Lynn’s eBay ezine Volume IV, issue number 22

Lynn Recommends: The Queen’s Live Boot Camp in La Quinta
Special Announcement: Pre-Order Special “On the Road to eBay Live”
Feature Article: Don’t worry about the Dashboard! 5 Tips to 5 Stars!
The Queen’s Update: I am teaching three Classes at eBay Live!

Our booth at Book Expo was very nice. Here is a photo of me with my entire family (except for my sis). I couldn’t believe that my mom, dad, brother, and my two kids all got to experience it. Maureen and Carmen were also there!

Also, Houston was asked to don a character suit and parade around in front of one of the booths for two hours getting business. He did quite the job and I hardly recognize him.

Then they got to meet Ty Pennington from Home Improvement. He was very gracious to them and asked their names. When they told him that my sister had just had a baby (Congrats Kiki on the new baby boy)!…

…Ty wanted to know if his name was going to be Asia. Ha Ha! What do you think about that Kiki? I don’t think she has decided upon a name yet. And why not let Ty Pennington name your child?

I was exhausted when I got back from BEA (Book Expo) as I am sure Maureen and Carmen were also. But it was time to dive right into getting ready for eBay Live.

We are talking shipping books, banners and getting the four of us to Chicago (me, Mo, Carmen and Carmen’s husband Jason).  Carmen’s husband Jason is going to film the event. Please read the Special Announcement section to learn more about this cool DVD.

My ONLY Live Boot Camp of the year is going to be in La Quinta in less than 3 months. There are a few seats left but it usually sells out during eBay Live. I encourage you to read my Lynn Recommends section to learn more and sign up before it sells out. With the economy the way it is, eBay is still a sure thing.

Speaking of a sure thing, I know that many of you have been challenged by the new eBay changes–including the feedback policy and the dashboards. I am going to address the DSR’s (Detailed Seller Ratings) and the Dashboard in my feature article this week. They are not to be worried about nor cause for concern. My feature piece is about keeping your nose to the grindstone and the 5 Tips to 5 Stars!

And I want to share with you how much my Mom’s Mideke piece went for. It did great. A lovely bowl that I remember being in our house when I was growing up.

Click to see what it sold for! Pretty cool.

Once again, I am super excited to announce that I have been selected to teach two computer labs and co-teach one seminar at eBay Live this year in Chicago. Please read the Queen’s Update section to learn more. I want to see you guys in those seats!!!!

Here’s to Successful eBaying!

Lynn Dralle, ‘The Queen of Auctions,’ Creator of the best-selling eBay Boot Camp in a Box and Boot Camp in a Box Lite.

We are on the Road to eBay Live! And you don’t want to miss this one. This eBay Live in Chicago is going to be a blast and you can be a fly on the wall with Jason Badham’s new DVD “On the Road to eBay Live with The Queen of Auctions”.

Jason is Carmen’s husband and many of you know what a great job he did with the Queen’s Academy Shipping DVD. This is the 2nd DVD in that series and you won’t want to miss out on our special pre-order offer.

You will see special behind the scenes of us traveling to Chicago, setting up our booth, and interviews with some of our students and Queen Court’s members. It is going to be a great learning DVD to add to your collection.

We are going to interview eBay Live attendees (just like you) and eBay Gurus like Lisa Suttora, Joel Elad and others for their top #1 Secret eBay tips–this DVD is going to be fun, fast paced and full of tips and tricks!

Click here to order now.

The new dashboard freaked me out for a few days. But now I am OVER IT! I don’t even let it affect me anymore. And by the way, it seems to change every day (if not every hour).

Here is an email I just got from an ezine subscriber….

Hi Lynn!

Let me start by saying I have really enjoyed reading your books. I have read two of your books now and have been following a lot of your principles. I have been a seller for several years, however I really started doing it as a business in January 2008.

