MoreHi!
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave those wonderful comments on the Amazon site for me. I really appreciate it. Some really exciting things going on this week–read on.
- Lynn Recommends: Don’t miss the USPS teleseminar
- Special Announcement: Sample audio from story #16
- Feature Article: How to run a Charity Auction– Boot Camp for 99 cents–What?
- The Queen’s Update: Our 14th 100 Best Story from YOU!
This ezine is published once a week.
May 24, 2007 Volume III, Issue 19
Dear friends,
What a crazy week! I have not even gotten my 100 things from last week listed yet because I have been so focused on figuring out the USPS changes for you. I have piles of papers on my desk, have spent hours on the phone with Robin, hours on the USPS web site and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel! Hooray!
In addition, I stumbled across a treasure trove of men’s brand new golf shirts at a garage sale. He wanted $25 each to begin with and I got him to give me 6 for $100. The retail prices ranged from $70 to $195. Can you believe that?
I bought 18 shirts and as we drove away, I said to my mom, “I should go back and buy them all.” So, back we went (after getting another $300 cash from the ATM). There were 45 shirts remaining and he wanted $700. I was ready to walk away until his mom talked him into $550. I ended up paying $12.75 per shirt.
There were shirts by Bobby Jones, Tommy Bahama, Ashworth, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, etc. Of course, my son wanted first pick and he now has two Tommy Bahama shirts put away for his birthday. What a great gift! Peter also scored a few and I even saved two for my brother Lee. Oh the perks of being in my family never end! Just kidding. I have ten shirts listed that end soon–check out this auction for a Tommy Bahama and see how high it goes.
Check out the auction here.
By the way, men’s shirts are easy to list and sell. You don’t have to take more than one folded picture (although I did take two of this Tommy shirt) and I didn’t even take any measurements. Most men know how certain sizes in certain shirts fit.
Don’t miss out on the Lynn Recommends section, because you will want to sign up for the USPS teleseminar that I am hosting today, Thursday, May 24th at 5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time. This will sell out quickly as the cost is minimal and you will find the answers to your questions about the new shipping charge calculations being used by the USPS. I will be interviewing one of my former ecourse students, Robin, who is not only an eBay Seller but also a Postal Employee!
Thanks to everyone who has submitted those great questions!
In our Special Announcement section, I am pleased to share one of my audio stories from the first 100 Best. You won’t want to miss this–I have been cracking myself up (and tearing up) as I do these recordings.
My feature article is about a charity auction that I am hosting for my son’s baseball team. I want to share with you what we have learned in case you have charities that you would like to help. Also, I have donated a Boot Camp in a Box with the Lost Bellingham Footage and it is starting at 99 cents! Click here to see all the auctions. Starting at 8 am Pacific Daylight Time today, a new auction will go on every 15 minutes. All items start at just 99 cents! Thanks for your support.
Finally, this week we have another great story about the things you all have sold on eBay. This one comes from Babette. You will love reading how following a hunch at a garage sale turns $15 into more than $2,400!
Here’s to Successful eBaying!
Lynn Dralle, ‘The Queen of Auctions,’ Creator of the best-selling eBay Boot Camp in a Box.
Don’t miss out on the USPS rate change teleseminar that I will be hosting tonight, Thursday, May 24th at 5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time. Click here to sign up.
We are ready to make sense of all the changes for you–both Domestically and Internationally! And if you sign up for the teleseminar, you will also receive my invaluable updated international USPS chart and a lot of really useful domestic shipping information. That alone is worth the small price of admission!
Robin and I have worked really hard on this and the information is so great that the price will increase to $99 after 5 pm today–so don’t miss out!
But until 5 pm today the cost is minimal. I will be interviewing my former ecourse student, Robin, who is not only an eBay Seller but also a Postal Employee! Robin sells as Sanjaccats on eBay and is one of their top 1,000 reviewers. In fact, her review on McCoy Pottery has been read over 10,000 times! Too cool.
Robin can’t wait to share all that she has learned as both a postal employee and an eBay seller. She has been cramming for this just like it was for a midterm at school–me too! Click here to secure your spot now.
I have been having tons of fun recording the audio for The 1st 100 Best Things I’ve Sold on eBay and More 100 Best Things I’ve Sold on eBay Money Making Madness. I have laughed, cried and cracked myself up.
I wanted to share one of my favorites so far with you. Click here to listen to story number sixteen from The 100 Best Things I’ve Sold on eBay.
Some of you have already pre-ordered this set of audio. THANK YOU! It will ship out around June 1st (please be patient–it has been much more work than we ever imagined). To get an hour of useable audio takes me about 3 hours of recording. So the 12 hours that we are shipping took me 36 hours of non-stop serious and not so serious talking. A HUGE undertaking!
