eBay Niche of The Month: Vintage Tee Shirts

The eBay Seller's News, December 2007, Volume 7, No. 12

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

In This Issue:

Musings

1. eBay Niche of The Month: Vintage Tee Shirts
2. Using eBay Auctions To Drive Traffic To Your eBay Store
3. Big Sellers Leaving eBay. Is it A Blip or a Trend?
4. Free Collection of eBay Workshops for My Readers
5. EZ Cube Introduces a New Three-Light Photo Light Tent System
6. Creating Content-Rich Websites to Earn Extra Income
7. New Wholesale Sources for December 2007

"If everything seems under control,
you are just not going fast enough." ~ Mario Andretti

Musings

Plans are coming together for our Wholesale Sourcing Seminar in Las Vegas. Registration is not open yet, but we do have firm dates. The seminar will be held on March 1st and 2nd in conjunction with the giant ASD/AMD Wholesale Trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center from the 2nd to the 5th of March. We are working on a hotel near the convention center.

The concept is to spend two full days learning all aspects of wholesale sourcing and then myself, and our other instructors, will attend the trade show with the students to demonstrate the techniques you will learn and provide buying advice and assistance to the attendees.

Once the registration is open I will email my subscribers with a link to the information and registration page.

For a limited time eBay expert Scott Foster is allowing me to give away the instant-download, (ebook version) of his newest book to my customers and subscribers as a special gift.

It's called, "91 Common Everyday Items that Bring Huge Profits on eBay!"

I just checked it out myself and I have to tell you, this eye-opening ebook has more value then most PAID ebooks you find on the market today. I promise you've NEVER seen anything like it before. This book is a great compliment to my best-selling book on eBay niche marketing: Ten Little-Known Highly Profitable Niche Markets on eBay.

You could have hundreds of dollars just laying around in your garage or attic. This great book contains dozens of very profitable niche products most people have never thought of --many of them that could be developed into profitable markets on eBay.

To download your complimentary copy please use this link: (Don't wait... Scott is only offering this promotion for a limited time).

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

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1. eBay Niche of The Month: Vintage Tee Shirts

This is a great little niche that my son told me about. He likes funky and unusual T shirts and looks for them on eBay. Here are some screen shots of some recent auctions for T shirts on eBay.

Of course not all T Shirts are going to sell for these prices. But there are plenty of designs that will sell for lower --yet still profitable prices.

When you consider that you can buy many of these shirts at garage sales, thrift shops and used clothing stores like Value Village for prices of under $2.00 - $5.00, selling a shirt for $20 or $30 is a very nice markup.

As with any used product, condition is important. There are some very unusual items that might still sell if they have a stain or a tear, but I would avoid these. It's ok --and in fact can be preferable, if a T shirt has a little wear, but if it's too beat up, I would avoid it. Your auction listing should be very clear about the condition or you might risk getting a negative feedback.

The other tip is take the time to take a good photo. A lot of the T shirts shown above have poor photos and I wonder if they would have received more or higher bids had the seller taken the effort to take a better photo. You can find lots more niches like this in Scott's free eBook I mentioned above. Use this link to get your free copy.

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2. Using eBay Auctions To Drive Traffic To Your eBay Store

I often get questions from readers about getting traffic to their eBay store. Generally eBay does not serve up search results for store listings unless there are no --or very few, auction-style listings for the search term entered. You can, of course, search eBay stores separately --but many members don't take the time to do this. Instead you want to use your popular auctions to drive traffic to your store.

If you have an eBay Store, eBay provides a store logo next to your username. This tells members that you have a store. But, only the more experienced eBay users know this. Therefore you have to find a way to let bidders know you have a store and make it simple for them to find.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to invite bidders to visit your store and give them a reason for doing so. For example, on many products we offer free shipping when someone purchases items at our store price. So I might put a line in my auction description such as:

We have this model, and several other designs, in our eBay Store for immediate purchase and FREE Shipping.

As you can see the words eBay Store are a hyperlink bidders can click on to go right to it. You can even drive people to specific categories, or specific products in your store. For example, when I list one of our Starbucks collectibles items I have a statement in my listing that links people directly to a specific mug.

Starbucks Mug Collectors: We have the very hard-to-find Starbucks Headquarters Mug for immediate sale in our eBay Store.

When people click on the link it takes them to the exact listing. (Note: If you click on this link, the mug may have already sold)

Another question I often get is "which products should I put in my store and which should I list at auction." There are so many theories and answers to that question that I couldn't possibly address them all here.

