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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

eBay Business Solutions

Posted by Unknown at 7:14 AM Labels: Business, Solutions 0 comments

If starting an eBay business is your goal, as

opposed to just auctioning a few items off for some

extra cash, you need to use the eBay business

solutions that are available to you. Because eBay’s

success depends on the success of its sellers,

they strive to help you at every turn. eBay Business

Solutions is the key to starting an eBay business.

eBay Stores is one of the better solutions for eBay

business owners. An eBay store will allow you to

list multiple quantities of the same item, and allow

you to keep them listed for longer time periods.

eBay Store owners also enjoy lower auction fees,

and have access to advanced merchandising tools.

Eventually, you should consider upgrading to an

eBay Pro Store, which will allow you to customize

your storefront with your own brand and web

address.

There are many other eBay Business Solutions,

such as seller tools, the eBay solutions directory,

and the merchant solution center, but you should

definitely start with your very own eBay store,

followed by an eBay Pro Store.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

10 Sure-fire Ways to Kill Your eBay Business.

Posted by Unknown at 11:55 PM Labels: Business, Surefire 0 comments

It's surprisingly easy to kill your eBay business, if you're not careful - sure, you can start over from scratch without it costing you anything, but do you really want to? Still, if you want your business to end up dead in the water, here are some simple ways to do it.

Lie about an item: Say it works fine when it sometimes doesn't work. Say it's in perfect condition when it has a scratch. Your customers will hate you!

Post whenever you feel like it: Make sure to leave your customers hanging around, wondering when their item is going to turn up. This makes sure they buy from someone else next time.

Let items end anytime: Few people will be around to care about your auction if it ends in the middle of the night. Why go to the trouble of working out whether auctions will end at a good time?

Don't bother with email: Customers are just timewasters anyway. eBay businesses are supposed to run themselves! Never give informed responses to questions about your item.

Sell rubbish: Really, it's just eBay. You can just sell any old tat from the market for a 200% profit. Let quality be someone else's concern - I mean, really, what do they expect for that price?

Refuse to give discounts: You know what your items cost, you know what your profit margin is going to be, and you're not going to negotiate. Remember that giving customers special deals might make them feel good and come back to you again.

Make your listings ugly: As many colours, flashing lights and animations as possible will really give those customers a headache. Write as much in CAPITALS!!!! as you can. Preferably big, red capitals. Be sure to use the fonts Impact and Comic Sans. For an extra special touch, see if you can figure out a way to add some music.

Don't take photos: It's such trouble, after all. If buyers are picky enough to actually want to see items before they bid on them, then screw 'em, that's what I say.

Write short descriptions: Be as brief as possible, and use lots of mysterious abbreviations. This obviously makes you look very cool. You can even just write the title again in the description box. Think of the effort you'll save!

Use reserve auctions: Now, this is a fairly controversial final choice, but it really is one of the best ways to scare away your customers. They'll see 'reserve not yet met', and click that 'back' button before you know it. Luckily, they can always bid in a normal auction for the item somewhere else.

Now that you know the ten ways to kill your eBay business, how about we explore what to do if you want to do the opposite, and make a success of it? The next email will give you ten steps to successful selling on eBay.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Happy Birthday, Business Computing

Posted by Unknown at 11:19 PM Labels: Birthday, Business, Computing, Happy 0 comments

September 5, 2011

On this date sixty years ago, September 5 1951, the world's first business computing program was first tested on the world's first business computer, the Lyons Electronic Office (link).

LEO was inspired by wartime computers that calculated things like artillery aiming tables for the military. Lyons was a massive restaurant chain in the UK, and realized that the new digital computers could simplify its human-driven accounting operations. So it built its own computer, consisting of 21 racks with 6,000 vacuum tubes and occupying about 5,000 square feet. The company's first use of LEO was to calculate the cost of all the baked goods produced by its 12 bakeries (link).

From that humble beginning...wait, that wasn't a humble beginning at all, it was a very cool beginning. The first use of a business computer was to solve a real-world problem faster and more accurately than people could do it on their own. That's exactly what you're supposed to do with computers. LEO was quickly adapted to other tasks, where it achieved impressive results. For example, it cut the time needed to calculate an employee paycheck from eight minutes to 1.5 seconds.

It's hard to believe that many people believed for years that computers didn't increase business productivity (link).

From that very auspicious start grew most of the computing industry we know today (link). So take a moment to contemplate that dinner roll or slice of pie you eat today, and say a quiet thank-you to David Caminer, John Pinkerton (link), and the other pioneers who got it all started sixty years ago today.