There are three stores a seller can choose from. To decide on which store is best for you; weigh your options by listing them.

Basic Stores

The first of the options is also the cheapest at $15.95 per month. The basic store plan allows you to list up to 250 items per day, access to the important Seller Manager to organize listings, and a maximum of 5,000 emails per month. However, the Basic store plan only allows limited hours of access to Ebay phone support, and Insertion fees are the highest of the three at 20 cents each.

Premium Stores

The premium store option is very similar to the aforementioned plan. For a fee of $49.95 a month you gain more freedom and flexibility with multiple management tools. Unlike with the basic store plan, premium store owners have access to phone support 24 hours a day, in addition to chat and email support. The premium store also allows the seller to manage up to 2,500 listings a day, as well as the use of Seller Manager Pro (a $15.99 deal). Another perk of using a premium store is the allotted 7,500 emails per month and the discounted insertion fee of 5 cents.

Anchor Stores

Anchor stores are the largest of the 3 store plans and the price shows it at $299.95 a month. While this is the most expensive store, it also comes with the most benefits. The insertion fee has been reduced to a miniscule 3 cents. The seller is also able to manage a whopping 5,000 listings per day and 10,000 emails monthly, a far cry from the basic stores options.

The Best Option for YOU

Now these stores each have many good selling points. Choosing one actually might be a tough decision. To make the task easier one should weigh their goals for selling on Ebay in the first place. If you are just looking to get rid of a few of your old items that you’ve grown too old for then obviously you don’t need a store at all. For a Basic store plan, you probably have a small but dedicated flow of inventory ranging from 30-80 items a month. With a premium store you might be an individual who is looking to make a sizeable part time income from Ebay, the discount in the insertion fees would definitely matter in this case. The Anchor store assumes you are already an established seller that wants to increase an already huge following with massive amounts of new inventory to fill the needs of your online business. In the end it is up to you, the seller, to look at the values and choose the store plan that is right for your goals and inventory needs.

A Few Calculations to Get You Started

Here Are a Few Links That Might Help

Cutout Template

Cutout comes in 5 colors. It features a header and footer that extend across the entire page with your auction content in the middle. The best part of this template is its simplistic feel. It is easy to read and understand what is being sold. Placing your logo just above the cut out provides a really neat effect.

Preview and Download:

Auctiva

Inkfrog

eBay

Bubbles Template

Bubbles comes in 16 colors. As its name implies the main feature of this template is a large bubbly background. To add a great effect to this template the content boxes are semi-transparent which allows the background image to partially shine through.

Preview and Download:

Auctiva

Inkfrog

eBay

Navey Template

Navey comes in 28 different colors. Navey features a navigation bar below the header section and above the main auction content. This allows your buyers to quickly view different areas of your auction such as description, payment information etc.

Preview and Download:

Auctiva

Inkfrog

eBay

Detailus Template

Detailus comes in 45 colors. It features a header section where you can place your logo and other information about your business. Its best feature is the seller details section which is javascript enabled to snap up and down with a click of a mouse.

Preview and Download:

Auctiva

Inkfrog

eBay

Detailus Template(Dark)

Detailus comes in 45 colors. It features a header section where you can place your logo and other information about your business. Its best feature is the seller details section which is javascript enabled to snap up and down with a click of a mouse.

Preview and Download:

Auctiva

Inkfrog

eBay

TexturizedTemplate

Textureized comes in 7 colors. It features a navigational area in the header section which will allow buyers to quickly navigate your auction. The seller details section is equipped with nifty images that really make this template stand out.

Preview and Download:

Auctiva

Inkfrog

eBay

eBay Desktop

eBay desktop was developed by eBay and as you would expect they made it compatible with both Windows and Mac. eBay desktop brings all of the features of eBay to your desktop which allows you to perform many tasks without an internet connection. The new and refreshing user interface is a major upside to this software and is sure to enhance the eBay buying experience. eBay desktop is free to use and download.

