My Auction Empires – eBay Consultants

Trying to come up with an idea what to sell, and then a whole range of items to sell and market online can be a total nightmare. Some people can spend hours and even weeks trying to come up with something to sell and then, when they think they have found the golden goose, they get stumped again as they cannot find a good reliable source that will keep them supplied week in and week out.

As you start to think about what to sell you need to think out some key facts that stay the same no matter what the product is or where you are selling the product. Some of these main facts you need to think about are :

The target market you are trying to reach.
The Niche within the main target group.
And the budget you have to invest in your business.

If you can get the above three questions answered then you are well on your way to finding a product that will meet all your needs.

To give you an example of how this would work lets take a look at a working example :

Target Market : Party Supplies and Party’s. Now on it’s own this is a massive market and one where you can make good money as people will always spend money on having fun and having a party. But it is a very big market to take on.

So lets break it down into some smaller areas or niches.

A Niche : Hen Parties. – Again this is a very hot niche where people are willing to spend good money on having some fun before they get married. The hen party niche is very profitable as the girls love to dress up in outfits and accessories and as they go out in groups you are often catering for a few dozen girls looking for fun.

Budget : This is what you are willing to invest in your buisness. You may need a lot or a small amount of money it all depends on you and the market you are going for.

But going back to the Hen Party Niche, these products can be sourced very cheap and sold for a good profit, and as explained before you will always be selling to and for groups of girls.

People love to party at all times of the year : New Year, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, then you have Birthdays, Weddings, Christenings and the list goes on and on. And you know what these people need to buy their party gear from someone, why not let that someone be you.

To find your suppliers you can use Yellow Pages and look for party wholesalers or you can look on Google and do a search for "Wholesale Party Suppliers". When you have found a few places write,email or phone and ask them to send you a trade catalogue and wholesale price list.

When these arrive take a look through them, and if you like the sound of one or more of the companies if they are close by go and see them. Or place an order with them -I would suggest a small one to test them and the quality of the items out. Once the items have arrived start to list them on sites such as eBay and Amazon and watch the sales start to come in.

Very soon you will be ordering more stock and placing larger orders as your online party supply business grows. Have fun and sell, sell, sell.

The clock strikes midnight, and at this point in time each one of us old and young, poor or wealthy, un-employed or a top flight we all start off the same. Yes we are all at different stages in our lives, but there is one thing that we all have that is the same. The one thing I am talking about is time. Time is the same for each one of us, no matter where we are in the world. But sadly this is where all the same things come to an end.

As adults and children we all have freedom of choice and it is what we do with this freedom of choice that makes the difference to what we do with the time that has been given to us.

I would guess that if you are reading this article, you are looking to either start a business or improve your business that you are working on. And this is the reason why I need to talk about time.

As you read this article, each one of you will be at different stages in your business life, but there are some of you thinking why can this person find the time to do this and I just cannot find the time to even breath. Well they made a choice, a difficult choice, but a choice that they wanted something better for themselves and their family.

For instance maybe you want to work on your eBay business, but you find you do not have anytime to do it, with your full time job. Well by making a few changes in your life you can find a few extra hours each day.

Each morning set your alarm clock an hour earlier, and then each evening instead of watching 4 hours of TV just watch 2 hours. This gives you 3 extra hours a day. And over a month it gives you an extra 60 hours. This equals an extra week and a half a month of time that you can work in your business.

Now just think what this can do to your online business, a great deal. And to be honest this is just a start, and if you really want your business to grow, you will find that extra time, honest.

One of the big questions that people who are just starting out on the road to selling on eBay and other e-commerce platforms is…… Does size matter, and the other one is does the colour matter of the item I am selling ? Or would it be ok for me to sell anything I can find at a good price ? Well being a bit naughty I could say yes of course you can do it that way, for out there in the world of eBay you will find someone who will buy that odd colour is an odd size. (As a side note, you can build a very successful niche that way, but you do need to know what you are doing big time). But lets look at it from a practical point of view. Are you looking at eBay to make money ? If the answer is yes then things like colour, size, shape does matter.

Let us go on a small venture. We head off to the local shopping centre, and we are looking to buy a pink mobile phone and a pink case for it  for our sister. As she is our sister, money is no object and we are willing to spend good money.

The first few shops we go to are the large retailers and they say sorry no we do not stock that colour in anything. So we see a small retailer of mobile phones and head on over, we look around and see different colours so ask the owner. “Sir, do you have a pink mobile phone and  pink case” his reply is no. When you ask him why, he says “I do not like pink that is for girls” You look at him and say well I am buying for a girl and she likes pink.

You see what has happened here is that the owner does not like pink and is not willing to stock pink items, so he has lost a sale. In fact this happens a lot in retail. You have something in mind to buy in a certain  size, colour or shape, but when you ask the owners can I have one please, they often say no as we do not like that shape or colour.

So the main lesson here is if you stock items such as clothing you need to stock and sell the sizes that sell and the colours that sell, and it does not matter that you do not like the in colour and the in size. You are one person and a good percentage of the world does like that size and that colour.
The idea I would like to get over to you is the fact, that yes we can sell what we like, but we need to think bigger and need to think, what do the world want and need. What is the in size this year. What is the in colour. What is the in shape. Once you get this into your product sourcing world, you will be onto the path of making money, time over time.

In the world of eBay, Amazon and other places that allow you to sell books, there are a few rules which work time over time. One of the main ones is always choose hardback books over paperback books. Now of course this is not always true. For instance if the paperback was a 1st edition and it was never done in hardback, or it contains printers errors. Again never discount paperbacks if you can buy them at a good price, buy them.

As we look at children’s books people often buy them for many reasons. Maybe they just want to buy a child’s book for their little one, or as a gift for a christening or a special birthday. Then you have buyers who see a book they had when they were small and want to re-live the memory, or have their children enjoy the books they read when they were small.

Now you have got into the minds of why people buy new and 2nd hand children’s books you can start to look for them at charity sales, garage sales, car boots, and by asking friends and neighbours. Very soon you will be finding books that you can buy for very little and sell for a good profit.

As you buy and source Children’s books know what the top selling price for this book is. From my research I have found 2nd hand children’s books tend to sell for around £6.99 sometimes more and sometimes less. So when you are buying set a maximum of £1.00 per book, by doing this it will allow you to make a profit even if some do not sell.

If your book contains beautiful full page colour pages and even black and white, put these details in your listing and even show one. The reason behind this is that some people will buy a book just for the colour plates, as they take the book apart and sell these colour plates on their own or make craft items out of them. 

In fact you can take these colour plates out yourself and throw the story away. Now if you bought the book for £1.00 and the book contained 12 colour plates each coloured plate can sell for between £4.99 – £9.99 giving you some fantastic profits.

When you write the description tell the buyers all about the book. The title, the author, the publisher (the publisher is very important because some times people are looking for a title published by just one firm). If the book contains any markings to the pages tell them. If the binding is broken or loose tell them. This is only fair and will get your good feedback, and repeat customers.

Once you book has sold, either in eBay auction or shop format the time has come to ship the item. It is best to wrap the book some waterproof protection before you place it into a jiffy bag. This will protect the book in case the jiffy bag gets wet when it is out for delivery or the post people leave it out in damp weather.