How to Avoid Selling Dangerous Electrical Products on eBay

eBay takes great care to protect buyers from goods that might prove harmful, and will ban sellers who consistently promote potentially dangerous items.  This applies equally to sellers who know their goods are substandard, as to traders who innocently buy and sell products that can cause injury and death.  We’re looking now at electrical items like televisions and refrigerators, and specifically second-hand electrical products that look good on the outside but are dangerously defective inside. 

Selling faulty electrical goods can have serious repercussions, such as death from fire or electrocution for buyers, and a prison sentence for sellers.

Faced with losing their eBay accounts, not to mention imprisonment, sellers might choose to steer clear of electrical goods, or learn how to identify and disregard potentially dangerous items. 

It is not illegal in many countries, including the U.K. to sell electrical items without having them inspected by a qualified electrician.

Here are more tips to stay problem free:

1.  Take a time-served electrician on buying expeditions to identify faults and estimate cost of repairs.  Preferably choose someone qualified to repair and refurbish electrical goods to a professional standard at a reasonable price.

2. Buy from commercial sellers with a good reputation they want to maintain, making it unlikely they’ll sell goods they know are dangerous or beyond repair.  Potentially good buying sources include family firms trading from the same address over several generations with few derogatory remarks made against them. 

Possible bad sources are flea markets and car boot sales populated by sellers you may never see again if their goods prove defective.  The exception is traders at itinerant events who are sometimes obliged to display their trading names and street addresses, as well as offering a cooling off period for buyers to inspect and retain goods or return them for refund.

3.  Have electrical goods tested at point of sale and sold with a guarantee they are in safe working condition.

4.  Avoid buying electrical goods from firms lacking experienced electrical staff, where items returned for refund may be resold without adequate checks for damage or faults.

5.  Study legal rules and regulations covering the sale of electrical goods.  Consumer and safety laws vary worldwide, and sellers must abide by laws applicable to all locations where their goods are offered for sale.

The rules are strict and sometimes complicated, but they’re essential to keeping customers safe.  Additionally, keeping those tips in mind when you buy second-hand electrical goods will help you enjoy maximum profits with minimum hassle.

   

Time to Plan Your New Year Resolutions

New Year resolutions more or less describe things you plan to do for the first time in the early New Year or which you have already done in the past and want to do better in future.  Such as losing weight, for example, or being a better parent, starting your own business, beginning a correspondence course, and so on.

In business, resolutions might focus on developing new products and introducing innovative selling campaigns, along with performing other tasks you may have thought about in the past and didn’t develop to their maximum potential or they were dropped at the planning stage.   

So you may have enjoyed a great Christmas selling period in 2014 from products you dropped from inventory in January, 2015, and failed to restock for Christmas this year. 

Maybe you found a product other people were selling aplenty on eBay and you had an idea for making your version very different and potentially sell more units than other people are selling.  Then another product idea came along, followed by another, and another, and they all got lost in the muddle. 

Now let me suggest ways to prevent similar problems by revealing the thinking behind my own New Year resolutions and recommend ways for you to create your own plans for bigger profits and reduced workload and stress in 2016.

Here we go:

*  I’ll start by telling you about my close friend who sells on Amazon, using FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon), a process whereby he lists his products on Amazon’s site and sends goods to Amazon to take payment and fulfil orders direct to buyers. 

Having once sold exclusively on eBay, and doing very well, he decided to expand his products to Amazon where, after just a few months he says Amazon sales beat eBay by about seven sales to one every day.  More than this, using FBA he doesn’t have to pack products and submit them for delivery and he doesn’t have to deal with delivery problems or bounced payments.  Amazon does all of that for him, at a cost, but one my friend says is negligible compared to available profits. 

So my resolution is to expand my selling beyond eBay, including on Amazon and Etsy.  I’ve chosen Etsy because listings are easier and take less time to create than on eBay and feedback isn’t quite so in-your-face and damaging to a seller’s reputation than on eBay.  So I can spend less time listing similar products on Etsy than on eBay and less time worrying about negative feedback blighting my business reputation.

They’re just two of many viable and reliable selling platforms and you may find other platforms more suitable to your own requirements.  

One thing I don’t want you to do is stop selling on eBay which remains one of the most heavily visited sites of all and generates a good income for millions of sellers.  Not forgetting that eBay is the world’s biggest auction website where finishing prices can sometimes exceed all reasonable expectations.

* The 20:80 Rule, sometimes called ‘Pareto’s Theory’, suggests that, among other things, close to twenty per cent of an entrepreneur’s time is spent performing tasks that will make eighty per cent of his income and, conversely, eighty per cent of working time typically accounts for twenty per cent of income.  That suggests you could work just one-fifth (20%) of your current working week and still take home four-fifths of your current profits.  So if you normally work forty hours a week and make, say, one thousand pounds profit each week, Pareto’s Theory suggests you could make eight hundred pounds every week working just eight hours.  Or thereabouts! 

