My Auction Empires

I guess if you were to tell most people you are making high profits by selling on places such as eBay, Amazon, etsy, and other ecommerce platforms, they will think you are selling the latest all singing gadget, with all the bells and whistles. Well as you know or if you don’t I am about to tell you, these latest gadgets do not have high profit margins and you have loads of other people selling them as well.

So what is this mystery business that allows me to make high profits, and does not mean I have to sell the latest gadget? The answer is paper. Yes you read right paper. In fact it is paper torn or cut from books, maps, magazines, posters. You see the books of ages gone by often contained many richly coloured pictures, and unlike modern books these old books contained many coloured pages and often many black and white pictures, that people love to collect. Books and magazines that were printed in the Victorian era, where meant to be kept and read over a longer period thus the paper they were printed on was of a higher quality than the modern day publications.

People will pay high prices for these pictures, maps, adverts, sometimes for projects, research or more often than not people will buy them to have them framed, and then they will hang them in their rooms around their homes.As you go about car boot sales, estate sales, charity
sales keep an eye and ear open for these richly decorated items, then go home and take the book apart and start to make some money by selling the pictures.

Some of the more popular items people keep buying time and time again are :

@ Adverts from Victorian publications, these can be full or half pages.

@ Another high profit, high selling item are maps, for some reason people love these old maps to hang in their homes or offices.

@ A third sector that people have a passion for are patterns of all types ; Knitting, sewing, dress making, building plans, blue prints and the list goes on and on. Again these are used to decorate homes and offices, but at times you have businesses and craft people who need or want to re-create a pattern.

To put the above into some context for you, think about the BBC who make period plays and they need a pattern to make a dress from that period. They go to Google and do a search for the type they are looking for. If you have said pattern in your eBay store, guess where they will buy, yes you.I hope through this simple article you can see how a simple book, can make you some good profits.

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.

Now that you have decided that you want to sell on eBay either as a full time or part-time business venture, there will come a time when you have sold all the unwanted items from around your home and the homes of of your family and friends. If this is you and you have sold everything around you, do not give up now. You have seen the system works and that you can make some good money, by selling on eBay.

Please do not let people tell you product sourcing is hard. Well yes it can be hard, but only if you let it be so. To start with if you follow some guidelines and look out for products on a daily basis, you will get a good head start, and product sourcing will become part of your life, and soon you will see products all over the place.

A good thing to have with you at all times, is a note book and pen, (or PDA etc), and when you see a product you would like to sell or source, make a note of :
@ Where you saw the product.
@ The Cost of the Product.
@ The maker or importer of the product
@ And any other notes that will help you.

While you are making up your Product Book, you can be on the lookout for products in all different places. That you can be selling in 24 hours or so.

1) eBay believe it or not is a very good place to buy and source your products from. You can either buy of eBay.co.uk for resale on the same site, or you can buy off another eBay country site to resell on another eBay site. This is real simple and you can make some good profit this way.

2) Another area where you can go product sourcing, and this will not cost you anything until an item is sold is drop-shippers. Drop shippers keep your stock and once you sell an item, you contact the drop shipper and they send the item to your customer. But please if you go this route check out the drop-shippers and make sure you feel OK using them, and that they are a real company.

3) The third area for product sourcing is craft fairs. When you visit these fairs either at home or when you are on holiday, as you walk around keep your eyes and ears open and think to yourself could I sell this on eBay and if the answer is a yes, chat with the owners and see what happens.

4) The fourth area is Trade Shows, look on sites such as Google, and type on the type of product you want to sell and use Trade Show as a tag and see what comes up. If there is a trade show in your area for the type of product you are thinking of selling, go along and see what is happening, and see all the different types of product on sale to the trade. 

5) The last area for quick product sourcing is if you have a friend who owns a "real" shop and they stock items you would like to sell, you can chat with them and see if you can sell for them and be their online sales arm – for a commission of course. Or they may sell to you at wholesale cost.

The above are just five quick examples of how you can get products in your hands to sell within 24 hours. As you fill out your product sourcing book, you will have many ideas for products, product ranges and different selling examples.

Have fun and enjoy the exciting world of product sourcing.

6 Steps For Profit On eBay

Now that the New Year has come and gone, and you are getting settled into a New Year and a New decade, thoughts may have crossed your mind about starting your own business either part-time or full-time. But at the back of your mind you think, I do not have the capitol or the know how. Well that may be true if you are looking at starting up from from the bottom.

But just stop right there. There is a business out there that allows people to run a full or part time business or even I need some money next week type of of business. Cash on Demand type.

