New Mouse Pad - 1932 La Salle Automobile

A new offering at our All-4-Corners store on eBay, this mouse pad features artwork of a classic 1932 La Salle automobile.
The 1932 La Salle Mouse Pad. This 9.25" x 7.75" rectangular mousepad is made of a durable heat-resistant polyester fabric top, will keep your mouse rolling in style. Backed with a neoprene rubber non-slip backing, keeps the mousepad from sliding. The mousepad is 1/8" thick. It will not discolor or fade, machine washable..

Sascha Brastoff Ebay Auctions Gadget

Handy gadget/widget displays hottest current eBay auctions for Sascha Brastoff collectibles. For iGoogle home page or easy to embed in any webpage.

Adding Best Offer to eBay Store Items

I sell a lot of stuff on eBay, mostly with the auction format, but also many fixed-price store items.
I've decided that I'm going to begin offering a "Best Offer" option on my store listings to see if that can't generate some extra sales.
For example, a watch like the Oliver 44 Tractor Watch pictured here will have a store price of $19.00 and also a Best Offer option which will automatically accept offers above a number set by me. (just between you and me that number is $12. shhh.)
Personally I think the watch is worth the full $19, but if I can pick up an extra sale or two and still make money, well, in these tight times I've got to give that a go.

Frederic Remington's Troops On The March

Here's one of the unique cigarette cases offered at All-4-Corners.
A very cool chrome metal case featuring the Frederic Remington painting, Troops on the March...a dusty march through the desert southwest. Designed for use as a cigarette case...also great for holding money, business cards, or any other small item.
The Troops on the March Cigarette Case and other unique gift items available at my eBay store All-4-Corners.

Renewed Popularity For The Gadsden Flag

Sure am seeing the Gadsden Flag a lot lately. Must be the crowd I run with...freedom loving libertarian American hooligans.
The Gadsden Flag design of a rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread On Me" dates back to the earliest days of the American Republic. Back then people were pretty fed up with the political situation and a pissed-off rattlesnake made a fine rallying symbol. You have to figure that the resurgence of the Gadsden Flag imagery coincides with a population again fed up with the political powers.
I've adapted the Gadsden Flag design and "Don't Tread on Me" tagline on some products that I've recently listed on eBay. Check out the wristwatch, wall clock, and (maybe most appropriately) cigarette case.

Driving Traffic to eBay Auctions

One of the big challenges of driving traffic to eBay auctions is that they end in 7 or 10 days and all your efforts now link to an expired auction. You can sign on to your favorite forum and talk up your product, but in 7 days it's wasted breathe.
One thing I've done is build out a little site where I display RSS feeds of many of the items I have for sale. It's not a storefront, just a self-updating showcase for my current auctions. My thought is that with a little promotion I can have these pages consistently ranked by Google and perhaps shoppers will find it to be a convenient back-door into my auctions.

Art Nouveau Mucha Gift Ideas
Classic Car Gifts
Cool Mouse Pads
Cool Trombone Shirts
Gift Ideas For Girlfriend
Historical and Personality Watches
Historical Tractor Watches
Metal Business Card Cases
Metal Cigarette Cases
Thank You Gift Ideas

New Traffic Feeders for eBay Store

I'm working on some new Savant7 pages to feed and backlink to my All-4-Corners eBay store. Basically I'm taking some custom rss feeds of my ebay store items, displaying them with CaRP on optimized pages hosted on my Savant7 playbox.
Hopefully I can boost some traffic numbers by building on such pages. We'll see.
Two pages built so far: Historical Tractor Watches and Wristwatches which displays the current crop of tractor watches, and Historical and Personality Watches and Wristwatches which displays a more mix bag of designs.

Tinyurl.com Helping eBay Sellers

I've been playing around with an idea...posting a daily recap of my eBay items sold to this blog. Just items that have sold. Just putting them out there. No, you can't buy them...they've already sold. Don't you wish you could have one? You can't. It's sold.
In the course of setting up this exercise in scarcity marketing, I've discovered that tinyurl links to expired eBay items do not go directly to the expired eBay auction page. Instead they take a transitional stop at a tinyurl-hosted affiliate page. Check it out:

http://tinyurl.com/5qt5ap

I think this is a really good thing! Tinyurl.com is creating another sales page for my eBay items...and they're doing it at my request! I tell them to create a page for me when I create the link. Sure, it only shows 5 items, but that's five more than anybody else is doing. I have to think that the more chances to put my product if front of potential customers, the better. And if you're worried about tinurl's affiliate money, that comes out of eBay's pocket, not the seller's.
I gotta play with this and see if I can get the tinyurl affiliate page indexed. That would be cool! If anyone else sees a good way to play this, please leave a comment.

Auction Bump to Bump Your Auctions?

Earlier today I was thinking that I really should be following more eBay sellers on twitter, the point being that I just might glean a new idea now and then. One of the first ebaying twitterers that I came across was powersellingmom. Reviewing some of her tweets I found a link to something called the Auction Bump program. How about that, a brand new idea gleaned!

Auction Bump is pretty interesting...basically a widget that a webmaster would post on a site. The widget displays a grid of 25-50 thumbnails of current auctions. Click the thumbnail and you'll be taken to the auction. Bid on the auction and win, and the webmaster will collect some affiliate money. Really not much different than eBay's basic affiliate program except that the content of the widget is determined by individual eBay sellers who take the time to visit the websites and input the information into the Auction Bump widgets.