Garage Sale

Garage sale is possibly the most popular choice for creating and managing auctions on a Mac. It requires Mac OS X and allows you to edit, track and manage all of your auctions within one simple to use application. Similar to other eBay software Garage Sale values itself on the ability to create good looking auctions without having to navigate through eBay’s tedious process. To add to the conveinance Garage Sale integrates with iPhoto another popular tool for the Mac, and it allows you to host images off of eBay which will save you fees. Garage Sale has two pricing options, A family option for $59.99 or a Single User liscense for $34.99. Check out some of the features Garage Sale offers.

Garage Buy

Well if there is a Garage Sale, there must be a Garage Buy. This nifty peiece of eBay software is designed to allow buyers to more efficiently navigate the eBay site. If you like the usability of a Mac you will enjoy Garage Buy. You will be able to save eBay searches, track auctions and even bid on auctions right from a single interface. Garage Buy is currently free to download and is compatable with Mac OSX 10.5 and beyond.

iSale

iSale is another eBay software application that is aimed at sellers. It boasts a large user community, templates and a unique user interface that makes creating aucitons a breeze. If you are looking for Apple eBay software iSale is deffinitly worth looking into. Its free to try and can be purchased for as little as $39.95.

Auction Hunter

Auction Hunter is an application for OS X, built to make your life easier on eBay. It allows you to monitor auctions that you are interested in bidding on, or that you would like to simply observe and store for future reference. Auction Hunter can be purchased for $29.95.

eBay Addict

eBay Addict is a Mac OS X Dashboard widget that tracks all of your favorite eBay auctions for you. Simply enter the item IDs of the auctions you are interested in tracking.
eBay Addict displays the item title, the current price, and the time remaining in the auction. Item status is updated every minute or when manually refreshed.
eBay Addict supports an unlimited number of items, multiple currencies and is Freeware.

jBid Watcher

jBid watcher is a Mac compitable eBay software that allows you to monitor auctions, submit bids and snipe auctions. It supports many different currencies, drag and drop urls, a unique multisniping feature and a user friendly user interface. jBid Watcher is constantly being updated by the active community of developers and is free to use.

eBay Watcher

eBay Watcher is still a bit of a work in progress but with a little bit of work you can get it setup on your iPhone or iPod Touch. eBay watcher has a free demo that works with even numbered auctions, and two liscenses can be purchased for $10.

Visit: Free eBay HTML Templates Page

Courtesy of: AuctionListingCreator.com

AuctionLinc’s multi tab lister is a uniquely designed Lister Interface to take care of all the above mentioned goals and needs of ebay Sellers.

Each tab groups related pieces of information to help you easily find the section that you want to fill or change. This is a much better user experience than a large form where you are constantly scrolling up and down.

Use the template selector located on the top of the listing form to select pre-defined Listing template which will populate your current Listing Form with data from Listing Template.

Use AuctionLinc’s WYSIWYG HTML editor widget to create nice looking HTML description for your Listing. The editor provides a variety of HTML formatting capabilities via its toolbar. You can also copy and paste any Word Content and retain any formatting that comes with the content. This is an extremely fast way to create HTML content without knowing HTML syntax.

Selecting images for your listing cannot be any easier than how AuctionLinc does it. Simply click on Add Images for Listing button and you will be able to select the images you want to include in your listing. You can also select from one of the 3 image layouts available. Finally select from an HTML Template AuctionLinc’s template library to spice up your Listing HTML.

You can also choose to embed AuctionLinc’s cross marketing widget that will display your other live items in a scrolling widget. Very nice way to cross sell your items. See an example below:

Finally you can do a variety of actions like Preview and Verify to make sure your listings will appear the way you want it to when launched as well as to check there are no validation errors in listing data.

AuctionLinc’s lister is fresh and intuitive and does not scare away users or requires a lot of help or documentation. Whether you are creating a one off item or listing hundreds of items, this Lister serves both needs extremely well.

Community

The community aspect of the site has been greatly improved. It is now possible for application developers to submit their applications to the site. This will ensure that the directory is always up to date and accurate.