So my resolution is to determine my most profitable working hours and where I am achieving limited profits from four-fifths of my working day.  Then I’ll expand my twenty per cent of profitable tasks and reduce or eliminate proportionately lower profit tasks.

Personally, I find that vintage postcards I have cherry picked at flea markets and antiques fairs amount for the majority of my profits on eBay, while items bought at auction typically yield lower profits and demand longer hours spent listing them on eBay and fulfilling orders.  So my resolution is to spend more time and money at flea markets and antiques fairs buying vintage postcards representing subjects currently fetching the highest prices on eBay and cutting back on buying auction lots containing mainly low and medium price items.

*  A report I’ve neglected since finding it online six months or so back reveals numerous reliable statistics telling why some auctions end with higher finishing prices than others, including that bidders tend to trust PowerSellers more than ordinary sellers and that auction finishing prices tend to grow in line with a seller’s positive feedback rating.  So the more positive feedback ratings you have, the more your auctions are likely to make.

So my resolution is to grow my positive feedback rating and work very hard to avoid neutral and negative feedback and having poor feedback revised to good.

This report is an eye-opener covering more than just auction listings and the reason I haven’t read more than a snippet or two is because it’s written in statistical jargon with lots of charts requiring more than a cursory glance.  So I haven’t had time, or rather I haven’t made time to read a report I honestly believe will have a very positive effect on my eBay profits.  That is something I will correct when things slow down for me on eBay between Christmas and the middle of January.   The report is called ‘Online Auctions Efficiency: A Survey of eBay Auctions’ and you can download it at:

http://wwwconference.org/www2008/papers/pdf/p925-huA.pdf

Don’t let the early date on that report deter you because many of the findings remain just as valid today.

*  Lack of focus is the main reason people fail on eBay and other marketplaces and it’s a problem anyone can solve with a diary and pen.  You do it like this:

-  When you find products fetching high prices and regular sales for other people, you make a note of the product in your diary, along with ideas for making the product more profitable for you than for other sellers.  Spend at least half an hour developing the product by jotting down profitable ideas from other people’s listings, comparing other people’s prices to sales ratios, and so on.  Now move forward five to ten days in your diary and place a big red asterisk top of the date allocation along with the product name and the date you researched it.  This allows several days for the product idea to ferment in your mind and present itself as a workable or not so workable idea.  If the idea still sounds good, you make the second date in your diary the day you turn your product idea into reality.

eBay Arbitrage - Big Profit Margins Without Leaving Home

This article offers a few simple techniques that let you benefit from sellers who either don't know or don't care how their products are listed on eBay and consequently their mistakes and omissions often lead to items going unsold or selling way below their real market value.  All you have to do is look for items poorly or wrongly listed, buy them cheap, correct mistakes and improve their earlier listings, then resell those items at a profit on eBay.

The best way to make steady money is to literally stalk eBay looking for items available for you to buy at less than their normal selling price on eBay.

This discrepancy can be due to several reasons, for example:

- The item is poorly listed and failing to attract interest because it is listed in a category where few potential buyers will find it;

- The listing has spelling mistakes or typos which render it oblivious to eBay's search engines when potential buyers seek for similar items;

- The pictures are poor and that deters people from bidding;

- The item is highly desirable but the seller doesn't know that and fails to describe it properly.

Those and other anomalies suggest a product you might buy cheap and relist almost right away to at least double your investment and maybe earn a great deal more.

Tips

* Look especially for items failing to attract bids which are poorly described, listed in the wrong category, having typing mistakes or typos, have poor illustrations, or which are missing essential words and fail to respond to eBay search engines. In all cases the item can usually be purchased below typical eBay value and relisted as soon as corrections and improvements are made.

* Do price comparisons on eBay. You'll often find items available Buy It Now or Best Offer which regularly fetch far more on auction listings. This is because people get caught up in the thrill of bidding and chase items they don't really need or want just to prevent someone else winning them.

With so many items listed on eBay, in several country sites and in hundreds of different categories and sub-categories, you really do need to focus on one or a handful of product types or you'll just get horribly confused. You also need a good system to keep count of items viewed, low price Best Offer opportunities, and so on. A spreadsheet will usually do or the note-taking system available on most computers.

Don't Sell on eBay Until You Do This

Far too many people rush to open an eBay account, fall over themselves to make their first sale, and in all the panic and confusion they suddenly realise they're losing money fast!  So they give up selling on eBay and return to working for someone else!

Very sad, especially when just a few simple steps are all that stand between failing on eBay and growing an income limited only by time and effort put into the business.

