Auction Strategists – Selling Toys In Today’s Economy

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Auction Strategists Newsletter

Brought to you by Jenni Hunt
www.jennihunt.com

In this newsletter:
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1. Selling Holiday Toys In Today’s Economy
2. Heads Up:
– Your About Me Page: Questions… Answered
– How Do You Create An eBook?
3. How to subscribe or Change your subscription status
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MONDAY MADNESS is just over a day away…
eBay resources for only $5 every Monday!

Visit www.jennihunt.com/blog this Monday
to get the scoop!

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1. Selling Holiday Toys In Today’s Economy
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This year is a first… since eBay has been around, the economy has
never been where it is now – and I can’t help but think about how
it might effect the biggest selling season of the year… holiday toy
sales.

I’m confident that even if parents can’t afford to, they 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.

The point is —
They are still going to buy toys!

Did you know that used toys sell well on eBay all year long? – And
they do quite well during the holiday season too.

I can’t help but wonder if the new toys will slump a bit this year…
only to find that used toys go through the roof on eBay!

We’ll have to wait and see to find out – but, it doesn’t hurt to be
prepared.

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…
and that means sellers can buy them at full retail prices only to
see them double or triple on eBay… there can be a much higher
profit margin when selling used toys. You can pick up gently used
toys at yard sales, consignment shops, estate sales and thrift
stores for pennies on the dollar and turn them around for 100-200%
profit on eBay!

But, it all comes down to knowing what sells…

The Holiday Toy Selling Guide is created to help you make the most
from your toy selling efforts on Ebay… to help you know what is
selling (and what isn’t!).

It is designed to be a tool that does the research for you –
allowing you to spend your time buying and listing your inventory.

– – –
“When is your Holiday Toy Guide coming out? Purchased your guide
last year and made about $3000 profit.
Thanks,
Marie”
– – –

Once again, I have revamped the Holiday Toy Selling Guide to be
even better than last year and I am very excited about it. We are
on schedule to release it October 10th… but, I have a special
offer that I am only extending to my readers.

Here is what is included with the 2008 GOLD Holiday Toy Guide
Membership:

1. Downloadable Report: Holiday Toy Selling Guide listing the
hottest prospective toys in this year’s market along with tips and
strategies for listing during this holiday season.

2. 8 weekly updates sent to your inbox. This update takes the toys
predicted to be hot sellers and reports how they are performing on
eBay every week… you’ll see some go up and down – some just
drop… and others sky rocket. All of this is valuable information
for the toy seller.

3. Access to the Holiday Toy Guide GOLD Membership Site – I have
put together a team who will be regularly posting to the membership
site with news related to selling toys on eBay. You’ll find the
latest bargains and deals, new hot toys as they pop up during the
season, newsworthy articles and more!

4. BONUS: a f ree 2 month trial subscription to the MyToyGuide
weekly list of USED toys

5. BONUS: access to the MyToyGuide membership site with more
resources for finding hard to find toys – including the Toy
Reference Guide

Separately, the value of this GOLD package is $144! I’m offering
the package for $97… BUT, I always like to thank my loyal readers
and have an even better offer for you I’m offering a PRE-sale price
of $57 if you order by September 26th.

This is a PRE-RELEASE offer… and is the best offer I will have
for the 2008 Holiday Toy Guide.

http://www.holidaytoyguide.com/PRESALE

It means that you pay a lower price to hold your spot to get your
hands on the Holiday Toy Guide report once it is released October
10th. I should mention too – if you purchase the GOLD package now,
you will have access to the membership site early!

I’m already loading it with content to help get your holiday toy
selling season started on the right foot…

Here is the link to purchase the Holiday Toy Selling Guide with the
weekly updates for $57… and remember, the offer ends Friday, the
26th.

http://www.holidaytoyguide.com/PRESALE

Now, I know that $57 can be a lot of money, I wanted to be sure
that if that was a little steep for you, you could still get your
hands on downloadable report later. I decided to offer just the
downloadable report for $29. You will only see this offer from me
and a few of my select partners. This option won’t provide the
additional weekly updates and bonuses… but, there is still some
valuable information in there. The $29 report will be available
October 10th.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Jenni
www.jennihunt.com

PS. This deal is too good for me to offer it past the 26th – the
research is quite extensive. Now is the time to start thinking
about what you are going to be selling this holiday season – don’t
hesitate!

http://www.holidaytoyguide.com/PRESALE

“I will definitely sell toys for Christmas! This was my first year
selling toys and I bought the “Holiday Toy Guide” ebook you
recommended and made more money per item than I ever could dream
about making with an article of clothing! We are talking $30-$90
profit per item!….”
From Marie Bradford, ebay ID chipmunkluck”

