This week’s Carnival had the topic “Setting your eBay goals for 2007″ and we had 7 submissions which you will find below. Not all were on-topic, but all were excellent blog articles and all well appreciated.

Remember that this is the first week for The Auction Rebel to host the Carnival of eBay Sellers. We’ll be doing it for the entire month of January.

Tom is still looking for a February host so if you are interested, let him know! The Carnival is an excellent way to increase the readership of your Blog … and through your blog you should also be increasing you eBay sales. If you are wondering how, have a look at my article on “Building an eBay Blog“

So here we go with this week’s 7 submissions:

Thatedeguy presents Do you have goals? posted at eBay Habit, saying, “Thanks for hosting Gary!”

Tom Murphy presents My eBay goals for 2007 posted at PGA-Auctions, saying, “With these goals in mind, I am looking forward to a very successful 2007″

My own post Setting eBay Goals For 2007 With Steve Pavlina.

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If you read yesterday’s post The Carnival Of eBay Sellers #7, you know that The Auction Rebel will be hosting the Carnival for the month of January.

To encourage participation by both bloggers and readers, at the end of the month, I will give away four copies of my new Profiting From Garage Sales ebook which will be available sometime during the second week of February. The book will sell for a price of $47.00.

Two copies of the book will be given to people who submit blog posts for inclusion in the Carnival Of eBay Sellers during January and two copies will go to readers of the Carnival. To qualify for one of the gifts as a blogger or reader you must comply with the appropriate set of rules below.

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The Carnival Of eBay Sellers # 7 is now on-line. Tom Murphy began this project seven weeks ago and he has put a lot of time and effort into getting it off the ground and running. If you’ve found some of the Carnival articles educational or entertaining, I encourage you to stop by Tom’s blog and leave a comment letting him know you appreciate his efforts.

People who submitted articles for this weeks Carnival are:

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Yesterday there was an auction in southern Minnesota that had several things I was interested in. My plan was to leave early Thursday morning and spend the day visiting some antique shops on the way down, spend the night, go to the auction, and drive back that night.

One of the stops on my agenda for Thursday was a new antique shop that had recently opened that a friend had told me had a lot of paper items and magazines. The shop was located in an old four story brick building in the middle of downtown in a town of about 7,000 people.

When I walked it was as though I’d just walked into a Hallmark store. The entire shop was filled greeting cards and the latest “collectible” from Enesco, Hallmark, and similar companies. I was greeted by a woman behind the counter and she asked if she could help me. I said I was looking for the new antique shop in town, but that I must be in the wrong building. She replied that I was in the right place, that all the antiques were in the basement and on the third floor. and asked if I was looking for anything special. The following conversation ensued:

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This is the sixth week of the Carnival Of eBay Sellers and, as usual, Tom Murphy has gathered together some interesting reads related to doing business on eBay.

It’s nice to see that gradually an increasing number of eBay bloggers are beginning to submit articles to be included in the Carnival. This week contributions came from:

Stormy Peters who contributed two articles - Buying Kids Cloths On ebay and The Secret Of Buying On eBay.

Lynn Cognito offered The Sales Aftermath: Beware Of PayPal Chargebacks. Lynn’s contribution got me thinking. I’ve been using PayPal since it’s conception and have never had even one charge-back from a customer.

Tom Murphy, the host of the Carnival Of eBay Sellers, also contributed an on topic article titled Keeping Track For Uncle Sam. Tom also did his normal excellent job of digging up some other interested eBay reading to fill out this weeks Carnival.

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In a little more than a week it will be 2007 and people’s thoughts will begin to turn to those dreaded words - income tax. Are you ready? Or, will April 15th find you frantically shifting through piles of old receipts and invoices in a last minute effort to put your eBay house in order?

If you are serious about eBay, it is imperative that you also be serious about keeping accurate records of your eBay related income and expenses on an ongoing basis throughout the year. Having a system in place to keep track of these records, and keeping it up-to-date throughout the year makes for a lot less stress when tax time rolls around.

But, there’s an even more important reason for keeping accurate, up-to-date records throughout the year than just tax purposes.

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Tom Murphy has posted the Carnival Of eBay Sellers #5 for this week. As always you will find some useful information to help seller’s build their eBay business. I encourage you to drop on by and check out the attractions the Carnival is offering this week. As always you are encouraged to contribute an on-topic article for next week’s Carnival if you have a blog of your own.

By the way, next month the Carnival Of eBay Sellers will be hosted here at The Auction Rebel. If you are getting tired of me hinting that you might consider contributing - be warned, I’ll be turning downright nasty about this next month.

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eBay’s Buy It Now (BIN) feature is one of their most popular listing upgrades. It is popular from the buyers’ standpoint because it allows them to buy an item immediately, at a price they are willing to pay, without having to keep track of the ending times of auctions. It is also a quick and easy way to shop for special occasions or the holidays if they are in a rush to buy something.

BIN can also be advantageous to sellers who offer products that have a relatively established selling price. They are insured of getting the price they want for an item (if it sells), faster turn around of inventory, and, if they include the PayPal option, it insures they will not have any hassles with getting paid.

But what about the seller who offer products with no real established value such as antiques or collectible items? Is their a place for the BIN feature in their selling repertoire?

Personally, while I don’t use eBay’s BIN feature very often, I do occasionally use it in two different ways.

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Tom Murphy brings us the Carnival Of eBay Sellers #4 this morning. Once again, it appears as though Tom has spent a a considerable amount of time digging for helpful eBay selling related information to help seller’s build their eBay business.

Tom is devoting considerable time and effort managing this blog carnival and it’s long-term success can only be beneficial to eBay sellers of all levels of experience. Please stop by, check out issue # 4, and leave a comment to let Tom know you appreciate the effort he’s putting forth to make this succeed.

Better yet, contribute next week.

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As an eBay seller there are numerous shipping services you can utilize, but the three most widely offered are the United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS), and Federal Express (FedEx). There are pluses and minuses to using each. Today we’ll look at each of these three options and I’ll relate my experiences with each.

United States Postal Service

The majority of people selling on eBay use the USPS and for good reason - in most cases, it’s the easiest and most convenient to use. Some of the advantages to using the USPS are:

• For packages weighing 2 pounds or less they are the cheapest option
• Their Media Mail option for shipping books, records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, software, etc. provides a large savings over other options
• Most packages that qualify for Media Mail can be shipped overseas via M-Bag at huge savings
• Their Priority Mail option provides reasonable shipping costs anywhere in the US
• Flat rate shipping envelopes and boxes offer huge savings in many instances
• They offer free shipping boxes and other supplies for Priority and Express mail
• They provide an easy means to ship to International buyers
• For most people, no matter where you live you can find a US Post Office within a few miles of your residence
• They offer a free pick-up option
• Insurance, delivery confirmation, and other additional services are available at reasonable rates
• They offer several methods of printing and paying for postage right from your home or office

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