Sell successfully online

Have you read pieces from people who say that they find their stock to sell on eBay ON eBay?

One of the secrets is to look for those bad listings that do not attract lots of bids and then to bid at the last moment.  Ideally you want to find auctions that have low starts (£0.99 or $0.99) that have not attracted more than 1 bid.  That way you can secure some absolute bargains.

I have just (in the last 30 minutes) bought a Toshiba DVD player for £0.99.  Used once with remote, instructions, and boxed!  But how?

Phil Lee from Missing Auctions has another nifty little site that allows you to find these items.  Once you have identified something that you could resale for a profit log onto an auction sniper service enter your bid and wait.

Simplicity itself, and very rewarding.  The sites that you need;

Single Bid Auctions
Auction Sniper

Let me tell you about Single Bid Auctions.  It is so simple to use that anyone can use it. It searches eBay for items that are about to end where the auctions have either zero or just one bid AND the current price is 99 pence, 99 cents or less (depending on the country you select).

You can narrow your searches by the main eBay categories and it even suggests items to look for depending on the category that you choose based on the most popular searches.

If you’d like to look for something specific, simply enter it into the search box at the top of the site.

It works across all of the major eBay sites too including eBay UK, eBay US, eBay Canada, eBay France, eBay Italy and eBay Australia.  It should work out your location automagically and direct you to the correct page but if it doesn’t simply click on your countries flag at the top of the page.

Now let me tell you about Auction Sniper.  This is a site that allows you to set a maximum bid level on any eBay auction and will bid for you within seconds (7 seconds is the default time) of the end of the auction.  Auction sniper will outbid other bidders up to your pre-determined max.

Whether to buy stock or to buy for personal use these two sites make a winning combination.

Sell successfully online

I have said on many occasions that good feedback is a reflection of both your self as a seller and a person.  If you treat people well then that reflects on the type of person you are.

eBay now has decide to reward you.  Beyond being a power seller (there is no excuse not to be) a seller with good DSRs will get a further bonus.  From 1st October a ‘good’ seller as measured by their DSR will get;

Promotion in search results (to boost sales)

A new ‘Top Seller’ Badge

Exclusive access to Featured First

Best FVF discounts

And about time too, some of us say.  Anything that promotes good sellers is to be welcomed.  As long as that does not accopunt against new and small sellers.  For now I am holding my council, but I will enjoy my benefits because of my good DSR……..

Sell successfully online

However, it has long been said that eBay buyers only look at the main price and do not compare price plus postage (p&p) to get a true reflection of costs. In other words a low price with a high postage would sell better than a reasonable price and reasonable postage – even if the second item was cheaper overall.

These days eBay give preferential listings for ‘post free’ items and so I have been experimenting. I compared my normal listings (reasonable prices and p&p) against post free listings – total cost for each being the same. The post free came out on top.

Next I listed some post free ads where the price was more than the usual p&P listings. Guess what? The post free listings performed better!

The upshot? I suppose that we can conclude that most buyers do not bother to change their searches to look for the “price + P&P, Lowest First” filter, they leave it on the “best Match” filter. They also do not then go through all the listings (but we knew that) so that the nearer the top of the listings the better.

I have changed my listing policy.

But Amazon is different.  I received negative feedback yesterday.  The reason was that I sold a CD to someone “as new” and when it arrived there was a crack in the CD case.  My initial reaction was to post a reply saying something like ” What! Am I now responsiblke for the failings of the Royal Mail?  Give the heavy handed thugs in RM the negative feedback, not me.  Anyway, miss buyer, why did you post the feedback without contacting me? Your actions could cost me business, hit my income.  You should be banned from buying on Amazon, or anywhere else.”

What I did was to post a reply that went something like this “Item damaged in the post, refund initiated.  Sorry that this has happened, luckily, damage in the post is rare.”  Or something similar.  The former would have made me feel better the second is more productive.

