Recession the best time to Sell Kid's Clothes Online

If there were ever a time to start an eBay store, it is now. With the recession packing a punch on everyone's pocket book, more and more people are opting for different means of acquiring goods for their families. It is becoming too expensive for most of us to pay retail store prices, so eBay, thrift stores, and garage sales are serving as viable alternatives. Sadly even thrift store prices are reflecting our ailing economy. And eBay is becoming ever more competitive for buyers, and that is where you come in. eBay, what I consider now, a sellers market.

One of the better ways of making a quick buck on eBay is to sell kid's clothing, specifically clothing for school age children. Kids seem to grow out of their clothes before they are worn out, so not only does selling your children's outgrown clothes on eBay economical, it is also green. It's a winning option for buyer and seller. You make some extra dough, buyer receives a needed product without spending an arm and a leg, and less of Earth's resources are expended. It's a nice way of recycling and making a little extra money at the same time.

Now for the 'how to':

1. You will need an eBay seller's store. For those of you who don't already have one, it isn't that difficult. Go to www.ebay.com, and follow the seller's tutorials. eBay does a good job at walking you through the process.

2. Be sure you start a Paypal account to go along with your eBay store. Visit www.paypal.com and follow their instructions. Paypal isn't a necessity, but it offers buyers and sellers more protection than most alternatives. Plus some eBay buyers will not bid on items from sellers who do not allow payments through Paypal.

3. Inventory the items you plan to sell. Make sure they are in good condition, and if not, make sure you note any flaws in your listing. (If you misrepresent your items, you will almost certainly receive negative feedback Feedback scores are very important on ebay. They reflect the integrity of your store.)

4. Put comparable sizes together to be sold in a lot.

5. Make sure your clothes are for the correct season. Do not try to sell Winter clothes in the Summer, and vice versa.

eBay Goes To Court To Hang On To Fabric Of Skype

Skype is taking to court the owner of the very P2P infrastructure on which it depends, in a licensing dispute that could even kill the internet phone company in its current form. Parent eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) filed suit in London’s High Court against Joltid, a Jersey, England-based company started by its own founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis that licenses its vital peer-to-peer technology.

After founding P2P filesharer KaZaA then selling it to Sharman Networks in 2002, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis went on to start Joltid, further developing peer-to-peer technologies for distributed storage and communication. Zennstrom and Friis picked Joltid’s Global Index product to underpin Skype’s efficient means of routing internet voice calls, and the license has been in effect since.

Skype recently ripped up an agreement allowing either side to take action beginning March. But, according to eBay, Joltid, actually registered in the British Virgin Islands, says that’s a breach of terms and tried to end the licensing relationship. So eBay has asked the High Court to rule the termination attempt “invalid” and declare Skype is not in breach. The case was scheduled to be heard at the High Court on Friday.

eBay’s release says: “Skype strongly refutes those allegations and is confident of its legal position.” But its SEC filing shows how worried it really is - to put it baldly, Skype would be finished: “As with any litigation, there is the possibility of an adverse result if the matter is not resolved through negotiation. In such event, Skype would be adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype’s business as currently conducted would likely not be possible.”

Example of Keywords!

Let’s say you were promoting baby carriers. The baby carrier is too generic of a keyword, but black Baby Bjorn Carrier is a more targeted keyword. You have to find the one's that are getting some searches but very little competition such as 5000 or less. I suggest you keep your keywords in excel spread sheet, it is easier. So your assignment for the lesson 2 is to choose a niche market (always better to go with the one you know something about!) Also try to pick a price range that is over $60 /item. Or at least majority of items to be over $60 dollars. And sit down and go through the list of keywords and make sure you pick the one that has a min. of 30 search results.

These keyword tools are not really all that accurate, but they give you a good idea! Always research your keywords with "keyword" (quotes). "" has nothing to do with someone searching for it with quotes. It just narrows down for you how many people are optimizing their sites for those keywords.

As a side note: if I were you, for the first and second site, I would go with products that are priced between $100 and $200 because your commission will be higher. ;) One more last important step to take when doing your research! Use google trends! This is very important because if it is the end of the summer and you are planning on promoting swimming pools, you do not want to start building a new site. What you want to do instead is start building a Holiday site! Two photos below will show you how good this market is! And if you take a look at it! It is good and healthy!

You should take a break and do your keyword research now! It will help you a lot!

