Category Updates – on January 5th eBay announced changes to the structure of 20 categories. You can read the announcement or just take a look at the new category structure.

Update to the Feedback Removal Policy, New Payment Methods and Other Important News – On January 08, 2009, Dinesh Lahti announced several key changes including an update to the Feedback Removal Policy to cover negative feedback received on cross border transactions, the announcement of 2 new payment methods, Moneybookers and Paymate, better Merchant Account integration and a Seller Checklist for complying with upcoming changes. Read the full announcement. The January Town Hall covered these announcements in more detail. Listen to the January eBay Town Hall replay.

New eBay Stores Experience – On January 13, 2009, Nick Donelson from the Seller Experience Team announced changes to eBay stores which include new storefront templates and enhancements to Stores search results. Read the full announcement.
Store owners should preview their store to see how they will be affected. Some custome store templates will need tweaking for the new format.

FAQ and User Guide Available for My eBay – On January 20th, 2009, eBay retired the old My eBay format. On January 21st, Renée from the My eBay team announced the FAQ and User Guide for the New My eBay. Read the Full Announcement.

Classical Music Catalogs on eBay and Half.com – On January 30th, 2009, Ram Rampalli from the catalog team announced the availability of the Classical Music Catalog which contains over 140,000 songs. Read the Full Announcement.

Janelle Elms, the One Percent Coach has just released for pre-order the powerful eBay Stores training class. As she says, 99% of eBay Stores are set up wrong. Learn to be that 1% with over 25 hours of step-by-step training training with Janelle plus 2 Bonus CDs with over 7 hours of eBay Store reviews. 16 actual eBay stores are fined tuned and optimized for profit. Get Special pricing for a limited time on this valuable eBay Stores training.

You’ve been searching for it. Now you can find it.

Janelle Elms, Visionaire of OSI Rock Stars brings you over four hours of Step by Step Training on the Profitable Keyword Training CD.

You will learn:

• What words your buyers are using to find your products
• How to get ranked on the top of major search engines using these words
• Tips on utilizing these keywords in your eBay Store for additional traffic
• Over 10 tools you can use to find these profitable keywords
• And much more

Find more information on the Profitable Keyword Training CD and other the eBay Success Tools at www.partyvegetable.net/JanelleElms

I just heard about something that I had to share with you.  It’s an online course called THE MILLION DOLLAR IDEA: How to Develop Your Million Dollar Idea to Change Your Life and Change the World.

Best-selling author Cynthia Kersey, has persuaded twelve world-famous millionaires, philanthropists and business leaders to show you their insider secrets to not only generating ideas that can make millions of dollars, but also reveal how to implement your idea, stay on track, and take it to the finish line.

This Million Dollar Idea online seminar series is worth over $1000. Yet, these “millionaire mentors” aren’t charging a dime for their help and wisdom. The information they’ll provide is their gift, part of their way of giving back.

This course is not for sale and will be only available for participants who donate at least $100 towards this project to build forty schools in Africa and provide life-saving services. The proceeds will go directly to the Unstoppable Foundation to be distributed to in-country partners including Free the Children and the Just Like My Child Foundation where they’ll be building schools starting in Uganda and Kenya.

I’m asking you to join me and pledge at least $100 dollars to gain immediate access to this amazing course and the first millionaire mentor on-line session.  In doing so, you’ll not only learn how to generate your million dollar idea, but you’ll experience the great feeling of knowing that you are doing something that is making a lasting and life-saving difference in the lives of over 8,000 children.

Let’s do this together.  Visit my personal donation page for this project now so we can get started.

Sincerely,
Mike

Just a quick note to acknowledge a milestone for us on eBay. This week we received our 1000th Feedback!

Thank you to all our customers, past present and future!

PartyVegetable Feedback 1000

Have Fun!
Mike

With the upcoming changes to the Fixed Price format on eBay (I know, I haven’t covered it here yet) many rumors are going around that eBay Stores will be going away. I can assure you that they won’t. One reason, search traffic.

I know you have seen them when you are searching for products in Google.  The search results with the green URL starting with “stores.ebay.com/”. Many products sold in eBay stores show up on Page 1 of Google Search results but many more don’t. Why? Because “99% of eBay Stores are set up wrong.”

99% of eBay Stores are set up wrong. Do you want to be that 1%?” is the tag line for the eBay Stores Success Video from Janelle Elms. Before she created OSI Rock Stars, Janelle created this video with the folks at VLS (Visual Learning Systems) to help eBay Store owners get the most out of their store. More on that in a moment.

First, If you sell on eBay regularly, especially if you sell your own unique products, you should have a store. With just a basic store, for $15.95 per month, you can have;

• Advanced marketing
• Page 1 ranking on the search engines
• A profitable newsletter list that can grow with each customer
• Opportunities to upsell your products
• Consistent branding
• Your own unique URL to ALL of your inventory
• Detailed reports to fine tune your selling efforts
• An 800 number with direct access to a real person at eBay
• And, if you use it correctly you can lower your fees!

You don’t get that with the new Fixed Price format.

If you don’t already have one, get an eBay Store NOW!
Go ahead, I’ll wait here.