It is fully legal, allows you to start today with items you have around your home or office. Yes I am talking about eBay. And dipping your toes into online selling  With eBay is one of the best things you can do to start off with.

The marketing has all been done for you, and the site is visited by millions of people on a daily basis and from all over the world. But to help you get ahead start I have listed 6 ideas or tips that will help you avoid the pitfalls that new people (and some older people) who sell online.

1 – Titles

You a need a good title or heading, that contains good keywords, that will catch the eye of buyers.

2- Description

Write a good detailed description, again include good keywords, colours, sizes, if it is new or old. If it has a brand or model number include that.Also if it does have some markings, or cracks on the item tell the people, do not hide it. Always be honest. If you are not honest you will get bad feedback and will lose a sale.

3 – Keep An Eye On Spellings

Always check your spellings and also if you can get a friend to check your spelling. One reason is customers do not like bad spelling and another reason is the fact that search engines do not like bad spelling. For instance of you spell Brand New and Brand Knew. eBay, Google etc do not know you have spelt it wrong and when someone types in Brand New your item may not show up.

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4 – Pictures

Also take good pictures. Make sure they are in focus, and there is nothing else showing up in the photo. This does not look good and could make your item sell for a lot less money. If an item has a mark or a crack in it, take a picture and show it in the picture. Be honest, it will pay off for you.

5 – Think Good At All Times

Also be polite and friendly when you are writing headings, descriptions and emails. Try and answer emails within 24 hours, a lot sooner if possible. And when you get a nasty email, read it, get up from your desk, take a walk, make a drink before you answer.Please never fight fire with fire. It is not worth it. You have no idea why that person was not happy with a product. Be kind, be honest. And you will find this works and the customer will become a best friend.

6 – Send Out Goods On Time

Once the item has sold and you have been paid, where possible try and send this out on the same day, or within two days. Do not keep people waiting. You need to think like a buyer. You have just bought something online would you like to wait a few weeks for it. Guess not, the same goes for your customers, they would like it as soon as possible.

Well can you believe it, it is 2010 and already a week has gone by. Time really does fly by, and if we are not too careful we will be saying to ourselves in a few months time, I must really get to grips with my to-do list, sourcing new products, getting my slistings done, starting that new project. Well you know what if you do not plan, you have already programmed your mind to fail, sorry as to be so blunt, but it is the truth and there is no hidding from it.

We are all grown up here and we are in business or thinking about being in business so we need to plan we need to do research.

An easy way to start this process is if each night before you go to bed, you right yourself a to-do list. This helps you the next day, as you can start the day knowing what you need to do to take your buisness to the next level.

The best way to do this list is on Paper and use a pen, there is something that happens in the brian when you right your goals for the next day down. Then next day start at the top and work down your list and finish when you have reached the end of the list. Now at times things happen that do not allow you to finish the list. Do not beat yourself up………………….. just add what you could not do to the list next day it is really simple.

Now I can tell you if you do this on a regular basis soon your business will be growing, you will be making more money and you will see your dreams, goals and plans come true for 2010 and beyond

Well a funny title you may think, but I can tell you if you do not set goals then your business will die. You need to make targets and goals to aim for.

Take any successful business person or to be honest successful person and they will tell you that they have goals and targets that they aim for on a daily basis.

You will need to write these goals down on paper and have what they call long term goals, short term goals and then immediate goals. These immediate goals are goals that can be met in a few days, weeks or in a month or two.

Also you goals need to be rounded, you need business goals, personal ones, family, money and spiritual ones to name a few.

Can I suggest that you spend some time over the Christmas period and set your self targets and goals for 2010, and once you have set them take action on each one and make them happen. Some you will meet, other you will just miss while others you will not meet.

When this happens do not beat yourself up, reset them and refine them.

Hope this Helps

Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires

We all want to sell the greatest and hotest items on eBay, but as I want to be honest here and although you will see the latest gadget selling on eBay, this is not a route for the average seller to take part in. But I hear you say well I seebrand new  Ipods or mobile selling all day long on eBay. Well yes you do, but most of the time these latest gadgets are being sold by major companies, and main retailers who can buy in volume and get the right price.
What a lot of new sellers do not know is the fact that items like Ipods some mobile phones, have contracts and they are approved to sell these items and it does not matter how much money you have, if you are not approved you cannot sell.

To get you started selling on eBay sell second hand items or sell in niche areas, but again with these niches drill down deep and you will see your sales go through the roof.

Once you have a very good feel by selling second hand items then you can start to look for new products, but more about that tomorrow.

Happy Selling.

Another resource bought to you by Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires