Don Lancaster's
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Auction Help
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Big  Changes  Afoot!
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Besides needing this web responsive update, many changes are now happening in the eBay and auction scene. We have renamed our historic classic auction page as auct01w.shtml and you can find it here. Much of ahsamp1.shtml has also been revised and adaptively updated in this file.

Many, and likely most, eBay sellers have reported precipitous and unsustainable drops in sales. Likely caused mostly by Amazon ( non-auction ) and their significantly lower shipping costs. Plus those Pacific Rim outrageous shipping subsidies. Other alternatives do appear below.

Traditional auctioneers and live auctions are now both clearly endangered species. Owing to online auctions having overwhelming advantages. Your optimum online auction strategy remains to proxy bid your max once one minute before any possible automatic extension.

As before with both types of auctions, particularly valuable are "contents of cabinet" and "contents of room" opportunities. Where a 30:1 BSR Buy Sell Ratio can often be easy to acheive.

And, of course, the few live auction opportunities that remain will work out best when you can arrange to be the only bidder. Especially in hour 15 of a 2 hour live auction where it is 120 in the shade. Not mentioning the scorpions or the five inch hail. Plus, needless to say, the lack of any functional restrooms.

Survival as an online seller demands you minimize your storage charges and other fixed expenses. As well as strictly seeing out a 30:1 BSR Buy Sell Ratio. And continually rethinking your pricing strategies. Limiting your sales to those items you can hold extended at arm's length is one way to attack increasing shipping costs.

Mil surplus is now long gone, and industrial surplus sales have pretty much reverted to using major online auction houses. There is one remaining of these sites that I still use. This is Raytheon via Exostar.

Community Colleges and such are abandoning traditional live auctions in favor of online only sites such as Public Surplus.

As before, web auction sources that not only do not work but remain an outright joke include "buying wholesale", drop shipping ( aka "drop shitting" ), or distress pallets. Just remember that Norfolk and Waay is by far your best web drop shipping resource.

Our own eBay auctions can be found here.

The Auction Help Stuff
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My  eBay  Classics
eBay Buying Summary
eBay Selling Summary
Successful eBay Buyer Strategies
Successful eBay Seller Strategies
eBay Secrets
Son of eBay Secrets
My eBay Photo Secrets
Our own eBay auctions

The summaries made use of our Gonzo  Powerpoint emulation software and tutorials. More examples here. The general Gonzo utilities can be found here and their tutorial here. And the larger scheme of things here.

Enhancing  Your  Skills
Enhancing your skills I
Enhancing your skills II
Enhancing your skills III
Enhancing your skills IV
Enhancing your skills V
Enhancing your skills VI
Enhancing your skills VII
Enhancing your skills VIII

The original title of this series was "Enhancing your eBay skills". We probably should change the name to "Enhancing your Amazon skills" While we have left things as they were here, much of this should still apply to most any online auction sales venture. More detailed menus can be found here.

Alternatives to eBay
Amazon Alibaba Atomic Mall
Bonanza Craig's List eBay>
eBid Ecrater Etsy
Intershop Liquidation Mercari
Newegg Overstock Rainworx
Rakutin Ruby Lane Shopify
US Auction USiff Walmart
Webstore --- ---

One advantage of some of these "alternates to eBay" sites is their tremendous savings in bubble wrap, strapping tape and other shipping materials. Because you are rather likely to end up not selling much of anything.

An interesting comparison site can be found here.

Shipping  Resources
Acme Mapper Area Codes
Craighters Freighters Craig's List
Currency Exchange Echo
FedEx Freight Center
Freight Pro Google Earth Pro
Intershipper U-Haul
UPS UPS LCL
UPS Store U-Ship
USPS ZIP Code Lookup

Some  AZ  Auctioneers
ASU Surplus AZ Auctioneers
Bruce Tingle Cunningham>
Mangold Palm Group
Pot of Gold Public Surplus
Sierra Auction U/A Auctions

Again, both live auctions and traditional auctioneer skill sets are highly endangered, with online web auctions newly running away with all the marbles. Some older info ( including our regional auction locating service ) can be found here. Most of which is now largely historic.

Appraising Tech Values
Amazon
eBay - them
eBay - us
Google Search
McMaster Carr
MSC Direct
OEM's Trade
Radwell
Rodchester Electronics
W.W. Grainger

My two insider secret places to find the value of electronic instruments and components are Radwell and OEM's Trade from the above list. Radwell sometimes also buys off-the-wall obscure tech items.

My  Image  PostProcs
Architect's Perspective Auto Vignetter
Bitmap Typewriter Dodge & Burn Utility
eBay Photo Examples eBay Photo Secrets
Gonzo Tutorial Gonzo Utilities
Image PostProc Tools Imaginative Images
Log Analyzer Code Log Analyzer demo
Magic Knockouts Many Live Examples
New Fat Tail Arrows PS Font Snooper 
Step by Step Prep Swings and Tilts
Web and CSS Colors ---

I very strongly feel that decent images are the core secret to long term successful eBay sales. Snapping a picture or scanning an image is only step one in a long process. You often should spend a minimum of TWO HOURS in your image postproc!

Many of these tools ( especially the Architect's Perspective and the Auto Vignetting Backgrounder ) use my PostScript Gonzo Utilities. These are more or less ordinary textfiles that suitably remap a bitmap image. Modified versions can be run by using the Windows command line and sending Acrobat Distiller the secret incantation of //acrodist /F before your drag and drop.

Random  Resources
Arcata Image Editor Auction Flex
CSS Validator Free eBooks
Free Classic Papers Google AdSense
GSA Auctions Inside the Auct Game
Lab X Link Validator
Live Auctioneers Our eBay Auctions
Power Sellers Unite PRO Sitemaps
Quick Phrase Responsive Design
UCC Law USA Web
Vendio Website Validator

And here's a leftover fragment from way back whenever. These are useful for finding how schools and municipalities dispose of auctionable surplus...

 National Universities
 National Comm Colleges
 Arizona Universities
 Arizona Comm Colleges
 Maricopa Comm College
 Arizona School Districts
 Arizona Towns
 Arizona Counties

Historic  and  Archival
Blatant 54 Blatant 59
Blatant 60 Blatant 65
Blatant 70 Blatant 73
Muse 107 Muse 121
Muse 128 Muse 133
Muse 148 Muse153
Resbn 06 Resbn 73
Resbn 81 Resbn 82
Resbn 87 ---

Plus this historic file, now long out of date. More details on these older auction related file contents here.

Web Auctioneer Houses
Am Auct Auct Zip Baja Bid Bidspotter
Branford Bid It Up Cinc Indust Exostar
Go Dove H. Davis Heritage Hilco
Hyper Am New Mil Palm Grp Proxibid
Pub Surp RL Liquid Salvex Surp Sol
Tauber US Auct Worley ---

Some "end user" others have been reviewed here.


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