Then there was another learning curve and yet another and another..

And you know what..

It never ends!

If you are inclined to learn and implement..

Learning is a never ending process. You can always learn and apply more. But there comes a time when you have to stop kidding yourself and actually implement what you have learned already and start enjoying the journey.

It’s a known fact that most people who buy books don’t read them all. People who like to read probably buy more books than they have time to read. And others may not always read a full book.

People who do read books and learn something new, probably never take action on what gained from the book. The knowledge is stored but never acted upon and most books are left to gather dust and usually forgotten about.

This is a generalization of course.

But the fact is that to enter ANY market you have to implement. You need to take action and you need to have something unique. Even if you take action and you don’t know if the action you are taking is the right one, taking some action is better than taking no action.

If you do actually take action and follow through you are probably 90% ahead of everyone else, because based on the 80/20 rule, most people simply don’t take action.

Compare this to learning to drive a car. You can read the books, watch videos and be an ‘armchair expert’, but you won’t actually learn to be an expert driver let alone a competent driver unless you actually get behind the wheel and do something.

So whether it’s selling on eBay, Amazon, through ecommerce channels or through other channels and in any market, you need to walk before you can run and actually do start doing something. I’m sure you’ll agree you can learn basics but you can’t become an expert or even proficient unless you start doing something and actually start ‘trying’ stuff.

Here’s something else I hear often..

“If every market is already too competitive then why even bother trying”.

Here’s why..

Take music for example..

I’m kind of eclectic so I tend to like all kinds of different music. But what if every musician out there said..

“I’m not going to write or release a new song because there are already too many musicians in the world and the market is already flooded with music”.

Of course that wouldn’t happen, because in reality there are so many different kinds of music styles and unlimited possibilities for new music to be created and people who like ‘creating’ and ‘adding value’ do it because it’s in their blood.

I have always said that the key to winning is having something different to offer. You don’t have to be radically different, you just need to be at the least fractionally different. Just different enough so that you, your music or your products are unique.

The same can be said for any market you enter on the internet. Be unique and make your products stand out – they only have to be slightly different to existing products to be unique enough to be winning products in their own right. This actually works better in competitive markets.

The good news is that it doesn’t take long to discover new ideas and strategies once you immerse yourself in a market.

What can you do to make your products that little bit different and what actions you will you commit to this week and actually complete..

It would be interesting to know!

In business, we don’t want to gamble. Sure when your are successful and wealthy you can do want you want with your money and even gamble it away if you want to, but your business shouldn’t be a gamble.

I’ve heard some gurus say you can never tell which products are going to stick and sell well on ebay and to a certain extent that is true. If you throw enough spaghetti against the wall, some is bound to eventually stick.

However, there is a way to make sure that when you are trying to sell new products on ebay that the odds are in YOUR favor.

It’s called RESEARCH

And yes that might sound boring and doesn’t give you the instant thrill and satisfaction that playing blackjack can give you, but doing your research will prove far more profitable in the long run than getting a quick fix that lasts only for a few moments.

When you research ebay markets and find out what unique products are selling in different niches, you can turn the odds in your favor because your more likely to have a best selling product on ebay if you sell a similar product or better product in a small targeted niche that you have researched. The deeper you dig the more you will discover and that will turn the odds in your favor.

You start with what is already selling. You find out what is in demand without too much competition and chose to sell in a niche where certain types of products are in demand and you can easily join the selling crowd in that niche and pick up sales.

Do this a few times over and you have a few products selling well with some profit you can reinvest into your business.

Is it easier to ‘carpet bomb’ ebay and list lots of products hoping one or two will stick or is it better to do a little research before hand? Let me know what you think by posting a comment below..

It’s only when we have no other option but to put in 150% into something that we really need to work in order to survive. When disaster is looking at us in the face,  something inside of us happens and makes us do things that we wouldn’t normally do.

The reason is that..

At the opposite side of the spectrum our survival instincts are complacent. Our survival instinct is a powerful force but it’s lazy, it doesn’t like to work unless it really has to.

However, we never know when disaster might strike next. You can pay your bills and mortgage this month because you have a job that you’ve had for years, but what if you were made redundant and lost your job tomorrow?

What would you do?

It’s at times like this when we are forced out of our comfort zones and have to act. I can tell you I’ve been in that kind of situation several times and looking back, it’s at those critical moments when you really do put in all the effort required to make things work again.

And something kind of strange happens. It usually works out for the better.

That’s when good things emerge.

Of course this relates to your eBay business and internet marketing.

It’s at those times when you can really lay the foundations of a successful eBay business. When you’re frantically thrashing around researching new products and niches desperate to make things work.

