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January 2012
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Product Sourcing – Valentines Day Gifts

January 27, 2012 No comments

 

As we continue to look at product sourcing for your eBay and Amazon business one of the areas that I like to cover with a client is look at the major holiday’s and events that happen throughout the year. As we have discussed before product sourcing has to become the life blood of your business, and you must always be thinking ahead of what events and holidays that are happening in the up and coming months.

An event that is coming up very fast is Valentines Day, we still have sometime left to buy products and list them on eBay, but we should have been sourcing and listing back in December just after Christmas.

But I want you to just think outside the box for a bit. Around Valentines Day a lot of men are buying a gift for that special lady in their lives. But very often men get stuck on what to buy…..so in the descriptions help the men with the shopping experience and then for an extra cost – (Here is where we think out side the box…….use multi variation listing format and offer different types of gift wrapping service).

Men will love this, so will the ladies but a lot of men cannot wrap a present up…….offer this service and what the orders come in and with this watch the profits come in too.

So what types of Products can you source to sell on eBay :

Perfume
Aftershave
Clothing
Chocolates
Handbags
Books
Rings
Bracelets
Lingerie
Presents a loved one would like 

Then of course you have the industry standards not only for Valentines Day, but for presents every day of the week.

Candles
Make-Up
Flowers
Scarves
Gloves

One of the big issues is buying presents for the men in peoples lives, but we are product sourcing guru’s now. Men love :

Books
Sporting Items
Games
Electronic items
Gadgets

As we bring this product sourcing article for Valentines Day to a close, remember that the whole time we need to be sourcing items that are easy to ship, and there is a good profit margin in there. Please do not get caught out with a great looking product and buying it and then finding there is no profit margin there.

So get going and Happy Product Sourcing.

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eBay Postage Labels

January 23, 2012 No comments

 

eBay Postage Label

For the past few days, there have been several blog posts and announcements on the eBay UK site that they are testing a new service called eBay Postage Labels where we can buy postage labels straight off the eBay Page without having to go through to PayPal., and will also be able to link your PayPal Account to allow automatic payments.

Also it has been said that they will be offering more carriers at present they only offer Royal Mail and Parcel Force. As yet there is no news who these other carriers are, but once the test period has been completed and everything works out, then the program will be rolled out to all of eBay Uk and we shall see who the other carriers are.

This is exciting news to both the small seller and the larger sellers out their as at times it can be a pain using the eBay Postage Labels service as each time you have to go to PayPal to use the service.

eBay around the world are always testing new programs and formats and hand pick across the sellers so that they can see if their new ideas work or not.

To see the full announcement about eBay Postage Labels please go along to their site by click the link eBay Postage Labels and there you can see a bit more information.

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Tool Tuesday – OSI Rock Stars

January 17, 2012 No comments

Sell

I have mentioned OSI Rock Stars, before and when I am with clients I will often mention the Rock Stars Program if I feel they would benefit from it. Yes it may seem strange for an eBay Consultant talking about another training program, but OSI Rock Stars is far more than a training program.

OSI Rock Stars was started by Janelle Elms, who I have got to know very well over the years, and she and her team of trainers have personally helped me take my businesses to the next level and beyond.

So What Is OSI Rock Stars ?

Well before we get to what it is, first let me tell you what it is not. Rock Stars is not for someone who just wants to pay their monthly or yearly fee and expect Janelle to hold your hand and your business will grow. This will not happen. You pay your fees and you have to work, and at times work hard, and be prepared to learn some honest truths about your business and yourself. But I can tell you if you take hold of what Janelle teaches and then put into action, your business will grow from strength to strength.

OSI Rock Stars is a whole way of life week by week Janelle and her trusted hand picked team teach us step by step how to grow our businesses and also ourselves. We have homework from time to time, and Janelle will often ask us to turn this work in, and then she will go through each part of our homework and pull out the good and the bad parts. (But do not worry any private info will never be shown). We all learn from the mistakes and good parts of our homework.

Also within the Rock Stars program there are now well over 600 hours of webinars and podcasts that you can watch and listen to. Then there are the forums where you can ask questions and normally within a matter of hours and sometime minutes there will be a reply to your question from Rock Stars all over the world.

I believe OSI Rock Stars is a valid tool for your business, but only if you are willing to put into action what you have learned in the classes.

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Do Something Everyday – Part One

January 13, 2012 No comments

 

footsteps

Today we are starting a new mini-series. All about how doing the small things on a daily basis will increase your business over time. As an eBay Consultant one of the challenges I have, is when talking with individuals or businesses is they want the big time that day. Sadly we do not live in an instant world and it takes time to build a business or part time income on eBay or any e-commerce platform. We need to take small steps each and every day.

But if we are willing to take small steps and do something everyday for our business we will find over time these small daily tasks will build and soon we will have a business that is making money, but we must be willing to yes we will do this. For example, if you were to spend just one hour a day on the basics of building your business over a month that is 30 hours of building for the long term. Yes it is that simple.

