After much trial and error she eventually figured out a simple, free way to quickly find in-demand items that consistently end in high auction prices and identify that item’s best listing practices at the same time. As Debbie herself says, “how cool is that?”

In “Fishing for Niches” she explains how you can create your own personal list of inexpensive ‘hot items’ that reflect your interests, are easy to source in your local area, and could easily turn a profit on eBay. She then shows you how to compile it into a portable list that you can keep with you on your buying expeditions.

After reading through the book I put Debbie’s plan to the test in a niche that I hadn’t previously considered, and which was totally different to the niche she used as an example. Her step-by-step instructions are easy to follow and in little more than 30 minutes I had a list of several in-demand products to look out for on my next sourcing trip.

Could I have discovered these hot products without the help of “Fishing for Niches”? The honest answer to that question is yes, but it would have taken me much longer if I were not using Debbie’s creative method. And I would certainly not have thought of organising my list in the simple and convenient way that she suggests.

As “Fishing for Niches” is being sold through Clickbank and is protected by their 60-day unconditional guarantee, there is absolutely no risk in taking a look. You can find out more about it here.

Looking back, I have to admit that I failed to achieve everything I hoped to in 2010 . No excuses, the only reason I didn’t get everything done is my seemingly inherent inability to manage my time effectively, and that’s something I certainly need to work on.

On the more positive side, I increased my activity on eBay and managed to clear some of the ‘junk’ that has been accumulating for years in our attic, although there is still plenty left to keep me busy for several months at least!

So how did 2010 go for you, and what are your plans for this year? If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to write down your goals and the steps you need to take to reach them. Stay focused, and don’t be distracted by the emails that drop into your inbox promoting the latest ‘shiny object’. However convincing the copywriters make it sound there is no magic bullet, and jumping from one project to the next in search of overnight riches will only end in disappointment.

So what are my plans for 2011? As well as posting here more frequently, I want to get a new website up and running which will hopefully generate revenue from advertising and affiliate commission from links to physical products.  I am also considering signing up as a ProSeller on Amazon to try out their FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) program. But as there is a monthly subscription fee, plus storage charges for inventory, it does involve some financial risk and I want to make sure I’m well prepared before I take the plunge.

I will, of course, continue to seek out potentially profitable niches on eBay and share the information here on the blog so be sure to bookmark us and become a regular visitor, or sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already done so.

Have a happy, healthy and successful 2011!

However, it is still possible to make a good profit from old typewriters as their keys are used by some jewellery makers and other crafters.

You don’t need to have huge lots of them to make a useful profit, the keys from just one machine can fetch a good price, as you can see from the images below.

Old typewriters can be found at estate sales, garage sales and flea markets, or on Craigslist, eBay or in the local newspaper. The type to look out for are those with metal-rimmed keys.

Although I found lots of examples of typewriter keys selling for good prices on ebay.com, I found none at all when I checked on the eBay UK site, and all those that came up on eBay.au and eBay.ca were from sellers in the United States. This suggests that if you are outside the United States and selling vintage typewriter keys is something that appeals to you, you may well achieve the best results by listing them on eBay.com rather than your own country’s site.

Well, according to a recent survey for the National Retail Federation, Americans plan to spend $688.87 on holiday-related shopping, only slightly up from last year’s $682.83.

But whatever the state of the economy, we can be sure that children will always come first. Even if it means cutting the budget elsewhere, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles will find a way to buy toys and gifts for the children in their lives.

No matter what, parents will find a way to buy toys for their children. And if they can’t afford to get the newest toys for this year, they will buy used.

One of the best strategies toy sellers can implement this holiday season is to offer both used and new toys to their customers. Even though new toys traditionally skyrocket during the holidays – which means sellers can buy them at full retail price and see them double or triple on eBay if demand outstrips supply – there can be a much higher profit margin when selling used toys. You can pick up gently used toys at yard sales, charity shops and flea markets for pennies on the dollar and turn them around for 100-200% profit on eBay!

But it all comes down to knowing what sells…

Jenni Hunt has consistently doubled her profits every year since starting her eBay business in 2003, and she spends hours every week researching trends to find what children’s items are selling well. Her popular Holiday Toy Guide has been published annually since 2004 and was created to help you know what is selling (and what isn’t!). In an unpredictable economy this is must have information.