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2. Heads Up
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***HEADS**UP***
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Your About Me Page: Questions… Answered

You guys have some great questions… I’d like to encourage you to
comment on any post you might have a question about – this way we
can all benefit. And, I have a feeling that many of you have the
same questions… 🙂

This week I received quite a few questions about setting up your
About Me page…

Before we dive in –

It has been brought to my attention (and rightly so) that even
though eBay’s policies are open when it comes to including an
opt-in form on your About Me page (by opt-In I mean a form that
allows your readers to sign up for your mailing list)… there are
some gray areas and sometimes eBay gets a bit picky. Some have had
issue with the ‘eBay Police’ and have been asked to remove their
opt-in form on their eBay About Me page. To avoid this, you can
just include a link to a webpage that has an opt-In form instead.

But, let’s back up a minute.

How in the world do you set up one of those forms that asks for
your name and email address? You could google a bit and get a
really good tutorial for setting up forms on your website – but, I
have found that some of the autoresponders have a wizard that set
it all up for you.

I use aweber for my autoresponder and they have a very simple
wizard that gives me the code to copy and paste on any website —
it’s easy and I end up with a great form for people to fill in to
sign up for my newsletter.

Autoresponders also give you an email address that you can have
your readers send a blank email to – this will get them on your
list as well. You would just ask your readers to send a blank email
to that email address. If you go this route, be sure to include a
link to that email address. In other words, don’t just state your
email address, link to it as well. Here is a quick resource that
explains how to set up the code for an email link on your website:
http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/html_email_code.cfm

Once you have the code (for either a web form or an email link),
you’ll need to get it on your About Me page or website.

Setting up your About Me page:
You have two options when setting up your About Me page on eBay.
You can either use eBay’s wizard (they call it a ‘step-by-step
process) or enter your own html.

http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll

If you know html or are familiar with setting up your own websites,
I recommend going with this option. Just build a webpage that looks
just like you want your About Me page to look, copy the html, and
paste it where eBay tells you to.

If you want to use eBay’s wizard, you just select that option and
fill in the blanks. eBay gives you options for:

1. Page Title

2. Paragraph Text (or html – which means you can include links.
This would be a good place to include your opt-in form code or
email link code that we discussed above.)

3. Pictures: They allow for 2 unless you host them yourself
You can show your eBay activity such as recent feedback, other
listings, etc.

4. And, finally, you have the option to include 3 web links that
you might not have included above. Be sure to follow eBay’s
policies about linking to sites that sell – remember, you are using
your About Me page to build your mailing list. You are not selling
anything here.

Once you have all the info entered, you get to choose from three
simple layouts. You will be able to preview your About Me page on
this page as well.

eBay gives you the option to edit your About Me page at any time –
so, don’t be afraid to try it out and build your page!

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***HEADS**UP***
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How Do You Create An eBook?

We’ve talked a lot about using small reports to bring in outsiders
to your eBay auctions… but, how do you actually CREATE an ebook
or small report?

There are plenty of ebooks you can buy that teach you how to create
one – but, I googled a bit and found a great resource with Adobe.
Adobe developed Adobe Acrobat Reader – which is likely the tool you
use when you view an ebook (that is in pdf format… which most
are). The only issue I have with this tutorial is that it talks
about using their own programs for converting your document into a
pdf format. There are plenty of less expensive options that I’ve also
listed below.

You can check out Adobe’s tutorial here:
http://www.adobe.com/epaper/tips/acr5ebook/pdfs/eBook.pdf

Some other tutorials I found that you might find helpful:
http://tinyurl.com/5lq2eq
http://www.squidoo.com/howtomakeanEbook

And, here is a quick run down of the process I use:

First of all, I like to create ebooks in pdf format. Virtually
anyone can view a pdf file on their computer and the formatting is
in your control as the creator.

1. I brainstorm, build my outline and finish my document in
MS-Word. Open Office is a good option as well.

2. Once the information if formatted nicely (with headers that are
consistent, nice margins, etc.), I save the document.

3. After the document is saved, I use one of the following f-ree
tools to convert it to pdf.
PDF995 (www.pdf995.com)
CutePdf (www.cutepdf.com)
These tools get added as a ‘printer’ on your computer… so, as
long as you can print from a program, you can turn it into a pdf.

4. Once I have the pdf, I go through it to make sure it converted
properly. Occasionally, the formatting is a bit off or their is
some blur. If this happens, I just re-convert the file.

5. I upload the pdf to my server/web space and note the location.
The location becomes the url for the pdf and I can give that to
anyone so they can also view and download the document.

That’s it!
Do you have any tips for creating your own ebook?

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Copyright 2008 Jenni Hunt, www.jennihunt.com

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