E-mail: Name:

January 2, 2003

In This Issue:
* Announcement
* New Auction Genius Course Begins January 4, 2003
* Feature Article: Consumers Pursue Luxury
* Online Auction Fraud - Multiple User IDs
* Did You Eat Your Black Eyed Peas?

Announcement

This is a scaled down issue of Auction Gold, simply because I wanted all of you to have a chance to read Charles Burke's looooooooong, but so wonderful, article “Seven Simply Secrets Of Naturally Lucky People” In the spirit of the fresh, new, golden year stretching out before us, I offer you this lovely gift. Enjoy.

New Auction Genius Course Begins January 4, 2003

I am happy to announce that we are now beginning a new Auction Genius Course every month, rather than every two months:

January 4, 2003
Saturday
8 AM Pacific

February 3, 2003
Monday
11 AM Pacific time

The classes are recorded, in case you have to miss any of them.

http://auction-genius-course.com

Course Testimonial:

The Auction-Genius- Course is the course that ends all courses. I know, because I've taken this course. Believe me when I say that this testimony is no hype, but pure truth. I never had an instructor that didn't hold back significant information needed to succeed in making money. But the instructor of this course, Sydney Johnston, doesn't hold back on anything. She tells all. You don't have to take another course or buy an eBook to get other relevant knowledge from her. She gives you real sources to help you find lots of wholesale products. She provides the important steps to be successful in selling on auctions. Sydney has a wealth of experience from selling products successfully on auctions to tell you about. She provides all the information that you will need to make lots of money on online auctions. Thank you, Sydney, truly for teaching the Auction-Genius-Course.

Diane Rose
redbud@sprynet.com

Feature Article: Consumers Pursue Luxury

Many of you know that I subscribe to all kinds of trade magazines in the wholesale merchandise industry. That's where I get my database of wholesalers that we sell on our site. When several of them have similar stories, we need to pay attention. And a recent theme in these trade magazines is that American consumers are paying more attention – and more money – to luxury goods.

As one publication says, we seek “high quality, high performance, emotionally satisfying goods and services: all purchases that were once limited to a market of the rich and elite.” This conclusion is from a four year study by the Boston Consulting Group, which tracks consumer behavior.

In fact, according to Michael Silverstein, a co-author of The New Luxury: Why The Middle Market American Consumers Wants Premium Goods, “We may be seeing one of the greatest shifts in consumer buying habits and tastes since the 1950's.”

Seems strange, doesn't it? We are living in a country that gets 24 hour a day news moaning about the sad state of our economy. Add to that, constant bulletins of impending war and the dangerous threats of terrorists. It seems as though we should be reducing our lifestyle and turning to simpler ways. But, that may not be what we are doing at all.

Some examples:

* I can go to Starbucks and pay $4 for a cup of coffee that costs me less than 75 cents at my local Quik Trip (yep, I hang out in gas stations! :-) Yet, Starbucks grew 22% in 2001 and 24% in 2002.

* Mercedes sales rose 16% in the first nine months of 2002.

* Premium chocolates like Godiva and Ferroro Rocher have been growing at double the rate of mass chocolate makers like Hersheys.

* Shopping at WalMart for home products might save you some money, but higher end stores are reporting record growth: Crate and Barrel (15%); Williams Sonoma (15%) and Bed, Bath and Beyond (28%).

Even a money-saving giant like Costco reports that 25% of its merchandise is luxury items like Waterford crystal, Prada handbags and Raymond Weil watches.

What does this mean to us? It's good news, because these aren't only “hot” items but more expensive ones, too – meaning more profit per item. So, start beating the bushes for those luxury goods.

Online Auction Fraud - Multiple User IDs

One of the hottest issues among online auction buyers and sellers this year has been fraud. While outright fraud (selling items never meant to be sold or that are never shipped) usually captures most of the attention in this debate; another type of fraud, much more insidious, is often
used as well.