The ecommerce community is also encouraged to submit posts. We are looking for authors who can provide News, Tutorials and Articles. I have made it as easy as possible to submit a post, and it takes less than 10 seconds to register.You can learn how to contribute here.

Redesign

The site has been completed re-hauled. Here are some of the major changes.

Home Page- The home page now features a breakdown of each review category. This is the same breakdown shown on the review directory page. For each post category you can see the latest 5 posts, or you can click on the main category to see all posts.

Reviews – The review page has been simplified to make understanding the application easier. You can quickly view a brief introduction on the application along with a variety of other information specific to that application. The review stars have been simplified to just one set of stars that will rate the entire application.

Review Directory – The review directory has been enhanced with a two tier structure to make it easier to find your specific application.

Navigation- Navigation is much improved. You can now get to the page you need from any page on the site.

When looking at both of these services it is very hard to find features where they differ so I will start by listing off what they both do best. Both Auctiva and Inkfrog are great when it comes to creating an auction. Do you remember creating auctions with eBay’s list your item form? This was a long, tedious multi-page process that put most of your time into creating auctions. Arguably the best feature of these services is that they simplify this process into one single page. Allowing you to add your title, price, category, description, images etc on one compact page. Both Auctiva and Inkfrog allow you to use your own custom eBay template within the listing creator, or you can use one of the many that are supplied for free. Image hosting is also included with each service, and uploading images is a breeze. Each service will allow you to edit live listings, which by itself is worth the price of admission. Both Auctiva and Inkfrog offer the ability to add a cross promotion gallery to your auctions, this is a must have for sellers who want to show all of their auctions from within each listing. Both of these services will allow you to track your inventory, halting automatic listings from launching when inventory gets low. Lastly both Auctiva and Inkfrog will allow you to send automatic emails such as winning bidder, payment reminder and custom emails. This is a huge step towards automating your online business.

Now for some of the ways Auctiva does business that Inkfrog doesn’t. Currently Auctiva is the service to go for if you are looking for reports on your sales. This is something Inkfrog has had in the works for a while and should be released in the near future. Auctiva uses a nifty time saving feature called profiles. This allows you to create multiple combination’s of payment, shipping, about us, contact information, marketing tools(gallery), checkout options and add those to your auctions via the listing creator. You can even add your profiles to a master profile along with other information such as a template, price and category to make your auction creation that much faster. The power of Auctiva’s system definitely lies in this ability to create profiles, and master profiles which can make creating auctions a process of adding images, a description and a price and clicking save.

Inkfrog is no slouch in its auction creation process. It does not have as elegant of a profile system, but it does use profiles along with templates. While using the Inkfrog listing creator you can choose to simply save the auction to your library or save as a profile. If you choose the latter option, you will now have a profile with all of the same details ready to go for your next auction. This can be a huge time saver by letting you add your template, payment information, shipping details, post auctions rules and other reusable information to your profile for later use.

Inkfrog is known for its Globals feature. This allows you to create a global such as price, template, ebay id and a bunch more and quickly add that global to a saved or active listing. This can be a huge time saver when editing live or saved listings and provides a great way to experiment with different strategies.

Inkfrog also allows the use of multiple eBay accounts with one account. This means you can have one Inkfrog account and manage multiple eBay ids in one place. For a larger seller who sells on more than one account this was the deal maker for me, and the reason I go for Inkfrog over Auctiva.

As you can see Inkfrog and Auctiva are very similar. In my opinion they are so similar in features that it is like comparing Pepsi and Coke. They do however have a different look and feel and that may be the reason you choose one over the other. Or maybe your like me and you want to manage many accounts from one locale, in which case Inkfrog takes the bacon. In any case I recommend signing up for a free trial with both service and give them each a try. I was once strictly an Auctiva guy, then they decided to charge a percentage of my profit for their service. I quickly made the switch to Inkfrog and have been with them ever since. Auctiva has since changed their pricing to $9.95/month or $19.95/month if you want to use their web store. This is the same $9.95/month price that Inkfrog charges.

