It’s that time again; time to break out the hearts, the chocolates and the flowers. Lovers will soon be buying gifts for their sweeties.

According to researcher IBISWorld, Valentine’s Day sales should be a little sweeter for sellers this year, as sales for the holiday are expected to increase by 5 percent.

Valentine shoppers last year spent an average of $116.21 on flowers, cards, jewelry and other gifts to romance the special people in their lives. Candy and clothing were among the top gifts, and they’ll likely be top gifts this year as well, notes Auctiva Product Analyst and eBay seller Rebecca Miller.

If you have these or other romantic items to offer, now is the time to get them prepped to make sure you get a little love, too, this Valentine’s Day. To best position items to make the most sales, we’ve come up with a few strategies you can enlist to entice lovers to buy from you.

Suggest gifts. We all know how hard it can be to find the right gift for others—especially when it’s that special someone—so make shopping easier on your buyers by helping them find the right gifts. You can do this by suggesting gifts, that is, by compiling a list of the top gifts for Valentine’s Day. You can keep it simple by coming up with two gift lists: top gifts for him and top gifts for her. Or you can expand your suggestions to include top gifts for mom, dad, wives, husbands, daughters, etc.

Dust off those holiday leftovers. If you’re unsure of what to offer, look back through the leftovers you have from the holidays. Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to clear out any romantic items that might not have sold for Christmas. Good V-Day gifts include perfumes, slippers, candy, relaxing robes, cookbooks and other items that will make a person feel warm on the inside. If you don’t have these in stock, you can often find these and other inexpensive gifts at local discount stores.

Add a little romance to your store or listings. It’s also good practice to remind shoppers that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner by adding an appropriate template to your listings, or even posting a countdown to the holiday on your Web store. This will remind them, while they’re looking at your listings, that they need to get their shopping done!

Offer free gift wrapping. If you’ve been selling online for some time, you know that several of the people who will stop by your store or listings will be last-minute buyers, who may not have time to wrap their gifts for their special somebody. So why not be a lifesaver by letting buyers know that they need not worry, you’ll take care of the wrapping for them?

Offer V-Day deals. Lastly, a holiday is always a great opportunity to have a promotion. This could be a Valentine’s Day sale, or a 10-percent-off coupon you’ll give buyers on Valentine’s Day if they buy from you. The latter won’t cost you much, and if you let buyers know about the promotion via mailing lists, social media, your listing and/or store, you could draw in tons of buyers.

These are just a few strategies that may prove helpful this February. What strategies are you going to use this Valentine’s Day to entice buyers to visit your store or listings? Let us know in the comments below.

At the beginning of every year, I try to come up with a few selling resolutions. Trying to be more organized, keeping better records and finding better merchandise to sell always seem to make it onto my list of resolutions. But this year, I think I may explore something else, too.

One thing I have wanted to do for some time, but haven’t had the time to explore, is building my own online store. Yes, it can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding if you take the time to do it right. It can mean another source of income and added freedom.

If I ventured into that, I would, of course, use our own Auctiva Commerce software to get started. But then I think about everything involved in starting an online store and get a little nervous. For instance, I would have to consider my product line. The potpourri of random merchandise I currently sell on eBay won’t do on an online store.

I would need to find other inventory. I’d have to research my interests, see what niches are out there, see what items are in demand and what needs aren’t being met by other online sellers.

Then, once I had settled on a type of product or products, the real work would begin. I’d need to research and decide what shipping methods to use, how and what payment methods I’d accept, what my store and branding would look like, and how to drive traffic to my shop.

The last one would be the biggest challenge. Though the idea of having my own store is appealing, I know how difficult it can be for a “little guy” to stand out from the competition online. Sure, I have more than 12 years of online-selling experience, but I’ve never had to worry about driving traffic to a site.

Right now, I simply create a listing, use the appropriate keywords, give my items a competitive price and wait for the traffic to come to me on eBay.

I’m not saying I’m afraid of the work I would need to do to drive traffic to my store. I know I can submit product feeds to multiple services like Google Product Search and TheFind to make my items easier to find online, but venturing into the unknown is always scary.

It is intimidating if all you’ve ever really done, in the way of online selling, is offer your items on eBay or Amazon—two very trafficked sites.

I can’t tell you for sure that I’ll take the leap, but I’ll definitely look more into opening my own shop. Yes, eBay’s been very good to me for more than a decade, but maybe—if I do my homework—I can find another venue to offer my products and also find success there. What do you think? Should I venture onto my own store?

What are your resolutions for this year? Tell us below and happy 2012.

