We have talked in the past about how hard it is to find reputable wholesale suppliers that will deal with you, the online retailer. This has been one of the biggest challenges that have faced us selling on eBay.

The good news is that there is an easy way to find reputable wholesalers that will sell to online retailers. That way is the Worldwide Brands Directory of wholesale suppliers.

Worldwide Brands specializes in finding wholesale suppliers that will deal with the online retailer. This means that they feature both drop shipping companies and suppliers that will send you the product so you can sell and ship it on your own.

They also feature suppliers that allow you to purchase in small quantities so you don’t have to have thousands of dollars tied up in product from one supplier. Heck, if you go the drop ship route, you don’t have any money tied up in product.

We have been using Worldwide Brands for several years now. They are the real deal, putting you together with wholesale suppliers who are happy to do business with the online retailer. Trust us, these suppliers are harder to find than you think.

We recently wrote a Worldwide Brands Review, showing how their wholesale supplier directory can benefit the online retailer.

We highly recommend Worldwide Brands if you are in need of a good source of genuine wholesale suppliers. Why don’t you read our Worldwide Brands Review today?

If you are looking for that extra bit of help on learning how to sell on eBay, we have something that you might just be interested in. We are now offering our information packed e-book, A Quick Primer on Successful eBay Selling – PowerSeller Techniques That Actually Work!, as a no strings attached, FREE download.

Previously, you were required to sign up for our newsletter in order to receive this extensive 58-page e-book. Now, all you have to do is download it, with no sign-up required. It doesn’t get any better than this!

We hope that you enjoy reading our e-book on how to make money on eBay. You are bound to learn something. So please, take some time to download and read it.

You may download this great e-book by clicking here. Again, it is absolutely free! You don’t have to give out your email address, or any other personal information. All you have to do is download it. It’s that simple. Really!

Now you have one more tool for your personal use in your quest to learn how to make money on eBay.

Happy reading!

If you are wondering if you can still make money on eBay during the current economic times, the answer is YES! Starting today, Worldwide Brands is offering a FREE video series on how to beat the recession with eCommerce. This is a must see video series for those of you wondering how you are going to survive on eBay during these trying economic times.

For those of you who are not familiar with Worldwide Brands, they are the preeminent product sourcing company on the Internet. They tell you how and where to buy the products that you need to sell on eBay in order to be a success, especially if you are interested in eBay dropship. In other words, they really know what it takes to be successful on eBay, especially in trying times.

We highly recommend that you check out this FREE video series to see how you can learn how to sell on eBay, even in a down economy. You can view the series by clicking here or on the image above.

Today, we are wrapping up our series on the 2008 eBay changes and how they affect your ability to make money on eBay. The last topic we are going to cover is that of the upcoming eBay Seller Dashboard.

We have done our best to analyze and give you our thoughts on the 2008 eBay changes, and how we feel they will affect your ability to sell on eBay. Let’s run down what we have covered up to this point:

• The eBay feedback changes, which is one of the biggest, most controversial changes.
• The eBay PowerSeller program changes.
• The eBay Safer Payments Policy.
• The changes to the eBay Search Visibility/eBay Best Match search results.
• And we also touched on the eBay Sellers Strike that was a direct result of the 2008 eBay changes.

To wrap up our discussion on the 2008 eBay changes and how they will affect your ability to make money on eBay, we are going to talk briefly about the upcoming Seller Dashboard.

This May, eBay will introduce what they are calling a personalized Seller Dashboard. This will be a new tool that will let you monitor your eBay account performance, and thus your ability to sell on eBay, in the following categories:

• PowerSeller status
• Account billing status
• Final value fee discount qualification
• Policy violations and risk of restriction
• Buyer satisfaction (based on feedback, DSRs and complaints)

It will be very important to have this above information at your fingertips, as some of these factors directly affect your ability to sell on eBay through search visibility, eligibility for PowerSeller discounts, whether you will fall under the new Safer Payments Policy, etc.

eBay describes the upcoming Seller Dashboard in the following way:

“This Dashboard will give you an at-a-glance look at your standing, and should help you manage your business more efficiently. You’ll basically have the same view as customer support, so there should be no more complaints about not knowing where you stand at eBay.”

Let’s hope that the eBay Seller Dashboard is an easy to understand and useful tool that lets the eBay Seller get a grip on how they stand statistics wise. It is going to be of the utmost importance to keep on top of your standings, as they affect your ability to sell on eBay with all of the new changes.

We are looking forward to seeing how the eBay Seller Dashboard shapes up. We have said it before, and we will say it again: Anything to make our job selling on eBay easier is something that we welcome with open arms.