To create a real income with eBay that can support you and your family and to build a business so that you can simply work for yourself, you need to put in the effort.

Most people do the bare minimum like list a couple of products that everyone else sells and wait for the customers and the money to magically appear. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.

Building any business whether it be on the internet or offline takes time, investment and a considerable amount of effort. I wish there was another way but there simply isn’t.

If you can flick the switch on your survival instinct and focus the incredible power into a new project or goal you want to achieve, that’s when you will be able to establish a business that REALLY works and pays dividends for years.

If you think you really can flick the switch and focus the power of survival then your ready to build and make a business succeed.

What do you think? Have you ever been in a similar situation before?

Let me know by replying below..

In this article I’m going to explain what steps are necessary to sell items on eBay successfully. It assumes that you already know how to open and set up an eBay account, if you don’t you can find those instructions here

1. Chose the right eBay category to list your item

A large proportion of potential buyers find products by clicking on selective eBay categories. It may seem straight forward, but give a little thought into which category your product will be best placed to attract the most potential buyers. For example, say you were trying to sell a book on eBay about baby care. You’re first thought and rightly so might be to choose ‘books’ as the main category. Smart eBay sellers also know that a little thought goes a long way when choosing your eBay category and by listing the ‘baby care book’ in the ‘Baby’ category as well as the Books category would also be an opportunity to reach many more potential buyers at the time they are searching for related items to buy.

2. Chose the right keywords for your eBay listing title

This is the step that can make or break your eBay listing. Before visitors click on your auction, see your pictures, read your eBay item description and buy your product, they need to be able to find it first. The most common way buyers search for something to buy on eBay is by typing in words into the eBay search bar. These are the ‘keywords’ that match the buyers search words to the keywords you enter into your eBay listing title.

When you create your listing only use keywords words in the title that relate to the product you are selling on eBay. If you use other words which you think will get more visitors to see your product, eBay may view other less irrelevant keywords as spam and your eBay listing will lose brownie points for search standing because the visitors are not seeing the exact product they are looking for. When you sell on eBay your listing titles should be concise, well descript and more importantly full of precise words and phrases that potential buyer would type into the eBay search bar to find the product they want to buy and that describes the product you are selling.

3. Use clear pictures that use all of the available image area

When selling on eBay creating an eBay listing with good pictures is important! When you go to buy something from a store you want to see the thing your buying right? Keep this in mind when selling on eBay. Your potential buyers can’t touch and feel the product so you will need to sell the product with good pictures.
I’ve seen a few eBay sellers listing items on eBay with real crappy images. The pictures are blurred or out of focus and are really small. A picture paints a thousand words so the saying goes, and if your eBay pictures are unclear, that is exactly what your pictures are portraying to your potential buyers. Take clear pictures that fill all of the space eBay provides you with.

It’s a good idea to include more detailed pictures in your item description and the best thing about it is that it’s free to include more detailed pictures in your item descriptions.

You can also use graphic software to clean up your images by removing the background and tweaking the brightness and contrast.

4. Describe your item as precisely as possible, highlighting the benefits

When you write your item description, don’t take anything for granted. Describe your item in lay mans terms, as if you were describing it to someone who doesn’t know anything at all about the product. You need to be clear, to the point and describe every detail. The more detail you place in your item description the more your buyers are likely to buy it. Imagine 2 identical eBay listings selling the same identical products. One of those listings has an item description that is three or four sentences long and brushes over the product details. The second has a full description page with 5 or 6 paragraphs clearly explaining every detail and highlighting ALL the benefits of the product to the buyer. Which one is more enticing? Buyers like to know that the eBay seller is responsible and dedicated to offering the best product and service and that the seller really cares about how they conduct their eBay business. The more quality information you put in your item description, the better.

5. Explain your shipping and payment options.

Explain in detail how you accept payment. It’s no big secret that eBay prefer Paypal as a payment method since eBay own Paypal. You will need either a premier or business paypal account to accepot credit card payments. The other option is to accept credit card payments through an alternative card processing merchant account. eBay.com no longer allows sellers to accept offline payment due to security issues. If you are just starting your eBay business, Paypal is the easiest way to accept payments.

6. Include a guarantee and refund policy

Always offer a return policy and guarantee. By offering a guarantee you are giving the buyer a reason to trust you and that the product you are selling. All big e-commerce vendors offer a return policy and you should offer the same if you want to instill trust and confidence into your buyers.