The end of the year is always an exciting time because, as the holiday bustle winds down, we start to look forward to opportunities that await us in the new year.

For online sellers, it might be a new product line or supplier, a different selling venue, a refreshed marketing approach. At Auctiva EDU, we’re counting down the days to the launch of our brand new site, TheOnlineSeller.com!

Come Jan. 4, we’ll have a whole new identity and home away from our parent Auctiva.com. Why is this a big deal? Well, for starters, as an independent publication, we’ll have complete autonomy when it comes to reporting on the issues that affect online sellers. And we’re expanding our charter to cover a broader array of online marketplaces and selling platforms, business tools and technologies.

We’ve designed TheOnlineSeller.com from the ground up to be a friendly, helpful and easy-to-navigate source for information and advice you need to be successful in your business, wherever you happen to sell.

You’ll still find sound advice to help you sell on eBay, but you’ll also get the latest on Amazon, Bonanza, Etsy and others as well as instructive articles about sourcing, business trends, content marketing, social networking, search engine optimization, mobile commerce, Web design and much more.

Here’s a sneak peak at the new site:

We’re still putting the final touches on TheOnlineSeller.com, but bookmark the site now, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter so you’ll never miss an update. Also, be sure to like us on Facebook to be entered in our contest. The winner will be a featured seller in an upcoming newsletter, with a full article and links to their store or listings!

Here’s to your continued success in 2012 and to new beginnings. We hope to see you over at TheOnlineSeller.com!

Just when I thought I had made it through this holiday season with no buyer issues, it happened. I knew it was too good to be true.

I turned on the selling machine right before Thanksgiving and didn’t stop until last week, giving me a solid four weeks of selling. I officially ended all of my listings on Dec. 15 to avoid those “I better receive my order by Christmas!” threats from shoppers who don’t seem to own a calendar.

Things were hopping for a while! I made trips to the post office almost every day and freed up a lot of room in my storage area. Then it came.

Every holiday season, I’ve come to expect at least three “I didn’t get my item!” emails from buyers. And even after replying to those buyers with the delivery confirmation information (that they already had in their eBay transaction details, and clearly showed the items as delivered), there was always one or two who filed a claim with eBay. I always fight these claims and win, but it’s still frustrating.

It’s the idea that shoppers would file a claim, even though they know I held up my end of the bargain and shipped their item safely and promptly, and had proof it was delivered.

My wish for this year was to not have any troubles. I went above and beyond what I thought was already very good customer service, and, up until Monday, I started to think I had escaped this selling season unscathed. I was so wrong.

On Monday, an email from a buyer greeted me stating they never received the item they bought back on Dec. 6. I went straight to the Transaction page on eBay, clicked the delivery confirmation number and saw that the product had been delivered on Dec. 8.

Why were they just now emailing me, even though I told them it was shipping via USPS two-day Priority Mail back on the Dec. 6, if they hadn’t gotten their item? Who waits more than 10 days after an item was supposed to be delivered to question the shipment? Just one type of buyer, and that is what I call a scammer.

It’s like they think every seller on eBay is like Amazon, Walmart or any other major retailer that has a huge budget and can afford to handle these ridiculous claims and dole out refunds left and right.

So here I sit, waiting for this buyer to file an “item significantly not as described” claim, since their “item not received” claim will get them nowhere in the refund department. And, if I’m lucky, I might just get a nasty negative feedback, too! Happy holidays to me.

How have your transactions gone so far? Any trouble buyers? Let us know below.

The holidays are a time to spend time with family, spread that holiday cheer and make a few sales, aka bucks. I recently decided it would be a great time to post a few items we acquired at a local storage unit auction to start 2012 fresh and free of clutter.

I posted listings for several vintage Whittall and Javits hats. The high-end caps were in great condition, many of them still had their original tags, and I thought they would make the perfect present for a few dapper ladies.

One of my listings sold right away. It was a lot of five vintage hats. Two others took a little time to sell, but sold eventually. A few didn’t sell. But instead of giving up hope, I decided to relist some of the hats. Among them was a lovely pink cap with a short white veil. I, personally loved it, and was hopeful someone else would love it, too.

This time that hat sold—and it sold quickly. However, the buyer won the item on a Saturday. By Monday I had yet to receive a payment. By the end of the week, still no payment.

I was losing hope that my buyer would pay and, being an occasional seller, I wasn’t sure what to do. In the past, I’ve received payment in less than two days. I asked our in-house selling expert Rebecca Miller for her advice. She suggested waiting a few more days to see if the buyer would pay then sending the shopper an invoice. She also asked me if I had explicitly stated in my listing how quickly I expected payment. I had not.

