Pack With Care

As I write this article and decide what will go into the content, I will be open and honest here with you and say at times I am guilty of adding too much packaging to make sure the items I am sending out arrive all in one piece. But while I will continue to pack with care and take my time with how I send my items out, I will be looking more carefully at what and how I send items out.

So what has changed my thought process and why am I re-looking at how I pack my items. But before we go any further I want to state my items will still be packed with care and love, they may not have just as much packing material or a different type of filler in the boxes or jiffy bags I use.

And the reason behind this thought process is all down to the recent price increase at Royal Mail. You see 75% of my items are small items and all weigh under 1kg. So I know almost off by heart what the items will cost when I take them to the post office and if there is a new girl serving, I will often play a game and just hand the parcel to her and say the price, and I get that look to say scales please, you do not know what you are saying I work here you don’t. But by the time I get to the end of the parcels and pay my bill, she will laugh and say, guess you do this often, and we have a joke.

But the other day I ran out of one of my bigger boxes, but the item still weighed under the 1kg mark, so I recycled a box, cut it down to size with a parcel knife added some extra bubble wrap and job was good………….until I got to the post office and found that my parcel now weighed just over the 1kg mark. This of course was due to a heavier box than I normally use and some extra filler.

So while you still pack with care, please take some time and look at the boxes, jiffy bags, envelopes you use, and if possible look for light weight ones. If you use boxes instead of using double wall boxes, use single wall boxes (of course if items are very fragile still use double wall ones), but for most items single wall boxes work fine.

So next time you are looking to buy packing items to pack your items with care, stop and think and look to see if you can go lighter, you will save on the boxes and also save on postage costs.

Product Sourcing – Antique Shops

Today I want to take a look at product sourcing that maybe a lot of eBay sellers will often dismiss is antique shops, fairs and markets. The main reason why eBay sellers often over look these places to go product sourcing is the fact that they think the prices are already over priced and there is not enough margin in it for them, while this is often the case on the surface there are many, many great finds and opportunities to make some fantastic finds and profits to be made.

When you first start out I would suggest you start local, or if you are out and about go into the shops and places where you are, I would not suggest driving miles and spending money on fuel and other expenses until you get a proper feel for sourcing products in this niche. I would suggest you make up some flyers with your business name, contact number and the type of items you are interested in.

Spend some time looking around the shop and get a feel for the items and also how the owner interacts with any of the customers in there, when there is a quiet time start to chat to the owner and explain what you do and what type of items you are looking for, and wait for the reply. Some will say they are not interested, others will ask you to leave, and some others will say they are interested and say lets talk.

Once you have found one that is interested and they have the types of items they are interested in, pick out a few items you like and make them an offer………….. silence and just wait for their response. Most will come back with a higher offer and you just counter offer until you both meet. Of course you do need to know what you are talking about as you need to buy at a price that will give you enough margin when you re-sell it.

In closing this article I just want to mention another way you can use when you are talking to these people. A lot of them are not on the internet so you can offer your services as a Trading Assistant, and sell items for them on a commission basis. As long as you have the right items and items in good condition everyone will make money and each party will be happy.

eBay And Forum Marketing

Over the years people have made fun of using forums as a way to market a business, but I can tell you from personal experience and experience of my clients that eBay and forum marketing is alive and kicking. But only if used in the correct manner. Yes the days of going in and blasting out a load of spam type sales messages are long gone, and this is a good thing. Also the days are gone where you just pitch the whole time, this just upsets people and can over time get you banned by the owners.

There are many ways you can use forums to build your own business and there have been whole courses and manuals written about the process, but today I want to strip it all back and look at the core basics on how you can get started today and build valuable links, to your website and also would like to share with you a tip that is so powerful it should be classed as top secret.

But first lets look at some basics that you keep you from getting banned from the forum and help you build those very valuable links back to your website.

Step One – Do a search on Google and look for forums that cater for your niche you want to build around your business.