First lets see some examples of what we are looking for

These are the type of images that really make an auction stand out!

Now Lets List the Things That You Should Have:

1. Digital Camera- This should be atleast 2 megapixels, and you dont need anything above 4mp because in the end your images are not going to be much bigger than 300-500 pixels
2. 1-2 Tripod/ Light Stands- This is what you plug the light bulb into. Generally a tripod that is 4-5 feet tall with a swiveling head will provide enough lighting options.
3. 1-2 Umbrellas or PhotoBox- If you do both large and small items you will need both of these. The photobox is all you need for smaller items. The umbrellas allow you to photograph larger items on a white background.
4. 1-2 Light Bulbs-This is the most important thing you are purchasing. Afterall when you really break this process down, we are trying to shine an even amount of artificial daylight on our product. When you throw in the white background you get quality professional images for your eBay auctions.
5. Camera Tripod(optional)- Some people like to keep the camera very steady while taking their product photo and this is where the camera tripod really helps. I have found this is not a requirement.

Some Advice

When all is said and done you can expect to spend around $300- $400 dollars on all of this stuff, but most of that will be spent on the digital camera which many of us already have. If you already have a camera the other accessories should only cost around $100-$150 dollars. It is recommended that you shop online because online prices will be much less than your local photography store. For even more savings checkout this article which describes the process of creating your own homemade light box.

When it comes to taking the photo the best advice I can give you is to use plenty of light. You can get away with one light, but I find that using two provides better results. With two lights you will find that you don’t have to move your tripods because your entire “photo studio” will be lit up. Also you have to make sure that you set your cameras lighting settings to match up to the light that you are using. For example most photography light bulbs are either going to be tungsten or fluorescent, so you will need to set your camera up for this setting.

In the end it really just comes down to your own experimentation with your camera and lighting. It can take time to get it right, but eventually you will be taking quality product photos that will make your eBay auction really stand out. If you have any questions about taking quality photos for your eBay auction please post them in the comments section and I will be sure to help.

Here are the steps to getting started with Mozilla Thunderbird:

1. Download the software
2. Install the software
3. Create a new account

That is really how easy it is. Creating an account can be a bit of a task so I will explain that in a bit more detail. You will want to select File->New->Account from the menu. You will then be asked what kind of account you want to setup. For email you are either going to select “Email Account” or “Gmail”. The easiest of these two is to setup a Gmail account. This only requires that you fill in your Gmail email address and the name for the account. If you choose Email account you will be prompted to fill out they type of incoming server and the incoming server name along with options such as the account name. This can be a bit more of a task so I will provide links to pages that describe this process in more detail for some of the more popular email providers. I have also added two images for your reference below.

Links to tutorials on setting up Yahoo and Hotmail in Thunderbird:
Yahoo-Setting up a Yahoo account in Thunderbird is a bit of a hassle it requires that you configure a separate piece of software called yPops
Hotmail- Hotmail does not require sperate software, you just have to follow a heck of a lot of steps

If you have either of these services and can’t get things setup I recommend that you switch to a Gmail account. Gmail and Mozilla have teamed up to make the process of adding a Gmail account to your Thunderbird software a breeze.

So what are the four expenses that we all must be aware of? They are eBay fees, PayPal fees, Shipping expense, and the cost of the product being sold. If the total of these four expenses is less than the total you earned from your auction, you have made a profit. It does not take an accountant to understand this, nor is this anything that should come as a surprise. However it is this fundamental concept that should be in your mind at all times while managing your online business.

So as an example lets say that you sold an item weighing 6 ounces for $13 with $5 shipping that you purchased for $5.60. You listed the item at a fixed price of $13 and in a category with a final value fee of 12.00%. In this ituation your expenses are as follows.

As you can see this item brought in a total profit of $7.39, which in eBay terms is usually a pretty healthy profit. It is this kind of analysis that is required to sell effectively and profitably on eBay. This type of analysis can be used to determine if a product will be profitable to sell on eBay. However it is more important to keep track of these figures to see how healthy and profitable your current business and products are.