other material.

* Item Details

Does the EBay description really say how much you are getting, how long the item is, and quality of the item? Selling by the pound can be a great deal - or a horrible deal.

* Beware of Hidden Costs

Look at shipping and handling costs. I've seen many penny auctions that have $13 or more shipping. Some auctions even have handling fees.

* How Fast Will it Ship?

I've been seeing a fair amount of auctions that note that the product will ship in 2 months or that shipping time is 2 months. If you are buying for a particular holiday, be sure that you will get the item in time.

3. Is it a Bargain For You?

Many times an EBay auction will say that the items are "worth $XXX". In many cases, that price is inflated. Often you can find similar items much cheaper tah "$XXX" at normal stores. (However, the auction price may still be cheaper than you can by elsewhere - it really helps to know how much you usually pay for items!) If you are only interested in some of the items in an auction, adjust your bid to reflect how much you are willing to pay for just those items unless you plan to sell the rest as that is how much you would pay for it elsewhere.

4. Auction Fever

Compare prices on the net at the same time to avoid overpaying. Know that usually you can get the item later elsewhere. Wise buyers know to walk away when the price is higher than the item is worth to them.

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