“OK,” I thought, “I know for next time.”

A few more days went by and it had been a week since the buyer hit the Buy It Now button on my listing. Still, no payment.

To start off the year on a good note, and with a clean desk, I decide to visit a local consignment shop to unload some of the other goods we had scored in our storage unit: two clocks, a retro lamp and a few hats. Among the hats was that lovely pink number I had yet to receive payment for.

Rebecca made the trip with me and, when she noticed the hat in the “consignment shop” pile, she said, “Now, hold on, missy. I thought you had sold that hat?”

I told her I had but that it had been a week and a half since the buyer purchased the hat and still no payment. I had even sent my buyer a payment reminder. She suggested I wait a few more days then take the hat down to shop.

I agreed, thinking I would surely need to make another trip to the shop in a few days. However, the next morning came and, when I opened my email, sure enough, the first message I saw was one from eBay letting me know that my buyer had paid for the item.

“Phew!” I thought. “That was close.”

Rebecca was right, as she often is. If it weren’t for her, I might have a very unhappy buyer on my hands. Luckily I don’t, and my package is now on its way to San Francisco to make a buyer very happy, and I’ve learned a couple things about listing that I can use next time I sell on eBay. Have you ever had a similar experience? What’s a good tip another seller has shared with you that saved you big time? Tell us below.

How were your Cyber Monday sales? Things were looking fairly grim for me over the Thanksgiving weekend, but when Monday hit, the sales started—and they haven’t really stopped since.

Like many other sellers, I’ve been taking advantage of the frequent free or discounted insertion fees for auctions on eBay. Instead of listing 30-day Good ‘Til Cancelled listings, I’ve been using more auctions, most with a Buy It Now option.

It’s been working pretty well. Sales have been steadily coming in, and I’m becoming a familiar face once again at the post office when I drop off my armloads of packages.

If this pace keeps up, I might actually get to see the top of my desk again! I’m going to be ending my selling activities for the season on Dec. 15, so these next couple weeks are going to be list, list, list!

Why stop listing in the third week of December? Well, about five years ago, after dealing with yet another unrealistic buyer who purchased something on Dec. 22 and felt it necessary to threaten me if the item didn’t arrive by Christmas, I swore off selling so close to the holiday. I will miss those last-minute sales, but I won’t miss having to deal with threats from procrastinating buyers.

It’ll give me a little peace of mind and motivate me to keep listing away until then.

I’ve been buying a lot online, too. Last year was the first time I relied on the Internet to find specific gifts I couldn’t find locally. This year I didn’t even shop on Black Friday until 9 a.m. It was the first time in about 10 years I didn’t venture out in the dark to snatch up bargains.

There were so many deals online, I figured my sleep was more valuable than saving $5 on a toaster oven. And thanks to so many stores opening at midnight Thanksgiving night (or earlier) the crowds around here were much smaller. No waiting in line at Kohl’s was priceless!

The smaller crowds let me rest over the Thanksgiving weekend, and now I’m ready to keep focusing on my sales. How are the holidays shaping up for you? Are they busier, slower or about the same compared to last year?

I like dough. Not just plain bread dough but also sweet dough for cinnamon rolls or sugar cookies. I love kneading dough, rolling it and getting it ready to make delicious treats, especially during this time of year. But I like rolling in a different kind of dough a little better.

You know the kind I’m talking about: the kind that helps me add new inventory, access tools to make my eBay listings stand out, and buy the shipping and packing supplies I need to keep my shoppers coming back.

So what can help me, you and other eBay sellers bring in that kind of dough this holiday season? Good inventory and a few Auctiva tools to help you attract buyers, stay organized and create listings quickly.

Festive listing templates: Auctiva has more than 1,800 listing templates and tons of holiday-themed ones to catch shoppers’ eyes as they’re looking for the right gift this holiday season. Templates help you “snazz” up your listings by not only giving them a professional look, they also help break up your listing’s information into easy-to-read segments so buyers find all the information they need quickly. Templates also reassure buyers that you’re a serious seller since you’ve put in some extra effort to make your listings stand out.

Did someone say schedule? Another great Auctiva tools is our scheduling feature, which helps you stay organize—and ahead of the game. With it, you can create eBay listings in advance, save them in your Auctiva account, and launch listings on the day and time of your choice. This means you can knock out tons of listings this week in advance for the busy Cyber Monday, which is quickly approaching, and launch them just in time for that day. What’s nice is that if you have any of Auctiva’s paid plans, including the $2.95/month Basic plan, you can use this feature as many times as you want for no added charge.