The best answer is to experiment. But in general, if I have a large supply of an item that sells well, I will list it both in an auction-style listing and in my store. I am looking for buyers who don't want to wait for the auction to end.

Another strategy is used when you have items that come in varying sizes, colors, styles or models: You might want to list the most popular items in your auction and the others in a store --then use you auctions to tell people about them. But, once again it pays to experiment. Since store listing fees are so much lower than auction fees, you can try a lot of variations to see what works best for your particular product category.

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3. Big Sellers Leaving eBay. Is it A Blip or a Trend?

Ina Steiner from AuctionBytes wrote a great piece earlier this week about a major seller Bargainland, leaving eBay.

I see posts all the time from sellers threatening to leave eBay for greener pastures, but in reality there are very few. What I am seeing more of is cross-channel selling. When you sell something like collectibles, your inventory consists of hundreds or ever thousands of individual or unique items. But when you sell general merchandise as most large sellers do, your inventory is only limited by how much you can afford to stock. You can purchase as much from your wholesale sources as your budget allows or the market can absorb.

This second type of seller, are the ones who used to sell primarily on eBay but now sell on several different venues. So it isn't so much that sellers are leaving eBay altogether like Bargainland did, but they are spreading their inventory over many sites such as Overstock.com, OnlineAuction.com, Amazon.com and their own websites where they link to major shopping engines such as Shop.com, NextTag.com and Shopping.com.

This has resulted in a lower number of listings on eBay as sellers spread their inventory resources over several venues. I am, and have continued to be a big supporter of eBay, but I have also started to list on additional platforms.

This week, eBay's newest competitor, OnlineAuction.com, achieved their ten millionth listing --a milestone that no other auction company has achieved since eBay. You pay a fixed monthly fee that allows you to list an unlimited number of auctions and pay no listing fees and no selling fees. The listing tool is somewhat basic --you have to use html commands. This will have to improve if OnlineAuction.com can achieve success. But the site is getting traffic and I have decided to try listing a few items. I'll let you know how I did next month. If you want to try OnlineAuction.com, here is a promotional code to get you started: 28792AAA

Just type that into the promo code box when you register.

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4. Free Collection of eBay Workshops for My Readers

Chris Malta, eBay's product sourcing editor has just released a great eBook that is a compilation of all of his product sourcing workshops over the past year.

The workshop titles included in the ebook are:

• From Hobby to Home Business
• How to Compete in a Crowded Market
• What is the difference between Liquidation, Closeouts, and Surplus
• Understanding the Basics to Importing Physical Products to Sell
• Building Supplier Relationships is Very Important Especially for the Holiday Season

You can download it for free HERE.

Chris has also recorded a great audio file about some wholesalers who are liquidating merchandise between now and the end of the year at really low prices. This is only an 8-minute audio, but I really recommend you listen to it if you want to find some great wholesale bargains. You can listen to the recording here.

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5. EZ Cube Introduces a New Three-Light Photo Light Tent System

We have been selling the line of EZ Cube Photo Light Tents for the past four years. These are one of the simplest and most complete systems for taking great product photos for your eBay auctions and website sales. It only takes about 30-45 minutes to learn how to use the EZ Cube to take professional-looking product photos.

The only thing the system lacked was a fill light. So the manufacturer has addressed this. The 20 inch and 30 inch EZ Cube is now available with a third fill light mounted on a boom so you can fill in from the top or the front.

2o inch, 3-light system	30 inch, 3-light system

Here is a look at the two sets. The new EZ Cubes also now come with a complete instructional DVD that shows you how to get the most out of your system and we are including two additional free bonuses: 1) a 12-inch micro cube for shooting jewelry, beads and other small objects and a copy of my eBook, eBay and Online Auction Photo Secrets.

Some of my readers who bought the two-light system in the past have asked about purchasing the third light to supplement their system. I am working on this and hope to have it available soon.

If you would like to purchase one of the new sets, we have them in stock for immediate shipment at www.ezauctiontools.com or on eBay at our eBay Store.

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6. Creating Content-Rich Websites to Earn Extra Income

I am often asked if the regular guy or gal can make money by setting up websites that provide content for search engines to make money from Google AdSense, Clickbank or other affiliate programs.

About 14 months ago I set up a website called Consumer Protection Review. What I do is review various eBay and internet business opportunity programs and recommend the ones I think are best in each category. The site contains Google AdSense and links to affiliate programs where I make money when people purchase products I review and recommend. I also review opportunities that I advise people not to buy and have a section on scams and fraud.

