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How to Get The Most Out of eBay LiveThe eBay Seller's News, June 2007, Volume 7, No. 6 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. A few months ago I told you about Chatteling. Chatteling is nothing more than buying stuff from people who are selling it at well under what it is worth and reselling it on eBay or Craigslist. I gave a copy to a friend of mine who really took to it. He went through the system (it takes about an hour to read) and set up his buying paths (this is explained in the book) and started looking for stuff. His first weekend, he spent about $300 buying merchandise --mostly from Craigslist and local classified ads. It took him about ten days to sell all of the goods he bought and he ended up netting just over $800. He sold about 1/2 of the merchandise on eBay and the rest on Craigslist. Amazingly two of the items he sold on Craigslist for a total of $140 he also bought on Craigslist for under $25. The trick is knowing what to look for which is explained in the book in great detail. This is one of those things that isn't right for everyone. Some people will see how it works and take to it and others will say "Sorry --not for me." But if this lights your fire, it is a lot of fun and potentially highly profitable, and it comes with a money-back guarantee. Click here for more info. A wile ago I introduced my readers to a simple web site builder called Skips-website-builder. We have since changed the offer to no longer require prepayment of the first three months and revamped the site. It is now called PowerSeller Builder. Best of all we now offer a 10-day Free Trial and then a low monthly hosting charge with no contract. Unlike many popular builders, our builder comes with free telephone support to help you get started. Last month I introduced you to Trade Pubs, a website where you can find free trade magazines from the wholesale industry. This month I found a great new magazine you can subscribe to called Niche Magazine. NICHE Magazine connects online sellers, art galleries, jewelry stores, boutiques and craft retailers with the finest designer decorative accessories, art jewelry, couture and studio furniture made in the USA and Canada. More than 300 American art and craft studio designers are featured in each issue of this quarterly full color publication. The contact information for each designer is included so you can contact them and determine if they would like you to sell their products on eBay or your website. Update on My Silent Team. I was speaking with Jim Cockrum this week and he was gushing about the success of the My Silent Team website. I am a little jealous. I have had a plan to launch a membership web site for about two years but could just never find the time and Jim beat me to the punch. So rather than compete with him I decided to join him as a contributing editor. The site has been a huge success. Member feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we continue to add new products and resources every month. Here are just a few things added this week that are completely free to members:
And there will be more added next week. One of the best features of the site is the ability to ask questions and get answers from over a dozen separate experts who often post and answer questions including myself. Let's get started with this month's issue: [top] 1. How to Get The Most Out of eBay Live This will be our sixth eBay Live. I am often asked if people should go, and what to do when they get there. The first answer is: YES! If you sell on eBay, attending eBay Live is one of the best investments you can make. This year's event is in Boston. Next year will be somewhere on the West Coast (I am betting on Seattle) or perhaps in Chicago if you believe rumors. There are lots of little benefits to attending eBay Live, but I like to focus on what I call the Big Three:
Networking - When you attend eBay Live one of the biggest benefits is the opportunity to meet other sellers and to meet the eBay employees who work in the various department and product categories. Even though I have been doing eBay full time for almost 8 years, I still learn stuff from other sellers every time I go to eBay Live. eBay sponsors a networking breakfast every morning and you can also meet sellers at the various functions and in the lounges (Pinks Lounge, PowerSeller Lounge, etc.). I have always found people willing to share their ideas and techniques and never fail to learn something new every year. Education - eBay puts on over 40 separate educational seminars and panel discussions where you can hear experts discuss almost every facet of selling on eBay. Many of the presenters are large eBay PowerSellers who share their techniques and are more than willing to answer questions. (If you are a trading assistant, I will be on the eBay TA panel on Thursday morning). Tools - There are literally dozens of third party vendors that supply various tools and services to eBay sellers. These include automated postage companies, auction management tools, systems and software, audio and video programs, photography equipment and systems and lots of shipping and marketing solutions. Most of these companies exhibit at eBay Live where you can see the products and services in action. Most of the companies exhibiting offer some type of show special where you can get a discount or even a free trial of their product or system. One of the companies exhibiting will be HammerTap, the leading eBay research product. If you would like to meet me, I will be doing appearances and book signings at their booth. Just drop by and ask for my schedule. Be sure and check my blog during eBay Live and I will be doing daily posts with news, cool tools and resources I have found and tips and techniques I have learned during the event. [top] 2. Coping With Lower Sell Through Rates on eBay eBay doesn't talk about it, but it is no secret that sell through rates (STR) have been falling on eBay. Just ask any seller (including me) and they will tell you that their STRs have fallen anywhere from 10% to 30% over the past two years. Your STR is one of the most important data points you should monitor. Simply put, it is the number of auctions successfully closed (i.e. sold) versus the number of auctions launched. For example, if