What Can I Do With the Flyers?
Well, there are all sorts of uses for promotional flyers.

While you could go and hand them out on the street, that probably wouldn't be especially effective. Most of the people who walk past you and take the flyer will have no interest in your product, and it'll just be a waste of paper, ink and time. No, as with all marketing, there are better ways to target your flyers.

Put them in envelopes: if you've been putting business cards or compliment slips in your envelopes, use the flyers instead. It's like sending out a mini-catalogue to your buyers, and including the right items on it might help you make a few backend sales.

In your shop: If you have a real shop or business, then you can hand flyers out to your customers to let them know that you also sell things on eBay.

At a rival's shop: This is a bit of guerrilla marketing, but maybe you're into that. You can try handing your flyers out outside a shop that sells your items. Be aware that this might get the shop's owners a little upset if they see you, however - you should only give flyers to people leaving the shop, not entering it.

Send them to businesses: Look up the addresses of businesses in the area that might need what you're selling, and send them flyers in the post.

Flyers give you another advantage: If someone types your store's address as it appears on the flyer and then buys something, then you'll get the 75% final value fee credit for advertising, without even having to pay anything for advertising!

Users who are inexperienced on eBay, though, can create a few problems for you - they might not quite know what they're doing, and that's never good. In the next email, we'll cover how to report and handle eBay transaction problems.

How to Report and Handle eBay Transaction Problems.
Even when there aren't any disputes, you might run into a few transaction problems on eBay - glitches that aren't really anyone's fault, but are just the result of a technical malfunction or another situation beyond the buyer or seller's control. The number one cause of problems like this is email.

Email Problems.
If you use the Internet a lot, you'll no doubt be familiar with the problems eBay can cause, and many buyers and sellers are relying on email to keep them informed about their transactions.

Sometimes, you might find that your emails to a seller bounce -you might have the wrong email address, or there could be a problem with their email. This happens especially often when buyers have free webmail accounts at places like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.

When this happens, the buyer might not know you're trying to contact them. Consider it urgent to contact them in the real world, before they leave you bad feedback. To find out someone's real-world contact details, follow these steps: Click 'Advanced Search' near the top of your eBay screen, then 'Find Contact Information' in the menu on the left (under the 'Members' heading). All you need to do then is enter the other users' eBay ID and the item number of what they bought.

You might find that the address you end up getting doesn't exist, and the phone number seems to be disconnected, or wrong. However, if you didn't get any working contact information for the buyer, then this means they've violated eBay's contact information policy. You can report them at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-false.html, and nothing that they do from then on will reflect badly on you.

Be patient, though: Don't send masses of angry emails to someone's account: for all you know, they might be having problems with their computer or their Internet connection. Try phoning, and try waiting a while for a response.

PayPal problems.
You might also find that you have problems with people who aren't quite sure how PayPal works. For example, they might try to send you money directly and send the wrong amount - this means that you need to refund any overpayment and get them to pay underpayment. If your buyer is reasonable, though, this should be an easy enough problem to solve - remember that they're hardly going to refuse to pay the right amount when you've already got some of their money!

If Nothing Helps, Who Do I Report It To?
You need to click 'Help' on the toolbar and then 'Contact us', to contact eBay's customer service. You might find you have better luck with the 'Live Help' function than you do with trying to get sensible responses to emails. PayPal have the same procedure - 'Help' then 'Contact us' - and offer limited phone support if you need it.

If you run lots of auctions at once, some of your problems might be caused simply by things getting lost and forgotten, because you have no way of keeping track of them. In the next email, we'll look at how to manage multiple auctions effectively.

Tips for Managing Multiple eBay Auctions.
It can be very time-consuming to keep your auctions ticking along, especially if you have hundreds listed at a time. Don't despair, though: there are a few things you can do to take the weight off you.

Use My eBay.
If you want a broad overview of where you are with your auctions, make sure you pay a visit to My eBay occasionally instead of just relying on emails. With my eBay, you can see all your auctions in a big table, and sort by things like the number of bids and the current price. If you want to see which of your auctions currently has no bids, then you can do that.

One of the most useful things about My eBay, though, is the 'Summary' view. If you're not sure what you should be doing next, then this acts effectively as an eBay to-do list: anything you need to be doing will end up here.

Use Selling Manager.
If you're willing to pay the fee of $4.99 per month, you can sign up for Selling Manager, which is a more effective version of the My eBay 'Selling' view. It lets you customise your view more effectively to see the information that's important to you, see useful snapshots of how things are going, make automated responses to your buyers using email templates, and more.

Selling Manager Pro gives you more features: it keeps track of inventory for you, and lets you relist items in bulk. It will even produce a monthly profit and loss report to help you keep track of the big picture. Unfortunately, it costs $15.99 per month.

Use a Listing Tool.
Even though they're called listing tools, much of the software out there lets you manage what you're doing long after it's been listed, with all the features of Selling Manager and sometimes a few more besides. This programs also often have the advantage of being programs instead of websites, meaning they're faster to respond and can do more sophisticated analysis.

Remember the 'Relist' Button.
After your auctions end each time, there's an easy way to put the exact same thing back again: the 'Relist' button. You can Relist items quickly and easily this way, as long as you don't want to change in the listing.

Pay Someone!
Here's something you might not have considered: if you're listing so many expensive items that even automated selling tools take too long to use, then have you considered paying someone to help out, as an employee? After all, you wouldn't try to staff a shop full-time on your own, would you? If you already run a business, you could even give the responsibility to someone who works for you there. Freeing up your own time to do something else might pay off for you in the long run.