For any further queries please leave a comment and I will answer them.

Importance of Keywords

At this point I recommend for you not to spend any money on keyword tools. None of them are that great and there are a lot of free tools you can use at first. So here are the free tools! Tool SEO, Free Wordtracker, and google keywords. At this time you really do not need to spend money on keyword tool.

Now let me show you how to do research on your keywords. This is what works for me and I hope it will work for you too!

And the best way to research your keywords is to actually sit down and write everything you can think of, you would type in if searching for that product. Than research your competition and that is that.

Keyword research is the most important thing besides the obvious the niche research!!! You need to find the keywords that have a competition of less than 5000 pages competing and that is hard, but not impossible....Keyword are what the people will type in...For example....If you are promoting baby bjorn carrier, you do not want to come up under baby blue carrier, but you want to be on the first three pages of Google for Baby Bjorn Carrier. To get people to click more on that link you need catchy headline with different keywords. Now I've been testing this and it seems like this works the best and it helps me rank high for my keywords.

The title that worked the best for me are written like this!

Baby Bjorn Carrier | Discount Baby Bjorn Carrier | Cheap Baby Bjorn Carrier Your job later on is going to be to rank high for each of these keyword phrase. That is the part about the promotion you have to do and that is where most of the work is going to come in!

Keywords are hard....People often ask, so how do you get on the first page of Google? I will get into the basics later on, but it will depend on your keywords. The goal is to find keywords that are searched for, and that are at the last leg of the purchasing cycle. See, you need people to buy in order for you to make money.

You may be confused on this....Don't worry...I had a hard time with keywords for months....literally... I did not understand why everyone was saying we had to find keyword that had at least 30-40 searches per day....Let me tell you why this is important....If your website has 30 pages and each page gets 30-40 searches per day, how much money will you make? Let me tell you...A lot!

So here is the thing... When selecting your keywords, get yourself in purchasing mode....What would you type in if you are searching for that product? If it is Baby Carriers, and specific brand you would type in keywords as shown above. The product you are promoting, you are actually going to buy if you type those keywords in, (in your mind only)....So what will you type in?

If someone wanted to buy humidifier, they may type in “can a humidifier help with allergies?” Which humidifier is good for sinus allergies?

O.k. let say you were promoting a computer...What will people type in? What is the best dell computer? Dell computer vs. Intel., cheap dell computer, discounted dell computer, are dell computer any good, which is better dell computer or Intel computer.

The goal is to get the thinking of the keywords people would type in and than check to see how much competition they have...If they have less than 5000 you select those keywords... Than you need to optimize for the keywords and you need to promote that page so it gets more back links so it stays on the first 3 pages of the Google, but preferably on the first page!

There will be a difference between the article keywords and website keywords and I will explain this later on!

Once you have a list typed by yourself go to the free keyword tools and find out which once will work... per each page you want to have 3 keyword phrases.

As I said, the keywords are not set in the stone. Besides the regular keyword you need to look for the commonly misspelled one's as well. You may want to incorporate keywords such as cheap, discount, sale on product name!

How to Start Blogging

People have different thoughts that want to express. Mostly, they cannot show it because of many reasons. Most people just keep their thoughts inside them and never speak it out.

One way of expressing these thoughts out of them is through writing. Writing is the usual outlet of those people that are afraid to show or express their thoughts through their mouth or through their gestures.

People's thought are usually written and published so that it can be shared and read by others. Many papers and publications publish people's thoughts for different reasons, but the purpose is to inform.

With advent of technology, new ways are introduced to share people's thoughts. It introduced more high tech and faster way of expressing ideas and sharing thoughts through blogs.

Blogs are web site- based journals where people can publish their ideas, thoughts and ideas online. Anyone that wanted to share and give information can start a blog. It is straight- forward and in many cases, it is free.

The term blog is shortened form of WEB blog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining and adding an article to an existing blogs is called blogging. individual articles on a blog are called blog posts or entries, and person who posts entries is called blogger.

Blogs are fastest growing mode of mass communication in world today. Blogs are very powerful. It has capabilities of affecting elections, corporate policy and even brings down a country. It has power of changing mind and mentality of human. Blogs can change world.

The following are suggested steps in starting a BLOG. This is useful for those who want to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions in a very efficient and fast way.

1. Look for blog sites: There are free blog sites and some are with charge. All blogs sites whether free or with charge come with many features but it vary.
   