you launched 60 auctions this month and 40 of them were successful, then your STR would be 66% (good). If 50 out of 60 auctions sold, then your STR would be 83%. Generally anything over 70% is considered excellent. Falling STRs affect your profits probably more than any single factor. Remember, you pay a listing fee for every item you launch on eBay. If your average starting price for an item is $19.99 then your listing fee is $0.60. Now add say 30-cents for photo hosting, 10-cents for scheduling and $1.00 for the bold option. This brings your total to $2.00. So if only 50% of your auctions close successfully, this means you are paying an effective listing fee of $4.00 for each auction you launch. If your average selling price (ASP) is $25 with a 50% STR, that means your effective listing cost (at $4.00) is 16% of your final value. Now add final value fees and PayPal fees to this and your total cost is (FV=$1.31 + PayPal $0.73 + effective listing fee $4.00) $6.04. That works out to 24% of what you sold the item for. If your product cost was $14, then you are left with $4.96 profit or 19.8% --not a lot of profit for the work expended. You have to sell a lot of widgets at a $4.96 profit to make a good weekly income. So how do you cope with this reality? The first step is to review your auction titles, descriptions and photographs and make improvements that will increase your STR. Next is to run your auctions through a good research tool like HammerTap to determine the best ending day and time, optimum optional features and keywords for each item you are selling. Often a few adjustments in these factors can increase your STR by as much as 10% to 20%. The next obvious factor is to increase your ASP. Unless you are selling in really high volumes or you have very high profit margins, it is very difficult to make a living on eBay today selling products with an ASP under $50 --and $100 is even better. Next, realize that eBay is only one selling venue open to you. I strongly believe eBay offers the new seller the lowest barrier to selling on the internet, but once you have mastered the basics, you want to look at expanding to other venues such as Overstock.com Auctions, Amazon and even some other specialized auction sites. Lastly is to set up your own website. Many top sellers use eBay as an easy
way to capture a customer for that first sale and then market to them directly
in the future via their website where you don't have any listing or selling
costs other than PayPal fees and your monthly hosting costs. [top] 3. eBay Niche of the Month: Consignment Selling on eBay Motors for Auto Body and Repair Shops Admittedly this niche isn't for everyone. You don't have to be an expert, but you do need to know something about cars --or at least have an interest in them. But if you do, this is a highly-profitable niche. It requires no investment in inventory and consignment suppliers are both easy to find and eager to work with you. Talk to anyone who owns an auto body shop or automotive repair shop and ask them if they have any parts in stock that they are stuck with and can't use. Invariably they will take you into a back room and show you shelf upon shelf of stuff they would like to get rid of. This happened to me recently. I followed my oldest son to a body shop where he was dropping off his car for repair. I knew the owner and was standing around chatting with him while waiting for my son to finish his paperwork. The owner knew I sold on eBay and we were talking about selling a car he was just finishing the restoration on. (Which is another good niche by the way). I can't remember how it happened but somehow the subject of parts came up. He told me he had over $25,000 in auto body and mechanical parts in storage that he couldn't return. I asked him for a list of the parts he had. I took the list home and started researching them on eBay Motors completed auctions. Of just the first 15 items on the list, every single one had sold sometime over the past month at prices averaging in the $75 to $500 range depending on the part. I called him back and said let's do this. So he is now working on photographing every item and giving me the proper part name, number and description. As soon as I return from eBay Live I will start listing the part on eBay Motors. I will take a commission on a sliding scale between 20% and 30% and pay all of the eBay fees. He will ship the parts once they sell, so I don't even have to handle them. This works out to something of a cross between consignment and drop shipping. What could be better? [top] 4. Coming To A Theater Near You: Trader's Dreams - The New eBay Movie Trader's Dreams is a new documentary film about eBay sellers in several different countries who are making it big on eBay. The film is produced by Markus Vetter and Stephan Tozl in Germany, but most of the film is in English and the parts that aren't, have English subtitles. Markus will premier the film at a theater in Boston during eBay Live. By following colorful characters in different countries and sharing their eBay experience, this film shows their defeats and successes. It also takes a look behind the scenes of the eBay's headquarters in California and presents the strategy of a Chinese genius, who causes a lot of trouble for eBay as its main competitor. I have been promised ten tickets to give away to my readers. So what I am going to do is raffle them off at eBay Live. Just come by the HammerTap booth when I am there and I will have a form to fill out or you can just leave a business card. I will pull 8 names (I am keeping two of the tickets for myself) of folks who can join me at the theater for the premier. The film will be shown on June 15th, 5 p.m. at:
Regular tickets are $9.00, Seniors and students: $8.00. Special tickets for PESA-members and pre-booking powersellers: $5.00. You can see a Quicktime preview of the movie at:
www.tradersdreams.com
(Be patient it takes a few minutes to load) [top] 5. Make Money Using eBay's Want It Now Feature If you are not familiar with eBay's Want It Now feature then you should be. Every day, over 20,000 eBay members post listings of items they are looking for. Want It Now lets buyers post requests for hard-to-find items and allows sellers to respond to those requests with eBay listings. There are two good ways to use Want it Now. One way is just to sell