For today’s building blocks we are looking at some basic things, but we all need to look at these and ask ourselves are we doing these to build our business and if not why not –

  • Commit to learn something new each day to improve yourself or your business.
  • Commit to find out who your competitors are.
  • Commit to find a new product that you can research and add to our shop
  • Practise the art of talking a good picture – learn the different settings, how to use lights and back drops.
  • Learn the art of writing headlines and descriptions for your business.
  • Learn how to pack and ship and learn the art of only handling the item you are selling a few times. This one thing will save you hours of time.
  • Learn all about eBay.

You will notice there are 7 steps there. If you were to just apply those seven steps for each day of the week and repeat each week, over a period of one year you will have invested 365 hours of time into your own life and the life of your business. And you will see a huge difference in all areas of your life.

The job of an eBay Consultant is varied but helping clients take their business to the next level is one of the tasks that I love and seeing clients grow is so rewarding. If you are looking for help in either starting your business or taking it to the next level please get in touch.

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Tool Tuesday – Google Docs

January 10, 2012 No comments

 

google docs

In this modern fast paced world we are always looking for ways to do business faster and better. And it seems every day there is a company bringing out a new tool or product to help us improve our business and our lifestyle.

As an eBay Consultant I often find myself working away from home and needing to access some client info. In the past this meant having to carry around files, or discs or memory sticks with the info on. (And this also meant a high risk of leaving a file or documents behind – not good)

Yes I know we have things like Excel, Access and these are good and still work, but one of the challenges are the fact that they are on your computer and if you update them you then have to send a copy to your client, and they then have to replace the old one with the new one and if you make several revisions this becomes almost impossible and for an eBay Consultant makes it very hard trying to keep track of clients information.

Also let’s look at it from a sellers point of view, you sell an item to a friend, and update your spreadsheet, and email it to yourself at home so you remember to update your eBay stock, in the meantime back home your partner sells the same item and updates their spreadsheet, and soon the spreadsheet is way out of date.

But those guys at Google have developed Google Docs. This is cloud computing at it’s best. As soon as you update a spreadsheet, document or  presentation it is instantly changed. This is a great help to people such as an eBay Consultant. You can also allow other people access to the item, and they can be allowed to just view or even edit.

This is powerful and also fun. For example if I am online at the same time as a client and either of us make a change we see this happen before our eyes. This is great and everyone can be kept up to date and no one has an old copy ever.

 

Below is quick example of how people can work on a letter together

 

 

 

Andrew Milburn Is An eBay Consultant based in the UK

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Thrifting Friday – Some Good Buys

January 6, 2012 No comments

 

Well today after spending sometime with one of my eBay Consulting clients I visited a few of the local charity shops and bought some items which I will be adding to my inventory. I shall be adding a new section to this blog of items I have either bought or sourced and what how well they have done on eBay.

As I have mentioned before I business relies on product sourcing and then sourcing the products at the right price. Yes it all comes down to the products and the right price (and selling them on the right platform, the place where the buyers are)

Today I spent around £50.00 on items, and once they have been listed and they have sold I will do a post and tell you all how they have done. But from time to time I will also do some live postings and show you how and why I chose an item to sell.

If you have sourced any items good or bad please share them with us over the coming days and weeks.

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Time To Get Back To Work

January 5, 2012 No comments

 

Life as an eBay Consultant has it’s ups and downs over the holiday periods. As well as offering Consultancy and Training on subjects as eBay, Amazon and Etsy I am still very active in sourcing products for not only myself but for clients as well. Yes it can get very busy when you have to balance your own business along side the “demands of clients” and it is all fun and yes means working into the wee small hours but I do not mind as I love what I do, and love helping my clients take their businesses to the next level.

But as I mentioned before the holidays are now gone, and it is time to get back to normal and rank up our selling and of course this means if we want to sell we need to source products and this is such a great time to find products as people are selling off presents they no longer need or want and also sell off their older items as they were given a newer one.

Also very soon people will be getting their credit card and store card bills, and will be looking to make some extra cash – so keep your eyes and ears open for people looking to unload some products. Also remember if you are a Trading Assistant get your name out and about as people will be looking to make that extra money.very soon,

And one of the harder areas an eBay Consultant has is when they need to sit down with a client either old or new and say to the client is it time for the product they are selling is put to bed and a new product needs to be found. Yes at times we all need to look at what we are selling and ask ourselves is the product still selling like it did a year ago. It can be hard and stressful for all concerned, but the end results can be outstanding as the old product was holding them back.

So let’s get back to work and start making that money and grow our businesses to new heights.

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Tool Tuesday – Evernote

January 3, 2012 No comments

 evernote-logo

As an eBay Consultant we are asked many different question, but if you asked all the eBay consultants around the world they could most likely group the questions in around 5 different groups. And one of the groups would be “Tools”. What tools do you use in your business to help you streamline your business and enable you to do as much as you do in a day or week.