There are four basic reasons that multiple user IDs are used for wrongdoing:

* Deadbeat Buying/Selling
* Faking Feedback
* Shilling
* Shielding

Every day, hundreds of user IDs are suspended from eBay, Yahoo! Auctions, and other online auction sites for infractions - most of which involve multiple identifications and at least one of the above four activities.

A definition of the four multi-ID infractions should be given:

Deadbeat Buying/Selling - primarily a way to disrupt the selling of competitors or those who are disliked by the perpetrator, this is also a way to steal from unsuspecting buyers. The first use is simple: bid high on several of the target's auctions with no intention of purchasing the items.
The second is worse for the community as a whole, as it instills distrust into buyers who would otherwise not have a bad experience at online auction. It's done simply by listing several items for sale, collecting the payments, and never sending the items purchased.

Faking Feedback - by creating several user IDs, the criminal then uses them to buy low-priced items from him or herself and leave positive feedback. This is more prevalent on some auction sites than on others. Yahoo! Auctions, for instance, has a policy of removing the accounts of users whose feedback rating drops to -3. On any auction site, however, having a negative feedback rating will inhibit your ability to buy or sell on the site as other users look at negative feedback with a leery eye.

Shilling - this is a strategy that has existed since the invention of the auction and has found a special meaning online. The idea is simple: using another ID, the seller bids on his own items to raise the value and/or the perceived value of an item in order to generate more interest or a higher final value for an item.

Shielding - the opposite of shilling, this strategy involves bidding on items in order to protect a lower bid. A buyer using this strategy bids a low price (generally well below market value) on an item and then bids using another ID at a very high rate (well over market value). As the auction
comes to a close, the buyer then rescinds the higher bid leaving his lower bid to win.

So given these frauds, how can an online auction user protect him or herself?

There are certain things to look for that are dead giveaways to each of the above four actions. As a buyer, you can usually avoid a purchase or alert a seller to wrongful activity. As a seller, you can remove bids and block buyers who use these tactics.

The Deadbeat will usually have little or no feedback. Sometimes they'll even have negative feedback. Unfortunately, this is usually the only indication you will have of a prospective buyer's possible nefarious intentions. Luckily, once the auction is over and it becomes apparent that the bidder has no intention of paying for the item, you can usually file complaints and get your fees back.

Conversely, a deadbeat seller shows the same warning signs as the deadbeat buyer. Protecting yourself here is rougher, though. There are options. Many buyers will not buy from sellers with little or no feedback. Others will protect themselves by buying only from those who accept protected forms of payment (PayPal, for example) so that they can recall their payment.

The Feedback Faker will usually have one obvious thing on his/her feedback: several sales and ratings all within a very short amount of time. I have seen obvious fakers who sold several items all in the same couple of hours and whose feedback was all left immediately or shortly there- after - often with similar misspellings and wording. While there probably isn't much you can do about the cheater directly, you can at least avoid his or her auctions or remove his or her bids from your own auctions.

Shilling and Shielding are usually the easiest of the four to spot. In order for shielding to work, a buyer must place the high bid quickly before someone else bids over his/her low bid. When watching the auction, you will notice a low bid followed immediately by a higher bid. As the auction progresses, you will see new bidders getting outbid by proxy as the very high bid continues to hold the winning spot. Removing this high bidder will take care of this problem.

Shilling is also usually easy to spot. Generally an item will either receive a bid very quickly after being listed or an item will be a relisted item (sometimes with a history going back three or four listings without selling). Watching for both indicators at the same time will be an obvious giveaway.

Some auction sites are doing more to protect users from these most common types of fraud. eBay has announced that they will be requiring more stringent information (bank accounts, credit cards, etc.) to verify a user's identity. Yahoo! and Amazon auctions have mentioned similar
initiatives.

In the end, however, the diligence of the sites' users and their knowledge of what to look for is what makes the difference.

Did You Eat Your Black Eyed Peas?

