eBay Success!
By Jonathan R Taylor
Everyone has heard incredible stories of people making big money on eBay selling stuff from their attic or "junk" they pick up at garage sales. While these stories make the most skeptical of us tingle at the thought of easy money, hard work and determination are the key words for selling on eBay. Sure, there is always the "fly by the seat of your pants" approach, but if you are serious about making money on eBay, my wife, Rachel, has learned what doesn't work on eBay from countless hours of trial and error. She has written the following advice for those of you who are serious about making a profit with eBay:
1. FOCUS - Choose something to sell that you already know about; preferably something that you love! When you are already familiar with an item, you don't waste time wondering whether it will sell or how much you should pay for it. My experience with garage sale shopping and hoping that I picked things that people wanted to buy was a total flop because I didn't know what I was looking for. I ended up with piles of stuff that I couldn't sell and wasted lots of time looking for garage sales. Those of you who have done this, know the total frustration of a wasted Saturday morning.
2. RESEARCH - The other option is to research on eBay what is already selling and then find a cheap source of that item. Garage sales are a good way to find stuff if you already know what you are looking for. Call ahead to garage sales that are listed in the paper and ask if they have what you are looking for. Don't waste your time and gas poking around town looking for sales that don't have what you want! Garage sales work best if you know a lot about antiques or collectibles. These items sell well on eBay, but they only work for people who know what they are looking for and how much antiques and collectibles are worth. Other things that sell well on eBay are items that have a model number or item number or an ISBN number (this is for eBay's sister site Half.com which lists books by ISBN numbers - this is great for selling old textbooks or out of print items!) People go to eBay looking for deals on electronics, brand-name clothes, video games, computers, and software. Things that can be easily identified with words sell well on eBay. Things that do NOT sell well on eBay are things that don't have a hard and fast description; items that need to be touched or smelled or rely on aesthetics to sell. Home interior items are examples of things that DON'T sell well on eBay. People who shop eBay are looking for something specific. If they don't already know about what you are selling, they aren't going to just browse eBay's categories looking for your items. Use this as a guide when choosing what to sell. The best way to find cheap sources for these items is to work out a deal with a wholesaler. This way you get the best possible pricing and you can still make a profit! Because, remember, people shopping eBay are looking for a deal!
3. CONSIDER DROP SHIPPING - This is the best possible method that I have found for making eBay a profitable enterprise. (Unless you are going the route of antiques and collectibles) Drop shipping eliminates the need for storing your items, packaging, and shipping them. This ate most of the profit that I would have made because it took so much time to do all of this. And most of us don't have an empty room we can devote just for storing stuff for eBay and even if we did, we have to come up with a system for inventory. You end up with a lot of the headaches that traditional businesses have to deal with. SO, the BEST way that I have found to make eBay profitable for the average person is this:
research what is selling on eBay
go to the library and go through a copy of the business directory and find WHOLESALERS that sell the product that eBay goers are looking for
contact the wholesaler and work out a deal with them
ask for great pricing in exchange for you selling their product
as part of the deal, arrange for them to ship directly to your customers
So, basically, you are acting as a retailer for them. They benefit, by getting sales with no overhead, and you benefit by being able to be competitive on eBay and not having the headaches of storing, packing, and shipping! It is a wonderful win-win agreement!
If you do choose the antiques and collectibles route, there are great resources out there to teach you how to do it as profitably as possible. My favorite is Starting an eBay Business for Dummies.
And, as a resource to market your eBay auctions for even better profits, I would definitely recommend Seth Godin's book Permission Marketing. It is a MUST for growing your eBay business and keeping customers coming back to your auctions again and again. The key is turning strangers into friends and friends into customers!
About the Author
Jonathan R. Taylor, specializes in helping people in every stage of their lives to find more meaning and purpose in their work. He believes that to find that purpose and meaning, a person's interests, skills, passions, and goals must integrate seamlessly with their work. To get more great advice, subscribe to Jonathan's newsletter at www.careercalling.com!
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What Everyone Should Know About How To Buy Wholesale
By: Melanie Burns
Finding a supplier for the product you want to sell, at a price that you can profit from, can be a big task. The best suppliers for your online sales or auctions do not advertise their services and often cannot be found online.
Those that you can find online tend to be middle-men. It is often difficult to get a good enough price to make any real profit online.
Let me tell you about my simple 2 step system to find an untapped source for wholesale suppliers. This is so simple that it's often overlooked as a source for product. This system involves thinking outside the box and not letting policy stop you. (continued below)
The First Step to find a supplier is to find someone that already sells or has access to what you want to sell. This could be a website, an eBay seller, a manufacturer, a wholesale outlet, or a regular store in your city. This is the easy step. You know what you are looking for and you can search on the internet, not for a wholesale source, but for anyone already selling what you want to sell.
Another valuable source for a local supplier is your local phone book. The yellow pages are the best way to find local sources. This should be the first place you look. Doing business locally with someone that you can meet face to face is a big plus for your business.
Another potential source for your product is to find a distributor who would be willing to private label a product for you. You could get a very high quality product for a much lower price than if it had the name brand label.
The Second and Key Step is to convince the source you found to become your supplier.
Manufacturers and wholesale sources often have minimum orders that might be beyond your reach if you are just starting out. Online retailers, eBay merchants, and retail stores may be your best bet. Try to find a small store who is looking to expand.
But remember, you are dealing with a human being and they can be convinced to do business with you. Just be sure to sweeten the deal for them. One way is to offer the person you are dealing with at your new found source, a percentage of your profits from the products he supplies you.
Be sure to project it out for him. If he can see the benefit of working with you even though it causes extra work for him, you can be successful in making a deal.
You could offer him 20% of the profit from sales of his products. For example you could show him that you project to make at least $100 profit from each product, and you expect to sell 40 of them per month. The $4000 a month means an extra $800 per month in his pocket. You still make a nice $3200 profit for the month in this example.
On top of that, he will be ordering more products from his supplier and may be eligible for a higher price break from them. This way, his reward for the effort to work with you, is making money on both sides.
There are many benefits you can offer your potential supplier, but no matter how you look at it, the main thing it comes down to is MONEY. What's in it for your potential supplier to do business with you? If can you show him that, you have a better chance of making a deal with him and starting your online sales.
NOTE: When looking for suppliers around your city, don't go trying to impress the big stores with your $800 or even $3,000 extra income per month proposal. Try going to the little stores that are looking to expand their business, they are the ones that are usually more open to new opportunities.
The big stores are making hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in profits, so an extra couple of thousand would probably not impress them the least bit.
So now you see that by thinking outside the box, you open the door to many possibilities and increase your ability to make money online with your products.
About the Author:
Copyright © Melanie Burns
This article is free for reproduction but must be reproducted in its entirety including live links and this copyright statement. Subscribe to the iBusiness How2 Newsletter to receive hot tips, how to's, internet business tools, and relevant product reviews by sending an email to: newsletter@internet-business-how-to.com
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