Well I will let you into a little secret eBay consultants have 30 hours in their days……….I wish !!! No we all have tools and programs that we use on a daily basis to help us manage our time and activities. But before we get into this weeks chosen tool, I want to say if you are serious about your eBay (or Amazon / Etsy) business then you need a Smartphone one that is either on the iphone  or Android platform due to the many apps that there are to help you. I myself am using a Samsung Galaxy S on the Android platform and it is like an extra person in my business.

This weeks tool is called Evernote. This App works on both your phone (iPhone / Android) but it also sinks with your computer and as it is a web based program it can be asked from any computer in the world where there is an internet connection.

So what is Evernote ?

 

Evernote is like a notebook on super power. In simple terms you have almost unlimited notebooks and within those notebooks you can make notes. So for example you can have an eBay Notebook and then within that eBay notebook you can have notes such as product ideas, product sources, a new carriers name and address. You can also take photo’s and make audio notes and then tag them with keywords so that they are easy to find.

Then once you have made the note you just press sync on your phone and within seconds it is available  in the cloud. Let’s look at an example you are out sourcing products and make notes of a great product. You jot down names, costs where you saw it and take a quick picture. You press sync, and within seconds your contact back at home or the office has it on their laptop then again within seconds it can be shared with a friend in China and within a day you could have access to that product.

Yes you could just email the person but Evernote is far more powerful and is accessible far easier and can be shared far faster around the world. And the best bit it is free for the basic package and unless you are doing massive amounts of note taking the free version is all you need, but if you do need to upgrade to the premium version it is very affordable.

 

Another use of Evernote is the app that sits in the Google Chrome Browser. Again let’s say you come across some product ideas while you are surfing the net. In days gone by you would either have to print of sheets of paper or make notes which take time. Now you can just send the ideas to your phone or tablet. The video below shows you more what can be done.

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Happy New Year

January 2, 2012 No comments

Happy New Year

Well once again we are at the start of a New Year. The old has gone, good or bad it has happened and there is nothing we can do to alter that fact. Yes Ok we can always improve on areas, but a question I am asked time after time by my eBay Consultant clients is well about that or this that happened in our business, or do you think I should have handled that sale different. Well yes of course you might have done it different, but that was all in the past. Yes learn from past mistakes but do not keep going back to them, it only harms you and your business.

We are at the start of a New Year, and whole year set before each one of us to reach our dreams and goals. Do not let past hurts and regrets harm you and your business. Draw a line in the sand and step over it and start a fresh. In fact you can do this every single day. The past is history.

So as we move into 2012 what goals, dreams do you have for your business. It is good to write it down, first your big goals and then you will need to break them down into smaller bite sized chunks right down to daily goals that you can achieve to take your business to the next level and beyond.

For me I have many goals, most will be shared on this blog, and I hope over the months that lie ahead you will see these go from an idea through to a money making business – But remember goals are not always about making money, they need to be for all areas of your life both personal and for your business.

eBay is still going to be the main focus of my business for this year, both in selling and consulting with clients, but I shall be adding Multi-Channel selling as well – Amazon and Etsy, as I believe I am also my clients are leaving money on the table. So I will be blogging about my journey into this area.

Also I want to cover product sourcing, yes I have covered this before but I find this a major question in my role as an eBay Consultant. Time after time clients both new and old ask me “How do I find products to sell” So watch this space.

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eBay And Multi-Variation Listings

December 29, 2011 No comments

 

As an eBay Consultant one of the things we need to do is always keep ourselves up to date with the latest happenings on the eBay sites around the world. When the eBay Multi-Variation listing format came out I went on several courses and did a few dummy listings, but at the time I was not selling anything that needed this type of listing nor were my clients.

Recently I took on a new client and this week they were selling items that called for them to be listed on a Multi-Variation format. And yes even eBay Consultants have a few panic moments when you are sitting their with a client and your mind goes completely blank, but as soon as I started it all came back in a flash.

eBay Multi-Variation listings save the seller time and money as you just do the one listing and pay the one listing fee for it could be hundreds of items, this is fantastic news.

One of the things I did find is if you are selling items with colour have that as your first choice and then do things like size etc second, this is so that you can match the colour with the picture, all will be explained as you do it.

Another tip you need to have one picture with all the colours on, I found the simple way was to go into a program like photo shop and cut and paste each coloured item onto one page and then save as a jpg and then when asked upload to eBay. You then need to upload each picture.for each of the colours, then add the costing for each colour and size (these can be all different prices if you wish).

 

Once this is done just add the description as normal and you are done. To help you understand this better I have included a video from eBay seller Support.

 

Yes it does sound a bit complicated but once you have done one or two you will be doing them with your eyes closed. Any questions please leave them in the comments below or drop me an email at info@MyAuctionEmpires.com

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