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Find eBay Wholesale Sources in FREE Wholesale Trade MagazinesThe eBay Seller's News, May 2007, Volume 7, No. 5 Learn How To Sell More on eBay with The
Newsletter for Professional
Important News: We will soon be moving away from our current newsletter subscription service with Topica. After several years with them the service has deteriorated and too many of my subscribers have their email end up undelivered. If you are a new subscriber who subscribed since January, you are already on our new service with Aweber. Older subscribers will soon receive a message from me asking you to confirm your subscription. You must click on the links to confirm. I will continue sending out the monthly newsletter to my old Topica subscribers for the next two months and will send two subscription update notices. So I apologize to all of you in advance who will get duplicate emails, but once the transition is complete this will prevent future problems. If you would like to make sure you are on the new list, click here to subscribe. Don't forget to check your junk mail filter if you don't receive a confirmation message. If you are looking to learn good general business skills that can be applied to your online business, I came across a great teaching site called My Success Gateway. They sell a product called: The Ultimate Business ToolBox™
I keep getting requests from readers asking if this drop ship company or that one is any good. The ONLY source of drop shippers I currently recommend is OneSource from WorldWide Brands. You may find references to other companies in back issues of my newsletter or blog --if so please ignore them. Please visit the above link to learn about this excellent service. But if you decide to purchase, come back here and USE THIS LINK to save an additional $20 just for my readers. eBay announced a new trust and safety initiative. Starting this month, listings in categories that are prone to fraud, fakes and counterfeits will be delayed up to twelve hours to give eBay time to check the listings for tips offs that they may be fraudulent and remove them before they go live. eBay did not announce which categories they were targeting, but you can bet it includes women's handbags, Nike sneakers, software, rare coins and stamps along with others. The whole area of famous name designer goods has become very difficult to do and make money from on eBay and I would advise sellers to avoid new designer goods and concentrate on vintage fashion and accessories as this is a far more profitable and less competitive area without all the headaches. Get help with your eBay selling techniques and questions with eBay Mentor Groups. This is a fairly new group category. Currently there are only 7 groups set up. You do need to join the group first before asking questions, but this is simple and quick. eBay's plan for this page is to generate mentors on several topics. So far only two category-related groups have sprung up --one on collectibles and one on selling books, but the popularity of this community is starting to grow. If you have a specialty and can help others you can start a group, or you can go to one of the existing general groups to ask a question or get help on a specific topic. A lot of eBay buyers hate snipers. I am not sure if they are just not good at it or what. The problem with sniping is that you have to be at your computer to do it. But, I have used BidSlammer for several years now. I find that they can win an item for me at the lowest cost about 80% of the time. BidSlammer is very inexpensive --and it works! eBay announced this week that qualified listings from Half.com will be included and purchasable on eBay Express starting in April. There are no additional fees for Half.com sellers to get this exposure. Sellers have to opt-into this feature from their Half account page (under “eBay settings”), even if their eBay.com selling account is already qualified for eBay Express. As an added bonus, if you opt-in before April 15th, you’ll get 50% off your final value fees for any of your Half.com listings that sell on eBay Express Click here for more information about half.com I would like to thank all of you who signed up with My Silent Team last month. Membership is limited but there are still a few membership slots left before this exciting training and information resource closes its doors. I have just finished contributing some new material to the site and I have been answering questions on the message board. Response from new members has been overwhelmingly positive. Given the depth and breath of resources available to members and the ongoing support where members get to access a panel of experts on any topic related to eBay, internet marketing, affiliate programs, dropshipping and more --the price of membership is a great value. If you haven't joined there is a new very good reason to do so. Jim has just put up his complete guide to using YouTube videos to drive traffic to your auctions. This one resource is easily worth the cost of joining. If you singed up last month you should log in and look at this new excellent tutorial. If you haven't joined yet, I hope you will take a look at My Silent Team. I will be posting some new tutorials and articles to My Silent Team and will be on the message boards during the week of May 6-10. I hope you can join us. I have been a paid member of Secrets To Their Success for about two years now and learn something every time I log in and visit the site. This is the place where other internet entrepreneurs --regular folks like you and me share their stories and tips. Every month since October of 2001, they have interviewed two "regular" people each month who have made it BIG online . You get to see their web sites --see what changes they made (before and after) to become successful. Now for a limited time, Secrets to Their Success is offering a FREE 30-Day Trial Membership in this great resource. I've been a subscriber for YEARS, and the things I've learned have added more to my bottom line than I can even guess. Like I said, it's totally FREE to try for 30 days, but just for the rest of this month. Let's get started with this month's issue: [top] 1. Find eBay Wholesale Sources in FREE Wholesale Trade Magazines Find wholesale sources with free and low-cost paid trade magazines. Free Trade Magazine