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eBay just released a very cool, new tool for those that don’t sell on eBay, but buy on eBay. Most, if not all, eBay sellers are also eBay buyers, so this very neat tool will benefit us all.

eBay Desktop is an application for both Mac and Windows that you install on your computer and lets you browse and bid on eBay listings without the use of an Internet browser. This application has been in development for almost two years and it will be updated with more enhancements in the coming months.

What is really cool about eBay Desktop is that it puts a fresh face on the whole eBay buying process. Let’s face it, the eBay website can be hard to navigate and it is anything but pretty. With eBay Desktop, as an eBay buyer, you’ll never have to go to eBay.com again! Now, if they would just come up with something like this for sellers…

We have been playing around with it for just a little bit now, as it was just released yesterday, so there are probably features we don’t know about yet. The only downside to it, that we can see, is it doesn’t appear to support eBay Motors. If you are not in the market for a car, then this application is definitely for you.

Let’s hit some of the highlights of this very easy to use, easy on the eyes, application.

• Very user friendly search function that allows you to fine tune your search through filtering by auction items only, Buy It Now only, specific price range, specific seller and more.
• The search feature suggests additional keywords to add to your search query, further narrowing down the results to exactly what you are looking for.
• You can easily browse the eBay categories in a much better way than on the website.
• Once you have results displayed, you can quickly and easily browse through the results and click on ones you are interested in further exploring. This opens up a clever item description window that displays all of the necessary information.
• You can very easily add or remove items from your watched items list.
• You are able to bid on items and pay for them from within the application.
• You can communicate with sellers from within the application.
• If you are ever outbid, the application will immediately give you a pop-up alert notifying you of this.
• Shows you your recently browsed items in reverse chronological order.

One of the neatest features is the ability to create product feeds for your favorite seller’s items or for your favorite searches. How it works is it automatically creates an updated list of items that your favorite sellers have for sale or search results from a custom search you created. The feed will distinguish items that are new to you. If you want to view the details of a particular item, just click on the picture.

This is a very slick, useful tool that will make buying on eBay more enjoyable. As a matter of fact, it is so slick that we find it hard to believe it was created by eBay!

While the eBay Desktop may not help you sell on eBay, it will certainly help you spend on eBay. Why don’t you download it and take it for a spin yourself? You might find you’ll never go back to eBay’s website as a buyer!

It is February 22nd already. Wow! Time flies when you are making money on eBay.

As we gaze out the windows of our corporate headquarters here in the Valley of the Sun, it is gray and overcast again and it’s certainly a nice change from what seems like constant sun that we get on an almost daily basis!

Here are the selections for this week:

• AuctionBytes has an article about a new View Item page. From the looks of it, if eBay goes with a new View Item page like this one, there will be plenty for eBay sellers to get all up in arms about.
• Are you a music lover? Then you missed your chance to purchase the ultimate collection for a starting bid of a mere $3 Million. Chump change! The auction ended earlier this week with a winning bid of $3,002,150. If the buyer doesn’t cough up the dough, the seller will relist and you will have another opportunity to buy the collection for yourself!
• FindLaw.com recently posted the first part of an article about eBay’s decision to take away the seller’s ability to rate buyers and how defending one’s reputation plays into it. This is an interesting read if you want to get a legal perspective on the situation.
• Only eBay has an excellent analysis of the eBay listing decrease due to this week’s seller strike. Only eBay shows how the listings dropped off as last week’s listing promotion ran its course, but the overall decrease in listings is only 4% from pre-promotion/pre-strike levels. One could make an argument that a 4% drop is statistically insignificant, or it is a result of the strike. We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

That is it for this week. Have a great and productive weekend making money on eBay and we will have more great posts starting Monday!

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Among the many changes that eBay is rolling out in 2008 is the expanded PayPal Seller Protection Policy for the top-tier of those making money on eBay. We say top-tier because this is how eBay defines PowerSellers. However, we have previously written that it doesn’t take that much to become an eBay PowerSeller.

Beginning this month, eBay is offering expanded PayPal Seller Protection for all PowerSellers that reside in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Hong Kong and have a registered PayPal account in one of these countries. Of course, the PayPal account also has to be linked to the PowerSeller’s eBay account.

The PayPal User Agreement has not been updated at the time of this writing, so the only information that is to be found about these new policies is on the eBay website. Thus, the information in this post is only as accurate as what is on eBay’s website. You will have to wait until the PayPal User Agreement is updated to get the exact, fine details about this policy.

Probably the largest change to the PayPal Seller Protection Policy is that it offers protection for any shipping address, not just a confirmed address. This is huge, since a lot of foreign addresses are not confirmed. However, as far as we can tell, the address has to be the address in the PayPal system, not just any random delivery address.

This coverage is going to be extended to 190 countries around the world, not just the extremely limited number of countries currently covered. This is also huge, since it literally opens up most of the world to this coverage, offering an extra layer of confidence for those selling on eBay and shipping internationally.