Step Two – Once you have found the forum or forums (but do not join too many as you need to spend time in each one and build a relationship)

Step Three – If you are allowed complete your signature file, this is where you can add links to your website. But some forums require you to have been a member and done some posts. You will just need to read the instructions for each forum as they will all be different.

Step Four – Get to know the forum. Look at all the different threads and posts, get a feel for the people and the style of posts that they do.

Step Five – Take a deep breathe choose a thread and add a post, and maybe reply to someone. After a few days of doing this I suggest you start a new thread.

Step Six – Do this on a regular basis, I would suggest at least once a day, give good content and build trust, and let your signature file do it’s job.

Step Seven – Build up relationships with the owners, by being honest, post great content and not spamming the boards, and over time you may find this will lead to other business opportunities to work with the forum owners.

As promised in closing this article on eBay and forum marketing here is a mini tip that could explode the traffic into your website and in turn bring in sales for many years to come. We mentioned before about making friends with the forum owners. Well as you start to make great posts, answer questions and give out hints and tips the other forum owners will start to see what you are doing and some may ask you to write guest posts on blogs, write articles and some may offer you joint ventures. And all this from being honest, giving good content.

A Twist On eBay Trading Assistant Program

I don’t know about you, but I always love to experiment with new business ideas and add my own twist to them and some work and others don’t work, but if we try and make sure we have more wins than losses all should be well. For sometime I have been an eBay Trading Assistant and this has helped me keep a wide range of products in my eBay shop. But a few weeks ago someone mentioned something to me, that planted a seed in my mind, but it just stayed there as it was not fully on my radar.

Today while listening to American Pickers on YouTube while I took pictures for some eBay items again this same idea was mentioned. And it was at this point that the penny dropped and the dots started to get connected. Would it be a viable business to run, is there money in it, I don’t know as I have not done it yet, but on paper it works, and the guys on American Pickers are doing it and making extra money along side their core business, and the person who mentioned the idea to me knew people who would use the service.

So what is this twist on the eBay Trading Assistant Program ?

You buy items for other people. Yes instead of selling items for people, you put the word out that you will source items for people. Now you can either charge a one off fee, add an amount onto the item you bought and sell at a profit or charge a percentage of the price. But why would someone be willing to pay extra for something they could get off eBay at a cheaper cost? Time, knowledge, cannot be bothered, and quite a few others (guess same reasons why people use TA’s)

• The process works like this :
• Place adverts and word of mouth
• People contact you and ask you to source an item or items for them. It is at this stage where you can charge a finders fee to just make sure they are not messing you around. But you need to discuss fees asap. You are in business to make money.
• Once you know what they want, you get to work, source the item, and once you find it, tell the client, and ask them to paypal money to you so you can buy it for them.
• Buy the item and get it to the client.

You will find clients come from all walks of life from personal people looking for items for their home, through to film makers and theatres wanting items as props. You will find people want small items though to cars and houses, the list is endless as to what people may want you to source for them.

There are two other areas as well. You can source items at wholesale for sellers and then the idea that first planted a seed in my mind was the wedding niche. You source all or some of the items the the wedding day – dress, outfits, wedding favours etc. I hope this twist on eBay trading assistant program has got you thinking.

How Are Your eBay Goals Going ?

I was looking at my online calendar today and can you believe how far into the year we are already. Next month June we will be six months to the biggest selling and buying season, Christmas and the Holiday period. But do you know how your eBay goals are going?

As eBay sellers we need to keep a close watch on the goals we have set ourselves for this period of buying and selling, right now we need to be thinking all about Christmas and the Holiday season, we need to get this right sooner than later, if not we could loose out on all of those wonderful sales.

Right now you need to be contacting suppliers, and starting to place orders for your Christmas lines, this will allow you to have the items delivered in time for you to get the photographed and listed on eBay. And then make sure you have access to repeat items when you need it.