Source and TradePub are websites where you can sign up for free trade magazines. Almost every industry has a trade magazine and this is where wholesale manufacturers and suppliers advertise to find retailers and resellers. The two web sites above list both free and paid circulation magazines. If you can't find what you are looking for try doing a Google search for terms such as the name of the product you are looking for and the word business or retailer magazine . Here is an example: Search Term: country home retailer magazine. The second result was Country Business Magazine. This is a magazine for retailers who sell country themed furniture, candles, decor and accessories. I joined and got a copy of the magazine and the first issue had ads for over 40 wholesale suppliers --many of them for goods that I never see on eBay. Another trade magazine I get is Hearth & Home. It is the industry guide for the fireplace, BBQ and patio industry and contains tons of advertising by wholesale manufacturers looking for retailers. For example, in addition to the ads from suppliers, this month's issue has a large article on new barbecue tools and accessories. There are several brand new items just introduced. By acting now, I can get the jump on other eBay sellers before they turn up at a trade show or on a wholesale web site. Beauty and spa products are very popular on eBay now. A search of the term Beauty Supply Business turns up:
This magazine is filled with ads from beauty supply companies. Some of them may not sell to you unless you are a licensed hairdresser or cosmetologist, but many of them will. One friend of mine who sells in this industry just asks his hairdresser to place the orders for her. When you go to wholesale trade shows there are usually booths set up outside the trade show entrance when you can fill out a subscription card to get these magazines. Free trade magazines are provided by what is called Controlled Circulation. The magazine charges advertisers based on how many qualified readers they have. When you go to subscribe, you will be asked to fill out a form asking the size of your business, what you do, how long you have been in business and so on. One word of caution, be sure and read item number 4 below before contacting the wholesale suppliers you find in these magazines. [top] 2. eBay Rolls Out Feedback 2.0 in The US Market I guess I was wrong on this one. In a previous issue I opined that eBay would not roll out Feedback 2.0 in the US before eBay Live as they would want to avoid any controversy at the event. Instead they rolled it out early --hoping, I guess, that the controversy would die down by the event. You can probably guess by my tone that I am not a big fan of Feedback 2.0 and you would be correct. Personally I think it is a horrible system that will cause sellers aggravation and do nothing to improve the buying experience. Feedback 2.0 is a case of fixing something that wasn't broken. eBay ignored the parts of the Feedback system that did need changing, and the new system was made more complex and inherently unfair to sellers. The biggest problem with the current feedback system is the ability of non-paying bidders to leave retaliatory feedback. This has not been addressed. eBay makes a ton of money from sellers who decide not to chase non-paying bidders for fear of getting retaliatory feedback. Feedback 2.0 adds new ways for buyers to rank sellers --but there is no provision for sellers to rank buyers. In addition to the current positive, negative, or neutral comment, buyers will now be able to rank, on a scale of 1-5 stars, four new aspects of a transaction:
After a seller receives 10 of these rankings, the average scores will appear as a series of stars under a new section on the Feedback Profile page titled "Detailed Seller Ratings." See image below:
So now a non-paying bidder can leave neutral or negative feedback and hit you with one star across all of the rankings including shipping time and postage cost even though they never received it. Others can leave positive feedback so they don't risk a negative in return, but still hit you with a low star rating. Unlike feedback, the star ratings are anonymous. You don't know who left them. I spent several hours on eBay UK, where this system was rolled out a few months ago and as hard as I tried I couldn't find a seller with a perfect 5 star rating. I also posted questions to the seller boards, and the reaction of sellers to Feedback 2.0 was about 75% negative. Feedback 2.0 also adds other features as well. From now on the feedback comment will include the item title and the price someone paid. A lot of buyers don't like this feature as they feel what they paid for something should be private. Collectible buyers are especially upset over this provision and others think it is an invasion of privacy. So as sellers, what can we do? Not much. As I have often said eBay is the 800
pound gorilla. The original idea of the eBay community was to make eBay feel
like we all had a stake in it --but Wall Street holds all the cards now, and
eBay is a juggernaut driven by quarterly earnings. It's their platform --not
ours. If Feedback 2.0 does improve the buying experience and bring more buyers
back to the platform then it will be worth the trouble. We won't really know for
a few months. So I will still be here selling, but I will be expanding into
other channels as well. [top] 3. eBay Niche of the Month: Vintage Golf Equipment and Accessories Golf is probably America's leading pastime and enjoyed by over 50 million players on a regular basis. Vintage golf clubs and equipment are a huge collectible area. There are also another few million who don't enjoy or can't master basic golf and give it up every year after spending tons of money on clubs, bags, shoes, balls and accessories. This makes for a ready market in used golf equipment and accessories. There is also a huge market of collectors who collect old and vintage golf clubs and equipment, books, apparel and other collectibles. The vintage golf category on eBay is huge, but this category has very high sell through rates and we are just now coming back into the golf season. So this is a good time to enter the business. Here are two images of completed auctions on eBay. The first is for somewhat valuable vintage collectibles. Just take a look at the prices some of this stuff fetches.
