I have found in life that my opinion is just that.  An opinion.  One opinion out of many on any particular subject.  I use my reviews and guides, e-Books, and eBya blogs to share my experience, conclusions drawn, and resulting opinions on any number of topics of interest to me.

Choosing a topic

This seems simple enough.  Write about things about which you know...things you have actually experienced work better than theories you have learned through academic endeavor or through hearsay.

Now, because I have experience in a certain subject area, by no means implies that my experience is identical to others who have also experienced these things. I must keep that in mind when writing for the purpose of guiding others.  To make my guides and reviews, my e-Books and blogs of use to another person,  I must convey not only my opinion of the subject area, but also the circumstances of the experience, so they can determine whether their circumstances would likely result in a similar experience for them.

Case in point

One topic I can write about is the use of 1 penny auctions to increase traffic to the eBay seller's store.  Stores have been demoted to the back seat of the eBay marketplace after eBay solicited every seller to increase sales by opening one.  So, now, as a seller, I have additional challenges to face in drawing customers to even take a look at my store listings.  I have been using the 1 penny auctions to increase traffic and I am seeing increased sales from my store as a result...its working for me.

However, I must convey to those wanting to try this technique, that I EXPECT to lose money on my 1 Penny auction item themselves.  Many of them sell for the starting price of 1 penny.  I also must stress that I do not bump up my shipping and handling charges to accommodate the very low auction start and perhaps very low auction end price. My shipping and handling charges are consistent for all my items.  I use these 1 penny auctions as a comparatively low priced advertising for my store.  I offer items that are representative of the othe over 500 items for sale at fair prices in the store.  My goal is, of course, to get the potential customers to take a peek beyond the 1 penny auction. 

Such techniques may or may not work for you, but they do for me.  My circumstances might differ from yours...consider these facts before trying this yourself.

The particular circumstances which make this a successful technique for me...

• I already have the items on hand
• The items have been in my inventory a fair amount of time
• The loss of the listing fees, final value fees and PayPal fees will not break my budget
• My items are not unique items or items in particularly hot demand
• I have nearly 600 items listed in my store at any given time
• I have between 30 and 50 auctions running at any given time
• Of these 30-50 auctions, approximately 10 are 1 Penny auctions
• I use the individual loss as advertising costs
• I offer a wide variety of items, so must have lots of auctions of different types to draw the customers into the store

I hope you will consider the guidance given in each guide you read as being clearly the opinion of the writer. I hope you can use some of my techniques to improve your selling experience on eBay. I hope you will keep this in mind when writing your own guides and reviews. 

Thank you for taking the time to read mine.