As you know, eBay has made some pretty drastic changes lately and I have tried to ignore the hype and do business as normal. However, I am starting to suffer some of the effects. The Best Match search has lowered my rankings……

I have good DSRs (nothing below 4.5), yet my my search ranking shows “Lowered” on my seller dashboard. I have gotten more negatives in the last 2 months than in my whole time on eBay. It is hard to stay excited and move forward when you are not seeing sales anymore.

What are your thoughts? Do you find that stores and the usual way of doing business are still working as well for you?

I appreciate and value your opinion on this…

Thanks!

Charity

Let’s help Charity out and visit her store, Your Treasure Detective.

Thanks to Charity for letting me share her email. I think that the Best Match search as well as the new feedback policy are still being ironed out, so let’s not worry about those yet.

I am going to ask questions at eBay Live! to find out how the “Best Match” search affects those of us who are paying more money for featured stores–and expect that to help our store items in the search rankings. I will report back to you after eBay Live.

However, I think that “Best Match” is mainly going to affect those sellers that sell commodity items like Ipods, Wii’s and new shoes direct from the maker. It is going to affect those sellers more than the majority of us who are selling “one-offs”–items that are more unique and for the most part one-of-a-kind.

I will tell you this, my store sales have not dropped off. They are still comparable to where they were before the “Best Match” came into effect. In fact in the last 24 hours since I started writing this piece, I have sold $146.84 from my store. From my eBay store–not from any auction items! Times that by 30 days in a month and you have $4,405. And typically, I do about 50% eBay store and 50% auction–so we are on track!

Check out these two neat tumblers I sold.

I also sold seven more store item listings of similar tumblers and coffee mugs. In addition to quite a few other pieces.

So here are my 5 Tips to lead to 5 Stars and Great Sales!

Tip #1: Buy collections and dish sets, glass sets and flatware sets and list them in multiple auctions. This strategy is still working very well.

Tip #2: It is still a numbers game. Get as much listed in your store as you possibly can. It is so much cheaper to list in your eBay store than it used to be. Get it listed immediately. By the way, those eight auctions of Tumblers/Coffee mugs that I sold on June 3rd–had just been listed in my store on May 20th. Only 14 days in my eBay store and they sold.

As far as the dashboard is concerned, I was freaked out at first (just like Charity). Check out this screen capture of the current dashboard for the charity auctions we just helped run. It is almost perfect–except for the fact that they are not PowerSellers.

The boy’s baseball auctions got 48 positive feedback points and we asked every buyer to please rate us with a 5 star ranking. Guess what, all 4 DSR’s (Detailed Sellers Rating) have a perfect 5.0 score! Amazing.

And notice that on the Dashboard:

Search Standing: Green & Raised

Policy Compliance: Green & Good

Buyer Satisfaction: Green & Good

Account Status: Green & Current

Tip #3: Ask for a 5 Star Ranking in the note you send out with each package. If you don’t ask for something you probably won’t get it! We have started adding a special letter asking for 5 star ratings and explaining why. I got the prototype from a Queen’s Court member. If you are a Queen’s Court member, check out the posting boards for the sample.

It has been working. My Search Standing was at Lowered and it has improved to Standard since we started adding this letter!

Let’s take a look at a different Dashboard. I have a second user ID that I use for selling commodity type items. Here is a snapshot of that Dashboard as of Wednesday morning June 4.

I wish that I would have taken a snapshot of it on Tuesday evening because it was different then. I only received one DSR rating between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning and that was enough to change my Search Standing from Standard to Lowered. The Search Standings can go from Raised (Green) to Standard (Silver) to Lowered (Red) just that quickly.

It scares me when I see anything RED, so I immediately clicked on the button that said “Go to your Dashboard” to see why my search standings are now Lowered.

If you notice on the one DSR that made the difference, the shipping and handling charges, I highlighted my rating vs. eBay’s rating to see what had happened. To highlight this, just move your mouse over the bar graph.

My s/h DSR is at 4.56 as a 12 month average and eBay’s 12 month average is at 4.59. That ONE DSR feedback rating received between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning lowered me to below a 4.6.