This second image shows more of the more recent items that you can find on eBay every day and the prices they bring. The best news is that most of this stuff is easily found at garage sales and thrift shops. I was in our local Rotary store and they had three complete sets of golf clubs for sale at prices ranging from $25 to $75. One of them was an autographed Jack Nicklaus set. They also had lots of individual clubs for sale at prices starting at $1.00. Many of these will bring between $10 and $100 on eBay. Absolutely the best sellers are any items that are signed or endorsed by a golf celebrity.
The other way to find used golf equipment is to advertise. A small classified ad in your local paper or on bulletin boards will bring tons of stuff out of the woodwork. One piece of advice is to always clean whatever you are selling before taking a photo of it. You will be amazed at what a little lemon oil does to wood and some metal polish does to the club heads. This can really add value. The one real challenge with golf clubs is shipping. The best method is to purchase rolls of corrugated cardboard that you can wrap the clubs in. Having said that, when ever I sell something that is in a non-standard package, I always insist on insurance. You can get shipping insurance from Discount Shipping Insurance at about 1/2 the price the post office or UPS charges. Remember that eBay's new rules no longer allow you to self-insure and you cannot mark up the cost of insurance. With advent of Feedback 2.0 you may want to think about insuring almost any package you sell. [top] 4. How To Be Successful When Contacting Wholesalers Learning the ropes and the vocabulary will make you more successful with wholesale suppliers After last month's issue of this newsletter, I got a call from two of the suppliers I had listed. Both of them thanked me for publicizing their company but asked that I take the listing down. The reason was that they were contacted by a lot of sellers who didn't understand how to deal with wholesale companies. One lady told me she had dozens of people send her short emails with no other contact info saying things such as:"Send me one of your bags so I can see if they will sell on eBay." Other people were insisting she drop ship and when she said she had a $200 minimum order they seemed upset with her. Several sellers asked if they needed a sales tax number to deal with her. You can see how these type of communications would be frustrating to a real supplier. A lot of small manufacturers are very hesitant to sell on eBay because they don't understand how it works and think it will devalue their brand. Your job is to reassure them. First of all you should learn the terminology and what type of paperwork wholesalers expect. Next is to communicate with them professionally. For example when I email a supplier I start by introducing myself, write in complete sentences using polite businesslike language, use common business terminology (terms such as Keystone, MAP, MSRP, PO, etc.) and I sign the emails with my complete business name, address, phone number and sales tax number. Here are some rules to remember when communicating with suppliers:
If you would like to learn more about dealing with wholesalers and the terminology, these are both covered in detail in The Complete eBay Marketing System and The Wholesale Buying System. (Note: The Wholesale Buying System is included in The Complete eBay Marketing System, so please don't purchase both). [top] 5. Using Reviews and Guides To Attract Traffic To Your Auction Listings "Reviews and Guides" is an excellent tool utilized by buyers looking for more information about specific products or topics. But did you realize how useful they are for sellers to build credibility and drive traffic to listings? Most professional sellers specialize in a particular niche market. This means that you are an expert in that product type. It may seem inconsequential to you, but that knowledge can be put to good use to build your business. By writing reviews of your products, or guides about something relevant to that product type, you are showing potential buyers that you are an expert in that product. Instantly, you have become more credible as a seller. But don’t forget that some of your active items also display on the review/guide page. So if you have a well-written, detailed review of a product, and then the buyer sees that you have an active listing for that same product, you’ve got a good chance of them clicking through and buying the product from you rather than another seller. The same works with guides. Let’s say you sell baby items. A guide to products that will help a new mom survive the first six months is very relevant to your target buyers. Again, have products you sell in the list and be very honest about the products (list both pros and cons). This is a review, not a sales letter. Put a link in your auction to your reviews and guides. This again helps build your credibility. You get “helpfulness” votes from readers of your reviews and guides. As this number gets higher, you may find yourself as a Top Reviewer. If you look to the right of my username you can see that I am a Top 5000 Reviewer. I only have a couple of guides, but they are very popular. If you’re a seller of an item type that gets a lot of fakes on eBay, you might consider writing a guide about how to spot the fakes. This shows you as one of the “good guys” because you wouldn’t show people how to spot a fake if you were selling fakes yourself. If you sell information products, you might have a teaser in a guide and mention which book it is from. You