Another change to the PayPal Seller Protection Policy is the lifting of the current $5,000 per year coverage cap. eBay PowerSellers will now have unlimited annual coverage. We do wonder how big of a deal this is, because how many PowerSellers have ever come close to the $5,000 limit.

What is the downside to all of this? While we are certain PayPal wants to protect itself at the same time it is offering this upgraded service, they are most likely going to require some sort of delivery confirmation to prove that the item was delivered to the correct address, in order to have items covered by the policy. In addition, there most likely will be a signature requirement.

This means that, in order to be covered by the PayPal Seller Protection Policy, you will have to use a more expensive shipping method that has both delivery and signature confirmations. And if you are shipping internationally, this won’t come cheap.

Of course, we could be wrong about this. We will just have to wait and see what the exact details are once the PayPal User Agreement is updated. They only have 8 days left in the month if they are going to hit the February unveiling date.

The expanded PayPal Seller Protection Policy is a plus in the 2008 eBay Changes. We can all use a little bit of the positive as we wind down the week where eBay sellers are striking.

If you are not already an eBay PowerSeller, go out there and make money on eBay so that you can take advantage of this upgraded policy.

Image: crazyneighborlady

Accepting PayPal payments is pretty much a requirement if you are going to sell on eBay. Yes, you can accept other forms of payment in lieu of accepting PayPal, but PayPal really makes your life easier, and we are all about simplifying as much as possible when it comes to selling on eBay.

We have previously discussed the benefits of using PayPal to accept payments as an eBay seller. We have also explained the three different PayPal account types and why you really should have a PayPal Business Account.

Today, we are going to answer some questions that a loyal reader of ours, Bill, recently posed to us. Not only are we going to answer Bill’s questions, but we are going to throw in some bonus information.

The question arose about how PayPal fees are paid. At the time of this posting, PayPal charges a flat, per transaction fee of $0.30, plus a percentage of the amount received. PayPal charges a higher percentage for payments received from buyers outside the United States. They call these cross-border payments.

You only pay a PayPal fee when you accept a payment via PayPal. What happens is an eBay buyer pays you via PayPal and the money goes into your PayPal account. As the money is being deposited into your PayPal account, PayPal is removing their fees from the transaction. The resulting net deposit amount is what your buyer paid you, less the PayPal fees.

This works differently than how eBay charges you fees. eBay fees are due once a month and will accrue in your seller account during the 30-day period. You then receive an invoice from eBay at the end of your invoicing period and have a certain number of days to pay the invoice. PayPal never sends you invoices as they take their fees out immediately.

You will need a minimum of a PayPal Premier Account if you are selling on eBay, as this is the minimum account level which accepts credit cards. Your personal PayPal account won’t cut it if you are selling on eBay, so you will be forced to upgrade when you start selling. There is no charge for this. All you are doing is upgrading your account type.

As you can imagine, if you are doing any sort of volume selling on eBay, your PayPal account should be fairly healthy. Fortunately, you have the option of opening a PayPal Money Market Fund, which is currently yielding 3.62%. This is far more than the average checking account and we have seen it in the 5% range when interest rates were higher.

The PayPal Money Market Fund is free to you and simple to sign up for. Once you are signed up for it, your PayPal balance will start accruing interest. You don’t have to do anything special to your balance. Just let it sit there and grow, until you need to use it.

You can transfer your PayPal balance at anytime to a separate bank account. If you do this electronically, it is free. Otherwise, you can have PayPal cut you a check for a nominal fee. Not sure why you would choose the check option when electronic transfer is free and fast.

You can sign up for a PayPal Debit Card to gain access to the money in your PayPal account. It, too, is free and as an added bonus, you receive 1% back on all purchases made via the PayPal Debit Card.

Here is how we use our PayPal account. All of the payments we receive from our eBay listings go into our PayPal account. We have a PayPal Money Market Fund on the account, so we accrue interest on our PayPal balance. We use our PayPal Debit Card to make purchases for our business and we electronically withdraw money, as needed, to our business checking account. We keep a fairly healthy PayPal account balance to take advantage of the interest we accrue, as our business checking account doesn’t pay any interest.

We pay all of our vendors with our PayPal Debit Card, so we get 1% back on all of our inventory purchases. This can add up to a rather large number throughout the year.

Notice how we said that we only use our PayPal balance for business purchases and to transfer funds to our business checking account? That is because all of the money in our PayPal account is business funds, not personal funds. The way we get money into our personal accounts is via our salary. This is because we are running a real business.

This should clear up some questions about how PayPal works for those that sell on eBay. If there are any additional questions, feel free to write a comment (you may also use the ‘Contact’ link at the top of the page if you are not comfortable leaving a comment) and we will do our best to answer any questions.

