Using,Internet,Auctions,Promot business, insurance Using Internet Auctions To Promote Your Local Business

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Here is a little-used but highly effective way of reachingpotential customers, even in your local market: onlineauctions. A growing number of businesses are using auctions to attract asteady stream of customers. By listing on an auction site suchas eBay, your business will be exposed to an audience of 22million people in over 100 countries. But more importantly, itcan reach the people next door. The small listing fees are a small price to pay for the kindof exposure you get, especially on the granddaddy of allauction sites, eBay. There are small businesses out there thatget 80% or more of their sales from eBay. And not all of the sales happen on eBay - you can use your"About Me" page to drive traffic back to your web site. Thenyou can get your prospect's email address and sell to themdirectly, saving yourself some listings fees and commissions.And with eBay's feedback system, potential customers can getbona-fide firsthand testimonials from your previous customers. If you want to sell multiple items, you can set up a Dutchauction. To make sure you earn a profit, you can set a minimumprice, known as a reserve price. You can also set a "Buy ItNow" price, which allows someone to buy the item immediatelywithout waiting for the auction to end. And finally, you canset up your own eBay store for as little as $9.95/month. There are many tips and tricks to eBay auctions -- so manythat there are a slew of books and services and softwareprograms just for helping people to manage their bidding andselling activities. Check www.geolocal.com for auctionresources. As far as reaching your local market, major cities are set upas regions on eBay. Consumers can easily search by region andcategory at http://pages.ebay.com/regional/hub.html -- "eBayLocal Trading." This is where people will go if they want tobuy something locally, such as furniture or somethingexpensive. A recent development has made it even easier for your localcustomers to find you. AltaVista -- one of the major searchengines -- announced a deal to feature listings from itsshopping-comparison guide on eBay. According to AltaVista'ssenior director of global product marketing Gannon Giguiere,"We can now allow consumers to compare Web, localized brick and mortar stores and auction listings with a single glance." I buy lots of stuff on eBay. A few weeks ago I went lookingfor sheepskin slippers and saw a lovely pair up for auction. Icould tell that this was a business, so I contacted the sellerdirectly. I knew from past experience that we might be able towork out something and sure enough, we made a deal for 2 pairsof sheepskin slippers. Let's review this seller's transaction: - She got a sale and a proven customer for her 30 cent listingfee on the original pair of slippers (which she sold lateron, gaining another customer) - She paid no listing fees orcommissions on the 2 pair of slippers she sold to me - Shecan add me to her mailing list; if I'm happy with theslippers, maybe I'll buy another pair in the future as agift or whatever. (p.s. I bought 2 more pairs later) - Iwould never have found that business if those slippers hadn'tbeen listed on eBay. Her sheepskin business doesn't show upin the first few pages of search engine results, which is asfar as most people will look. Do you see the power of eBay? I also bought my Palm Pilot anda new computer from local vendors that I found on eBay. PlusI've bought lots of computer programs and educational toysfrom auctions by business owners. As a frequent eBay buyer andseller, I can tell you now, if you're not on eBay, you'releaving money on the table. There are other auction sites out there - Yahoo, BidBay,uBid.com - but none of them comes close to eBay in terms ofvolume. About 1.4 million items are up for sale every day, inevery imaginable category, including services, cars, houses.Somebody even tried to auction off a kidney once, but eBaycaught them and put an end to it. Keep in mind that people who go to auction sites are lookingfor deals, so don't expect to get full retail. You may evenhave a sell a few items at cost. But when you think about allthe money you can spend on ads in the local paper and get NOresults, it's a small price to pay to get the email addressesof proven customers. The eBay feedback system works both waysyou can check and see what kind of customer they've been inthe past. All in all, online auctions are goldmines. If you're sellinganything at all, especially consumer products, you shoulddefinitely check out eBay.