7. Do exactly as you have promised and more.

To sell on eBay successfully and build an eBay business you need to stick to your promises and even over deliver on customer service. If your eBay item description says that you post your products within 24hours make sure they are posted within 24hrs. If you claim your product does something specific, make sure it does it. If you say that deliveries are received within 2 days, make sure it happens. Otherwise don’t make promises you cannot keep. When you keep to your promises you build a good relationship with your buyers that encourage positive feedback. Feedback will make or break your eBay business so you want to make sure you are receiving good positive feedback. Anything else will fail your eBay business.

8. The customer is not always right, but pretend they are!

If you are a customer services type of person then this might come natural to you. But it doesn’t to me and I’m one of those who people who have to work at it. In life you can please some of the people some of the time and not all of the people all of the time and it’s the same in business. You should strive to please as many people as you can but there will always be someone somewhere who disagrees. Regardless if it was an error on your part or the buyers, you don’t want to receive anything but positive feedback so you should offer refunds and compromises with the tiny percentage of buyers who will inevitably complain about your product or service. Negative feedback lowers your search standing and destroys buyer trust. To avoid negative feedback take complaints on the chin, apologize, offer a compromise and move on. The small amount of complaints any business receives is usually irrelevant in comparison to the amount of extra sales you’ll make and seller discounts you will receive if your eBay account is in good standing with good positive feedback ratings and percentages.

9. Follow up with great customer service

You can over deliver on customer service by following up with your buyers with shipping notices, postal tracking numbers and by simply asking the buyer if they are satisfied with the product received. Sending emails like this can be automated from your eBay account and again encourages the buyer to leave positive feedback. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call your customers. Sometimes electronic emails and messages don’t arrive as planned and your buyer might not receive your intended message. If this happens your buyer might think you are ignoring them and become irritated. It’s amazing what a phone call can achieve and the simple fact that you have been bothered to pick up the phone and call your buyer to explain a situation, really does pay dividends and leaves the buyer more than contented that you are trying all you can to complete a satisfactory transaction.

10. Make all of the above routine!

When you are running an eBay business you will find yourself adopting a routine. Streamline your routine to make the best use of your time and don’t spend too much time on things that can be done quickly. All of the above steps should become routine to you so you then have time to find more products to sell on eBay and grow your business successfully.

Once you have mastered these steps you will be well placed to learn and implement more advanced eBay features and methods. Selling on eBay can be a very serious business but also really can be fun and working from your home or office can be really fulfilling. So enjoy the process of selling on eBay and you will soon catch the eBay seller bug and be growing your home based business in no time.

Get The Free Tutorial Videos.. “How To Find The Best Products To Sell On eBay & Buy Those Exact Products At Wholesale Prices To Make Huge Profits” + “How To Find Hot eBay Products Mini Course” By email >> Click For More Info <<

There has never been a better time to start your own business on eBay. Visitors flock to eBay to pickup bargains and find good deals but that doesn’t mean the sellers are being short changed. On the contrary, using  eBay for business doesn’t require any investment in overheads to open a physical shop and hire employees. eBay sellers are cashing in on the current economy selling products cheaper than high street retailers and by also selling products that cannot be found anywhere in any shops.

Please don’t think that just because you start an eBay business you are limited to an eBay business model. Usually starting a business on eBay leads to other profitable online ventures as you gain more experience from selling online. eBay is simply a marketplace with established visitors and I like to think of it as a marketing platform.

You can learn so much about online marketing from starting a successful eBay business. It only takes a couple of products that sell well on eBay to usually get you hooked, and from there you can simply keep adding more and more products to your portfolio. I’m not saying that every item you sell on eBay is going to be an immediate success but you simply drop the losers and keep the winners. And keep adding more and more products.

So heres how to create an eBay business plan in 5 minutes.

1) Browse the eBay categories and find one that you are interested in learning more about OR chose one that you are already familiar with the kind of products are selling in that category. Try to stay away from electronics since those categories are usually hyper-competitive and not for the faint hearted.

2) Use the techniques in the free eBay tutorial videos to quickly find 3 products that are currently selling well on eBay and find a wholesale price for those items, again using the free eBay tutorial videos.

3) Buy those 3 products from the existing sellers on eBay. Doing this allows you to do 3 things. They are to check out the quality of the products and allows you to write a better eBay item description about the products. It also gives you insider information on the eBay competition you are going to be up against. For example you will find out how quickly the others sellers ship the products to their customers, how they are packaged, if they use any after sales marketing or up selling to other websites and finally how good their customer service is. Finding out this information arms you with the knowledge to position yourself as a real competitor in your chosen eBay category.