Jenni is giving away 3 free reports which she’s designed to help you sell toys this holiday season. You’ll learn what the toy trends are for 2010, top listing tips and how to find out what is selling on eBay this year.

Fixed price listings are excluded from the promotion, as are Classified Ads and some eBay Motors, Business and Industrial categories. For full details see the eBay announcement page.

As soon as we saw that this promotion was taking place, we checked to see if there is a similar promotion for eBay sellers in other countries, but unfortunately it looks like it’s just for USA and Canada at the moment. This seems very unfair, and it is to be hoped that a similar promotion will be soon be available to sellers across all eBay’s sites.

CEO Bill Harding has every right to be proud of what he and his team have achieved so far. Setting up a new online marketplace on a shoestring budget was never going to be easy, but just two years after its launch, and after attracting $1,000,000 from prominent investors, Bonanza now has 300,000 registered users with over 3.4 million items for sale, and sales have increased by 150% this year.

Although it’s likely to be some time before they reach a point where they can compete head to head with the likes of eBay and Amazon, Bonanza could be a useful additional selling platform as we enter the busy holiday selling season.

We at Online Auction Ideas wish Bill and the team every success as they enter into this exciting new phase in their development

We found that it is not only vintage ornaments that sell for good prices,  many modern pieces are also very collectible. Swarovski is the most prominent brand and it was one of their pieces that had achieved the highest price on the day we looked. The 1991 Christmas ornament sold for $1000 in spite of the only photograph in the listing focusing on the box rather than the ornament. Maybe if the seller had used multiple (and better) images and removed their ‘no returns’ policy, it would have received more than one bid and fetched an even higher price.

Although that was the only 4-figure sale, many other Swarovski pieces sold for 3-figure sums.

Of course, not all Swarovski Christmas ornaments sell for high prices. Indeed a large percentage of the listings ended without any bids. As with most collectibles, the best selling items are those that come complete with the original box, and a Certificate of Authenticity where applicable.

Antique Dresden Ornaments attract a lot of interest but due to their age they will be harder to find than more modern pieces. The frog was the highest priced at $799.

Some antique spun cotton animal ornaments such as the dog in the screenshot near the top of this page, and the donkey and the horse shown below all attracted several bids, as did a miscellany of other interesting ornaments.

Although we always check  eBay UK as well as the USA site, we haven’t shown any examples from the UK in this article, the reason being that there currently appears to be less enthusiasm for Christmas ornaments here than on the other side of the Atlantic. The three highest prices achieved on eBay UK were all Swarovski ornaments, the highest priced of which were two 1992 Snowflake ornaments which sold for £200.50 and £195, and a 1999 Star which sold for £185. Apart from a set of 23 Grolier Disney Tree Ornaments which fetched £140, no other Christmas ornaments sold for more than £100 on eBay UK. If you are a UK seller and have Christmas ornaments to sell, maybe listing them on the USA site would bring you the highest price.

If you are visiting any garage sales or flea markets in the near future you may want to be on the look out for attractive Christmas Ornaments. As always, however, don’t risk paying a lot for items unless you have done your research and are as sure as you can be that you will get a worthwhile return on your investment.

So What Caused our Problems on eBay?

Why has a system that has trundled along smoothly for so long with only the occasional hitch suddenly hit this rocky patch? Is it simply our turn to be victims of Murphy’s Law, and we must carry on regardless until ‘Murphy’ decides it’s time to move on? Or is there something we could have done to prevent these issues?

Having given the matter some thought, we have to admit that whilst there are a couple of things that were beyond our control, some of these problems could probably have been avoided if we’d done things a little differently.

Sending a buyer the wrong package was obviously our fault. That gave us a short, sharp reminder to check and check again that the correct packing slip and address label have been matched with the correct item. It’s easy to lose concentration when carrying out mundane tasks so it’s important to ensure that we are exposed to as few distractions as possible when carrying out this work.

Preventing Damage to Products in Transit

Although we always take care over our packaging, with a little more thought we probably could have avoided the breakage that occurred. The item in question was a picture disc shaped like an apple which we packed in the same way that we pack all our vinyl – sandwiched between two cardboard stiffeners and mailed in a card envelope. This is fine for standard LPs but in the case of this apple-shaped record, the  ‘apple stalk’ was broken off when our buyer received it. With a little more thought and a little less complacency, we would have realised that this particular record was more vulnerable than a normal LP and we could have added some extra protection, thus avoiding the need to refund a disappointed buyer.