Until now this has been a free service but as from 1st June they will be charging.   Jeff Schlichtsays that the reason for the change is that Auctiva’s revenue streams have been hit by the changes that eBay have made to their affiliate scheme.  These changes have effectively reduced Auctiva’s income from eBay to almost zilch, and that funding gap had to be filled.  We, the users, are to be the ones filling that gap.  The full text of the announcement is here.

I think that the move was inevitable, more organisations than just Auctiva have found their eBay affiliate income reduced because of eBay’s recent changes.  Also, I do not object to paying a reasonable amount for a service (but free is better).  However, Auctiva have gone for 5 different payment plans (6 if you include the free but you can’t really do anything option).  They will suggest a plan for you based on your recent activity if you are already using Auctiva.

Are there alternatives to Auctiva?  Of course, and one of the most popular is The Seller SourceBook.

The Seller Sourcebook has a flat fee structure and would cost me about the same as continueing with Auctiva.  Their service is similar to Auctiva’s however, at present, there is no scrolling gallery.

It is entirely possible to design and use your own templates for your listings, of course and some people amend and use sales page templates etc.  personally, I will probably stay with Auctiva, for the gallery alone plus I have used them for more than 3 years without any problem.

I have to admit that although I look out for new lines whenever I am out and about finding something to sell is rarely that easy.  My preferred source is Salehoo, link below.  They are a great resource for anyone looking for products.  Either if you know what you want to sell or just browse.  You are guaranteed to find something to suit.

I have the attention span of a gnat.

If I can not complete whatever I want to do within a week or two then the chances are that I will not complete it.  Witness the 3 ebooks that I am still writing, all of which I want to do but other things get in the way.

eBay is great for me.  I can find a product, order it, list and sell it all within days.  I was in London last week end.  I went to a market and found a wonderful product, green, in demand, easy to post, good price.  Yesterday I found the importer, have confirmed his T&Cs and have placed an order.  This time next week they will be listed.  Perfect.

From a standing start you can make money on eBay within a week.  On the other hand, building a business does take time and work.  The good thing is that the steps to build a business are all manageable within my attention span, and available time.  Small steps will get you where you want to be, believe me.

Working a string of 10 and 12 hour days has lead me to a couple of conclusions;

First, my desire to get out of the sheer mind numbing drudgery of working in a warehouse has increased, dramatically.

Second, this blog has been running for 6 months, so where is it now and what has it achieved?

In April it had over 2,000 unique visits! My newsletter now has a smidgen under 500 readers, and a number of people contact me to discuss the posts and are often complimentary, sometimes not but hey, stuff happens.

I think that this is quite a good start.

What have been the most important things that I have done to get here so far?

1. I bought and used a couple of great ebooks, foremost amongst those is Blogging to the Bank, which I think is a must have for everyone starting a blog.

2. I invested in The Internet Kickstart Course from Sara Brown & Tony Shepherd. This is a course that takes anyone from having no IM knowledge and leads them by the hand through the jungle.

3. I found a great service that helps to increase a site’s ranking by identifying sites that can be used to build back links.

4. Lastly, I have discovered that building a business takes time and a steady approach doing a little evreyday.

Sell successfully online

For the background to this follow this link.

I saw the man who offered me his stock and showed him what I had discovered.  To say that he was surprised would be an understatement.  He did say, however, that he knew the manufacturer of some of the items the company in question sold and knew for certain that they were not counterfeit.

So, the position is that while some of the goods from this wholesaler are legitimate they were prosecuted for selling non-licensed, counterfeit items.  Do I buy the goods that I know to be legit?  The answer is no for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, if they have a record for this sort of activity in the past how much can I trust them in the future?  Also, even if the goods I buy from them are legit if they are caught selling other counterfeit goods my account with eBay could be suspended until I am cleared.

It is just not worth the risk.

It is more complicated than that of course but she estimates that a maximum of two out of three listings fetch bids first time arround.  The remaining items, when relisted, again sell two out of three, and so on.  As long as you know your exact costs and profit margins this is a very good way to test new products.  In fact knowing your full costs and profit margins is key to selling successfully online be that on eBay, Amazon, or any site.