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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)

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

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

Commission Selling

Commission Selling is a quick way

to fill your store with stock…………

From time to time we have all said I just wish we had more stock to fill our shop and auctions with. But sometimes we just do not have the money to buy in stock to re-sell. At this point many people give up and just leave their shops partly full.

Well today I am going to share with two words. Commission Selling. Commission selling is where we go to a shop, a local wholesaler, Charity Shop and ask them how would they like to increase their turnover and profit, by doing very little work. Most places will say why yes, how can you help.

You explain how you will sell on eBay for them for a small commission of around 30%. – ( A side note here, the best places to go to first are those who have a high profit margin)

Once you have a place say yes we will give it a go, you get them to sign an some forms which covers both you and the shop. (You will either take the stock home or leave it in the shop), but you list it as normal, and when it sells you package it up and send it to the buyer. If the shop still has the item, take the paypal invoice to prove it has been sold, show it to the shop, package the item up and send it on it’s way.

Once the buyer is happy and has left feedback that they are happy, you send the payment to the shop via cheque or PayPal less your commission.

This is very simple and makes all sides happy.

Have Fun

Andrew Milburn

Product Sourcing Tips


Today I am just going to bring the last two post together. As I have said I do not have a tattoo or know about the market, so I was coming at it from a new persons point of view.

My last bit of research took me to using the phone and chatting to men and women who had Tattoos.

I phoned some of the local tattoo shops and also some of the ones in the larger cities and they all told me that prices go from around £50.00 upto several £1,000 if it was a compex tattoo.

Now the above fact told me that this market had money to spend – now this is very important when you are going into a Niche, you need to find out does this market have the cash to spend.

I also asked the shops if they took Credit or debit cards and they all said yes. – Again this is important for if you are selling online people need to have a means of paying you staright away.

The age bracket I spoke to was between 18/30. And they all said they liked Tattoo’s as art and it made them feel good. – Again they were buying and wanted to buy.

I explained to each person I spoke to I was doing research and nearly all of them were happy to help. Today while I was in town I was having some lunch and I saw two girls with lower Back tattoo’s and one had one on her lower leg. So I thought well could get a slap but went and I chatted to them. They were only to happy to help.

They also thought it was a cool idea to have somewhere to go to get pictures and they would go to a site like that because they want other bits done.

(And this is another point – this market loves their product and will buy – even when only a few people would ever see the end result, and am not joking the one tattoo the girl only her boyfriend or husband would ever get to see).

Also she explained although she had her lower leg done and lower back done there were plenty of other places that she could have done and all her mates had atleast two or three tattoo’s. So why not split designs up into : Lower Back, legs, arms, other bits.

Her mate had now gone back to work , but the other girl still chatted and said if I was going todo this product why not sell body jewellery, Crop tops and jeans so they could show off the art, and she went on and on.

So what am I saying well :

The Niche had a range of magazines and expensive ones at that.

The Niche had money to spare and spend on their Niche.

The Niche had a means of paying for their products.

Also there were other Niches that could be drilled into once they had bought. Such as Jewellery, Clothes.

Also the person who wanted the product did the buying – What do I mean. Well for example a child may want the latest computer game, but he does not have means to buy it, he has to ask a parent.

Well I hope you understood that. And that it has helped you.

And before anyone asks NO I am not going to go into the Tattoo Niche.

 

 

 

Product Sourcing Tips

 

Our First visit is to Google.com to see if people are searching for the Niche Tattoo

And we see a massive 63 Million Searches we done for the Niche Word Tattoo. Now to be honest this is far to big for us to work in so we need to sub Niche.

To do this I go to WordTracker. You can either sign up on a monthly package or you can use their free tool at www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com again type in your niche word. 

 

 From the above we can see some smaller Niches that we could work in. Tattoo Art and Tattoo Design.

With these two sub-Niches you can sell designs on CD Rom, or in a book format. You could get the pictures from the public domain or design your own.

Hope the above is OK and use your own niche in place of Tattoo. I used the Niche Tattoo because I knew nothing about it so could look at it from a new person.

Andrew Milburn

 

OsiRockStars

Product Sourcing Tips

Here in my multi-Part blog on Product Sourcing Tips, is an idea I learned from Ed. If you have not heard about Ed, I shall be telling you more about him later……He is another janelle he gives and gives and then gives some more. Well enough of the Ed fan club.

