I am massively stupid sometimes and last Friday I managed to ‘kill’ this blog…………..

Luckily, I am with Blue Host.  They were supportive, sympathetic and efficient.  After I had exhausted all my options (which really consisted of turning the PC off and swearing – well, a bit more than that, but not much) they stepped in and got the blog back in 24 hours.

I can not recommend Blue Host highly enough.

Tim, of course, is not a real person, it is an acronym for the 7 wastes as identified in the Lean Manufacturing philosophy.  Although LM is directed at manufacturing, obviously, we can all learn from it, even selling.  These are the wastes.

T is for Transport.

When selling it is obvious that you need to reduce your transportation costs.  Use the cheapest reliable delivery method you can.

I is for Inventory.

If you sell 10 widgets a week and your wholesaler supplies with a 2 week lead time then why ever hold more than 30 widgets?  Holding lots of inventory is bad for your cash flow.  Businesses fail through not understanding cash flow, understand yours and hold the correct inventory levels.

M is for Motion.

Hold everything you need to complete the sale close together.  If you are working from home then you need your stock, postage labels, wrapping paper, envelopes close together to avoid wasting time and motion.  Make completing sales a chore and it will not be long before you stop selling.

W is for Waiting.

In selling terms this is close to Inventory waste.  Understand your suppliers’ lead timescales so that you are not waiting for inventory to complete sales (a sure way to get bad feedback – and bad feedback kills on eBay).

O is for Over Production.

There is an option when using Paypal to create postage labels to print 2 sheets (the label and certificate) or just the label.  Unless you need a certificate of posting don’t bother.  Do not add anything to your product that does not add value, in the eyes of the customer.  You may like the special packaging, but does it add anything for the customer?

O is also for Over Processing.

What records do you need?  I rely on PayPal and eBay records for order details.  I do not need another ledger full of old orders.  I do need a stock list that is updated asI make sales.  That is because I need an easy way of seeing what my stock levels are, and when I have to reorder stock.

D is for Defects.

Obvious but bears saying again.  Defects are deadly, especially if you offer free replacements as I do (and I would recommend you to).  The offer of a free replacement should a product be faulty is good for business, unless you do not keep an eye on the quality of your stock.

Sell successfully online

About a month ago someone asked me to see if I could get them a camping knife. I do not sell camping knives but I know a wholesaler that does. I found the knife he wanted and passed it on to him. If I had sold him the knife at cost the RRP was 65% above cost. It occurred to me that this was a nice margin and so I thought about selling them in eBay.

The trouble is that eBay.co.uk banned the sale of all knives except for cutlery on 10^th March 2009 . It is a shame that I missed out on a reasonable market but spare a thought for anyone who had their business based on selling camping knives on eBay. Their business was gone overnight.

I can not emphasise that if you only have one core product or one supplier that you are at risk of having your business swept away from you at a stroke.

My Amazon sales have followed the general trend of the world economy, down and then a bit further down.  In the last week 2 items sold through eBay to Italy have gone missing in the post and required free replacements (and yes, John, free replacements can be expensive to the seller).  I may have to rethink whether I sell to people in Italy, the post is notoriously unreliable.  All in all, not a good couple of weeks.

Then, out of the blue I find that the subscription opt-in rate for the newsletter associated with this blog has increased amazingly over the last 2 days!  It is not much, and I do not make money from the blog or newsletter but the increased number and the support I receive from readers has really cheered me up.  My thanks to you all.

Sell successfully online

A seller only needs one visitor to buy one item however it is obvious that the more people that look at your item the better the chances that that buyer will be among them.  One of the challenges to those of us that sell successfully online is to find listing sites that have a lot of traffic.  Until a year or so ago there was only one real choice, eBay.  Since then more of us have realized the benefit of listing items on Amazon (hence the growth in third party sales on Amazon).  Now there really may be a third option for those of us who strive to sell online, AtomicMall.com

AM is now known to generate more page views per item than anyone else and that must be good news for online sellers.  Add to that a policy of no listing fees unless a sale is made and you can understand why sellers are looking at AM seriously.  What lies ahead for AM could be their biggest challenge, how to make the buying public look to them before the big 2.

The jury is still out on AM but only the foolish online seller would overlook this site.  There is nothing to lose and a lot to gain for all us who sell online.  It is well worth looking at AM as another income stream, and maybe more in the future.