Images, images, images: Quality photos are always important. They can help buyers see every detail of your items, and, as you know, buyers want to know exactly what they’re buying, especially during this time of year. Luckily with Auctiva, you can post up to 24 super-sized images at no extra charge to show shoppers your products in their truest nature. Just be sure to still provide quality photos that are sharp and uncluttered to really entice shoppers to buy from you.

Listing profiles and creating similar listings: Auctiva’s Listing Profiles make creating new listings a snap! With them, you can easily add the information you use most often like your payment and shipping information with just a few clicks. You can also create similar listings from your saved Auctiva listings. This is very helpful if you sell a lot of the same types of products, like books and DVD. That’s because by clicking the “Create Similar” link in the Listings tab of your Auctiva account, you create a duplicate listing of one you already have, then you can make a few changes, like the listing title, price or etc., to list the new item.

Integrated shipping: You can also ship quickly by using Auctiva’s new integrated shipping feature, which allows you to print postage right from your Auctiva Sales page, upload the tracking information automatically into eBay and give buyers the fastest service possible. You can even purchase Auctiva Shipping Insurance when you print your labels to protect your shipments.

These are just a few of the ways Auctiva tries to make your selling faster and easier. You can use these features year round, but during this week, you might find them especially helpful as you prepare for the selling season. Here’s to wishing you a very busy selling season—filled with lots of dough!

The United States Postal Service’s current financial situation and speculations about its future have got me a little worried.

I worry we’ll end up paying more and getting less from USPS—and that the recent post office closures will have huge impact on all online sellers who use USPS for their shipping needs, especially during the busy holiday season.

Where eBay is concerned, this could ultimately hurt a lot of sellers’ bottom lines.

Just from my personal experience, USPS has had pretty good service over the last few years. I understand that some might disagree, especially if they have seen their local post offices shut their doors. That makes it more difficult to ship packages quickly.

In the past few months, I have noticed more of my First Class and Priority Mail packages take two to five days longer to arrive at my buyers’ doorsteps. Still, I consider myself lucky to live in a city with two post offices within a mile radius, and near a mail “hub.” When I drop off my prepaid packages in the early afternoon, I will often check the delivery confirmation information online, and see that packages have already arrived at the hub in Sacramento, and are being readied for the next leg in their journey. From there, though, anything can happen.

With delivery times being part of the Detailed Seller Ratings on eBay, having the post office work so efficiently (for the most part) has helped me keep my Top-rated seller status.

Fast ‘N Free

I always try to ship my items within one business day to stay in good standing with eBay and attract buyers. But eBay’s recent announcement of Fast ‘N Free icons makes me a bit nervous. eBay will add these icons to listings that offer free shipping and show a “high probability that the item will be delivered within four business days or less.”

I would love to have one of these crystal balls that eBay uses to estimate how fast (or slow) USPS will be this holiday season!

With talks of USPS possibly ending Saturday deliveries and shutting down more offices, this will slow down service times in the near future, if it hasn’t already. (Maybe that’s what happened to my slow packages).

And who will be the first to complain when a package doesn’t get delivered in the estimated time frame? You guessed it, buyers. And they may ding your stars for this slowdown, even though sellers may have no control over it. This could cause you to lose your Top-rated seller status and the discounts the designation provides.

Small delay may have big impact

Although this hasn’t been confirmed, one seller has said that, even though their local post office is still open on Saturdays, packages that are dropped off late Friday and early Saturday are being held over the weekend. Employees don’t process or scan packages into the system until Monday.

One weekend may not seem like a lot of time, but if eBay tells a buyer the item they bought on Thursday will be delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week, who is going to look like they aren’t doing their job if the item doesn’t arrive until the following Friday? The seller.

What can we, sellers, do? We could overstate the handling time in our eBay listings, so if the post office doesn’t deliver as quickly as it should, buyers might not take it out on us and our DSR scores.

On the other hand, this could hurt our status in search results—and could prevent us from getting that nifty Fast ‘N Free icon in our listings! We could start shipping via another carrier with guaranteed delivery times, but that could be quite costly. I plan on rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

I do enjoy a bit of a gamble once in a while—though I’ve never gambled with my status as an eBay Top-rated seller—but I worry that if I adjust my handling time, I could miss out on buyers. What are your thoughts? What do you think USPS’ current state will mean for you this holiday season?

Bidding wars are heating up on eBay for the third annual Bling My Bra breast cancer charity auctions. Held throughout October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Bling My Bra features handcrafted one-of-a-kind art bras created by individuals, companies and celebrities.