should see that book as one of your items showing on the guide page, so they can click straight through and buy the full book from you. There are so many different ways you can use Reviews and Guides to your advantage. Try it – it doesn’t cost you anything other than a little time to write it, and you’d be amazed at the increase in hits you will likely see. [top] 6. New Low Cost Research Tool for eBay Sellers I have been working with the good folks at HammerTap for a while to come up with a new introductory research tool for beginning sellers and part time sellers who do not want to invest $29.95 a month in the full version of HammerTap and a discounted version of the Powerful HammerTap3 system for those who need more results and power. The result is (drum roll please): HammerTap PowerWeb Edition -Powerful Web-Based Market Research Finally, a web-based HammerTap research tool! The PowerWeb edition helps you discover whether a product will sell and how to list it. PowerWeb is also the most powerful web-based eBay research tool, perfect for consignment stores and on-the-go research. Discover simple ways to increase your profits through:
You also get a FREE 5-lesson course to help you immediately start boosting your profits with PowerWeb. If you are ready to upgrade to the full HammerTap3 PowerDesk Desk Edition, we have a deal for you too. You can now save $10 per month as long as you keep the system. Here are the details: PowerDesk Edition, Rich Market Research What should I sell and how should I sell it? If you’re looking for answers to these questions, we’ve created this tool with you in mind. Dubbed the most powerful eBay research tool, PowerDesk is intuitive, easy-to-use, and right on the money every time.
With the PowerDesk edition, you can also save an unlimited number of research files and rearrange the data to view it in ways that make the most sense to you. It gets better: PowerDesk also comes with a PowerWeb account, FeeFinder
software, to help you keep track of your eBay listing fees, and a 10-lesson
course to make research work for you! [top] 7. New Wholesale Sources for May 2007 Be sure and check our FREE wholesale search engine to find wholesale suppliers. Just please remember, it is a search engine, so although it's pretty good, it's not perfect --and I don't endorse or guarantee any of the results. We are approaching the summer slowdown, so you will want to be careful about buying seasonal merchandise. I guess I should have mentioned this last month, but May is the peak selling month for summer-oriented products. If you have a lot of swimming suits in stock by the middle of June, you will have to cut your prices to get rid of them. I have been spending some time on The eBay Reseller Marketplace. This is eBay small lot wholesale site. Unfortunately it is available to PowerSellers only. But, if you are a power seller you may want to check it out. Here are some listings as of this writing:
Of course those are current bids at the time of this writing. These lots will probably sell for more as they get closer to ending. But I have bought on Reseller marketplace before and in general I can score goods that I can usually double my money on eBay. I am always stressing the value of Niche Marketing to my readers, so this month I concentrated on wholesale sources that reflect a unique niche. The Beer Butt Chicken Cooker is a new BBQ product that exhibited at the Back yard Living Expo in Las Vegas. The web site is retail, so use the contact link to request wholesale information or call them at 1-866-526-5682. Oracle Fountains sells a complete line of fountains for indoor and outdoor use, including fiberglass fountains that are lightweight and easy to ship. One of the hottest new food smokers on the market is the Bradley Smoker. The web site is informational. Use the contact form to request dealer information. Don't forget to use the techniques outline in the article above on communicating with wholesalers. Smartee Pants Clothing, Sassy Clothing for Babes of All Ages, announces new crystal designs and products for Summer 2007 and a new drop ship program that offers many great personalized items; ie: pillow, bib & shirts. Mailbox Theft has become a real problem in the US as identity thieves are stealing mail as a way to steal your identity. Gains Manufacturing makes a very nice line of steel locking mailboxes. They also sell a very nice line of house number signs. Ohio Wholesale sells a wide line of home decor items themed for country and beach. Great Stuff by Paul is a wholesale antique dealer with literally thousands of unique items from China, England, France, Germany, Holland and other places. Many are over 100 years old or more. He supplies antique dealers all over the US. India Home Fashions sells a very nice line of home fabric products such as table cloths, place mats and more in some really unique designs. Warm Wiskers sells a very unique line of pampered pet products including microwaveable herbal pet beds for small pets. They also sell stuffed pets for kids that can be warmed. Swan Creek Candle sells a line of unusual and attractive clean burning lead-free soybean wax candles. The Frame House Gallery is the distributor for the art works of famed inspirational artist, D. Morgan. You can purchase large and small prints and framed wall art. If you live within 100 miles or so of Lancaster, PA, the Keystone Cash & Carry Warehouse is is the place to shop wholesale in person for thousands of products. More info at: www.keystonewholesalemarkets.com That's it for this month. Skip McGrath
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