items if you have what people are looking for. The other is to use Want it
now to discover niche markets. The advantage for sellers are:
The other advantage of Want It Now is the ability to research niche markets and learn what people are looking for. The problem is that it takes forever to search the listings. When I was researching this feature, I came across a program by Dave Guindon from Canada called Auction Yen. This is a very interesting program in that it allows you to collect the Want It Now data from the desired eBay web site, then analyzes the posts finding how frequent certain word combinations occur. Additionally, the total number of responses corresponding to the word combinations are extracted. More importantly, the number of occurrences and the number of responses are used to determine the 'Yen Factor' of the word combination revealing a possible product idea or niche area. The Yen Factor is a quality factor that ranges from 0 to 10, where 0 is not good and 10 is the best. This factor basically tells you if the word combination is good or not so good from a marketing point of view. This is really cool software. Don't be frightened by the word software. It is very powerful --yet very easy to use. Dave has produced a short video that explains the program and how sellers can use it to make money. He actually walks you through finding a niche item, sourcing it and selling it. Click here to see the video. [top] 6. eBay Affiliate Program Changes --More money and new rules eBay Announced new commission rates and a new policy that forbids the use of PPC advertising to drive traffic to affiliate listings. The eBay Affiliate Program pays Internet publishers, Web masters, online partners, and eBay sellers to drive new users and sales to eBay. Affiliates can promote eBay with banners, text links, and other innovative tools, such as the Editor's Kit and the Flexible Destination Tool. In return, they receive commissions for driving new, active users as well as winning bids and "Buy It Now" purchases. Currently, the top 25 affiliates in the program average above $100,000 in monthly commissions. This week's announcement is a Good News/Bad News Announcement. The good news is that eBay has raised their payouts. The bad news is that they have killed affiliates ability to use PPC advertising to drive traffic to affiliate linked listings. eBay announced the following changes to the program today:
What is not clear is, if eBay will allow affiliates to drive traffic to squeeze pages or web pages and/or blog posts where you can then drive traffic to eBay affiliate listings. I am fairly certain you can, but the recent announcement from eBay was not clear on this point. I will be spending some time at the eBay affiliate program booth at eBay Live and will get clarification on this important issue. In the meantime if you would like to learn more about the eBay Affiliate Program you can read the details at: http://affiliates.ebay.com/ One of the easiest ways to earn commissions from the eBay Affiliate Program is to build a Niche Store. A niche store is nothing more than a blog or a web page where you create content and keywords related to a specific category on eBay. For example, you could build a web page where you review and recommend specific digital cameras. Then you can grab feeds and search boxes from eBay that earn you money if someone either registers on eBay or actually buys something. Here is an example of a niche store related to golf equipment: Niche stores can be a little complicated to build, but I recently came across a simple easy-to-use software program that automates and simplifies building a store. It's called Build A Niche Store or BANS for short. With this software you could literally create a couple of niche stores a day. At the end of a week you could have 14 stores operating, generating income. None of the stores will earn you thousands of dollars a month by themselves, but if you have a dozen of them up and running this could add up to some serious money. One of eBay's largest affiliates has dozens of stores operating and he earns over $20,000 a month. Click here to see a short video that explains how this really cool software works. [top] 7. New Wholesale Sources for June 2007 Don't forget to check our wholesale search engine. But remember it is a search engine and I don't select the results that come up, so you have to use it with some caution, but there are plenty of real wholesale sources if you take a little time to filter the results. GlobalComm Suppliers is a GSM cell phone distribution company, importing and exporting over 1,300 OEM unlocked cellular phones and accessories monthly. They offer wholesale, dropshipping, and e-commerce solutions. Hanson Wholesale specializes in ceiling fans, lighting fixtures, and barbecues. Hicks Incorporated is one of the largest wholesale distributors of outdoor sporting equipment for hunting, archery, fishing and other outdoor products. Infinity Tools specializes in high quality router bits, router bit sets, shaper cutters, carbide sawblades, stacked dado blades, planer & jointer knives, insert tooling, and woodworking accessories. the website is retail. You have to contact them for wholesale distributor information. LS Silks and Silver offers a wonderful line of pure silk hand painted scarves (different sizes), blouses, ties, pillows, hand bags. Price range $35-85. Their minimum opening Order is $250. You can see the products at http://www.elasgallery.com/home.jsp, but you have to email them at info@elasgallery.com for wholesale pricing. Pod-T Training sells Infant and toddler apparel and accessories w/extremely unique and patented designs. Very high quality fabrics. All designs are embroidered. Throw pillows for kids rooms and diaper bags for the moms. Minimum Opening Order: $500 CNI Design Products manufacturers and sells small hand painted decorative accessories, accent furniture and wall decor. Their MMO is $300. Wholesale Bags and Products imports and sells popular fashion handbags, jewelry, & gifts including the fundk line of Ducti Duct tape wallets & handbags. Sport & animal theme handbags and jewelry. Red Hat gift's. That's it for this month. Look for my Special Issue right after eBay Live. Skip McGrath
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