Interesting Facts About eBay

eBay Global

• Founded in September of 1995 , eBay.com is a global online marketplace where practically anyone can trade practically anything.

• eBay Inc. has a global presence in 39 markets, including the U.S.

• Marketplaces has approximately 85.7 million active users worldwide.

• Marketplaces net revenues totaled a record $1.38 billion in Q3-08, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 4 percent. With 47 percent from US operations and 53 percent from our International business.

• In Q3-08, gross merchandise volume (GMV), the total value of all successfully closed items on eBay Inc.’s trading platforms, was $14.3 billion . (Total GMV for the full year 2007 was more than $59 billion .)

• eBay.com users worldwide trade $1,839 worth of goods on the site every second.

• There were 700 million new listings added to eBay.com worldwide in Q3-08. At any given time, there are approximately 112.3 million listings worldwide, and approximately 7.1 million listings are added per day. eBay users trade in more than 50,000 categories.

• Based o n Q3-08 GMV, the following eBay.com categories delivered $1 billion or more in worldwide annualized GMV: eBay Motors at $16.3 billion; Consumer Electronics at $5.0 billion; Clothing & Accessories at $4.6 billion; Home & Garden at $3.8 billion; Computers at $3.5 billion; Sports at $3.0 billion; Books/Music/Movies at $2.9 billion; Everything Else at $2.9 billion; Tickets & Travel at $2.3 billion; Collectibles at $2.2 billion; Business & Industrial at $2.2 billion: Jewelry & Gemstones at $1.9 billion; Toys at $1.9 billion; Photo & Electronics at $1.5 billion and Antiques & Art at $1.1 billion

• While eBay.com is well-known for its auction format, users can also buy and sell in fixed-price formats, which accounted for 48 percent of total GMV during Q2-08.

• The most expensive item sold on eBay to date is a private business jet  for $4.9 million

Source eEay Website

Millions of items are traded each day on eBay.com and some 1.3 million people make all or part of their living selling on eBay.

But wait, there’re lot more interesting details about eBay traffic and storage infrastructure as was revealed by Paul Strong of eBay to Chris Preimesberger of eWEEK. Some highlights:

1. eBay maintains four copies of most of its databases.

2. It takes 30 minutes to build the eBay.com site - in the last 2.5 years, there have been 2 million builds.

3. On an average, eBay.com runs into issues for about 50 seconds per day.

4. The site averages more than 1 billion page views per day.

5. Users trade about $1,700 worth of goods on the site every second.

6. The site currently has about 600 million listings and about 204 million registered users.

7. The world’s time zones provide a kind of natural load-balancer. When there’s surge in traffic from US, that’s generally when Europe [the second-largest region using eBay] is asleep - and vice versa.

8. eBay engineers have to add about 10 terabytes of new storage every week to cover new transactions.

Source: How eBay Manages Its Storage [eweek.com]

After reviewing these facts you cannot help but ask yourself why should I not include eBay as part of my internet business?

Answer, eBay probably should be part of your internet marketing strategy, but our advice is to educate yourself and ask yourself, what you going to sell on eBay? The best tool we have found for educating yourself and getting started with Selling on eBay is this set of videos http://ultimateimvideosource.com/Selling_on_eBay_Made_Simple/

It will provide a simple outline for all the things you need to get started.

Basic things:

• Such as setting up an eBay site
• How to run and auction
• How to write ads
• How to post pictures of your products

One of the first questions we hear is where do I find products to sell. Worldwide Sales is one company that provides drop shipping of products from all over the world at wholesale prices.

http://ultimateimsolutions.com/Recommends/Worldwide_Brands.html

So there you have it, all you need to get started selling on eBay. But don’t stop there, you owe it to yourself to check out Affliate Marketing and Selling PLR products as well.

We will cover Affliate Marketing and PLR in the next post in the Newbie Series.

Remember, always come to Ultimate IM Solutions for all of your internet marketing needs.

Kind Regards

Glenn Seymour

Follow me on Twitter at GlennSeymour

As a Newbie to Internet marketing, you probably have signed up for several programs or sites by now. Certainly a Gmail email address, a Wordpress blog, Skype and a PayPal account at a minimum. By now you can see that each site is requiring you to have a log in with a password. You have probably written them down on a piece of paper or even created a note in notepad to save them. (hopefully) Nothing worse than trying to get into your PayPal account to collect your money and cannot remember the password.

