The whole e-book in this 5-part guide! (Part V of V) Tips 86 – 101
I would just like to point out that I did not write 101 Auction Secrets Revealed! I am just publishing this as a guide since the Distribution Rules clearly stated that I can "give it away". And please vote yes, for even if one thing helped you just remember at least you didn't have to pay for it.
REMINDER: This e-book is so large that it needed to be posted in 5 parts, so read them as you wish AND please remember to Vote yes, since I’m giving you tons of helpful info for FREE, Also there are some repeated tips in this guide only because they are so important that that they needed to be stressed by repetition.

AuctionTip #86: The Taxman Cometh
Did you know that auction income is taxable? It certainly is. Keep good records and collect your reward at tax time. You certainly don't want to be penalized-
Consult a CPA or the SBA for advice on tax liabilities and credits. Rules differ from location to location.
Your tax filing records should allow you to identify your sources of income and keep track of business expenses. It's that simple.
As a small business owner or sole proprietor most likely would use a cash basis bookkeeping system.
This simply means income is recorded when it is received, and expenses are reported when they are actually paid.
Many sole proprietors and businesses with no inventory use the cash method.
From a tax standpoint, it is advantageous for a new business to use the cash method of accounting. That way, recording income can be put off until the next tax year, while expenses are counted right away.
Also remember licensing issues. The laws and regulations vary from location to location. Some states require licenses to sell some do not. Check with the Small Business Administration for more detail:
Sba DOT gov
Irs DOT gov
entrepreneur DOT com

AuctionTip #87: Using A Website With Your Auctions
One great way to boost your profits is to use a website with your auctions. Use a little subtlety promoting your website using your auctions.
The rule is: You can't provide a link to your website where you are selling the product for the same price or less. Be sure you
don't break any rules to avoid having your auction pulled.

AuctionTip #88: Promoting Your Auctions Outside eBay
Few people try to drive traffic to their auctions. Find a good way to do
this and you'll get tons of free hits.
Find appropriate message boards to promote on. Use free classifieds, newsgroups and whatever method will work for your particular type of auctions. You can use email just make certain its highly targeted- don't spam.

AuctionTip #89: Study Up!
You are what you read... Never quit taking in as much as you can from the best minds available in your field.
There's a lot of good information available to you for free, but to get the really good stuff it's sometimes worth investing a little bit of money.
Two classic Internet marketing books that have had the most impact on me, as well as a lot of other people are:
"The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet" Home Study Course- by Cory Rudl
marketingtips DOT com/tipsltr.html
The cost for Cory’s course is around $197, and worth it
And then there is the Bible of selling online...
MYSS! (Make Your Site Sell)- By Ken Envoy
Sitesell DOT com
Ken sells this gem for about $19.
MYSS is an absolute steal, being given away at an insane price- If Cory's course is too steep, I high recommend you buy MYSS!
Another info-manual you have is “eBook Secrets” by How-To Guru Ken Silver. Be sure to read it, you’ll start to see the real beauty of selling your own "How-To" manual.

AuctionTip #90: The Truth About Using Other Auction Sites
I have tried my hand at almost all the sites. Test their profitability for yourself. Since I'm big on focusing efforts, it may be best for you to stick with eBay until you have good reason to otherwise.
You may find that your area of the eBay market is a bit too stuffy. If so, there are many things you can do, using other sites is just one of them.
If the competition is really tough for what you're selling check out a few of the other auction sites such Amazon and Yahoo.
Try to limit yourself to these two extras- once you start selling on some of the other auction sites you begin get smaller and smaller returns-
Plus the buyers are going to be less reliable. Deadbeats are problem on eBay. Even more so on CNET auctions.
A negative feedback on Lycos auctions means nothing- on eBay it does... people just don't take smaller venues very seriously. I'll be honest, I've bid on ZDNET auctions and not paid for the simple reason that I feared the seller wasn't reliable.
Also for the record- I have never had a bounced check off of eBay- I have had three outside of eBay.
On Yahoo you can list for free- but don't let that fool you; your ad will never be seen. On the other hand- Yahoo will allow you to bid on your ad exposure.
You may have a product that fits into a category with no competition- you can buy a day's worth of the sites best advertising for a quarter.
This is an exception, I once netted over $300 on a Yahoo Dutch auction with a small $2 in advertising... so it may be worth your time.
You can view a list of the various auction houses at
Internetauctionlist DOT com
It’s so important to find your place on eBay first. When you’re successful on eBay you will start to find that all the business you need to generate to make a lot of money is there.
You’re main problem in becoming successful with online auctions is having your energies divided. I have mixed emotions about using the others.
If you have tightly defined your niche market and you find yourself with a shortage of customers on eBay, use the other sites to help you make up for this, but…
You will find out a little later, there are a million things you can do to generate extra results while keeping focus on THE one essential site, eBay.