Tip #4: Don’t be upset about changes in your Dashboard from day to day. It is based on a 30 day average and this can fluctuate like crazy. Especially when you have a user id with not many transactions like my second user ID.

My 30 day DSR for s/h is now at 4.5 and my 12 month average is currently 4.56.

Tip #5: Don’t worry about your S/H DSRs so much. Even eBay doesn’t have a 4.6 average for the past 12 months (they have a 4.59) and yet a 4.6 is what they are expecting from us for a STANDARD rating in Search Rankings. Ironic isn’t it?

I know this may all be a little bit confusing. But for now, please follow my five tips and don’t worry so much about the Dashboard. Since it is based on a 30 day moving average it can change like the winds here in Palm Desert today. I think that they are blowing at about 75 miles an hour.

Just focus on your business and let eBay iron out the kinks in the DSRs and Dashboard. If you keep your nose to the grindstone…list 100 to 200 new unique items each week…I know you will be successful! eBay is still a sure thing for sellers of unique one-of-a-kind items!

Happy eBaying!

Lynn

I am excited to announce that I will be teaching one class (Twice now!) and co-teaching another class at eBay Live! I have been asking eBay if I could do this for years and finally my dream is coming true!!! The classes are 90 minutes long each.

I can’t believe that eBay Live! in Chicago is just 21 days away. Yikes! I have so much to do. In addition to the classes, we will be in a 10′ by 20′ booth–Booth #538. Carmen, her husband Jason, Mo and I will be manning the booth. Mo’s sister Mary Beth will also be helping out. Can’t wait!

The first class that I am teaching–on my own–is called “How To Research Quickly & Effectively When Selling Higher Profit Margin Items.” It is a computer lab course. I have the dates and times now for all the classes. This one will be taught on Thursday June 19th from 10:00 to 11:30 am and then again on Friday June 20th from 1:00 to 2:30 pm. I just found out that this class will be held in a room that has 25, 50 or 75 computers.

To get the larger room here is what needs to happen. Because there are no advanced sign ups for any sessions interested students CAN go to the Agenda Builder after they register for the conference and build their agenda, showing they will attend your session.

The more people that indicate interest through the Agenda Builder, the larger the room they put the session in. They are not held to their choices, however, so if they change their minds no one will hunt them down! Here is more about the class:

I will bring in ten unique items–typically higher profit margins from the antiques and collectibles category. As an example, a flatware set (just one piece), dinnerware set (just one piece), antique vase, etc., and show them on the computer where to go and find values and identify patterns fast! I will use Google, PriceMiner, eBay and Replacements.

If you are looking for ongoing sources of merchandise that are not imported, or want to see how you can make significant profit off of low-cost items, this is a must-attend seminar! Join Herb Oberman and Lynn Dralle aka The Queen of Auctions, to learn more about locally sourcing high margin items that have not flooded the eBay Marketplace. Herb will talk about finding companies in your area that sell products at rock bottom prices which you may then resell on eBay. Lynn will show you how to quickly and effectively shop garage sales and thrift stores to find those unique items that can sell for big bucks on eBay.

It is a Seminar. These are lecture-style classes for large groups of attendees. Seminars look like your classic presentation – with a mixture of bullet point content and screen shots/images. Can’t wait to see you at either one!

eBay PowerSeller and third generation antiques dealer, Lynn Dralle, is the creator of Boot Camp in a Box, the home-study course where you can learn to implement the Dralle Method to maximize your eBay profits.

If you liked today’s issue, you’ll love this step-by-step course that is guaranteed to be the most complete and enjoyable guide to selling on eBay that MAKES YOU MONEY.

Read all about it here.

The Queen of Auctions also offers articles, teleseminars, how-to books, tracking guides, DVDs, eBay Boot Camp training and other resources to help entrepreneurs make their eBay business a six-figure sales machine. Click here to learn more.

The Queen of Auctions/All Aboard Inc.

PO Box 14103

Palm Desert, CA 92255

760-340-6622

Lynn@TheQueenofAuctions.com

Visit my eBay auctions.