For those of you who haven’t pre-ordered, the special pricing will end on May 31st. Click here to order. There will be about 6 hours of audio for each book–so the low introductory price will include 12 hours of audio.
By the way, it is not just the words written in the book, but tons of insider information, stories about the side photos and all sorts of things I have been able to add to make it more interesting. Crazy! I had no idea how long it would take to record a book–but it has been so much fun!
I can’t wait for you all to laugh and cry along with me. Hopefully, more laughing than crying and more learning than anything else.
‘How to Help your Favorite Charity, Team, Church or School‘
by Lynn A. Dralle, ‘The Queen of Auctions’
Most of you know that my son plays baseball on a travel team. They are trying to make it to a tournament in Colorado this July. Their travel team has been approved by MissionFish as a charity worth supporting on eBay! Yippeeee.
So, I have volunteered (what was I thinking?) to run a week’s worth of charitable auctions. The donations have been incredible. AND all of the auctions start TODAY at 99 cents.
I want to share some of the things that we have learned over the past two months of putting this together so that you can help your favorite charity, team, your church or even your child’s school. But let me fill you in on our auctions first.
Some of the items include: eight Nike USC brand new clothing items ($600), My Boot Camp in a Box with the Lost Bellingham Video footage ($1798), a galley advance reading copy of my 3rd 100 Best book (priceless), a foursome of golf at Big Horn ($1200), a foursome of golf at Mission Hills ($800), Bose Stereo Equipment ($400), Mizuno Golf Clubs ($400) and some other wonderful items.
Click here to check out all the great items and know that your purchase will benefit a worthy cause! Don’t miss out!
Before I share our valuable lessons learned in the last two months, I need to explain what MissionFish is and does for eBay. MissionFish is the company that handles charitable giving for eBay. MissionFish makes it easy for sellers to run auctions to benefit their nonprofit or favorite charity. This program has been in effect since 2000, and over $81 million has been raised. It is an incredible and powerful tool!
eBay says that MissionFish Listings tend to sell for higher final prices because buyers are more willing to purchase and often pay more for items that benefit a nonprofit.
- Your listing gets additional visibility–There are special search functions reserved exclusively for eBay Giving Works (MissionFish) Listings
- If you donate at least 90% of the final sales price (and your item sells) eBay refunds your fees!
- Your listing will stand out with the charity icon in the title bar–donation information is also displayed in the item listing.
Your listing appears with the charity ribbon icon:
Now, here are the 8 most important lessons that my mom and I have learned while putting together our auctions to raise money for the baseball team:
1. Find out right away if your favorite charity is certified by MissionFish.
Our baseball team was not, so to be certified by MissionFish–here is what your charity will require:
- Working email address
- Electronic copy of your logo (jpg or gif format, 50kb maximum)
- Mission statement of 512 characters maximum (about 40 words)
- 501(c)(3) letter or other proof of tax-deductibility
- Voided bank check (to establish electronic funds transfer of donations from Community Selling)
- MissionFish will also verify that your organization is in good standing with the IRS and meets eBay’s community standards by not promoting violence, hate, or illegal activities.
Luckily, our baseball team was a 501(c)(3) and after collecting all the other items from our team’s manager, my mom submitted it to MissionFish. We were approved within 24 hours! It was awesome. Once you figure out and collect what you need–the approval process goes very quickly. We were so excited to be recognized by MissionFish as a worthy charity. We are Worthy!
2. Decide if you want to act as a direct seller and collect the funds yourself or be a community seller and let MissionFish collect the funds.
Our team needed the funds ASAP since the tournament in Colorado is in July. So we decided early on that we would need to be a direct seller. Direct sellers collect their own money. If you let the eBay community sell for you by registering as a community seller, MissionFish collects the money. MissionFish holds the money for at least a month to avoid paying out benefits on an item that is returned. You can read all about how they handle the money here.
Once you are approved by MissionFish, you can add any eBay user ID to your account as a direct seller. I didn’t want to mix all of this up with TheQueenofAuctions, so I decided that we needed to establish an eBay seller’s account for the baseball team. This is what really took the most time and I recommend doing this even before getting approved by MissionFish.
It has been a long time since I opened a new seller’s account. That was a learning experience in itself.
3. Opening a new Seller’s Account–what is important
Pick a great user ID that reflects who and what you are. We chose PDAztecBaseball since AztecBaseball and AztecsBaseball were taken and PDAztec didn’t really tell our story.