Auctiontip #91: Information Products, eBay and Your Success...
Selling information by CD, floppy and download is the way I went on eBay when it was all said and done.
I did everything else in the book and finally came to the conclusion:
I had to be the source of my own product.
As a result of that shift in business thinking, my overhead and workload has almost vanished.
If you are going to sell information products on eBay, I need to warn you... the competition can be fierce at times. With a little savvy, this won't be a problem.
If there is one advantage this book will give you over the next seller on eBay, it's to look far beyond the initial sale- most eBay sellers do this.
Just keep in mind that with your own info-product, your inventory costs are laughably low. Your markups are high. And you can more easily harness the automation powers of the Internet.
Simply find the hottest selling information products and change them a little, give them a name and make them yours.
Go with the proven winners- check the featured auctions to find out what the hot items are...
Or, you can visit my website. I have put together the ultimate product making resource, called the "Million Dollar ePublisher's Kit". It's included with the full version of "Auction Secrets Revealed"...
Auctionebook DOT com 
One of the main reasons eBayer's fail... their profit margins are too low. All their money gets locked away in inventory that's not giving them the return they need to cover their overhead.
I speak from experience. I have had thousands of dollars locked away into Palm accessories as the market started to sour.
It's a very sinking feeling. I started selling my own products exclusively after that.

AuctionTip #92: Boost Your Profits By 35%... Up-selling Your Way to Success
How would you like to skyrocket your auction profits on each auction bid by 30-40%? You can do it, and it's ten times easier than you can imagine.
One common sales technique that works like magic with online auctions is offering your bidder something called an 'upsell'. This is an irresistible something extra to you customer right when the transaction is about to be made.
You see examples of upsells everywhere- when you go out to eat, and the waiter brings you the desert menu... that's an upsell.
When I was selling really heavily on eBay, upsell products almost resulted in a lot a of excess profit. And it always kept any one of my auctions from becoming unprofitable.
Let's say for instance you sold $180 worth of product. You pay $100 for the ad on eBay and $100 for the product in your inventory. Well, if you quit there you would have lost $20- and if you keep it up at that rate you may go broke.
But lets say that you offer another complementary item for an extra $5. If you had 20 winning bidders and half of them took you up on the offer you would end up netting $30 on that auction.
And you would have just turned a loser into a winner. With some auctions, especially ones that go south on you, up-sells can mean the difference between making money and losing it.
Probably my most successful example of an upsell from personal experience came from an auction selling an info-product I made myself.
I ran a featured ad I ended with over 120 bids with a lot of people buying more than one. I was making about $10 per CD. That's $1200, I could have stopped there.
But since I don't pass up an opportunity to make some extra money, I applied this special sales getting technique. When all was said and done I netted just a little over $1900 with my extra product offers from one auction.
Here are some guidelines to help you benefit from offering upsells:
1.) Make certain that it strongly complements the product they bid on or that it will be something they would likely buy.
2.) Keep the item around 30-40% of the original products price. If it's too cheap you won't make what you can and if it's too expensive no one will buy.
3.) Show them how the item will benefit them, let them know it is a special limited time offer and ask them emphatically to BUY.
4.) Don't limit the amount of business the customer wants to do with you. After you have gained their trust you have done the hard part. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by not trying to offer them something else.
5.) Ideally this product costs you little if anything to offer. Either that or it's something you have an ample quantity of. Information and consumable products to the rescue once again… these are the ones that I constantly use for upsells.
If you sold hand-made quilts, then a good upsell would be a small info manual showing someone the inside tricks to making their own beautiful quilts.
Not only would the information be relevant to them, but immediately accessible- instant gratification, a big plus.
You won't always be in the position to offer up-sell product starting out, but as you get more experienced you will see some obvious opportunities;
If you're selling information and consumable products it will be easy to create good complementary offers that your customer will want. If you're selling something like collectibles then it may be tougher.

Auction #93: The Real Way to Boost Your Profits
The other way to boost your sales is by offering your customers products called back-ends. This is where you can make major money if you prepare.
Once you have built the trust of your customer they're likely to buy from you again and again- take advantage of this by offering them things they will want and are interested in.
Think of a professional stamp seller who uses eBay to add to his customer base.
Let's say he has a customer database of a 10,000 avid eBay stamp collectors; If this stamp seller does his homework then he will know what types of stamps his customers are crazy about.
He will find the right source for these stamps and Voila! He will make money- One day he sends them an email explaining to those 10,000 people that he has 5,000 rare civil war stamps.
Within a couple of days he sells them all and nets a $50 profit per stamp. He just made $25,000!
You'll want to approach your auctions the same way- that is why you need to find a corner of the market to work from.
That way you'll be in a better position to resell to your customers over and over again...
Not only will you know what your buyer wants in general, but you'll have a huge base of people who have similar interests. If you don't have a niche you can't do this.

