E-Commerce 2.0: Free eBook for My Readers

The eBay Seller's News, July 2007, Volume 7, No. 7

Learn How To Sell More on eBay with The Newsletter for Professional
eBay Sellers by:  Skip McGrath

In This Issue:

Musings

1. E-Commerce 2.0: Free eBook for My Readers
2. eBay Boot Camp with Skip McGrath, September 28-29
3. eBay Niche of the Month: Selling Crafting Supplies
4. Mastering The Psychology of eBay's Buy-It-Now Feature
5. Winning Strategies for eBay Trading Assistants
6. Get A Sneak Peek at New eBay Features for the rest of 2007
7. New Wholesale Sources for July 2007

"You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction."
Alvin Toffler

Musings

I would like to thank the nice folks at WorldWide Brands for featuring us in their newsletter this month and welcome all of the new subscribers who joined us from the newsletter recommendation.

WorldWide Brands is currently the only source of wholesale sourcing information that I recommend. The special $20 off discount for my readers will expire soon as will their $50 new signup bonus, so don't wait. You can go to www.worldwidebrands.com/skipmcgrath to get the special offer. The $50 off will expire on July 19th., but my $20-off coupon will last at least until the end of July.

Remember if you signed up for the newsletter you need to look for a confirmation message and click on the link to confirm your subscription. These messages can sometimes end up in your spam filter if you use hotmail, AOL or Yahoo mail accounts. So look in your junk filter if you don't see the message.

Update on My Silent Team: This excellent membership web site has been up and running for three months now and the kudos continue to come in. One thing about membership web sites is that they have to be good to keep their members --otherwise people quit after a month or two. I was speaking with Jim Cockrum, author of The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay, the other day and he said that member retention has been not only excellent --it is far above their expectations. This is probably because Jim and his contributors like myself, continue to add new content to the site every week. If you haven't checked out this exciting membership training destination you may want to do so soon as Jim plans to cap the membership.

I will be speaking in Dallas, Texas on Monday, July 23rd, 6:00 pm at the Dallas eBay user group, Dallas eBaybes and eMales. You can join the group and get more information at: http://ebaysell.meetup.com/119/

The meeting will be held at:
HOLIDAY INN SELECT
10650 N. Central Expwy. (North Park Area)
Dallas, TX 75231
(214)373.6000

Schedule:
6-7:00PM -- Back to Basics Class: Optimizing your computer for eBay presented by Jim Halloran and David
7-8:00PM -- Meet & Greet (dinner & networking)
8-9:00PM -- Guest Speaker: Skip McGrath (Me). The topic of my talk will be eBay 3.0

Are you interested in multi-channel selling? When I was at eBay Live I spent some time getting a complete briefing on the Infopia solution. If you are looking for a way to list your products on eBay, your own website, and other e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com, Bid4Assets, Overstock.com, and uBid.com, then you may want to check out Infopia.

Infopia has also recently partnered with buySAFE to boost consumer confidence in eCommerce sites. By integrating Infopia’s Marketplace Manager platform with buySAFE’s trust seal and bonding services, merchants can offer their customers third-party assurance that they are trustworthy and reliable, easing consumers’ concerns and facilitating more sales and revenue.

The buySAFE Certified Merchant program will be available as an integrated feature of Infopia’s Marketplace Manager platform. Approved merchants will display the buySAFE Seal, which certifies that they are trustworthy and reliable, their businesses are continually monitored, and their customers’ purchases can be fully guaranteed with a bond from buySAFE and its surety partners Liberty Mutual, Travelers, and ACE USA.
 

Let's get started with this month's issue:

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1. E-Commerce 2.0: Free eBook for My Readers

Infopia also created some buzz at eBay Live with a new book that lays out the future of e-commerce. The E-commerce 2.0 handbook - How to Prosper In the Era of Online Selling by Ralf Von Sosen is a great look at the future of ecommerce and a great handbook to help you improve your online sales whether you use eBay, your own web site or any of the popular online selling venues.