Sell successfully online

The other week Jane and I went away for the weekend (it was lovely, thanks for asking).  While we were enjoying a very brisk (i.e. cold) weekend on the North East coast of England I found a copy of a book called The Letters and Diary of Kathleen Ferrier that was in excellent condition, except for one thing.  The frontispiece had been torn out of it.  If it was intact it would have been worth £40, with this damage it was worth £6.  As I paid £1 I still made a nice profit on it (at least in percentage terms).

However, it got me to thinking.  My two general rules of thumb are never to pay more than 1/3 of what I think I can sell any item for and only buy items in the best possible condition.  This ensures that I make a reasonable profit and that I do not have too much of my working capital tied up in slow moving stock.  It also ensures that a collector interested in what I am selling will always consider my stock and come to trust me as a seller.

Selling goods in good condition helps to build both my profit and reputation.

This is the basic deal, although details will vary from exchange to exchange. You submit your site to the exchange. Going through the exchange you visit other sites. For every 2 sites you visit you receive 1 ‘credit’. A credit gives you one visit from another exchange member. The result if you vivist 100 sites a day is that your site gets 50 hits a day. Wonderful!

The trouble is, why were you visiting the other sites? To get people to visit your site. Did you really care about those sites? Did you revisit any of those sites? Did you bookmark any of them? Did you buy from any of them? Did you read the whole site or just tick it off your ‘to do’ list?

Why do you think anyone from the exchange should pay any more attention to your site than you did to theirs?

Just how valuable do you think traffic from traffic exchanges is, really?

I have to tell you – this package is unbelievable.  The
package consists of a set of process maps – called
Cashmaps – that show you the steps necessary to setting
up and growing an online business.

At each step, there are one or more online resources that
are referenced so that you can see exactly when and where
to use the resource.

Overall – this is a great product.  The only thing that it
seems to be missing is a write-up to help distinguish between
the resources.  There’s so many resources on here that it’s
sometimes a bit hard to decide which one to use!

I’d highly recommend that you check out cashmap.com

You probably sell in one or more niches.  While you may not realize it but by specializing in one area you become an expert.  You deal with the same product a lot, unlike a buyer who may only by one now and then.  The buyer may have questions that you have come across many times.  By writing a guide covering common questions you can answer those questions for many people.  But selling on eBay is not an altruistic activity.  What is the benefit to you the seller?

Firstly, you are showing your buyers that you are an expert, you have answered their question. Would you be more willing to buy from an expert or someone else?  Especially as the seller will have a link to his shop in the guide (won’t you?).

Secondly, you are part of the eBay community and engage in it.  You read the forum, some people are more involved than others, they have lots of posts.  How do you feel about them?  They seem ‘part’ of eBay, more solid, more reliable because they spend time on the forum.  They are credible, as is the writer of a well written guide.

Thirdly, to the right of the guide some of your listings will be displayed.

The same applies to honest reviews of products.  If I am thinking of buying something and I read an honest review am I going to be more or less likely to buy from the person giving me good information?

Be creative when thinking about the guides and reviews that you write.  If there is a new product then that is an obvious subject for a review.  Also, with a new product in an existing line there will be changes from the previous model.  Is there scope for a guide helping with the changes?  If you sell wild bird seed, someone has to, can you write a guide about attracting more birds into the garden?  If you sell compost bins can you write a guide about the best uses of the compost they make?  If you sell baby items or clothes how about a guide about how quickly babies grow, how parents can survive the first six months of broken sleep etc. what to expect when they (the babies not the parents) start teething. You get the idea.

Writing guides and reviews is a good way to build your credibility and bring more sales.  It is a one time effort for a long term gain.

I can not understand their success.  Look at the maths.  Assume that I have a winning formula for making money online with my web site.  If I sell you my format, templates, everything that is necessary to repeat my success then 2 of us could make a good profit, after all the web is huge.

What if I sell my business secrets to 10 people, or 1,000?

As the seller I will make a lot of money.  Be realistic, if you could buy a format that could provide you with $50,000 a year how much would it be worth? If I sell the idea 1,000 times I can retire!

As a buyer, one of 1,000 is the market still going to be there?  One site makes $50,000 a year. Unless there is a huge untapped market (in which case the original site was not very good at converting the market into sales) how will that 1,000 make a similar income?

My tip is always to ask yourself why the seller is selling and do the maths.