Free Video Game Selling Reports Coming Soon

As I stated in my last blog post eBay's RSS feeds can be used in countless ways especially when coupled with some knowledge of computer programming. One use I've devised is to use RSS completed item searches to build free market research reports by importing the results into a spreadsheet program. What this will allow me to do is create monthly reports on whatever types of items I choose. For the first month I will begin with Gaming Consoles not just the newest but also Classic Consoles as well. While this solution is not fully automated yet it should be pretty simple to complete and publish. The reports will be able to give statistics on the following:

• The sale through rate of each item - the percent that sold.
• The average sold price for each item.
• The amount of competition - how many listings there were.

In addition there will be charts and graphs to clearly show which items did best for each category. I will begin collecting data for the first report in February so be sure to bookmark or follow this blog if you don't want to miss it. The report will be in PDF form but will not require any sort of email registration. As I get more familiar with how it works and try to automate more of the process more features may be added in the future. However this is just a one man part-time project so keep that in mind. If you need complete ebay market research this probably will not be quite enough.

Ebay RSS Item Feeds Creating Your Own Personal Buying Feed

What are Ebay's RSS Item Feeds?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a format that allows normal HTML pages to be shown in other ways. Most namely as a feed. A feed is a page that is dynamically updated each time it is called. Usually this technology is used with blogs and online newspapers. Once someone subscribes to the feed they can easily catch up on their favorite blog posts and news items. This is accomplished through various RSS Readers such as Google Reader. Now where it starts getting interesting is that eBay provides RSS Feeds for all kinds of searches that you could possibly think of doing. Next time your on eBay try conducting the most specific advanced search you can, go to the bottom of the search page. You'll see a little orange RSS button click the button and you can subscribe to your search in any newsreader. That's not all though RSS is more powerful than most realize. There are plenty of uses for eBay RSS Feeds if we get a little creative.

Ebay RSS - Create Your Own Custom Buying Feed With Yahoo Pipes

Scouring eBay for a great deal on products to resell can be a very time consuming and tiring activity. Imagine though if you could just open a newsreader and have all the deals waiting for you. Now you can by harnessing the hidden power of RSS. Let's say you buy and sell collectible video games on eBay. Normally you would probably be searching each day for deals on items. With eBay RSS you could create a list of games at the prices you want and open it in your reader each day. Here's how:

1. Login to eBay and go to advanced search.
2. Now narrow your search down as much as possible. In keeping with our example let's say the game we want cost $100 and we want get it for at most $50. So under price you would put $0 to $50. Now if an auction is just starting out and is already bid up to $50 you're probably not going to get a great deal. So something else you can do is check the box that says "Items Ending Within" and you can choose to see only items ending within an hour or two. This gives you a better chance of grabbing a deal.
3. Now go to the bottom the page and click "Search". Scroll down to the bottom of the results page and and click the orange "RSS" button.
4. A new window will open copy the address from the page we'll use it later.
5. Now go to Yahoo Pipes a web site for manipulating RSS Feeds and their content. (Don't worry it won't get too complicated for our purposes).
6. Create an account and click the "Create A Pipe" button. You should be taken to tool that looks like something for designing a flow chart.
7. On the left hand side of the screen under "Sources" find the "Fetch Feed" module press the "+" to add it. Paste your RSS address in the module.
8. Add as many more eBay Item Feeds as you'd like.
9. In Yahoo Pipes under "Operators" add the "Sort" module in the drop down menu select item.pubDate and descending. This will sort all your eBay Feed Items by the day that they were published the ones ending sooner appearing first. (in some cases BIN items may show up first before auctions)
10. Now link the modules together and save it under whatever name you'd like. There now you have a personal eBay Buying Feed. Run the pipe and save the new RSS address to your favorite reader.

You can also use eBay feeds to keep tabs on specific items and their prices by simply checking the completed items box during advanced search. This will show you the completed items which ones sold and for how much over time you should get a good idea of how much the items are going for. Ebay also has a new feature called "Products and Reviews" where you can select to sort items by "Bestselling" it's the fourth tab over when searching from within a category. However they have not offered an RSS feed for these results yet. If this is your first time using Yahoo! Pipes then you also may want to check out this informative book Working with Yahoo! Pipes, No Programming Required or if you have experience with programming there is much more that you can do with RSS using JavaScript and JQuery.

Free Terapeak Keyword Research Tool

I came across this neat little tool on eBay the other day. You simply type in your listing title and it will show all the associated keywords and which ones are most popular. It also shows you the Average Price, Minimum Price and Maximum Price. Try out different listings to see which one is likely to make the most money. A very useful tool and it's free! Free Terapeak Keyword Research or Get An Instant Terapeak Membership.

Ebay Fees Explained 2011 - Learn How To Save On Fees

eBay Fees Explained 2011

This is my first PowerPoint to video presentation so go easy on me. It explains exactly how all the eBay fees work together and what you should do to save money. It also touches on the new changes for 2011 (higher fees).

Top eBay Alternatives 2011 - eBay Vs. BigCommerce

eBay Vs. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is not really a venue or marketplace like most of the other sites we have talked about today. Instead they are a hosted eCommerce provider. They handle all of the web hosting and shopping cart integration for your very own store. Let's look at some of the features: A large selection of 96 drag and drop templates to customize your store. You can export items from your store to eBay. They help guide you through registering a domain name. Lots of promotional tools including a Facebook Fan Page Store, Email Marketing,  and Coupon Codes. Inventory is automatically updated and even returns are processed easily. Buyers can shop from their Mobile Phone. Unlimited photos for items. Since this is an all in one solution you also don't have worry about paying any Final Value Fees. Instead you will simply be paying to accept Credit Card payments and they guide you through the process of opening a merchant account. You can of course also open your own merchant account on your own as well.  Of course their are some downsides as well: You need to be somewhat computer skilled to get your store customized. You pay a monthly fee for the store and the merchant account. You will probably need to pay to promote the store through various Ad Networks and Paid Search. eBay Vs. BigCommerce Head to Head

Top eBay Alternatives 2011 - eBay Vs. iOffer

eBay Vs. iOffer

When I was first researching this site I came across some forums claiming that the site was a scam. The truth is the site is not a scam but many of the sellers there are in fact scam artist. The site is just that a site it doesn't guarantee any transaction or do mediation in the way that eBay does between buyer and seller. Because of this many many have used the site to scam others listing big ticket items and never delivering the goods. Beyond that though iOffer has some interesting features not found on eBay: Item listings are free with photos and even video. You can use a wide range of payments including AlertPay, PayPal, Google Checkout & Amazon Payments You get a customizable store with categories that you can promote. They show you how to get listed on Google Products. You can transfer items directly from eBay along with your feedback rating. Allows you to negotiate a price with buyers or mark items "Make An Offer". So it's great for those items that you are just not sure are going sell like say an attic of old comic books. Another good thing about this site is that you can upload tons of pics and even video for free. You can also give your buyers many options for checkout PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments and many more. They used to charge 7% for final value fees but have now switched to tiered fee structure. Lower price items get charged more percent wise than higher priced items. Also the price is the total price including shipping. Your items go into your own store that you can then promote in any way you like. The site does have some problems though: Not as many buyers as eBay. Search function doesn't work well because of the use of tags. Fees are charged when the buyer marks the item paid leaving the seller filing many NPB claims. You have to pay $20 up front to open your account which is then used to pay fees. eBay Vs iOffer Head to Head