Here in the south, we have our traditions. One of the most venerable is that eating black eyed peas on New Year's Day will bring a year of good luck. Where do these ideas come from? I have no idea, but I do know that my “luck” comes mostly from my own efforts. In that spirit, I'd like to offer you a start to a prosperous 2003 with the following wonderful article by Charles Burke, called the “Seven Simply Secrets Of Naturally Lucky People”.

And in case you're wondering ... you bet I ate my peas! No point in taking any chances, after all!
:-)

We've all seen people who are just naturally lucky.

They're the ones who manage to sail through life with more unexplainable "lucky breaks" and fewer disappointments than most people get. Success just seems to come easier for them.

Where most folks have to struggle just to get ahead, lucky people regularly have opportunities just plop down in their laps. Of course, they work hard, but that doesn't fully explain the special treatment that life seems to reserve for them.

It almost appears that they were born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths. Or born under a luckier star than most mere mortals.

Well, cheer up; neither stars nor spoons are at work here. All they have is seven simple secrets.

These secrets are easy little things that you can begin applying in your own life. And when you do, things will start to change for you. Your career will begin to blossom in unexpected ways. And one day you'll realize that now everyone has started calling you naturally lucky, too.

Ready to command more luck in your life? Here are the seven simple secrets of naturally lucky people.

Secret #1. Lucky people don't believe in luck

I recently interviewed ten unusually successful business people for a book I was writing about the role luck plays in the lives of successes.

Nearly every one of these people stated plainly they don't believe in luck.

In the next breath, however, they told about unending streams of "serendipitous" or "synchronistic" events that routinely happen in their daily lives.

I believe they don't like the word "luck" because it implies there's no way to control it. They've learned that there is.

If you prefer to call it serendipity or synchronicity rather than lucky, that's okay. The message here is not which term to use. It's about what you can do to get these kinds of things happening for you. When they do happen, you can call them anything you want.

I've chosen to use the word "luck" because when I say it, people have a fair idea of what I mean.

I try to avoid radical new terms when we've already got a perfectly good word.

If someone walked up to you and said, "I help people learn to cause pleasant improbabilities to occur more frequently," you'd probably look around for the exit.

On the other hand, when I use the word "luck," you and I are in the same ball park, concept-wise.

It's okay if our definitions differ slightly. This happens to us all the time anyway. Ever seen a husband and a wife agree on what "shopping" means? Or "one hour"?

Most of the time, even though there are differences, we're close enough for useful communication.

And that's what we're doing here. As you read, you'll gradually find that my definition of luck includes a steering wheel and an accelerator pedal.

Secret #2. "Bad" stuff happens to them too

There are several ways to have good luck.

The most common (and the most useful) is to find opportunities in problems.

A friend of mine says: "There's always a miracle in a mess."

Let's say you and I are neighbors, and our whole city has a common problem. Maybe it's infestation with insects. Or it could be a serious pollution problem from a nearby plant.

While almost everyone is griping and complaining about the problem, you might decide: "Hey, if I can solve this problem, it will help my neighbors, and it can also make a profit for me."

Your neighbors only saw the problem, but you looked deeper and found an opportunity.

All great fortunes have been built upon solving great problems. From the huge railroad empires of the 19th century, to the communications networks of the 20th, and now the software giants of the 21st, they have all solved problems for people.

Was Andrew Carnegie "lucky" that he foresaw a huge need for steel in the 1800s? Some say he was.

But I say he simply knew how to recognize a widespread need and turn it into a giant opportunity.

The same is true of Bill Gates. Many people criticize Gates for his business practices, but whatever else you believe (either way) about the man, you have to admit, he saw an opportunity before most others did, and he acted.

That's probably the most common and the most controllable way to generate your own luck.

Secret #3. More people quit than lose

If you knew ahead of time — without a doubt — that your success was guaranteed, how much would you go out and do?

Would it make any difference in the kind of things you would attempt? How much higher would you direct your aim?