Do an About Me page to tell more about your charity. This was fun because I got to show photos of the boys. Click here to see our About Me Page.
Go Aztecs!
4. Open a dedicated PayPal account for your charity
Once again, this took a bit of time. To become verified can take several days if not a week. Do this ASAP also. It has been so long since I signed up for a PayPal account that I forgot about having to verify the small amounts of money that they put into your account. Make sure you do this early on.
5. Sell or buy at least 10 items before you list your charity items.
Oops! I didn’t get this done ahead of time. I tried my best but my life has been a little hectic lately. Let’s see, new book coming out on 7-7-07, audio books coming out 5-31-07, single mom, weekly ezines, listing 100 new items each week, lost my assistant, etc. (Yes, I did have to let my assistant go last month. She was awesome but had too many responsibilities taking her away from work.) OK enough about me.
Just make sure that you list and sell at least 10 cheap items before you start your major campaign. If you can’t list and sell 10 for seller feedback, buy 10 cheap items. The positive ten by your user id doesn’t have to be from sales.
6. How to get Donations
Ask everyone you know for a donation. It can be a saleable item such as a car, a set of dishes or an electronic in good condition. The best donations are gift certificates from local businesses. They have a high value, are easy to ship and don’t cost the establishment much as they are viewed as an advertising expense.
7. List early
We started doing our listings about one week ahead of time because we wanted all of our auctions to start on the same day. You will get more bang for your buck if you publicize the auctions as being just one week long and starting and ending together.
So, we used the Schedule Your Listing feature and had the auctions start at 8 am and have a new one show up every 15 minutes. A lot of fun for your watchers and for your community!
Also, if you have publicized your charity auction and actually try to list them all on the day that they are supposed to start–who knows what could happen? Life sometimes gets in the way. A sick child, an emergency at your real job or an unforeseen problem. Better to have them all scheduled an in your queue.
8. Get publicity
Finally, let your local newspaper, radio and television stations know ahead of time the start and ending dates for you auctions. Start each auction at 99 cents–NO RESERVE. I am serious and you must trust me on this! People love a bargain and you want to draw them in early.
If you can buy a URL to publicize your auctions, instead of using your user id, please do so. In our case, we bought PDAztecs.com for just $8.95 for a year. We redirect that link to a search page with all of our auction lisings. By sending our buyers there, they don’t have to navigate the sometimes confusing eBay waters.
Also, if your charity involves kids (like our does), publicize it to the kids’ parents at your school. I took a note over to our principal, Mr. McLaughlin. He was more than happy to help and put a paragraph in his McNotes newsletter that comes out every Friday. I also told him that I would love to do this same thing next year to help our new school’s library–yes, I am not only certifiable but I am crazy!
Just think–if you can get the word out to 600 students at 5 different elementary schools–you already have 3,000 watchers.
Good luck to all of you who want to help make this world a better place by helping out your favorite charities. If you have any suggestions to help make charity auctions better or need to ask a question–I am more than happy to help if I can. God Bless and God Speed. Let’s make this world a better place for our children.
WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Lynn’s past ezines here.
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR ON YOUR WEBSITE? Yes, you may – just as long as you include all links as they are and append this complete blurb with it: The Queen of Auctions and eBay Power Seller, Lynn Dralle, publishes ‘eBay Tips & Tricks’ a weekly ezine with 9000+ subscribers. If you’re ready to jump start your eBay business, make more money and have more free time, get your FRE E tips now at www.thequeenofauctions.com
I am happy to present our fourteenth story for The 100 Best Things You’ve Bought or Sold on eBay! This week’s story comes from Babette. Read this great story to find out how following a hunch at a garage sale turns $15 into more than $2,400! Click below to read…
Click here to read the story…
Please patronize Babette’s auctions (collectiblesandjewelry) and store (Babette’s Collectibles and Jewelry) and make her business this year even better.
A big thanks to everyone who has submitted your stories! We are looking for more great stories of your eBay adventures. We know there are many great tales out there, so please submit your story along the lines of the stories from the 100 Best Books and a great side story with photos will help. If we use your story, you will receive a $35 merchandise credit on my web site and you will have your story featured–along with your user ID–in my ezine! It may also eventually end up in a published book!
By the way, when I mention my ezine readers’ user IDs with links to their auctions–it actually helps their sales! Amazing how that works. Click here for the guidelines for submitting your stories.
eBay Power Seller 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 free 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
Happy eBaying!!
Lynn
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Lynn is an experienced eBay Power Seller, author and teacher. If you want to know the eBay tips, tricks and tools that Lynn uses for buying and selling at online auction click here.
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