The tool I want to tell you about today, RoboForm, (http://www.roboform.com) eliminates the need to keep up with all those pass words. At last count I have over 180 sites saved with passwords in them. There is no way I would trust myself to keep up with those passwords without RoboForm.

RoboForm is a software program that can reside on your toolbar that will automatically save both the login as well as the password. It will prompt you to remember to save the log in information the first time you log in. Then, each time you log into the account in the future, it automatically opens the site and fills in the information for you.

Another great feature of RoboForm is the ability to auto fill information. You will quickly find yourself having to complete signup forms for sites or programs for which you have an interest. This feature is one of the most efficient aspects of RoboForm.

You may share your computer with other family members or you may use the computer for work related tasks as well as your part time Internet marketing business. RoboForm allows for creating different profiles ie. you, your children, your spouse or your work profile and your home based business profile.

The great news is that RoboForm is FREE. It allows you to save up to 10 sites with log in information for free. There is no time limit on the free use of RoboForm. You can keep it for life. So go ahead and download RoboForm now to get started. After you have used it for awhile and need to save more than 10 sites you can upgrade to the paid version which gives you unlimited number of sites. The cost is approximately $19.00 USD.

I have included a YouTube video that will give you an overview of how RoboForm works.

Remember, look to us for solutions to your Internet marketing problems.

Kind regards

Glenn

Follow me on Twitter at GlennSeymour

This is for the newbie. If you have no idea where to get started this Newbie Series is for you. You will find answers to all of your questions. If you have one we have not covered yet, just drop us an email and we will  do our best to answer that one next.

The most basic question we get is “do I setup a blog or website first?” We both relate to that because we did not know where to start in the beginning either.

The answer is setup a blog first. But you say, I already have a website what do I do now? Do not scrap the website. You will need it. You are not by yourself. In reality you do need both, in fact you may need several as your internet marketing career begins to become successful.

The good news! Blogs are free and easy to setup. There are several free blog services including Google’s own blogspot.com.

I recommend Wordpress. This is a wordpress blog you are now reading.

Blogs provide you several advantages

1. First of all, you do not need a dedicated domain name. In fact you do not even need a place to “store” your blog. Google and Wordpress provide that to you for free.

2. I find it is easier to work with blogs. You can change the content and add to it easier than you can with a website. As a newbie you will soon find out that anything to minimize all the technical details will be appreciated.

3. Blogs are more in the “here and now” as compared to websites. You can communicate very much like I am doing now. It is like having a chat or phone conversation. Blogs are more alive.

4. By now, even a newbie has heard the term social networking and possibly Web 2.0. Blogs are more social and give you the advantage of providing new information more quickly, easily and frequently. This is important because the internet spiders are always out there looking for new information. You can, with one click of a button, have your message delivered to millions of internet users. Trust me, this is good. The search engines will then rank your site and this will help to drive traffic (more readers) to your site.

Oh, and by the way, those spiders….. they are not real spiders, they will not bite.

But do not be surprised if you get bitten by the IM bug. And if you do you are in for quite a ride.

Below is a short video I found that gives you more information to help you decide whether you want a blog or a website.

See you in the next Newbie Series post.

Kind regards

Glenn

Know all about it, been there, done that!

Now I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear but the good thing about that is that both Glenn and I really have been there and we’ve moved beyond that point.  And we’re ready to help you get beyond that point too.

Getting started in anything is one of the hardest things a person can do. Everything is new and challenging.  It’s exciting but it can also be intimidating.  One of the toughest things about Internet Marketing is TMI - Too Much Information or Information Overload.

Actually there are some very basic skills you need to learn.  Many of those skill sets have a lot of sub-sets but in getting started, start with the basics and once you have them down, them you can work on all the different variables.

So to help you get started, to give you the truth, plain and unvarnished, and some quick basics, I’d like to give you a gift - Internet Marketing - The Truth and Reality. It won’t cost you a penny and the only investment is your time, the time it will take to read and learn.

So, are you ready for the truth?

If you answered “YES,” then CLICK HERE NOW!

Deanna Raeke

This is a sign of the continuing race between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google to make communication on the web to be a social experience.