So why fail, why not succeed beyond your wildest dreams, why not follow a few simple steps to guarantee your success on eBay?

* Decide What to Sell

You must have some definite product or service in mind, or you'll be running round in circles, forever chasing new ideas and getting nowhere fast.

Counter this common problem as soon as you sign up at eBay by spending at least two or three days looking at what other people are selling, especially sellers with hundreds of monthly feedback points and high profit margins.

* Grow a Tough Second Skin

It's sad to say the customer is not always right on eBay and although most customers are very genuine, there's a tiny minority who exist purely to upset other people.  These people leave negative feedback for any reason or no reason at all, and they can be extremely hurtful to first time entrepreneurs.

Like many people, I think eBay's one-sided feedback system is seriously flawed and I can't quite work out why sellers can only leave positive feedback or no feedback at all for buyers, including those who insist they haven't received your product even though you have their signature on the delivery form.

This sort of thing happens because the Internet is largely anonymous and people who'd never create a scene in a high street shop can be extremely obnoxious in eBay messages and feedback comments.

So you must learn to accept this unfair situation and report every unpleasant experience to eBay.

* Be Upfront and Professional Right From Day One

The most successful sellers are those who take their responsibilities very seriously, towards other sellers, towards customers, and especially towards government authorities.

In particular, way too many people take chances when it comes to handling matters like income tax and trading standards, these being the two most likely areas to land you in a whole heap of trouble and send your eBay business plummeting.

In short, you MUST determine your legal and financial obligations as soon as you begin selling on eBay, and you must take steps to ensure you never fall foul of local, national and international trading rules and regulations.

That does not mean you need an accountant right from day one but you do have to tell the income tax authorities you are running a business and provide specific information for each trading year.  Read all about it at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk

You should also study eBay's help pages to determine eBay's own seller rules as well as local, national and international rules and regulations concerning sales made on eBay.

Last, but not least, contact your local town hall for advice about local and non-local trading laws.

Keyword Masterclass - Proven Ways to Generate Massive Traffic to Your eBay Listings

Your chance of achieving multiple bids and unexpected high finishing prices depends on one main thing - the title you create for your listing.

eBay says 70 per cent of members use the site's search boxes to find items they might want to buy.  But that only returns listings containing actual search keywords in the title and sub-title and ignores keywords in descriptions. The exception is where searchers tick the ‘include description’ box, which very few do.

Few sellers realise this and waste time taking great photographs and writing detailed descriptions and spending little time on keywords. Then titles that don't contain relevant keywords will be missed by 70 per cent of potential buyers.

Your title must include keywords potential buyers use to find products like yours!

This is how to do it:

* Take a pen and paper and brainstorm words potential buyers might use to describe your product.  Make a list of keywords - and phrases - to use in your titles.

* Study completed auctions for similar products, sort 'highest price first', look for common keywords in the top ranking returns.  Add those words to your list.

* Think like a buyer and imagine yourself describing the product to a friend. Add words used to your list.

* Look for sites featuring high in outside eBay search returns for companies selling products similar to yours.  Find them at Google.com where you key in words to describe your product, then click to search.  

Next click to open the first few listings.  Go to 'View' top of your screen and choose 'Source'.  A mass of gobbledegook will appear.  That is html code and somewhere you'll see keywords responsible for those sites appearing high in the rankings.  Add those words to your list.

By now you should have a long list of possible keywords.  Keep it safe because you will be using it often.

Tips

* Where you have several similar products or ongoing same product supplies, you should create different titles for each item, using different keywords each time to attract interest from eBay's search engine.

Study subsequent bidding and sales levels for your various titles to see which work best; cut poorer performing titles and replace with better performing alternatives.

* Use every millimetre of space.  Longer titles attract more interest than short ones.  Fill surplus space with power words like 'Limited Edition', 'Rare', 'Unique', 'One Day Sale', 'Stunning', 'New', 'FREE', 'New', 'Proven', 'Guarantee'. Avoid concocted words like 'Wowee' and 'Yikes' which no one searches for anyway and can make you look unprofessional.

* Spell check your title and throw in a few misspellings of vital words if space allows.  Google says that 33% of all but the most common search keywords are misspelled.  Check possible misspellings of each prime keyword at http://www.fatfingers.com.  Fatfinger listings are mistakes made by sellers but you'll find the similar misspellings used by potential buyers.  Make a separate list of misspelled words to add to your title.

* Use acceptable, commonly used, well-recognised abbreviations, like 'PC' and 'P/C' for postcards, 'nr' and 'n/r' for 'no reserve', 'hb' and 'h/b' for 'hardback’.

So now you know how to get your listings in front of potentially thousands of buyers and you’ve made sure your listings are opened and attract bids that will make you the envy of your competitors.

Well done.