ThunderBids!

By Carmen Anderton

The Ebay Auction Site is arguably the most influential and most successful online business of all. The history of this site and its prominent rise since then is as amazing as it is unlikely. The Ebay Auction Site was founded in Pierre Omidyar’s living room in San Jose, California, back in September 1995. It was from the start meant to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals, so the common person would have a way to buy and sell goods from other common individuals, with more access to buyers and sellers without having to pay high premiums for a low value item.

Pierre was not the sole founder. Jeff Skoll was also a co-founder, and in 1998 they made one of the best decisions they could by hiring Meg Whitman, who is now seen as one of the most powerful businesswomen in the world. The Ebay auction site was different than any other business, and so it was only appropriate that they would come up with a unique vision for the company: the Ebay auction site would be a company that was in the business of of connecting people, not selling things to them.
The format of the Ebay auction site is pretty simple and straight forward. Their web site has built a trading market place online. Buyers and sellers are brought together in a way so sellers are permitted to list items for sale, buyers to bid on items of interest and all users to browse through items organized in a very specific fashion. The Ebay auction site is revolutionary in that it has taken the technology that has brought us the internet and used it to make a global version of person-to-person trading, which until the last decade has always had to be conducted through garage sales, collectibles shows, flea markets and more.

On the Ebay auction site looking around and actually bidding on auctions is free, but sellers are charged two separate kinds of charges. When a buyer lists an item a non- refundable “Insertion Fee” is charged, which varies depending on the value of the starting bid. Fees are charged for optional additions to promote the item, increase traffic, and increase appearances to make it look more attractive. Sellers will also be charged a final value fee at the end of the seller’s auction. This fee generally ranges from 1.25% to 5% of the final sale price.

The growth of the Ebay auction site has been amazing, at it has come along way from its original version. The popular legend is that Ebay started as a way for the founder’s girlfriend to trade Pez dispensers with other collectors. He says this is partially true, which is why at Ebay’s main offices there is a display case of Pez dispensers. The original version of the Ebay auction site appeared in September 1995. It was a slow and humble start, but it has exploded. Ebay had $3.3 billion in revenue in 2004, getting to that mark faster than Dell or Microsoft. It has 135 million users worldwide. They bring in far more money and material than Amazon.com and Yahoo, which were two companies started about the same time.

When it comes to online businesses, there is no question that the Ebay auction site is king. They do the business and provide the benefits, and whether the person is a staunch business person checking profit margins and trying to put up thirty listings a day, or a casual shopper just looking for a good deal, or someone just looking to sell a bunch of extra supplies, there is no better place to go than to the Ebay auction site.

Carmen Anderton is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Auction-Registrations.com.

She provides more tips and information on her website Ebay Auction Site

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carmen_Anderton

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The Definitive Guide To Becoming A Ebay Powerseller! 3
months RISK FREE! Don’t wait – Get the info today!
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By James Newton

eBay announces that beginning in late August they will be increasing the store listing fees by as much as 500%, and final value fees for store listings by an additional 2%. Many store owners are listing using drop shippers. These merchants list the suppliers products, sell them, then purchase, and have the supplier ship directly to the buyer.

Drop shipping has been a great way to earn money on eBay. And has given eBay buyers a great place to purchase new merchandise. Many e-books, infomercials, and articles have been published on how to make money with drop shippers. Since so many have climbed on board the drop shipping train it has become a very competitive market. The drop shippers usually have a minimum mark up of 100%, or, the cost of the product X 2. Since the market is competitive that’s the price merchants will generally list it for.

Auction format does not work well for these merchants. They have to have a minimum bid of 2X the product cost, they generally will loose money or make very little profit if they sell in this format because of the cost in listing fees, final value fees, and pay pal fees, not to mention drop shipping fees. In order to make up for the auctions, they will generally use the buy now button option in hopes of selling from the store inventory. Using the auction to advertise their store, meant they could take a loss on the auction.

You may have seen a lot of new merchandise listed on eBay with a starting bid of .01 or .99 and think.. wow, I’ll bid a dollar. When you win the bid, you find out there is a shipping fee of $55.00. This is a dirty trick to sell the item in the auction format. Obviously they made the money in the shipping fees. You may have gotten a good deal still, but, you feel like you got ripped off because you did not expect to pay that much.

Auction format works great if you purchased an item at a yard sale, made the item yourself, if you have a hot, hard to find item, or a collectible item. eBay sellers that sell these goods will continue to do well with eBay. Even if you are selling a high dollar item, then there is enough room for the fees to be absorbed, eBay will continue to do well.

The merchants that buy wholesale, or use drop shippers are going to find it difficult to make a profit. They will be forced to increase the sell price, or pull out completely. The terrible secret is that many merchants also run web sites where they can list as many items as they want, and sell at lower price and make a higher profit due the lower overhead. If eBay buyers ever learn this secret, there will be a huge increase in web site purchases. Either way, this increase may be a bad move.

Store listing currently account for 83% of active listings on eBay. If they decide to start listing at other auction sites, or web sites exclusively, then buyers are eventually going to start moving too.

This could be the start of the end of the eBay dominance.

Jim Newton owns http://www.neutronmarketing.com where he list many ways to make money on line including eBay secrets and techniques. Neuton Marketing also has web host packages, dropship list, and SEO tools to make it easy for you to make money at home.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Newton

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The Definitive Guide To Becoming A Ebay Powerseller! 3
months RISK FREE! Don’t wait – Get the info today!
————————————————