Well, a funny thing happened to me a few years back. I was sitting and feeling sorry for myself one day because of all the failures that I had been through.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that one particular case hadn't been a real failure. I admitted to myself (reluctantly) that I had simply quit too soon. I had quit before I'd really had a chance to fail.

Then I thought of another non-failure.

Then another.

And before long, I was buried under an avalanche of similar cases. In fact, I couldn't think of a single time when I had actually kept on trying long enough to fail. In other words, I had never experienced failure in my entire lifetime.

Only quitting.

A realization like that will realign your reality. After that, it's hard to consider yourself a failure because you've never failed.

Who knows what you might really be, down inside?

I began to wonder: what would have happened if I had stuck with even a few of those situations just a little longer? What if I hadn't been quite so ready to quit?

More to the point, what about today — and tomorrow? What if I stopped being so ready to throw in the towel and surrender too soon? Would I start seeing the number of clear successes in my life begin to grow?

The more I played with that idea, the better it sounded.

I'd like to report to you that my life instantly and dramatically changed that day, but it didn't.

Oh, it did BEGIN changing, but it wasn't the dramatic turnabout that you read of in books or see in movies.

Instead, each time I'd find myself in a discouraging situation, I'd start thinking of all those times I had just simply quit trying too soon. And gradually, over time, I began developing a new mental toughness that didn't take temporary setbacks quite so seriously.

I started finding a new resourcefulness within myself. My "keeping-on" average began to go up, and my "failure" average started declining.

I count that one realization among the most important in my life. Not because it solved a problem, but because it identified one.

Once I could see that the problem wasn't even what I thought it was, I was then able to work on doing something else instead.

And you know what? My luck began improving.

Secret #4. Betting on losing hands makes losers

Successful poker players don't play every hand they're dealt.

If you keep count, the hands they fold far outnumber the hands they hold.

That's because a good card player knows the odds for every possible card combination. They know whether a flush beats a full house and which is more likely to occur.

And they only bet their money on likelihoods.

They love to play with amateurs because amateurs play for "the juice," the emotional charge they get from throwing money out on the table, whether they win or lose.

Good players don't bet on risk, they bet on probability.

Lucky people are very similar. They know longshots when they see them, and they may bet, but it's a calculated bet.

Lucky people are some of the most tenacious people on earth — when it's appropriate.

But they're also some of the quickest quitters when the odds don't favor them. In fact, they'll usually opt out of most situations before they even begin because they have learned to recognize and rank opportunities.

What makes a good opportunity? First, does it solve a WIDESPREAD problem? Second, do the people with the problem have enough money to pay for solving that problem? Third, is it easy to reach the people with the problem? Fourth, is the solution a really good one?

If they don't find all four factors, a lucky person will walk away because they know it's a losing hand, no matter how much they personally love the idea.

So if a lucky person sees he's holding a losing hand, he quits quickly and cuts his losses.

Secret #5. Most good luck comes through other people

Good luck almost never happens in a vacuum.

Several years back I read a book by Max Gunther titled "The Luck Factor."

Most of the details in that book have dimmed, but I've never forgotten the core idea: Most lucky breaks are brought to you by other people.

Few people find significant amounts of money on the street or buried in the backyard. Perhaps even fewer win lotteries.

Instead, luck comes more often in the form of opportunities.

You're with a group of ladies (or guys) who are sitting around complaining about how it's hard to find respectable men (women) to date. Everybody is really getting into the problem.

The person next to you leans over and whispers, "Don't you wish everyone would just quit whining?"

But instead of complaining about all those complaints, a little lightbulb clicks on in your head. You realize a good computerized screening service for romantic introductions would fill a real need here.

You don't say anything, but weeks later, when you announce the new service, and you're flooded with calls from singles all over the city wanting safer introductions, all your friends whisper, "She's so lucky. Where did she get that great idea?"

You know where the idea came from, but you're not telling.

A great deal of "good luck" is manually created out of discomfort — often someone else's.