Yahoo and Microsoft both offer video with their instant messaging services, but have not integrated it into e-mail.

How can this help you? Don’t you always feel more connected to someone when you get a chance to see them while you are having a conversation? Use this to help build relationships with your affiliates. Always great for pep talks or just introducing someone to a new product or concept.

If you are not using Skype or other video chat services you may want to check this out. The price? It is free.

Another Internet marketing solution from www.ultimateimsolutions.com

Glenn Seymour

Join me on twitter at www.twitter.com/glennseymour

skype: Glennseymour

Now I’ve been ‘playing’ with computers and the internet for more than a decade, since the early-mid 90s which makes me quite experienced to some and still a neophyte to others.  I love computers, what you can do, what they offer and so much more… when they are functioning the way they are supposed to.  Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

As for my computer, I don’t really consider it ‘old’  although to techies anything over about 6 months is heading toward obseletion.  Mine is about 2 1/2 years old and when I got it, it was great; 1 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, 3 GHz.  Even now that’s nothing to complain about.  What I am finding is that I am running into serious problems in certain areas.

In IM, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and if you are lucky to be able to partner with someone, you are really lucky to find someone who in strong in the areas where you are weak and visa versa.

The reason I bring this up is because my biggest strengths are my graphics and website building.  That’s not all I can do but it is what I enjoy doing the most.  Now running programs to create graphics and design websites takes a lot of memory so I am finding that my 1 GB RAM is falling short keeping my running well.

I love software… hate hardware!  Don’t want to know how my computer runs or what makes it run, just want it to run well and fast.  Unfortunately it’s just not doing that so I have had to make some forays in learning some techie stuff.  I’m going to be receiving a couple of RAM sticks in a day or so and will have to install these myself.

Those of you who are as comfortable ‘under the hood’ of your computer as on the keyboard are no doubt laughing because this does look to be a rather simple operation but it’s still not something I am comfortable with.

Then I am going to have to figure out how to upgrade my hard drive.  I am holding off on that one until it is completely necessary.  Sure, you can say it would be easier just to buy a new computer, but I like my computer.  I like the OS.  Everything is already here, installed and ready for me to use.  There’s a definite comfort to that.

So I’ll learn to do this ‘techie’ stuff and keep my good ole’ computer and just keep on working.

And the moral of this story is?  Not much of a one except that if you are serious about working online, you will need many skills and learning all the skills of sales and marketing is only part.  Be sure you have good equipment, the best that you can possibly afford and don’t be afraid to learn to do what it takes to keep it going.

You wil no doubt hear more from me on this topic and related because it’s important not to forget the most important tool in your arsenal.  Without your computer, without a good internet connection, you aren’t going to be able to have any kind of online business!

From Deanna, the non-techie!

So many people rush into Internet Marketing with the idea that they’re going to strike it rich and hit the big time and be on ‘easy street’ in no time. Part of the reason is that there are so any people out there selling ‘get rich quick’ schemes and the only ones getting rich quick are the ones selling the schemes!

In reality, well over 90% of the people who get into Internet Marketing fail. They fail because they rush headlong into it with taking the time to even learn the basics, I know this because I was there at one point and so were most anyone who is doing IM now. They fail because they sink every penny they have into anything anyone promotes that promises an unbelievable return. They fail because they try to teach others what to do when they don’t know themselves. These are just a few of the many reasons.

Sure, there are people out there who have hit the right time and right place with exactly the right thing but they are so few and far between. There are people out there that are going to wave six figure earnings and tell you how easy it is. There are people out there who are going to show you unbelievable screen shots from Clickbank or Google Adsense or any number of pay processors with phenomenal bottom lines. Yes, it does happen. How often? I can’t say but you can trust me that for all the thousands and thousands of people out there trying, only a couple are actually getting anywhere quickly and easily.

So am I gonna tell you about my six figure earnings or show you all kinds of screen shots? Nope, ‘fraid not. My initial forays into ‘internet marketing’ had nothing at all to do with making money but were an effort to raise awareness on a subject that is dear to me. It was from that start that I found the best way to do it was to learn the ins and outs of Internet Marketing itself to be able to what I wanted to do as well as I could.

Am I making six figures? Again, nope. Am I making money? Actually, yes I am. I don’t do too badly; a little here and a little there, some adsense, some affiliate and some of my own products, both in various niche and IM fields.