So if you have not all ready got your holiday (Christmas) goals and plans written out and put into action please start this week and make those plans and then put the plans into action and you will the reap the benefit of the best selling and buying season of the year.

Sorry for a short post, back tomorrow with longer one

Can Too Much Choice Cause You Loss Of Sales On eBay ?

When I sit with a new client and look at their business plans and ideas for their eBay and e-commerce businesses, one of the tasks that I have to look at are they giving their customers woo much choice. While some choice is good as in colours and sizes, there is often the case of giving your eBay customers far too much choice. I think at times it is better to give a smaller range of items to choice from as this does not muddle your customer.

As an example a few years ago, you could go into your favourite supermarket and buy a jar of mayonnaise, it was simple walk to the right isle and pick up the jar………..do the same thing today in 2012 and you have different brands as well as supermarket own brands, different sizes, then you have diet, almost fat free, half fat, made with free range eggs and not free range eggs, made with different oils and then you get onto the different flavours, the customer is spoilt for choice and will either go for the cheapest one there or they will spend time choosing and thinking……………………and in the worst cases walk out the shop as they just do not know which is the best one to have.

Now lets look at your eBay business, if you give your customer too many choices in colours, sizes, makes, etc, your customer may just go and buy what they know is right and not look at the different chooses you have given them, or they might think I just do not know which is the right one and they leave and go to another seller who just has the popular colours and sizes in stock. This is easy for the customer to make their selection and also easy for you the seller as you only have to carry a select number of colours and sizes.

But as a seller you know your customer and know your market, some markets and niches love all the vast range of choices and they would think it very strange you not carrying the full range, right down to the customers who want it as simple as possible. So can too much choice cause you loss of sales on eBay we go back to “It depends”. It depends on the market and your customer and only you know the right choice.

Test things out and over a period of time you will find out if your customers like a lot of choice or just a small limited choice.

Who Is My Customer ?

As an eBay Consultant one of the topics that I spend time talking with a client is Who is my customer ? Today I was sitting with a client and talking with a PR Consultant about a project my client is about to launch and some of the first words he said was “Who is your customer ? ” and I had to smile as this confirmed what I had been saying to my clients.

In business we very often like to think we can sell products to all people, now while some companies can manage this the companies who fine tune their market are very often the market leaders. For example Tiffany’s sell high end items, they do not sell the £4.99 items, yes they could do but their brand and market says high end.

You need to look at your business and write down who your ideal customer is, for example :

• Male, female or both
• Age range
• Income range
• Hobbies
• Work
• Music they listen to
• Where they go on holiday
• And so on.

The more you know about your ideal customer the better you can market to them, and the better you can market to them the more sales you will make. And as you get to know you customer better, you can target the adverts and newsletters you sent to them. And as I mentioned before if you are selling  £1,000 items, you do not want to be sending out newsletters about 99p gadgets. And the same goes that if you are selling 99p gadgets you do not want to be marketing £1,000 gadgets to these customers. Yes of course you will make the odd sale, but it will be rare.

Please spend the next few weeks thinking “Who is my customer” and then market to them, by using the language they use, and you will soon see a increase in sales.

How To Keep Track Of Your eBay Items

As my eBay business is starting to grow and I am selling more items of my own and also introducing some drop-shipping into my Trading Assistant mix it got me thinking how can I keep track of where the different items are around by eBay room and which items belong to which drop-shipping client. At the moment I am working with three drop-shipping clients, but this could increase over the coming months.

It then struck me for my own items label the shelves and boxes and files where the items are with a series of letters and numbers, and then when I list an item at the bottom of the listing just a SKU and put in the ID. Thus when an item sells, I know where to look for it. Well that is the idea and for now I believe this system should work.

I will use the same process for my Drop-shipping Trading Assistant clients but just use the initials of their company, this will help me know who to place the order with.

And for my Trading Assistant clients whose products I handle use a combination of the name and where the item is stored in my eBay room.

If people have a different plan or idea on how to manage where items are please leave a comment below.