One of the best chapters is: The Long Tail – Target Niche Markets. I have been talking about niche markets for years --but Ralf looks at them in a whole new way. Best of all the book contains five actual case studies of actual online sellers and how they are selling and prospering today.

This excellent book is completely free to our readers. Click here to download the book in PDF format.

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2. eBay Boot Camp with Skip McGrath, September 28-29

I am always asked by my readers about doing another seminar. I haven't done one since Las Vegas in 2005.

One of the problems with seminars is that to make money doing them you have to charge a fortune to cover the costs of renting hotel room, travel and of course the marketing. But recently a new store opened up right here in my home town. It has a complete --very professional, meeting room with 1st class audio-visual equipment and wireless high speed internet. So this gave me the idea, why not hold a seminar right here?

I have decided to hold a 2-day intensive "boot camp" style seminar designed to get small eBay sellers making money quickly and to help them scale their business to the next level. One word of caution --by small sellers, I do not mean raw beginners. I am talking about relatively small sellers who already know the basics of eBay and want to grow their business to earning a serious income. This will not be a beginners course.

In addition to myself, I have reached out to a few folks who are also experienced eBay trainers. Lynn Dralle, aka The Queen of Auctions, will be here one of the two days and Cindy Shebley, a certified eBay trainer and eBay U instructor will also pitch in. Jen Cano from HammerTap will present the section on eBay market research. So attendees will have the advantage of four eBay professionals for two days of intensive study --and practice.

We are still putting the course syllabus and outline together, but we already know some of the topics. I am not opening up the registration yet, but if you are interested, click here to read more about the event and to register to receive more information.

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3. eBay Niche of the Month: Selling Crafting Supplies

There are plenty of arts and crafts sold on eBay, but one of the biggest markets is selling arts and craft supplies to other crafters. If you are a beader, you might sell a half a dozen of your beautiful bracelets each month. Meanwhile another seller is closing hundreds of auctions for beads and beading supplies.

If you look at the various craft categories on eBay you will see that there are several sub-categories for each main crafting category. Here is an example of some of the sub-categories for just three crafts; Quilting, Beads and Glass Art:

Almost every art & craft category has similar sub-categories. I spoke to someone in eBay who estimated that over $3 million worth of craft supplies are sold on eBay every month.

If you don't think this can be a profitable niche, when I was at eBay Live I was seated at dinner next to a Platinum PowerSeller from San Francisco who sells over $50,000 a month in beads, findings and beading supplies. He finds most of his beads from the standard wholesale sources who advertise in Beading magazines and exhibit at trade shows. He is just getting started importing beads from Asia and told me the profit margins are even higher. I also met a Gold PowerSeller at eBay live who has started importing beads from Africa and the Middle East who is selling over $10,000 a month at markups of 200% to 500%.

So if you are an artisan or crafter, go ahead and sell your crafts and finished products, but consider adding a line of supplies to build your business, traffic and cash flow. I have listed a few wholesale craft suppliers in this month's wholesale sources below.

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. Just fill out the form to get a FREE subscription.

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4. Mastering The Psychology of eBay's Buy-It-Now Feature

eBay's Buy-It-Now (BIN) feature is one of the most controversial of eBay's optional features. Some love it and others hate it --but the trick is knowing how to use it.

Buy-It-Now (BIN) is a feature that lists a fixed price next to your current bid price that allows a buyer to end an auction at any time by paying the BIN price. However, the BIN price disappears from the listing and search results once the first bid has been placed on an ordinary auction, or once the reserve price has been reached on a Reserve Price Auction (RPA).

Here is an example of how an items appears in search results with BIN:

This seller is listing a broken toaster with a starting bid of $40 and a BIN price of $70.00. If someone places a bid of $40 then the BIN price will disappear from the listing.

