Customer Reviews

Building Your eBay Traffic the Smart Way: Use Froogle, Datafeeds, Cross-Selling, Advanced Listing Strategies, and More to Boost Your Sales on the Web's #1 Auction Site

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

First of all I am shocked, shocked I tell you that the American Management Association would publish a series of books of this low caliber.

Like most things these days the buildup and hype is overshawdowed by the delivery. On the back cover of the book it states that "This unvelievably powerful book shows step-by-step how to get all of your items listed not only on eBay but also on Amazon.com..." but it doesn't it only briefly mentions Amazon; in two places in only a very minor way (check it out for youself, use the look inside to check the back cover, table of contents, and the index.)

This is the most simplistic of internet books I have ever read...with all the the practical internet nutrition as a bag of skittles. Most chapters are no more than 7 or eight pages, with unbeleivably huge font type and paragraph headings that it ressembles a kids book.
For example Chapter 10, Creating Yahoo Ads, totals less than two full pages!!! This chapter only has about 48 (FORTY EIGHT) lines of full text, about what a sixth grade reader would expect.

I first picked up the book because of the cover text which states, "Use Froogle, Datafeeds, Cross selling, Advanced Listing Strategies and more to boost sales on the webs #1 auction site."
Being interested in the concept of datafeeds I was dissapointed when I got to that portion of the book.

One other mention here. The author does a good job of making a plug for his other books and websites, but I suggest you go to his website. For someone that is making money on the internet and writing books about it the site looks like those from 10 years ago, about the time eBay was started. It has the coolness factor of white shoes with plaid pants. I will say though that he did have a good idea with the diagram about linking multiple websites on page 127.

Very dissapointed. Do your self a favor and look for other ebay books.

The book is so bad that I'm compelled to review it so that others do not make the same mistake and waste their time as I have.

* Many of the chapters are 2-3 pages each. This would have been less annoying if there was valuable & concise information in those few pages. However, the ideas are shallow, not well supported, but the author rambles and repeats them over & over.

* Spelling errors -- for example, "umbrella" was spelled as "unbrella" and "advertise" as "advertsie" and these were just two I noticed without even looking very closely. This is small thing but makes you think that the author just threw the book together.

* Overall, the book is very conversational & unprofessional. The author used sentence fragments in almost every paragraph, and many times the author would introduce a topic by asking "What is XX? Well I'll tell you." (literally, this is the sentence structure, word for word, what was used over & over).

* Author advises for several topics (e.g., photographing items to sell) that the reader should buy his other books to learn more in depth. This is frustrating since nothing in the book is covered in any depth.

I read through this book in about an hour, and it was enough to decide to return this and look to get other Ebay books instead.

This book has one idea -- feed from a data base -- and he beats it to death. It is not really helpful beyond the data base idea.

This books packs about 20 pages of content in to 250 actual pages. Uses big text and lots of white space. Also fills space by repeating same basic ideas over and over.

Would make a good pamphlet. Don't waste your money.

I read this book cover to cover in a few days. I thought it was excellent. It is for advanced sellers, with a good understanding of eBay selling, eBay stores, the web and a general background of online selling off of eBay.

There are many useful topics in this book, and the author writes about cutting edge techniques that should be examined by online sellers. There is little of this valuable information out there so this book was a pleasant surprise.

While not all techniques would be for everyone, I do believe sellers who are forward looking should understand such concepts as data-feeds, web portals, content sites, building a brand etc.

It might also be that a combination of techniques mentioned would bring the best results. Another useful aspect of the book is the consistent placement of a cost effectiveness review at the end of section discussions.

Overall an excellent source of information, and I look forward to similar such books in the future.

Marty

This book really didn't help or hurt. It had some good info in it and some that were just pages to flip thru. I had hoped for more tips than what this book offered. It may work great for some but just wasn't what I was looking for.

It's hard to believe eBay has only been round 10 years: today it's a major force in the retail world and offered 971 million items for sale in 2003 alone. Joseph Sinclair wrote the popular 'eBay the Smart Way' titles and here provides sellers with additional tips on using Froogle, datafeeds, and other advanced listing strategies. Datafeed marketing lets eBay sellers 'feed' their listings to other websites run by browsers which attract serious shoppers. Froogle is not only effective for boosting sales - it's free. Building Your Ebay Traffic The Smart Way is an invaluable guide any eBay regular seller won't want to be without.

This is a great book on building traffic volumes to your web site. The concepts outlined apply just as well to non ebay sites. This book is non technical and contains advice that can be easily applied. Some of the suggestions are "free" (except time, e.g. participating in forums to build traffic), others a direct cost e.g. froogle ads. This information is of value beyond ebay.

The advice on using ebay store fronts as your business web site is interesting, as is the comment an external web site may not be required / wont pay for itself. I am interested in affiliate selling, and have been experimenting, my web address is:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze48sdz/ (even given the obscure address the site pays).

For a book geared towards driving traffic to your sight, it's a pity not to include a section (see www.cj.com or the Amazon affiliate scheme for a few ideas). Minor complaint about a great book.

If you want to build traffic to your eBay site... buy this book, read it, do it, and enjoy the return.