Secret #6. Good luck favors those who have prepared

Let's say you're appearing in an amateur play in a little theater in your neighborhood.

A big-name producer from Hollywood is visiting a sick relative, hears about the play, and for a bit of distraction decides to attend.

She sees a spark of something special in your performance, asks to meet you, and offers you a screen test.

Okay, freeze the frame for a second.

Are you prepared for this big break?

Have you done all the study and the practice and the foundation work it takes to be a professional? Will you have the technique and the skills necessary to do the job?

Or are you going to try and fake your way through it?

If you're prepared, you're likely to do well. This means a giant step toward your dreams.

And if you're not prepared... well, good luck with your day job.

Secret #7. You can attract good things, too

All this talk about finding opportunities in "bad" events and developing your skills is important, but there's a more sunny side to luck as well.

Internet entrepreneur Joe Vitale terms it his "Magic Escalator through Life," and award-winning author John Harricharan has titled it "The Power Pause."

I interviewed both of these men recently, as well as eight other fascinating people, about how they manage to stay so consistently successful.

Every single one of them has techniques for keeping their mind tuned to the things they want. And they perform this "mind tuning" every day. They're not casual about this. Oh no, they put regular effort into it. Their successes and their luck are not accidents.

If you're tempted to greet this with a dismissive, "Oh yeah, I've read those positive thinking books," then you need to think again.

Yanik Silver, an up-and-coming star on the Internet tells how he starts every single morning with a 15-minute session in which he goes over his "values and goals."

Every morning — no exceptions.

Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez go even further. They teach their clients to attract what they've labeled "Your Perfect Customers."

In every case, they start with their thinking. What they put into their mind has a direct one-to-one relationship to what appears in their life.

The hardest part of Secret #7? Taking responsibility for the bad stuff in your life.

If you've got uncomfortable situations right now, you'll never have the power to change them until you accept the fact that you created that mess... exactly as it is right now.

Admit to yourself that you created your own problems, down to the last tiny detail, and only then will you take command of the power to change those problems.

Fortunately, it's not as impossible as it sounds at first.

Your mind is like a bucket. If the bucket is filled with muddy water, all you have to do is start a steady flow of clear, fresh water into the bucket.

Soon, the bucket (or your mind) is filled with clear, fresh contents.

Steady daily input of clear, fresh thoughts will change the things that appear in your life, without the need for major renovation. It just happens. You work on the inside, and the outside takes care of itself.

This means you don't fight the old thoughts. You give them minimum energy. You don't resist, you don't struggle. Instead, you put your attention as much as possible on the good things you want to appear in your life.

The lucky things you spend your time thinking about just start happening for you, and one day you wake up and realize, "Hey, I'm a pretty lucky person now. When did that happen?"

Does this mean you won't ever have to make any hard decisions, or deal with any stressful people?

No, but you will find yourself handling difficult decisions and fussy people more easily because you'll have a clearer vision of what lies on the other side, after you've gotten past them. They just won't loom so large in your path any more.

So these are the seven secrets that naturally lucky people use to keep their life moving forward:

* They don't believe in (or wait around for) random luck. They take charge of generating their own luck.

* They look for the opportunity that's always embedded in life's inconveniences.

* They don't quit when they're holding a potentially winning hand. They drop a losing hand as quickly as possible. And they know the difference.

* They polish their people skills constantly because most opportunities are brought to us by others.

* They develop a wide range of professional skills so they're prepared for any opportunity to knock.

*They fill their mind with thoughts of what they want, because they know they get what they fill their mind with, WHATEVER that is.

Other than these seven simple things, however, naturally lucky people don't do anything special at all.

Charles Burke is the author of Command More Luck, a book offering powerful suggestions for getting more cooperation from life, luck, and your own mind. Whether you call it synchronicity, serendipity, or just plain old luck, you CAN become more "naturally lucky."

http://luck.auctionknowhow.com