One problem with BIN items that start with a low bid is that someone interested in the item will place an early bid at the minimum just for the purpose of getting the BIN to disappear. Remember there is no cost to bid. Low bidders have nothing to lose by placing unreasonably low bids. If they win, they get a bargain. If they lose they just move on to the next item.

eBay recently exacerbated this problem with their new feature called Bid Assistant that allows bidders to bid on a group of items at the same time. With this feature a bidder adds items they are interested in to their My eBay, Items I'm Watching page. The bidder places the highest bid they are willing to pay and eBay bids for them in chronological order. Bid Assistant places your maximum bid on the item ending soonest on your list. If you are outbid, it then places a bid on the next item. So this is a nice little bargain-hunting tool for buyers but it can really kill sellers who use (and pay extra for) the BIN option.

One way around this is to use BIN listings in combination with a Reserve Price Auction (RPA). Remember with an RPA your BIN price stays active until your reserve is met. This allows you to place a low starting price to attract bids and a reserve to make sure you don't give the item away. Yes, a lot of people don't like RPAs and won't bid on them, but losing these potential bidders (way overestimated in my opinion) is not as bad as selling your item at below it's value.

If you have identical items in inventory another strategy is to list two identical items within one minute of each other. List one of the items as a normal auction with a starting price at a level you would accept if the item sold at that price and did not get any higher bids. Now list the second item in a Fixed Price Auction with a BIN price at the high end of the range. The psychology here is that bidders see both items. One at your starting price and the other at the higher BIN price right next to each other. Seeing the higher BIN price, this tends to establish a value in the bidder's mind that gives them confidence in bidding at your high starting value. An additional benefit is that you will often sell an item from your fixed price listing to someone who simply wants it now and doesn't want to wait for the auction to end. I use this strategy all the time and it often works well for me.

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5. Winning Strategies for eBay Trading Assistants

At this year's eBay Live I was invited to sit on a panel with four other successful eBay Trading Assistants. The other panelists were Dan Muskat of Snappy Auctions, Stephen Pletka of Consider It Sold, Peter Becker of Global Garage Sales and Adam Leidhecker of Your Auction Company. All of them are independent TAs --not eBay franchise drop off stores, except Dan Muskat of Snappy Auctions. (In fact one of the most notable things at eBay Live this year was the absence of eBay drop off store franchise companies --but that is another story).

Edume Jorda, head of eBay's PowerSeller support, moderated the panel and asked each panelists a series of questions to elicit what made their eBay TA business successful.

Each of the panelists covered a lot of ground but several common themes emerged that almost everyone agreed on:

• Cost control - Don't get into expensive leases or spend money on advertising that doesn't work. Watch your costs constantly and cut anything that doesn't bring in a return on investment.
   
• Customer service - Customer service is king. Delivering great customer service to consignors brings them back and helps build word-of-mouth advertising. Giving great customer service to your eBay buyers builds your feedback and helps you sell more.
   
• Learn how to do research - Using good research tools like HammerTap and the eBay completed search helps you understand the true value of items maximize your selling opportunities, and avoid taking it items that won't sell.
   
• Manage expectations - Be careful and conservative when you give consignors an estimate of what something will sell for. Consignors often have overblown ideas of what their treasure is worth. It is important to tell them up front what you think an item will realize on eBay, but be careful giving them a range of prices. For example if you tell someone you think their collectible cookie jar will go for between $50 and $100, you can be sure they will only hear the $100. When it sells for $63.50 they will be disappointed that it didn't sell for the $100 you "promised" them.
   
• Learn how to say NO to items that won't sell or goods that won't sell for at least $50 or more. It is not profitable to sell low-value items or to waste your time re-listing items that just don't have a market on eBay. (Personally I rarely accept items that I believe will sell for less than $100)
   

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6. Get A Sneak Peek at New eBay Features for the rest of 2007

As we told you when we got back from eBay Live, eBay is preparing a lot of new features and widgets that they plan to roll out during the rest of 2007. Here are links to pages where you can get a sneak peek at the new features just rolled out and those coming over the next couple of months.

eBay To Go is a widget that allows you to share favorite eBay pages on your blog or website.