Whilst most buyers are honest, there will always be the odd few who are out to get something for nothing so the seller will, of course, want to ensure that the buyer’s claim is genuine. If the item is damaged beyond reasonable repair it is, arguably, an unnecessary expense to insist upon its return so the seller may choose to accept photographic evidence of the alleged damage.

Minimising the Risk of Undelivered eBay Packages

There was nothing we could have done differently to prevent two packages being returned to us by the Post Office. One was returned from Belgium with a label stating that mail was no longer being received at that address. After checking that we had correctly addressed the parcel, we contacted the buyer and he confirmed that the address was indeed correct. He also said that he had received several other packages that week and he had no idea why ours should have been returned. We checked his feedback, and as he had given and received positive feedback in recent days it was evident that his other purchases had indeed been delivered.

As it was through no fault of our own that the package had been returned, we offered to either resend it at his expense or refund the cost of the item (but not the postage and packing charges) and he chose to have it resent. He has left positive feedback so presumably it was delivered without any further problems.

The second package that was returned to us had been delivered to the buyer when no-one was home and had subsequently not been collected from the delivery office. We emailed the buyer twice giving offering to resend it or refund him but he never replied so we sent a refund (using the Paypal ‘refund’ option) and as yet we have had no response.

Dealing With Non-Paying Bidders

In the case of the non-paying bidders, there is little, if anything, we could have done to avoid these.  We have set up “Buyer Requirements” in our eBay account (as explained in this post) but there is really no way to ensure that all winning bidders will honour their commitment and complete the transaction. The feedback system is now so loaded in favour of the buyer that it has all but eliminated a seller’s ability to leave feedback which would alert other sellers to potential problems. Although most buyers are genuine, it is almost inevitable that every seller will have to suffer a non-payer from time to time.

Sellers can now open an unpaid item case within four days of the listing ending, although we normally send the buyer a reminder on the fourth day and open a case if they haven’t paid or contacted us by the end of the seventh day.  In our experience, the buyer usually pays promptly once they receive notification from eBay that a case has been opened. If they don’t, we allow another week to pass before closing the case and requesting a final value fee refund from eBay.

Packages Lost in the Post

To the credit of our postal system, this is the first time we have ever had a package go missing in transit. When packing an item, we always check that the address given by eBay matches the one on Paypal, especially if it is an overseas address as there is sometimes a slight difference between the two. If there is any significant discrepancy we contact the buyer to confirm which is correct but if there is only a slight difference we always use the address given by Paypal.

Here in the UK Royal Mail offer compensation for packages that get lost or damaged in transit but there are numerous terms and conditions to be met and again, as we discussed in an earlier post. As our lost package only contained a CD with a value of £2.97 we refunded the buyer and wrote it off, it just didn’t seem worth the hassle of making a compensation claim.

Attention to Detail Helps Keep eBay Problems to a Minimum

Now that ‘Murphy’ has jolted us out of our complacency he seems to have moved on to wreak havoc elsewhere, and things have been running smoothly for the past couple of weeks.  Hopefully, if you keep your eye on the ball and don’t make any of the mistakes we made, ‘Murphy’ won’t come knocking on your door

However, as we have never had a package go missing before we decided that we should take a look at the claims process so that we would know what to do, should we ever need to use it. We are far from happy with some of the terms and conditions which seem to be unfairly weighted against the customer. Of course, different mailing service providers will have different rules and regulations and it may well be worth your while to familiarise yourself with the claims procedures of the ones that you use.

We see that items lost or damaged are eligible for compensation on condition that proof of posting and proof of value are provided. That sounds simple enough; as we mentioned above, we always obtain proof of posting, and we have eBay or Amazon sales pages to prove the value of the item. But wait! Looking further into the claims procedure we find that we will only be compensated for “actual loss” which is defined as “the amount it cost the customer to acquire, purchase or manufacture the item subject to age, condition and depreciation”. That could be more difficult to prove.

In any case, we strongly disagree with this definition of “actual loss”. If you purchase an item for £10 and sell it for £15 and the package goes missing, you have not only lost the £10 you paid for the item, you have also lost your £5 profit. Therefore, the actual loss is surely £15.

