News Flash – 1

As many of us who sell on eBay and this question is asked even more to those of use who are eBay Education Specailists. Where do I find that cool Hot product to sell on eBay.

So starting each Friday I will be listing one supplier here in the UK, with complete contact details where I have them. And I will continue to list one a week till I run out of suppliers. So come back each Friday and by 9pm you will see a New Supplier listed.

Now to all my friends over seas, I am sorry at the moment I am unbale to list suppliers as I do not have the resourses to do this. But hey there is a way out of this problem, If you could leave comments after each of my posts with a supplier from your country.

So if I list Baby Clothes one week, if people could leave a supplier from their own country in the comments section then that would build up a massive resource for ebayers all over the world.

Happy Ebaying

Andrew (AndyUk)

Hi There,

I need your help. Please could you add your comments to this post, as it will not only help me, it will help others out there as well. With eBay and other online selling platforms we need to sort out the year in our minds and on paper so that we can have the right products at the right time in our auctions and stores.

So could we all combine our thoughts and list all the major holidays that we give gifts in. Once the list has been done I will do a post and then most likely re-edit it as other people will say hey you forgot that day or that holiday.

So your comments Please.

Thanks

Andrew (AndyUk)

I guess many of you have played the “What If” game. If not it is where you say what if we had moved to this place, or what if I had married that person, what if I had done that course etc etc. You get the picture?

Well now try and apply the What If to your eBay business. What am I talking about? Well lets say you make jewellery, and while your at a carboot sale or offline auction you see a load of nice pretty stamps with birds on. Now to a collector they are worth nothing. But to the What If person they are worth a lot. Because the What If person will say……….. I wonder what if I put those stamps onto a pendant, what would happen.

Now maybe what would happen is the stamps that were once not worth a lot put with a pendent that normally sold for £10.00, and you put the two together and sold them on ebay as a cool bird stamp pendent, and it could sell for £20.00.

(please note the prices are not real, they are there to show you an example of what could be done)

Happy eBaying

Andrew

The Real Costs of a Product

How many times have you seen a product did a quick math in your head and say to yourself yep can make some profit on that I will buy a dozen. You get home list them, and they sell and then you suddenly find your profit has turned into a major loss.

What has happened, why did ebay let this happen (Or Amazon etc). Well I am here to tell you eBay, Amazon did not let it happen you did. Yes You. I know that is hard to understand that it comes down to little old you.

What happened to your profit was the fact that you did not know what your listing fees were, what the final fees were, what the PayPal fees were and the packaging and shipping fees were.

You need to know these off by heart. eBay do not hide them they are there in black and white, print them off, and have them by your computer. The same with PayPal, they do not hide them.

So now before you buy a product to sell add in all your costings and then see if you still have a profit and if you do it is almost safe to say go and buy.

Sorry for a hard hitting post , but sometimes people need to know it’s them that has got things wrong and not eBay.

Happy Selling

Andrew Milburn

Skype just gets better and better by the day. The calls are a lot clearer and you hardly ever get drop out from the calls now.

Most times when I am at home and by the computer I will use Skype to make calls or use the text chat function. I always have skype showing on my eBay auctions as this allows customers to ask questions before they by from you.

Recently I bought a mobile phone and this allows me to make and recieve calls using skype if I so wish. At the moment my phone and mobile provider will only allow me to make and recieve calls using my skype user name which is andrewmilburn

If you have not yet seen Skype do yourself and your pocket a favour and click on the banner at the top of page or the one just below.

Happy Skyping

Andrew Milburn

5P Listing Day In The Uk

This Thursday 12th June eBay have a 5p listing day :

On Thursday June 12th 2008, Insertion Fees are just 5p* for any listing using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now and Buy It Now only (fixed price) formats in an eligible category on eBay.co.uk.

Final value and feature fees are not included in this promotion.

The normal ebay terms and conditions apply

So happy Listing

Yet Another Product Sourcing Tip

Today while I was in our local town i popped into our Aldi store. For those who do not live in the UK or Europe this is a European SuperMarket chain that sell good quality food and products at a heavy discount.

While having a look around a saw some tool kits, some clothing all that could be sold on eBay and make a profit. They also had some Sat Nav kits.

But what caught my eye were some 4gb memory sticks these were priced at £9.99 each or 2 for £18.98. Again a profit could be made if these were bought and resold.

In the same display were memory cards, Portable hard drives, lap tops etc etc.

Now the only problem is all these store have a limited amount of stock of these and once they have gone normally they have gone, until the next special offer. So if you are thinking of buying something from Aldi do it on the day and do not think to yourself I will go back next week – because next week maybe too late.

Happy Product Sourcing

Andrew Milburn

Donations

This page will be updated as and when kind people either donate products for me to auction or send a PayPal donation to me to forward on.

Canonbury Publishing donated some cool business Manuels, – Thanks to Nick Laight and his team

Neil Stafford donatated some business courses which are up for auction at the moment.

Janelle Elms has donated some of her books – Thanks Janelle.

08/06/08 – JanieRuth made a very kind PayPal Donation, thanks JanieRuth

Another Product Sourcing Tip

Today I had a few hours to spend in our Local town. I had gone in early to do some banking etc, and later on in the day our Church was doing a Walk for Water Walk – This was a walk of 4 miles (4 Miles is how far a child has to walk to get fresh water or as fresh as you can get in third world places).

Anyway I decided as I do not drive would spend time in the towns shops to look for trends and not get bus home.

I looked in the local charity shops and bought some items which I will be listing later on eBay, but I also went into our two book remainder shops.

So todays article is about buying items from this type of shop. Now before you all get excited and head off to this type of shop, Yes you can make nice profits on items but you can also make a loss. What you need to remember is these shops often sell books, DVDs etc that the normal places cannot sell.

Anyway in the one shop I saw a stack of DVD’s produced by the BBC so they were all good quality, all brand new and all still sealed. Each DVD was priced at £1.99 – so I got my trusty Internet friendly phone out and checked a few titles out on eBay and also Amazon, sadly some were no good, but around 8 titles were listed for prices like £8.99 upto £14.99. These were all buy it now prices so I new people were buying. Also checked the completed listings and this gave similar data.

I bought 5 DVD’s and will again list these this week, and will let you know how I get on.

So there you are another high street product source for you where you can buy hundreds of different items to sell. But please do some research before you buy – either on an internet phone or a computer.

Happy ebaying

Andrew Milburn

eBay Money Saving Tips – 2

Todays money saving for helping you save money on eBay is looking at how and where you list your items on eBay.

Now many of us often list an item we are selling in two categories while at times there maybe an need for this and hands up, I have and do list in two at times. But what I would like you to do is to sit down and think do I need to do this to make sales or am I doing it because everyone else is doing it.

Take time out and do some online research in your niche, are other powersellers in your niche using the one product two categories approach. If they are then you may need it for your niche.

A good way to test is to run two auctions one with two categories and one with just the one and see your results.

Now I am going to say at times you may sell a product where you have just one of them and this product crosses over into two areas then if this happens use the two categories.

Happy eBaying and let me know your thoughts

Andrew Milburn