…

Now that you have an eBay store you need to get the eBay Stores Success Video.
By itself it’s amazing enough with:

• Over 4 hours of online educational instruction
• Complete transcripts of the entire video series
• Checklists for you to stay on track with your Success
• And links to all of the tools you will need to create your Success
• Immediate LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP and access to a password-protected website ONLY for eBay Store owners who have purchased this video (known as the 1% club) AND
• The top 10 success tips from incredible gurus in their fields…Catherine Seda – seo genius, David Frey – from THE online research tool Terapeak, Troy & Sarah of Period Paper – PowerSeller with an Award-winning store, and so much more

Next you get 6 hours of Profitable Newsletter training ($297 value)

• Optimizing your profits through your newsletter list – your newsletter list is worth gold and Janelle teaches you how to take advantage of this profitable opportunity

And, if you act before Sept 18th 2008, you will also receive 10 hours of Live One Percent Success Coaching (priceless!)

• 5 weeks of personal coaching and strategy sessions LIVE – Janelle will personally walk you through the steps needed to make your eBay Store and business profitable and become part of that 1%

Get your eBay Stores Success Video and Coaching today.

Have Fun!
Mike

Wow, I can’t believe it has been almost a month since i posted here. Where have I been? What have I been doing? Good questions, and I don’t have any good answers.I don’t want to sound whiny but I am going to post some things here that I have been keeping to myself and feel the need to get out. Even if this is not directly related to Online Selling, it is what has been affecting mine lately, so hopefully you (and I) can learn something from it.

I have been in quite a slump lately. I made the mistake a while back of taking on too many consignment items at one time, got behind and discouraged, which seemed to snowball and as the days and weeks passed, it seemed to be harder to get back on top of it. I was embarrassed that I was letting people down but looking at all the items was overwhelming and I just kept getting farther behind.

Then the health issues started. I am 43 now and it had been over 20 years since I had a thorough checkup so I found a new primary care physician and started the process of taking care of some little things that had been bothering me. Nothing major, but a couple required minor surgery, one is requiring physical therapy and I am now getting allergy shots once a week. The problem came when I decided to do it all at once. Between appointments & recovery times and working at PakMail 15 hours a week I found little time to work on my listings. I have been doing the shipping of things that were sold and putting things on Amazon because it is simpler than eBay but meanwhile I am continuing to fall farther behind on those consignment items.

Oh, and on top of all that, because my wife Dawn has health problems of her own AND works her 40 corporate hours a week, I don’t let her do any of the housework. So I also cook dinner every night, do laundry and keep the house (relatively) clean. (BTW, I love my Roomba!)

Whew! I’m tired just writing about it. Now I’m off to the bank, the library and the mailbox. Then back to work on those consignment items! Watch for the listings to start showing up in the next week or so.

Have Fun!
Mike

Whether you sell on eBay, Amazon or your own eCommerce site, it is time to prepare for the Holidays. Do you know what products you will be selling this holiday season? What trends will drive more sales? When consumers will start shopping online for their holiday gifts?

Wordwide Brands and What Do I Sell™ have teamed up to bring you an informative video to help you prepare for your Holiday selling season and it starts sooner than you think. In a recent poll, 69% of consumers said they would start their holiday shopping online on September! Get the information you need to boost your sales by watching Part 1 of the 2008 Holiday Trends Video today.

Have Fun,
Mike

Wow! I just received an email from Janelle with a fantastic offer for you. She is giving you the opportunity to come backstage with us at OSI Rock Stars, for One Day, absolutely free, no credit card required, and have access to everything on the site. If I were you I would go right now because I don’t know how long this offer will last and if you were unsure about signing up, now is your chance to see just how much OSI Rock Stars has to offer.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Go to OSIRockStars.com
2. Click on the STAR
3. Enter your new Rock Star Name
4. Enter your email address
5. Click Pay My Dues – and it will take you to the homepage of OSI Rock Stars – NO credit card required
6. Cancel everything on your calendar for the next 24 hours
7. Enjoy your free day of Success – take a class on raising your DSR’s, listen to Seth Godin, Check out our amazing Discussion Groups…
8. Watch for an email on how you can easily extend your Tour of Success Backstage at OSI Rock Stars.

Go now!

Have Fun!
Mike

In today’s news from eBay, Lorrie Norrington made the  announcement that they are responding to the concerns of the Community about Feedback and are making more changes. Starting in late August, Feedback scores will be recalculated without Neutrals. Powersellers who fall below the 98% minimum in the meantime will not lose their status. Also, Buyers will be able to revise negative feedback left for sellers if the seller rectifies a problem afterward. Brian Burke gives more details in the Feedback Forum

To help sellers protect their reputation, new measures have been put in place for Buyer accountability including;

• New Buyer Requirements
• New Seller Reporting Hub
• Enhanced Protection for Unpaid Item
• Proactively looking for abuse and taking action against it
• Communication reminder
• Removal of negative and neutral Feedback from suspended buyers

To get all the details, just follow the links above.

I will go into more detail on the Seller Reporting Hub in another post.

Have fun!
Mike