Image: crazyneighborlady

Having your eBay listings visible to potential buyers is a must for anyone who is trying to sell on eBay. After all, if the buyer can’t find your listing, how in the world do you expect them to make a purchase from you?

The eBay search results that we are familiar with show the items ending soonest first as the default setting. This is all about to change come March 2008. eBay’s Best Match search results will become the default sort method site-wide and will include the following:

• Increase exposure for sellers with Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) 4.6 and above and at least 95% customer satisfaction in the last 30 days.
• Decrease exposure for sellers with low customer satisfaction or Shipping & Handling DSRs.

As you can see, eBay listing search visibility is now going to be tied to customer satisfaction. Per eBay:

“Customer satisfaction is reflected in a combination of DSRs, Feedback and fewer complaints filed of an item being “significantly not as described” (SNAD) or “item not received” (INR).”

eBay seems to mean business when it comes to having satisfied buyers. Apparently the eBay buying experience has sunk to such a low that eBay is keeping those that sell on eBay on a short leash when it comes to customer satisfaction.

The last 30-day timeframe seems to be what eBay is really concentrating on to determine what kind of a seller you are. This can be good and this can be bad.

Let’s assume, for a minute, that you have a really bad month when it comes to DSRs for whatever reason. This will cause your last 30-day DSR ratings to tank and you will pay the consequences by loosing visibility in search, getting caught up in eBay Safer Payments, and anything else that eBay is going to link with your last 30-day DSR ratings.

However, since the ratings for the last 30-days are the ones that count, you should be able to easily pull yourself out of the hole you are in, assuming buyers can find the items you are selling and you are able to satisfy them so they give you high DSRs.

Clearly, the best strategy would be to never get one’s self into a “customer satisfaction hole” in the first place. That would be the “obvious” statement of the day!

So, eBay will be tying the visibility of your listings directly to the satisfaction of your customers. Or, rather, the satisfaction of your customers as relayed to eBay via the DSR ratings.

If you have buyers that just don’t understand the concept of DSRs and how important it is to rate sellers truthfully and accurately, the eBay seller is going to suffer. This could become a big mess, but we will assume that most eBay buyers are competent and honest enough to give accurate seller ratings.

Of course, with the new, enhanced Best Match rolling out site-wide next month, the item display/sort algorithm will still take into consideration the same things that it does today, including the item end time. eBay is just adding additional factors into the mix and you may, or may not, see your listing exposure change as a result of these new factors.

What does this all mean to those that sell on eBay? It means that you need to step up your customer service a notch and do everything within your power to make sure that you have happy customers. Obviously, there is only so much that is in your control, but you have to excel at what you have control over.

Selling on eBay is getting a bit more interesting with the new changes that are rolling out. Ultimately, the goal is to have a better buying experience, which should result in more customers for the eBay seller. Looks like it is time to put your nose to the grindstone and perfect your techniques on how to sell on eBay.

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Happy President’s Day! For those of you working for the government or a financial institution, enjoy your day off. Today would be a great day to continue learning how to make money on eBay.

We have mentioned it before, but it is worth repeating. Product sourcing is the most challenging aspect of running a successful eBay business. You will always be on the lookout for product to sell to keep ahead of the competition and to continue to make your business viable. This is truly the most challenging part of making money on eBay.

Fortunately, there are several, very good, high quality resources available to you, the eBay seller, which will help you with your product sourcing. A couple of them can be found on our Resources page, which is a page full of eBay seller resources that we have personally used in our eBay selling business.

Today, we are going to highlight Lisa Suttora and WhatDoISell.com. Lisa is an eBay Certified Service Provider and offers an excellent program for those interested in learning more about how to make money on eBay.

Some highlights of her program include:

• A step-by-step system for building your business on eBay
• Listing strategies
• Selling strategies
• Product trends
• How to locate product sources
• How to find a successful niche
• A discussion forum to connect with fellow eBay sellers
• And much more to help you become a successful eBay seller

Lisa has been a featured speaker for the past three years at eBay Live and really understands what it takes to become successful selling on eBay. Her program at WhatDoISell.com has the potential to lift you from a wannabe eBay seller to a successful eBay seller. If you have been looking for a little added boost, then you need to check out WhatDoISell.com.

If you feel that WhatDoISell.com has something to offer you, we have an added bonus. If you use one of the links on Lizard Wisdom to WhatDoISell.com, you will receive 25% off of their new Business Premium package. This is a heck of a deal if you are thinking about utilizing their services!

As we previously stated, product sourcing and finding the right niche is the hardest part about making money on eBay. If you get good at this, then the rest is relatively easy. Any product or tool that will make your life easier when it comes to making money on eBay is something worth checking out!

Image: chascar