All proceeds benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the global leader in breast cancer awareness and research, through eBay Giving Works. New auctions kick off every day this month, and people are encouraged to browse and bid on these creations.

Several companies are supporting the cause. eBay Inc. sponsored an internal competition and named Oct. 6 “Bling My Bra Day” at its corporate headquarters in San Jose, CA. On that day, dozens of employees unleashed their artistic talents, armed with plenty of glitter, beads, sequins, feathers, paint and other necessities to craft 66 blinged out bras.

CEO John Donahoe provided an additional incentive for the charitable endeavor by donating an iPad 2, which will be awarded to the eBay employee whose bra earns the highest bid.

Others companies also contributed unique bra creations, including Auctiva, the largest third-party provider of tools for eBay sellers, Kabbage Inc., provider of working capital to online sellers, and Breeze Comfort, whose patented Venti Pad brassieres are specially designed to reduce the risk of breast diseases.

eBay celebrity and Auctiva EDU contributor Lynn Dralle, the Queen of Auctions, blinged a bra for the cause, and a “Today” show bra has been autographed by the show’s stars. Bling My Bra Ambassador Janice Davis of Knox, IN, organized a volunteer brigade who created more than 36 handmade art bras.

“Bra themes range from glamorous to humorous,” notes Bling My Bra Director Kat Simpson. “But all of them are fabulous.”

With more handcrafted art bras going up for auction daily, you should browse through the bras, bid early and often.

Video is not only a fun way to capture memories with family and friends. It can also set your eBay listings and online items apart from the competition. If pictures speak a thousand words then, perhaps, video speaks a million. And as technology advances, being able to shoot and create a video has never been easier.

Whether you’ve got a nice new digital video camera, a digital camera with a video option, or just a phone that captures video, this short guide will help you put video to good use. Let’s look at some important video fundamentals that will make your films something your customers and potential buyers will enjoy.

Use a tripod: These come in several varieties and prices, ranging from $20 to $30 all the way up to $400 to $1,000. Even if you get a small tabletop tripod for your smart phone, having a steady camera will make a big difference in the quality of your video. You’ve probably seen handheld takes that bounce around and have the potential to give the viewer motion sickness. Steadying your camera on a tripod will help you avoid this mistake, commonly made by amateur videographers.

Get the right lighting: Lighting can be anything from sunlight to room lighting, to a simple desk or clip lamp. The thing to consider in regard to lighting is not the light source, but actually the shadows the light creates. Avoid outside lighting whenever possible as this is harsh, and stark light can wash out your subject and produce a lot of glare. But if you do shoot outdoors, make sure your subject is facing the sun. If the sun is behind your subject, their face will be covered in shadows, and poorly lit. The same concept applies inside. Light should be pointed at the subject, so shadows and darkness don’t cover the subject.

Control sound: Sound quality can boost a “decent” video to “good,” or even “great.” The quality and clarity of sound is just as important as what you’re seeing on the screen. If possible, get an external microphone for your camera. Even if the camera comes with a microphone attached, you can inexpensively add another to make dialogue or narration easier to hear. Another main consideration for sound is the environment you’re shooting in. If you’re indoors, eliminate all the background noise you can, be it a television, stereo, or people. The same principle applies outside. Avoid busy streets or crowded areas, where recording background or white noise is unavoidable.

Be concise: Try to make your video as short as possible, while covering everything you want to include. Be direct and clear. Organize your thoughts before you start filming. The shorter you can make your video, the more likely viewers are to sit through your entire film.

Close is better: When planning or executing the filming, remember that closer is better, as a general rule. Having a subject’s whole body in the shot is rarely the right approach. Come in close for either a waist-to-head shot or, better yet, just capture from the middle of the chest on up. Think of news broadcasts you watch. It would be much less engaging if the camera was farther back from the reporter. But don’t use zoom feature. Instead, bring the camera physically closer to the subject.

Now, when it comes to editing, this has gotten much easier and accessible. All newer Mac systems come with iMovie, which is ample for your editing needs. If you’re a PC user, no problem! If your Windows system didn’t come with Windows Movie Maker, you can download it free from Microsoft.

Publish it: Once your video is done, it’s time to share it. I recommend YouTube. After you upload a video to YouTube, you can either share links to your video, or embed it directly into your eBay or other e-commerce listings. On YouTube, click “Share,” then click the “Embed” button below the link that pops up. This will generate a string of html code that you can insert in your listings.

If you’re already making videos or thinking about it for your first time, check out Auctiva’s video contest, which runs through Sept. 30. With it, we’re inviting you to create your own Auctiva commercial for a chance to win free listing service, free shipping insurance and much more. See the contest details.