When you're managing so many auctions, sooner or later you might need to cancel one of them early. The next email will let you know when and how you can do it.

When and How to Cancel an eBay Auction Early.
One day, you might decide that you want to end an auction early. Before you do, though, you should consider why you want to do it: cancelling auctions upsets buyers and upsets eBay, and there might be a better to way to get what you want.

I Want to Change my Listing.
If you just want to revise your listing, you don't always need to end it. For listings that have more than 12 hours left to run and haven't received any bids, you can revise almost everything. You can remove the Buy it Now price or reserve price, change the duration of the listing, or add listing upgrades.

If the listing already has one or more bids, then you can still add upgrades, or add to the description. You add more pictures too, if you want to. Once the listing gets into its last 12 hours, however, what you can do becomes far more limited, even if it has no bids: you can only really add to the description.

It's a very bad idea, by the way, to cancel one listing and ask bidders to bid on another listing for the same item instead. The chances are they'll be annoyed with you, and won't bother.

The Item is No Longer for Sale.
Perhaps you sold the item to someone else, you lost it or it got broken. Whatever happened, if you no longer have the item to sell, you should remove your listing - in fact, this is just about the only situation when eBay allow you to.

However, you need to make sure you get the listing removed quickly - if you leave it to the last 12 hours, eBay will refuse to let you remove it, whatever has happened. This might seem cruel, but it's there to stop people from backing out in the last few hours because they want to try again for a better price.

So How Do I End My Listing Early?
You can do it at this page: http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction. Just type in the item number and hit 'Continue'.

Now, be very careful. The option you almost certainly want to choose is 'Cancel bids and end listing early', NOT 'Sell item to high bidder and end listing early'. You'll be asked to choose a reason why you ended the listing, and then it will end. Your bidders will be emailed to let them know what happened.

Note that ending a listing early because it looked like it wasn't going to get a good price is against the rules, and eBay could come after you and get upset.

Speaking of breaking the rules, if you're selling software on eBay, did you know that there are special rules that apply to you? Plenty of sellers have no idea, and are being caught out every day - that's why our next email will explain the rules clearly for you, just in case you need to know.

Special Rules for Selling Software on eBay.
Computer software is one of the biggest sellers on eBay - after all, everyone using eBay has a computer, don't they? There can be problems, however, if you try to sell certain kinds of software that eBay doesn't allow. Used software is a minefield, and you could end up buying something dodgy to resell without even realising it.

Here are the various kinds of software that you're not allowed to sell on eBay, and how to spot them. You should always try installing used software before you sell it, as this might give you a few clues.

Pirate Software.
This one is reasonably obvious, but pirate software can be hard to spot. The biggest things to look out for are auctions that don't have pictures or only have pictures from catalogues, unrealistically low prices, and come with no manuals or documentation. Microsoft software comes with a 'Certificate of Authenticity', which you should check. Software that is on recordable media such as CD-RWs is usually pirated.

If you see software that offered for download only, it is often pirated - but not always. Some small software developers allow download licenses for their software to be resold on sites like eBay. Type the name of the software into a search engine, and go to the manufacturer's site to check. Remember that software you download is very unlikely to come with resale rights, though.

Beta Software.
Beta software is pre-release software, issued by companies for testing purposes. Companies generally do not give permission for their beta software to be sold or redistributed, as it won't be as good as the final product. Do not buy anything that says it is 'beta', and return anything you receive that says 'beta' or 'not for resale or distribution' anywhere on the CD or during the install.

Academic Software.
Some companies sell special 'educational editions' or 'student licenses' for their software, which are designed to make it affordable to students and teachers. You can only sell this software if you are a licensed educational reseller for the company, and your buyers are educational users. Academic software will usually say somewhere on its CD or in its installation what it is.

OEM Software.
OEM stands for 'Original Equipment Manufacturer' - this is software that is only supposed to be distributed with a new computer, as it came pre-installed on the computer. The licences for this software usually stop you from selling it without also selling any hardware. Look out for the message 'for sale with a new computer only', or similar. Note, though, that it's usually fine to bundle any OEM software you come across with computers that you sell on eBay.

If you sell any kind of software that isn't allowed, then eBay might shut down your auction, or your sellers might realise what they've bought and leave you bad feedback. It's not really worth the risk.

Now that we've got that out of the way, how about we try to get you a few more customers for the items you have that aren't against the rules. In the next email, we'll take a look at the real power of eBay store newsletters.

The Power of eBay "Store Newsletters".
eBay Stores come with a very powerful feature: store newsletters. When buyers add your store to their favourites, you can offer them the chance to join your mailing list. You can then send highly targeted emails to people who you know were at least interested enough in your products to add the store to their favourites.

How Do I Send Them?
First, you need to get some people to sign up for your newsletter - this will happen with time, as people buy from you and browse your store.

Once you've got a few subscribers, it's worth sending out a newsletter. To send store newsletters, go to My eBay, click 'Manage My Store', and then click 'Email Marketing'. Once you've done that, click the 'Create Email' button, and you're away.

All you need to do now is write an email subject and a message, choose any items you want to include in the email, and specify who you want to receive it. The subject and message can be something relatively generic, like 'here are my latest deals' - it's the targeting that's important, and eBay's is powerful. You can choose to only send an email to people who've bought from you in the past, or only to people who've opened your email before.

It is important to note, though, that you can only send one email per week to a mailing list.

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