As soon as you have a couple of products which you can say you make money selling on eBay it’s time to seperate the men from the boys and impliment your real eBay business strategy selling your own private label products in your chosen niche.

Get your Private Label Products Master report here

Related eBay Business Resources

• Working at Home with eBay Basics (wealthyways4you.com)

Here’s the letter..

~~~

Dear John,

I was wondering if you could please help me. I have signed up on your mini course about best selling items on eBay. I have turned my attention to try and make a living out of selling products on eBay as I have been made redundant and finding a job is so difficult. So I was wondering if you could help me to find a product to sell on eBay.

Thanks

Bob

~~~~~

Firstly I want to congratulate Bob for being made redundant! This may sound a little unusual but being made redundant is often the spark needed to fire a successful entrepreneurial business of your own. Its hard for some to take those first steps to start a business instead of working for others because of the risk factor and doubts of ability to  succeed. The challenge, IF you chose to accept is..

To create your own ‘mini-business’ that can sustain you financially while you build on that to give rise to a business that will generate wealth and freedom for your future on semi-autopilot.  You will need an initial investment to buy your first products to sell on eBay. If you don’t have a little cash to invest you can always raise some money selling old items you have around the house you no longer need or use. If you are new to eBay this will also give you vital hands on experience to selling on eBay.

My first experience with eBay was selling my old items I had around the house and I was hooked when I raised over 4000 pounds  from old stuff I no longer used that I regarded as things that no longer had any value to me. That is exactly how my eBay business began.

In the letter, Bob asks if I can help him to find a single product to sell on eBay and this is the correct way to begin your own successful business once you have a small amount of cash you can invest. First you need just one product that actually sells and generates a profit to make money. The product will be one that can be resold as a buy it now product that you can order a quantity of and resell on the same multiple buy it now listing over and over again.

It’s totally feasible to expect to sell at least one product repetitively each day. Say your product generates 15usd profit after your costs. 15usd x 30 days = 450usd profit per month. This is a minimal amount to sustain you however, before you can have 2 products that sell on eBay and actually make money, you need one product.

Once you have that first product up and running it’s much easier to find your second product and third and so on. The profit you make soon ads up as you add more and more profitable products to your portfolio. Imagine having 10 products that all generate profits and sell at least one per day and make on average 15usd profit each. Now your upto 4500usd profit per month on semi autopilot!

Simply growing your inventory one product at a time with profitable items soon amounts up to profits much larger than you could ever expect.

But first you must find that first product. When I get asked about profitable products to sell on eBay the first thing I do is recommend the mini course tutorial videos. Using the research methods and wholesale procurement methods in these videos will direct you to find your first profitable product. If you are testing the market with more than one product and only one of those three products actually turn a profit, ditch the two losers and keep the winner.

Order your first batch of the product that made the profit and only concentrate on selling that one product until you have created the best eBay listing you can possibly create for that single product. Then go onto finding another product using the same methods.

When You Reach The Highway, Take Your Foot Off The Brake..

If you are actually at the point where you have at least one or two products generating a profit on eBay you are ready to take your business to the next level. I always recommend focusing your efforts on selling just one or two products purchased at wholesale prices to begin your eBay business and to gain essential experience and accumulate knowledge. When you reach that point you are ready to take your foot off the brake and take your business into the fast lane.

This is when your business really takes off and your profits begin to multiply.

I can’t think how I would be able to cope with that now simply due to the large number of items I actually sell on eBay each day. Ever since I started to use a fulfillment company to do all that low value 10dollar per hour work for me I have been able to grow my business by spending that time instead to direct, manage and grow my business.

The work I now do is worth much more than 10usd per hour. The work I do now is mostly 100usd/hour work and occasionally 1000usd/hour work. Are you still packaging and posting your own items and if so how long is that taking you each day and how much is your time really worth?

Even if you are selling a few items per day those items still need to be picked, packed and posted and that time is low dollar work. The options are;

• Continue packing your own items and spend your time doing low dollar work

• Hire a helping hand to do your packing and posting for you

• Ship all of your stock to a fulfillment center and devote your precious time doing the high value work which really makes your business grow

Fulfillment centers are growing in popularity and those who are already using them to fulfill eBay orders have a distinct advantage due to the extra time available to grow the business properly. And the added benefit is of course your stock no longer clutters that spare room.

I have used a company called Shipwire who are very reasonably priced starting at just 29.99usd / month and that includes shipping which makes it good value when you consider how much you currently spend on shipping and packaging materials, not to mention your time spent doing the work yourself.

