Marc Sampson’s Blog

As of EOD 31st May
Target: £330.00
Actual: £441.14

WOW, I must have done something right this month, I smashed my target figure.

I’ve only been doing what I have been writing about on my blog over the last couple of months.

What do I think has been the most successful tactic? - I believe it has been not over charging on postage costs to send abroad.  As an estimate, I think roughly 30% of my sales have been to people outside of the UK.  I wrote about this in my last post.

As a complete coincidence, I received an email from eBay today which among other items, explains that from 3rd June, items on eBay.co.uk, the UK listings will appear on all of European eBay sites too.  You can read more about this HERE.

Actually I didn’t know they were not being shown on European sites, certainly judging from the number of sales I have had from European customers.  I can only think they physically looked on eBay.co.uk to find my items.

The main purpose of this challenge was to try to highlight a post I made a couple of months ago.  Here it is again.

I set myself a goal, and I accomplished it.  I may not have done it on my first attempt, although I still say the April challenge was a success, I did on my second attempt which was this May eBay challenge.  I know I wouldn’t have made this value of sales had I not set myself this target.  A value of sales which I have never achieved before but still I believed I could it.

Although the challenge is over, I will still continue to post tips and tactics to increase your online auction sales and traffic.

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As of EOD 21st May
Target: £231
Actual: £283.60

Looks like I will reach my target.  Only need to sell another £60 worth of items with still more than a week to go.

So far my May eBay challenge updates, have been to do with increasing traffic to your store or listings.  In this post, I want to share with you a very effective technique for increasing sales once you have visitors to your listings.

If you are in the UK, like I am, you know we are suffering from very bad currency exchange rates.  Well, you can use this to your advantage on eBay, or indeed any other online auction site.  The fact that us Brits do not get as many Euros, US dollars, Canadian dollars, Japanese Yen, Egyptian pounds etc etc, for our pound, means that items are more expensive for us abroad.  Well, if you turn that around, it means that residents of these countries will find items cheaper when shopping in the UK, including on eBay.co.uk.

So, make your items available to international buyers.  To do this, select ‘will ship worldwide’ when completing the postage section of the listing.   Do not overcharge on your postage outside your country of residence.  If it costs you £2.60 to send your item to another EU country, only charge this, or slightly more to cover your postage.  Say £3.00.  On today’s exchange rate, this is only 3.30 Euros.  You will probably find this is not much more than postage from a domestic seller of their country.

This is what I do, and I am sending items outside of the UK on a daily basis.  I have sold to many countries, including:

• Norway
• Holland
• Ireland
• Spain
• Portugal
• Italy
• Lithuania
• USA
• Canada
• Greece
• Israel

If you list auction style listings, and you list on eBay.co.uk, for an extra 5p, you can have international visibility.  This option is not available on Buy it now listings, but international buyers will still find you if they want the product you have on offer.

If you don’t already ship abroad, you want to start, and your sales will increase.  I guarantee it.

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As of EOD 17th May
Target: £187
Actual: £180.70

Since I last made a post, I have done a couple of things to help increase traffic to my listings.

I have continually added new products to my store, as usual.

I have been increasing my twitter followers which in turn will increase traffic to my eBay store.   I now have over 1,000 followers.

One of the new products I have added to my eBay listings is the series of videos which has taught me all I know about Twitter.    Here are just a few things the video series will teach you

• How to quickly increase your followers
• How to design your own graphic for use as your twitter background and how to upload it
• How to integrate Twitter with Aweber
• How to integrate Twitter with your wordpress blog
• How to automatically follow people when someone follows you
• How to automatically send a customised message to your new follower
• plus much more

I now have these videos available on CD ROM viewable on all PC platforms, via my eBay store.   Click HERE to see the Video CD ROM category of my eBay store.  Hint: especially for my blog readers.   I have not advised of this anywhere else.   I have set this up on ‘best offer’.  It is on a buy it now for £9.99, but if you put in an offer for £5.00 or higher, I have set the listing up to automatically accept your offer.

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As of EOD 13th May
Target: £143
Actual: £132.03

Since my last update, I have been, apart from the obvious listing of more products, been continuously looking at more ways of driving traffic to my store, and hence my listings.

Now this post covers something that I touched on in a post for my April eBay challenge, but I have recently discovered it is so much more powerful than I originally thought, it deserves another mention.

In a word ‘Twitter’.  You should tweet to the tweeple.  If you are already a twitter er, then you will now what I am on about.  If not, you should register now.  Here is my twitter page:  www.twitter.com/marcsampson.

I have recently purchased a video series of tutorials for twitter, and golly, it is so much more powerful than I realised.  This is the reason why I am mentioning it again.  I am still going through the video course, but when I have finished, I will be selling the same course in my eBay shop and also via digital download, as I have master resale rights to it.

There are so many twitter tools, and it is these tools that make twitter as powerful as it is.  The two most exciting is that you can incorporate it with your blog, and also Aweber.  The video series will explain all.  I will make a separate post about it when I have it available.

Anyway, go tweet, and I will catch up with you again soon with another update.

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As of EOD 10th May
Target: £110
Actual: £72.34

Since my last update, as always, I have been adding more items to my inventory, but I have also given my eBay shop a face lift.  It now has a completely different look.  In fact if you were used to my old eBay shop, you now will not recognise it.

The reason for this is to try to create my own image and have a unique look.   One thing I done to give my shop a unique look was to create my own logo.  Here it is.

I can now use this image on other websites, including this blog, and also have it link to my eBay store or where ever else I want it to link to like my eBook website.  The one above links to my eBay shop, and the one below links to my eBook website:

This on it’s own wont create extra traffic or many extra, if any extra, sales but I’m hoping it will help with repeat customers because they will recognise my label and brand if you like.

I welcome any comments you may have.

You can create images very easily such as the above with photoshop, or if you don’t have photoshop, gimp which is a free alternative.  You can get gimp at www.gimp.org.

Another tactic and eBay challenge update will be posted in another couple of days.

Until then, look after yourself and your eBay identity.

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I’m redesigning my eBay shop to have the same colour theme as my eBay store http://www.marcsampson.com/ebayshop

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Trying to get my eBay inventory to 233 BIN listings to make it worth my while upgrading my shop.

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I wanted to have some mushy peas with my chips, but I ran out. Better add them to my shopping list.

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A free alternative to photoshop http://www.gimp.org/

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Hey tweeple. Just created my first ever graphic which is the background to my twitter page. What do you think?

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