I was intrigued enough to give it a whirl, so I picked one of my current auction and entered it into about 20 different Auction Bump widgets on as many different websites. I'm interested in seeing if the auction sees an increase in hits, and also I want to check and see if Google picks up the link to my auction from these different widgets.

If there is any glaring problem with Auction Bump, its that the auction seller has to input the information into each individual widget. No, its not difficult or seriously time consuming, but we are all busy and taking a half hour to juice an auction better show a return.

If anybody else wants to give Auction Bump a go here is a list of about 30 websites where I found an operating Auction Bump widget. There may be more out there but I couldn't find 'em. Note to the Auction Bump folks, a concise directory would be nice. A bulk input device would be even better.

http://shareyourwares.kftbdesign.com/
http://www.ibitthesheriff.com/
http://www.wannabepulse.com/
http://myfatbelly.com/blog/auction-advertising/
http://www.show-your-auction.com/
http://www.bumphub.com/auctions/index.php
http://www.marvinjoe.com/
http://www.theirishshamrockcompany.com/
http://www.auctionpimpin.com/
http://www.showyourauctions.com/
http://www.inspiremeauctions.com/
http://www.auctionwonderland.com/
http://www.kalimarcum.com/
http://magiesplacesite.com/
http://www.sell-it4u.com/auctionbump.htm
http://www.auction-promotion.com/
http://www.wheresyourbid.com/
http://www.shawnsbidness.com/
http://www.ebwiz.com/auctions.php
http://www.dorkauctions.com/
http://www.dejacreations.com/
http://www.bumpyourauctionshere.com/ebaystorebump.htm
http://www.auctionewz.com/
http://www.storepromoter.info/
http://www.bumpauctions.com/
http://www.theshoppingbuzz.info/
http://powersellingmom.com/

Where Do You Keep Your Condoms?

I knew a girl who kept a giant jar full of condoms. It was kinda like those giant jars people would fill up with matchbooks, except it was condoms. She was a fun girl, as you might imagine.
Giant jars of condoms send a message that a respectable girl might not want sent. No, a nice girl might want to go with something more...hmmm...more sedate? More dignified? Less Whorish?
Just uploaded to eBay is a new item we're offering...the Romeo & Juliet Condom Caddy. You see, Romeo and Juliet loved each other so much that they always used protection. Good kids, just misunderstood.
This metal case is actually designed as a cigarette case, but let's be real, there are a lot more people having sex than smoking. In fact, if it weren't for after-sex smoking the cigarette companies would go out of business. So I've re-purposed this case as a condom caddy. The artwork is from Sir Frank Dicksee's 1884 painting of Romeo and Juliet on their wedding night. I thought this painting was appropriate for a condom caddy for a number of reasons...the most important being that the dude's name was Dicksee.
So here it is...the Romeo & Juliet Condom Caddy...don't leave home without it. Available at my eBay store and nowhere else.

eBay Now Monitoring Users Computers

eBay Security made an announcement a couple days ago that gives me real problems. But I don't hear any other voices raised. so maybe its just me...does no one else have a problem with this announcement from John Canfield?

To protect the Community against this type of fraud, beginning today, eBay will start noting which computers members typically use to conduct their buying and selling activity. After our data collection phase, sometime in June eBay will begin verifying our sellers when they list an item to ensure they are logging in from the same machines they have successfully used previously – usually a home or business computer.

If you are a seller, and you attempt to list an item from a different computer – for example, from a PC you are borrowing in a hotel or library – eBay will make an automated call to the phone number you have registered with us to confirm it is really you. We may also prompt you to verify your identity in other ways.

So eBay is monitoring users, and if we use different computers from time to time it will flag their crook-o-meter? I don't get that at all.
I'm looking forward to doing some traveling this summer and I know I'll be accessing my auctions from public computers and bumming from friends. Can I expect a call to my home phone from Guido in eBay Security? Too bad, I won't be home.

Can somebody explain this to me?

New Video for the eBay Store

For a long time I've been meaning to put together some videos to use in my eBay listings. Product demonstrations and such to let the folks know that I am a real person with real products.
Today I finally got around to putting something together. I did this demonstration of my flip-top lighters with my little Sony camera and Windows Movie Maker...about as basic as you can get. I think it came out nice and accomplishes what needed to be done.

COOQY eBay Widgets

I've installed a widget in the sidebar of Gnu Makins that comes from Cooqy.com. Cooqy widgets make it possible for eBay sellers to advertise their entire eBay inventory anywhere on the web with their customizable, eye-catching Showcase widget and Storefront widget. They also have a widget for sellers with a hot little search feature, but its a little too fat to fit my sidebar.
The widget I've installed is the Showcase widget and shows some of my watch offerings. Pretty cool!

eBay Trends

eBay is a funny critter. I've been selling on eBay since 1998 and I still don't have a good feel for the ebb and flow of buyer engagement. Sometimes things are going gangbusters and sometimes the sales trickle to nothingness.
The tendency during periods of hot sales is to think that I'm a genius. Obviously. During slow times the general thought is that eBay is somehow screwing up my sales. Those bastards...what are they screwing around with now? Changing the search parameters again? Running a TV campaign targeted at Mongolian shepherds?
So it was interesting to come across this tidbit I found while playing around on Alexa. Comparing the last 6 months of traffic on eBay and Amazon...you'll see that both sites follow similar traffic patterns. I find the hard Alexa numbers of little use, because, let's face it, they're not very hard numbers. They are percentages of an unknown. But I do find the relationship between these two interesting, if only because it shows that seasonal fluctuations in traffic are for the most part out of their hands.