I tried promoting the site with pay per click advertising for a few weeks to get it started--but since then I just waited for the search engines to index the site. This took quite a while. After 3 months, the site was only getting about 30-40 visitors a day but even at that level I was earning around $150-$175 month from AdSense, Clickbank and affiliate commissions.

I kept adding content to the site --about 1 or 2 new pages a month. Over time the traffic grew to a couple of hundred visitors a day and now averages around 300 visitors a day or about 8000 to 9000 a month. That is not exactly earthshaking, but the traffic is highly targeted to my search terms, so even with a small number of visitors the income grew steadily to $500/month, then to around $700 and ocassionally hits $1,000 a month. That is not bad for something that I have only put about 25 hours of work into. The site is built on my PowerSellerBuilder.com technology.

You can make a good income with just Google AdSense, but if you add quality Clickbank links and related affiliate links and banners, this can increase your income. If you are going to use this second method there are two rules you must follow:

1. Make sure the product or program you are recommending is related to the content of your site. If you have a web site about great kitchen gadgets, you don't want links to perfume companies.
   
2. Make sure the product or program you are recommending is good quality and not a scam or something designed to take advantage of your readers. If you wouldn't recommend it to your mother or your sister, then don't recommend it to your readers.

If you have knowledge about any subject, this is a really easy way to make some extra income. And if you have a popular or hot topic, you can even make some very serious money. Here is a great article from USA Today called Gray Googlers Strike Gold that shows how several seniors and retired folks are using this technique to make up to $120,000 a year.

People search for information on almost any topic you can think of. So if you have expertise to share about dog training, food, fashions, hobbies, parenting skills, relationships, financial and tax matters --what ever you can think of; Just create the content, keep adding to it and eventually you will see traffic. Once you get traffic you can start earning money from Google AdSense and other affiliate programs.

Here is a link to a page where I explain more about making money from Google AdSense programs.

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7. New Wholesale Sources for December 2007

The Christmas selling season is well underway --and in fact, has only a week or so left. So now is the time to start thinking about the spring. With that in mind, we have looked for wholesale sources for products that will be searched for in the coming couple of months.

Wholesale trade shows are one of the best places to find new merchandise to sell on eBay and/or your website. As mentioned at the beginning of the newsletter, I will be holding a product sourcing seminar in Las Vegas, March in conjunction with the ASD/AMD Trade Show, March 2nd - 5th. This is one of the largest variety and general merchandise shows in the nation: This international show is comprised of three separate shows that together create the ultimate wholesale merchandise marketplace of more than 3,500 companies in 8,000-plus booths exhibiting thousands of products in more than 150 leading merchandise categories. I hope you can attend our seminar, but if not, you should at least try and attend the show. Here is the link to pre-register. If you can attend you should do this now and start looking for hotel rooms as this is one of the largest shows in Vegas during the whole year.

For those of you in the East who have an interest in the outdoor, garden and patio industry, there is a show in Atlanta from February 27 - March 1st called the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Expo.

Inntai Golden Furniture Company is a manufacturer and importer of teak garden furniture and patio accessories. Contact them through the web site for wholesale information.

Olde Native sells a very nice line of barbecues, outdoor kitchens, firepits and fountains.

It will still be cold for a few months. The Detroit Radiant Company sells a very nice line of outdoor patio infrared heaters and is looking for dealers.

Candles sell well year around. The Biederman & Sons Company sells Candles, candleholders and accessories, commemorative ornaments. jar candles, scented candles, candle snuffers, candle accessories, votives and holders, palm wax candles, floating candles, crystal, hurricanes, crystal bowls, bobeche, Snuggle candles, Red Hatter candles, mosaic shades, candle lamps, taper holders, jar warmers and sconces.

Pasalubong frames are unique hand crafted gifts from the Philippines. This company can help you source other products as well. Contact them through the web site for pricing.

Funky Junk carries the hottest, reasonably priced fashion accessories including bags, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and watches for girls of all ages

Ambeniente sells a very unique candle lighter. This is a really cool product and I haven't seen them on eBay yet. The minimum order is only $125.

Ela's Gallery has a large line of unusual fashion items and accessories. The web site is retail, but you can contact them through the web site for wholesale dealer information.

Jewelry is a tough market on eBay. The key is to have something unique that sells at very high markups to offset the low sell through ratio. Cossama Jewelry has a wonderful line of affordable fashion jewelry.

Well, that's it for this month. See you in January. I hope all of my readers have a wonderful and Merry Christmas and Joyous Hanukkah and a happy, prosperous and successful New Year.

Skip & Karen McGrath
The eBay Seller's News