Bid Assistant allows you to manage your bidding on multiple items at once.

My World 2.0 makes it easier and to share your interests and connect with other folks on eBay.

The Playground is a separate eBay site that allows eBay to experiment without changing the entire eBay site. Although a few features of regular eBay are not available on the Playground, bidding and buying are real. The main difference right now is how you find items.

Next Generation My eBay is a streamlined My eBay Page that will let you see at a glance all activity happening in the next 24 hours. You can set up custom reminders and notes.

1-Click Bidding can increase your chances of winning in the last 30 minutes. When this feature is ready you'll be able to bid and confirm your bid with a single click from the current "View Item" page. Other improvements coming include the ability to see the most relevant details about the item at a glance.

Window Shopping is Another feature for the big corporate sellers (How about some new features for the little guy?) Shopping for clothes, accessories, and jewelry is about to become a whole new experience on eBay. Window Shopping will allow you to browse through photos and filmstrips to discover what you are looking for. 

Sorry, there are no preview pages for the last two items. If eBay does put up a beta test, I will place a link to it in my blog.

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7. New Wholesale Sources for July 2007

Gizmo Grabber is a new wholesale site selling a variety of electronic products imported from Asia.

Global Sources Direct is the small lot section of Global Sources. Be sure and check out their special promotions link. Recent promotions include a BMW RC car for $7.20 each and Vivatar X60 Digital Camera for $255.85.
 

DBL Distributing has long been a source of electronics and accessories for eBay sellers. However they recently announced that they will no longer work with eBay sellers unless you also have a unique website where you list the products.
 

Surplussourcing.com is now dropshipping. To enter the wholesale area of the web site the login is: wholesale1. The password is: ssg786. This is a temporary password. If it is not working, just register for an account and contact them for drop shipping details.

Glass Eye Studio in Seattle has been creating affordable art glass pieces such as Christmas ornaments, paperweights and vases and bowls for over 26 years.

Since our niche of the month was craft suppliers, here is a list of several manufacturers and distributors of wholesale craft supplies and tools.

The first place you may want to check is the B2B wholesale search engine on this website. Just type art supplies or craft supplies into the search box and you will get several good returns.

Beads from the Mykonos - Wholesale supplier of ceramic beads, leather cord, spacer and metal beads, and jewelry findings.

Create for Less - Wholesaler of sewing, scrapbooking, quilting, decorative painting, floral and garden, and other general crafting and hobby supplies. Also offers online shopping and craft advice.

Norden Crafts Ltd. - Supplier to the needlecraft industry

Artistic Ribbon - A supplier of a variety of ribbons including sheers, velvet, satin and novelty. Includes product photos, sales offices and ordering information.


Bottles.com - Offers a selection of bottle, jars, and closures for various crafts.

Yasutomo - Importers of innovative art and craft supplies including origami papers and writing instruments. Has a project page for ideas and inspiration.

Craft Inc. - Manufacturers of self-fastening hardware and application equipment for photos, picture frames, plaques, mirrors and boxes.

Siegel of California - Supplier of tanned leather skins, leather tools and brass findings.

Timewell Corporation - Offering jewelry making supplies including findings, beads, charms, chains, and tools. Some areas of the site are for member only and are password protected. You will have to register to get a password

United Basket Company - Offering rattan, wicker and bamboo baskets.

Wholesale Craft Supplies - Offering paints, brushes and needlework kits.

La Sioux - Doll making supplies

Czech Beads - Importer of Czech glass, findings, lampwork, handmade, metalized plastic, firepolish, and pressed beads

Lion Picture Framing Supplies Ltd. - Material and equipment supplier for professional picture framers.

John Bead Corporation - Wholesale beading supplies including lamp beads, twine, findings and seedbeads.

Holly's Wholesale Tolepainting and Scrapbook Supplies - Offers a large variety of scrapbooking and painting products.

BobCorey Associates - Supplies X-acto knives, embroidery threads and carving kits

That's it for this month. 

Skip McGrath