As I have mentioned and other people on the RockStars forum Product Sourcing is a must for any business. Product Sourcing after keywords will either make or break your business. If Product Sourcing is done right then you will have money in the bank.

So for todays tip. If you live in the UK or Europe pop along to your local large newsagents and if you live where they do not have a newsagent, pop along to where they sell magazines, but it must be a major seller.

Now take a look at all the magazines, all of them: Men’s, Woman’s, Children’s, Teenagers, Hobby Ones, etc, etc.

Next take a look at magazines where there is more than one on a topic. Now I know nothing about Tattoos but here in the UK I looked this morning and there were 8 magazines on Tattoo. Now that tells us people must buy these magazines (these magazines were not cheap they were priced at over £5.00 each)

Next you either need to spend some cash or go to a library but I do recomend you spend some cash and buy all the magazines on the subject, so if I was looking at Tattoo I would buy all the magazines.

Once you get home start going through them and marking the pages (this is why you need to buy) on the items you could sell. See where the trade shows are, if possible go to them.

Now as well as reading about Tattoo and the amazing culture you will begin to see trends coming out. Words they use in the magazines, Phrases they use, How they use photo’s.

Make notes of all these things, for if you decide to enter this niche you will be able to use the words , phrases and types of photos they are used to seeing.

For instance we might say ” Tattoo art for girls on their lower backs” Good keywords yes, but for a Tattoo fan means nothing.

They would need ” Tramp Stamp For The Girl With Attitude”  ******* A Tramp Stamp is a Tattoo on The Lower Back of a Girl.

This morning I knew nothing about the Tattoo Industry, Culture, but 10 hours later I can tell you from what I have read, prices I have seen and researched it is a market that has money to spend.

Tomorrow I will show you, how to check out what you have read in magazines with cold facts, that will tell us is this a market to go for.

Andrew Milburn

OSI Rock Stars

Product Sourcing

For anyone who runs a business either online or offline and you sell a real product, product sourcing must be in your blood. If as yet you have not had a Product Sourcing implant than ask me or any of the other Rock Stars and we will help you get one.

Product Sourcing needs to be at the forefront of your mind 24/7. I shall start to cover the basics of how you do this in the blog posts next week.

But here is the Product Sourcing Tip for today.

Look around your own home and what ever you have not used for 12 months add it to your eBay stock.
Once you have added your own items go around family, and if they will not just give you the items, say if it sells you will give them a percentage of the sales price, most times they will agree to this.
And when you have gone through your family, try your friends.

Now I can hear you think yes ok this is a good idea, but think of all the hard work in writing listings , taking pictures, postage and package. Yes it will be hard work, but there is nothing wrong with hard and it will get you used to writing good listings, taking pictures. And this will get you ready when you start to pay for you stock.

Have a Great Day.

Andrew Milburn

OSI RockStars

Have you wanted to buy and source stock at rock bottom costs that could bring you in a nice little income ? I guess the answer to that questions is why yes of course.

Well have you tried your local Library? A few times a year in the UK most library have sales where they sell of the older books, dvd’s talking books, videos and Cd’s. Most of these items are in good condition – if they are not do not buy.

They are priced real cheap, so take a long some strong bags and some cash and have a few hours of fun.

You get to hear about these sales from adverts in the local papers, adverts in the library and on loacal notice boards.

Again set yourself a budget and stick to it.

Have fun sourcing

Andrew Milburn

OSI RockStars

Continuing on my sourcing theme, I have found another great place – Discount shops, such as Costco, Asda (Wal-Mart) , Aldi, Matalan – A hint here please keep a lookout for my new low cost report coming soon.

As with charity shops you need to set yourself a budget for the day, and not go over it unless you find a real bargain, but do be careful and if you keep to your budget if it all goes wrong you will not loose much.

Also take your laptop with you so you can do some coffee shop research, or have your internet phone with you, or as your last line of research a friend or family member sitting by the phone and a computer who can do the research for you.

Most of these places sell bankrupt or end of line items and over stock - I shall be going over these in other posts and also in my report. Most of the shops carry new items and if they are customer returns they must tell you both when the item is on the shelf and when you go to pay for the item.

Hope this gives you another idea on where to source items to resell.

Andrew Milburn

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