You’re probably wondering by now ‘what’s my point?’ Basically I want to tell you that if you are serious, regardless of the field or niche was want to work in, take the time to gather your knowledge and information. Don’t expect to ‘get rich quick.’ If you really want it, then work for it. It will be worth is when you accomplish a sustainable income that you can count on month after month. Success, unless you are very lucky, will not come overnight but it will be all the sweeter for all the effort and the more effort, the more success.

Actually, it isn’t - it’s less than 6 weeks til Christmas which is why today is the last day you can download your PLR Christmas pack from http://www.PLRSpectacular.com until next October. If you could use a few extra bucks over the next 6 weeks, don’t miss out - download yours today before it comes down at midnight!

If you are sitting on the fence take a look at how we rebranded this PLR package.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

Remember to come to this site for solutions to your Internet Marketing  problems.

Kind regards,

Glenn

Even the TV and Radio newscasters include their Twitter name in their broadcast.

If you do not have your blog setup to automatically send a post to your Twitter account, you are missing a great opportunity to get your post to another audience.

Just 4 weeks ago I began using TweetBeep.

If you love Twitter, you’ll love TweetBeep! Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything! You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like tinyurl.com).

TweetBeep acts like google alerts for Google. When you sign up (it is free), you can identify certain words that you want to follow. One of my niches is alternative energy and electric cars. http://www.ridingonsunshine.com . So I added Solar Power and Electric cars as key words. Anytime someone who tweets and has those words in their message, I receive an email with their twitter ID. I then click follow. It is amazing how many of those that you click follow then begin following you and going to your site.

TweetBeep is also great for online reputation management, catching all your @replies, finding job/networking opportunities, keeping up on your favorite hobby, and more!

So experiment by putting your name in TweetBeep and find out what others are saying about you.

Look to us for solutions to your internet marketing problems.

Glenn Seymour

Huh? You’re probably thinking that I have no idea what I’m talking about. If you’re doing business online you figure you know what you’re doing, but unless you’re following this train of thought, you’re wrong. And being wrong about this can make the difference between success and failure or getting to the top or just getting by.

The bottom line is, the business you are in is Marketing. It’s true. No matter what your business is, no matter what you sell or promote, you’re not really in that business. You’re in the business of marketing that business and marketing yourself.

When you begin to understand this and change your thinking accordingly, you will find yourself progressing toward your goals in an easier and less stressful manner.

Instead of telling people that you’re the best, that your product is the best, your company, your services, etc. are all the best, instead of force feeding them your offers then wondering why you’re not getting anywhere, learn productive, responsive marketing techniques and you’ll have people coming to you.

You need to gain your prospect’s attention and arouse their interest and emotions. If you can’t do this you’re never going to be able to get your message read let alone across to them.

Once you actually have their attention, you need to build a relationship with them. People are interested in you for only one reason — what’s in it for them. Yes, people are a selfish lot. If we’re not getting anything out of it, be it information, service, etc., we’re not going to stick around. We don’t care how great you think you are, how big you are, how much you say you care. Show us! Give people what they want.

Once you start ramming things down people’s throats and telling them you know what is best for them, what do you think will happen? Do you think they’re going to stick around, even if you are right? Not a shot! Oh, maybe that works for some of the big guys who have already built their names and reputations, but if you’re new and just starting out, or if you don’t have a name and reputation yet, you need more, you need to do more and you need to be more, you need to give more.

Think about your customer and what they want. Communicate with them in a way that they can respond to. Show them that you truly empathize with their problems and want to help them solve them. Show them that you are there for them, not just for what you can get out of them. Make your customers your bottom line, not what’s in their wallets.

So, instead of selling, try marketing. Show that you can answer their concerns and problems. Give them the information they want and need. Once you have done this, once you have built a trusting relationship with your customer, they will respond to you.

Look at it this way, would you rather give your money to someone you trust, who has helped you in the past, who has been there you for and offered you support regardless of whether you have fattened their wallet or not? Or would you rather give your money to someone who spouts nothing but BS, who offers nothing and the only time you hear from them is when they want something from you, your hard earned dollars?

Take the time to build a relationship and build trust and then your customers will respond to you. And that response will be that they will trust your recommendations whether you are offering products, services or just advise.