   
2. Try to explore and check out blog SITES that offer features that attract you most.
   
   
3. A blog can be private or personal: You should decide on whether blog you are going to post is to be either of two. You should decide if you want any internet visitors or users are able to read your blog or if you just want, your friends and family be one to read it. There are many blog sites that offer ability to password- protect the published posts so that only those who are approve of can view blog posted.
   
   
4. You can create look of your BLOG: Decide on how you want it to appear. You can choose color scheme and layout that will satisfy you. Most sites come with sets of predefined layouts and scheme where you can choose from or you can edit your own.
   
   
5. When you are done setting up your blog, test it out by writing a few posts. Adjust the layout or style that you see fit.
   
   
6. If you want to make your blog LOOK more attractive, there are some sites with many features to make it look better.
   
   
7. After creating and making your blog attractive, you can now publish your blog by sending URL to people whom you want to be able to read your blog. You can also publish URL on your website. Add URL to posts you make on other blogs.

Before posting your blog, spell- checks your writing. ALWAYS keep posts interesting. Try to avoid focusing on things that most readers will not find worthwhile.

If you want people to return on a regular basis on your site to read it, update your blog more frequently. Try to establish a reader base that will motivate you to write more and in return, more people will read your posts.

If no one visits your site for FIRST few months, do not feel bogged down. Since we are in a very large society and in different communities, it will take time for your blog to be noticed.

Some slang terms and too many abbreviations offend readers. If you want a broad readership, do not use many abbreviations and slang terms. Make use of words that can be understood by many people.

In making blogs, it requires sincerity and dedication. wanting to share ideas, thoughts, opinions and information felt in every article being posted. Every time you post, include your heart.

Lucky Sellers get 10 Free Auction Listings

eBay is running a promotion in which certain sellers will qualify to list 10 auction-style listings between April 1 - 14, 2009, with no insertion fees. The promotion announcement page informs sellers that if they qualify, they would have received an email and a Message Center message.

It's not known how eBay selected which sellers to allow into the promotion. All other fees apply, see website for details and restrictions.

Layoffs possible, Golden Parachute for Executives

Barrons cites a Wedge Partners report that "the company's business is "deteriorating" and that the company is readying layoffs that could affect 10% of the company's 15,000 employees."

If there are layoffs, it will be interesting to compare the severance packages of "regular employees" and managers with those of eBay's top executives.

Like many corporate boards, eBay's Board of Directors put into place Golden Parachutes for its top executives. It appears from SEC filings that some top execs will receive two years' target cash compensation, defined as annual base salary plus target annual incentive bonus. That "bonus" is usually 100% of salary, so it would be like getting 4 years' worth of pay if they are laid off. (President and CEO John Donahoe's target bonus is 125% of salary.)

Donahoe and Dutta's severance packages are detailed in this SEC filing.

Here's one example of a Golden Parachute. On July 16, 2008, eBay revealed in an SEC filing that the company's Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan would receive a severance package in the event of his termination without cause:

providing a cash payment equal to two years' target cash compensation (defined as annual base salary plus target annual incentive bonus) if the termination occurs within two years of the date of the severance agreement, one and one-half years' target cash compensation if the termination occurs more than two but within three years of the date of the severance agreement, and one year's target cash compensation if the termination occurs more than three years after the date of the severance agreement.

Meg Whitman and her inner circle of top executives are gone. I use that term loosely, since some, including Bill Cobb and Whitman herself, are on the payroll through the end of the year; Whitman gets office space and IT and secretarial support for 3 more years and will stay on the Board at least until June 2010. Rajiv Dutta, who retired recently, is working with his replacement Lorrie Norrington on the transition until October 2008 and will subsequently act as a consultant through the end of the year.

With layoffs reportedly looming, it now seems quite significant that Bob Kagle, the Benchmark venture capitalist who has been on the Board from the beginning, chose to step down from the Board in June.

The cynic might say Whitman would prefer any large-scale layoffs to come after election day - she and Carly Fiorina are economic advisors to Republican candidate John McCain, and bad news at eBay would not reflect well on the campaign. But layoffs in the prime holiday shopping month of November would not be good for eBay business.

I have no inside information about the likelihood of layoffs. The management of eBay has been a bit of a mystery for the last year or so. But if they are coming, I'm eager to see exactly where the cuts occur