AuctionTip #94: Your Customers Lifetime Value
Do you know your customer marginal net worth? What is that? This term simply refers to the long-term value of your customer.
Develop a long-term relationship with your bidders and offer them similar products they will want (by email). Look past the initial sale-
If you know that your average customer is worth $1000 to you over the span of 5 years, then it only makes sense that you would be willing to spend money to get them.
For instance, let’s say you sell porcelain dolls on eBay. Your ideal customer is someone who is just absolutely crazy about collecting these types of dolls. And chances are, they will always be.
As a businessperson who sells to this market, you should be willing to spend money up front just to have this customer in your fold. They will buy from you again and again.
You paid for the advertising to acquire this customer. After the initial sale the trust has been built and you no longer have to pay to acquire this customer.
What makes eBay so wonderful is that the customer acquisition costs are so cheap.
The higher the lifetime value of your customer, the more you should be willing to spend, in the form of advertising, to get them.
For most sellers on eBay, they have never even thought of this, so the customer only has value inasmuch as they can make a profit on the first sale. This is very narrow sighted.
Very few businesses can get away with this for long…

AuctionTip #95: Mister Lister, Who's That?
EBay offers the program called Mister Lister that will save you hours of listing time every day- it's real helpful if you have lots of the same items.
Make one good ad for them and list it over and over for years.
It's easy to use and it gets you one step closer to auction automation.
Normally you'll have to post each auction manually- this can take a very big chunk of your day if you want to have a lot of auctions.
Use programs like Mister Lister to get around this:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sellerguide/mr-lister-faq.html

AuctionTip #96: Must Have Programs
Here are the several programs I use daily that you can download for free at
hotfiles DOT com
·A.I.D.- Auction information database program
·Eudora Lite- fully featured email client.
·Homesite- an excellent must have html editor.
·Paint Shop Pro- graphics software.
·CuteFTP- FTP program for uploading files to the Internet.
·SmartSaver Pro- Crunches pics so pages can load faster
·ShortKeys Lite- Email shortcut program.

AuctionTip #97: Verza and CCNow Will Offer You A Solution for You Secure Server Needs
Earlier I touched on merchant accounts. If you have a website or are selling one product at a fixed price then you need short-term solution for taking orders via secure server.
Two services I recommend for this are CCNow and Verza:
Ccnow DOT com
 Verza DOT com
They are easy to set up- compare these services with Paypal to see what works best for your auction business...

AuctionTip #98: Save Time At The Post Office

With these tips you’ll never step foot in the post office unless for some reason it is more convenient to go there.
You can have all of your mailing supplies sent to you by the USPS and UPS. Visit usps DOT com and ups DOT com for more details.
You can save loads of time and take care of all your postage needs from the comfort of your own home. To do this:

·Buy an inexpensive scale
·Print postage from your PC with E-Stamp
·Look up shipping rates with I-Ship
Also, to make life easier on yourself look into having a mail service come by to pick up your packages. The UPS charges $6/week for daily pickups.
The United States Postal Service charges about $7 per pickup.
I used this for almost a year until I started shipping CD’s only. At that point I just stuck the CD’s in the mailbox or the nearest meter box.
Doing these kinds of things will save you time and money. Unless your auctions activity is light…
If you don't prepare and you start an auction business you may spend your life there when things pick up; I know this first hand. Postal clerks dreaded me stopping by!

AuctionTip #99: When To Ship Your Item
Customer satisfaction is your number one aim. So, you need to ship fast… but don’t let this throw you off.
I used to ship 4-5 days a week. This eventually shrank to one day, Friday. Most customers complement my fast shipping. Never once has someone said, "Hey, you were a little slow with the shipment.”
Actually, it’s a little unfair for the folks who win on Friday, but as a rule I never end auctions on a Friday since it’s probably the worst day to end an auction.
I did this for site traffic reasons by the way.
The people who win on Saturday and Sunday never expect the shipment until the next week.
I also alert them about my shipping day and give them a reason for it most people appreciate that. They know when to expect the shipment and I don’t have to email them to let them know when I send it
Pick one or two prime days per week to do your shipping business. Stick to it, it gives everything order. Get it done and out of the way

AuctionTip #100: The Importance of Good Feedback
Building up a good feedback record on eBay is your #1 priority starting out. The credibility factor will weigh on you at the beginning but this can be overcome.
Remember:
§Treat your winning bidders like royalty.
§Sell them a quality product.
§Actively pursue positive feedback.
Winning bidders will leave feedback for you only about 35% if you don't prompt them at all. Let them know that you NEED feedback.
Make it easy for them to get to the forum by emailing them a link and consistently follow-up... You can get that up to about 90%.
Once you have a good record people will be much more likely to do business with you. Make it your goal to never get a negative comment.
This is hard to do but very impressive with the buyers. If
get 'negged', correct the mistake and move on, it's not the end of the world.
Kindly reply to the response with a rational explanation for the problem and your buyers will overlook it when they glance your profile.
If you respond with a little magnanimity, you can even turn a neg into a positive in the browser's eyes.

AuctionTip #101: A Program That You Should Try
Throughout this eBook I've touched on the importance of automating repetitive tasks in your business...
In fact, I cover auction automation in some detail in my "Auction Secrets Revealed" how-to manual.
While it's not the easiest thing, there's one tool on the market that I use everyday and would have a hard time getting by without it...
The name of this revolutionary program is Mailloop- you can find out more about the benefits of this awesome software and what it can do for you at:
marketingtips DOT com/mailloop/mailloop.html
~THOSE ARE TIPS 86– 101-READ THE OTHER GUIDES FOR THE REST, VOTE YES PLEASE!~
~If I get Enough Yes votes on this e-book guide, I’ll write more e-books in guide format~