To claim anything at all, evidence of value must be provided in the form of an invoice, till receipt, credit card statement etc. But what if you decide to sell that ugly vase that you inherited from Great Aunt Bessie? You put it on eBay and it sells for £35, but the package goes missing. You have to refund the buyer so you are now £35 out of pocket (in addition to eBay and Paypal fees, but we won’t go there).  To make a compensation claim, in addition to the eBay item sale page and Paypal statement, you have to provide original proof of value such as till receipt, bank statement etc which, of course, you don’t have. So where do you go from there? If the “actual loss” is the amount you paid for your item and the vase cost you nothing, then your “actual loss” is zero. How unfair is that?!

So where does that leave online sellers of used collectibles? Much of their merchandise is obtained from flea markets, garage sales, car boot sales etc where till receipts are not provided. And in any case, what use would a till receipt be if you were lucky enough to pick up, say, a first edition book for 50p and sell it online for £150? You would be less than happy to receive the “actual value” of 50p compensation if the book were lost or damaged in transit!

We’re not sure exactly what our rights would be if such a scenario did occur but all these rules and regulations do make us wonder what protection online sellers really have in the event of lost and damaged packages.

If you have made any claims against your mailing service, successful or otherwise, or have any thoughts on the subject we would love to hear about it so please feel free to leave a comment below.

Setting Up Buyer Requirements

To set up Buyer Requirements, sign into your eBay account and go to My eBay > Account > Site Preferences. Scroll down to Buyer Requirements, click ‘Show’ and then ‘Edit’. You will then be presented with a list of options, as in the screenshots below.

Which buyers you choose to block is, of course, entirely your decision but below, we take a look at the choices we made when recently updating our Buyer Requirements settings, and the thoughts behind our decisions.

At the top of the Buyer Requirements page is a link to a ‘buyer requirements exemption list‘ where we can block specific buyers, and any bidder who wins one of our auctions but doesn’t honour their commitment to purchase the item is immediately added to this list. We review the list a couple of times a year and upon doing so we usually find that the buyers we blocked are no longer registered users so we delete them from the list. As the majority of buyers are genuine we seldom have more than four or five blocked buyers on our list at any given time.

Now we move on to the options to block specific groups of buyers. Although we want to do all we can to avoid troublesome buyers, we don’t want to reduce the number of potential bidders on our items any more than necessary so we try to maintain a sensible balance when deciding which groups of buyers to block.

The first option is to block buyers without a Paypal account. Although we prefer our buyers to use Paypal, we don’t want to exclude the few who prefer to pay by cheque or postal order so we don’t select this option.

Next is buyers who have unpaid items recorded on their accounts, and we select the default option, which is those who have had 2 unpaid items against their account within 1 month. Given the choice, we would prefer to block bidders who have 2 unpaid items within 3 months but unfortunately the only available options are for 1, 6 or 12 months.

“Buyers in locations to which I don’t ship”. We ship worldwide and as we have never encountered a disproportionate number of troublesome buyers from any particular location, we do not not select this option. However, some countries are considered to be higher risk than others and some sellers prefer not to accept bids from buyers in those locations.

Next is to block buyers with policy breach reports. We select the default option of 4 policy breaches which we think is quite a high number but that was the lowest available, so we changed the time option to 6 months rather than going with the default option of 1 month.

We chose to block buyers with a negative feedback score and stayed with the default option of -1.

“Buyers who may bid on several of my auctions and not pay for them.” eBay have included this option for sellers of high ticket items and since the majority of the products that we sell are priced below £30 we chose not to select it.

We were undecided what to do about the option to block buyers with no credit card on file as we are unsure of how this might reflect a buyer’s integrity. In the end, we decided not to select this option but if we see any significant increase in non-paying bidders we may reconsider.

Finally, we checked the boxes to apply the settings to active and future listings and “don’t allow blocked buyers to contact me” (we don’t see the point of allowing them to contact us if we are not going to let them bid on our auctions)

We then clicked on the ‘Submit’ button and were taken to a page which confirmed that our requirements have been updated and we have blocked buyers who:

Have received 2 unpaid items recorded within 1 month

Have 4 breach of policy reports within 6 months and

Have a feedback score of -1 or lower.

As we said at the start, it is impossible to completely block troublesome buyers from our auctions but hopefully, the buyer requirements that we’ve set will reduce non-paying bidders to a minimum without having any detrimental effect on the number of genuine bids we receive. Only time will tell.