All of my eBay orders are automatically transferred to Shipwire and the orders are then professionally picked, packed and shipped to my end customers. I don’t even have to think about any of that stuff. I simply replenish my stock held at Shipwire when my inventory is almost sold out.

Shipwire also have warehouses across the United States and in the United Kingdom which makes selling internationally extremely attractive. You can even ship your stock to both the UK and USA and sell internationally with quick local shipping and your customers can receive their orders faster which means you increase your eBay sales and receive great feedback and DSR’s for shipping.

So how much is your time really worth to you? Are you spending too much time doing the low value work or are you doing what you really should be doing as a business owner and that is concentrating on selling and introducing new products, to grow your business and free up your time to make even more money.

My own company has teamed up with Shipwire to bring you a free trial. The packages are tiered depending on the amount of product you are selling each month.

Do a quick calculation to see how much money you are currently spending on postage plus packaging materials and the actual hourly rate you cost your own time at and compare that to the low cost fulfillment plans available at Shipwire.

You can check it out and sign up for the no obligation free trial here (it might turn out to be one of the best things you do to grow your eBay business), here’s the link to the free trial..

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> www.Shipwire.com/FreeTrial

~~~

]]> http://auctionguerilla.com/how-much-is-your-time-really-worth-to-you/feed 4 http://auctionguerilla.com/are-you-taking-advantage-from-free-google-traffic-to-increase-your-ebay-store-sales http://auctionguerilla.com/are-you-taking-advantage-from-free-google-traffic-to-increase-your-ebay-store-sales#comments Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:25:25 +0000 John B http://johntbaxter.net/?p=169 Are you taking advantage of free Google traffic to increase your eBay store sales?

eBay isn’t the only place you can get traffic to your eBay listings. If you take a look at some Powerseller’s ebay stores you will see that the categories on the left hand side navigation are keyword rich and designed to be search engine friendly.

You can easily implement a simple strategy for obtaining more free traffic to your eBay store by optimizing your eBay store categories in a certain way so that your eBay store pages are included in all the big search engines search results.

Here’s how eBay store pages look in Google’s search results.

In the above example I typed in ‘fishing tackle daiwa reel’ into Google and you can see how an eBay store with matching keywords has been included in the first page results.

Read a simillar article about ebay category SEO by Jenn Cangelosi here

To optimize your eBay store categories you need to make your categories and sub-categories keyword rich.  In the example above,  and if you were selling Daiwa fishing reels you would name your eBay store category Fishing Tackle and then name your sub category ‘Daiawa reels’. It only takes a few minutes to set up and can make a massive difference in the amount of traffic that is funneled to your eBay store and listings. More traffic means more sales, so take a few moments now and make your eBay store categories search engine friendly to increase your eBay store traffic.

Learn how to increase your eBay sales even more using the eBay Best Match Boost Listing Strategy

Which ever products you chose to sell it will most probably take you the same amount of time and work to do the research, sourcing of wholesale products, organizing your images and photos and writing listing descriptions to sell a hot selling product as it would to sell products that are not as successful. So you want to make sure you chose a product that is going to sell quickly with good profits. Here is a criteria for selecting the best items to sell on ebay;

• Chose small lightweight products where possible but don’t sell exactly the same as someone else unless you can add value to that product.

• Consumable products – products that are consumed and used up so the buyer will be looking to replace the product time and time again, giving you the opportunity to sell to the same buyer again and again. Examples of consumables include printer ink, batteries, office stationary and also things like car polish.

• Products that can be bundled together in packs or use add on products which you can cross sell and up sell the buyer, once the original product is purchased. For example, someone who buys an electric toothbrush will probably need replacement toothbrush heads as well.

• Products that are unique or have a unique selling point in comparison to other products which are already selling well.

• The first product you think of usually isn’t the best product to sell on ebay so do your research first

• Finally and for some, this might be the most difficult for most sellers to adhere to and that is to sell products which are successful but cannot be sourced, sold or copied by other sellers easily. This makes it harder for any competitors to enter your market selling the same products as you. My ‘eBay Product Mastery’ course shows you in detail, exactly how to do this. When you can fulfill this criteria point when choosing your products to sell  you can potentially dominate any market on ebay.

Invest a little time into researching your niche or market you are thinking about entering before buying your stock. This will make sure you’re not buying a ‘dud’ product and that your new products have the best possibility of success to make money on ebay, over and over again.

Get The Free Tutorial Videos.. “How To Find The Best Products To Sell On eBay & Buy Those Exact Products At Wholesale Prices To Make Huge Profits” + “How To Find Hot eBay Products Mini Course” By email >> Click For More Info  <<

Related Best Products To Sell On eBay Resources