No major topic posts today –I have decided to start using Friday to wrap up news and happenings for the prior week. So here are a few things that crossed my computer screen this week.
>>> eBay Holiday Promotions – eBay just uploaded the Holiday Selling Guide for tips to sell more this season. eBay is also launching a number of holiday sales promotions such as eBay coupons and eBay bucks sent to buyers.
>>> eBay to fix search slowness. eBay said yesterday that they are removing some graphics from the search results page so the pages will load faster. Great! This has been a long standing complaint and it looks like someone at eBay finally listened.
>>> Last week eBay announced a new TV advertising program. eBay’s return to TV advertising is long overdue but from the admittedly little I have seen, this campaign seems pretty lame. Amazon is also rumored to launch a TV campaign for the holidays. So far they are out with wome 15 second spots for the Kindle reader, but I expect them to launch some more general ads in the next few weeks.
>>> Amazon announced a rebate program for sellers who use FBA - Amazon is offering its sellers a chance to earn up to $1,000 in fee rebates when they sign up for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). FBA is Amazon’s drop ship program where merchants store inventory in Amazon’w warehouses and Amazon does the order fulfillment for the merchant seller.
>>>The USPS announced a 3% price increase on Priority Mail starting in January. There will be additional price increases on Global Priority and Express mail as well.
>>>eBay has created a mobile boutique that will roam the country to promote buying on eBay. From November 10 through December 20, the eBay Mobile Boutique brings the eBay shopping experience to life in a town near you. See the schedule.
The Complete eBay Marketing System is our flagship product for eBay sellers. The 6 pound printed manua starts with the basics and takes beginning sellers through everything they need to start and run a profitable eBay Business.
Government numbers on retail sales came out this morning falling 0.5% in one month. If it keeps up, that works out to a 6% annual rate. This comes on top of consumer confidence numbers out earlier in the week that were so bad it took the stock market down almost 200 points. The GDP economic numbers that showed 3.5% growth fueled a brief rally of 199 points on the DOW, until today’s numbers came out starting another 200+ point rout in the DOW.
What does this all mean for online sellers? There is no question that the high number of job losses and pessimistic consumer confidence will impact holiday sales, but there in one offsetting possibility –The Swine Flu.
No one likes to make money from other people’s misery, but it is a fact that swine flu fears are already responsible for some of the drop in retail sales. Amazon just reported its best quarter ever and eBay’s sales were only down 1% when many analysts were expecting a larger drop. Nielsen numbers on website sales will be out soon and it will be interesting to see if online sales are growing or declining. My bet is that we will see some growth –probably not much but as people fear the holiday crowds in the malls, I think online shopping will offset some of the retail sales lost to brick and mortar stores.
The Complete eBay Marketing System by an eBay PowerSeller who sells on eBay every day is the leading training course for eBay sellers.
Shipped the same busines day you order, The Complete eBay Marketing System comes in a 5 pound binder and takes sellers from the basics to eBay profits.
Apparently you can still make money selling on eBay.
HIAWATHA, Iowa (CNN)– As Dr. Jennifer Lickteig examines patients at the Linn Community Care Health Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she’s also earning money from a second career that has nothing to do with medicine.
Dr. Jennifer Lickteig started her online clothing business while taking time off from medicine to raise her family. 1 of 2 Lickteig runs a clothing store on eBay, where she’s a “Gold PowerSeller,” ranking among the top 1½ percent of merchants on the online marketplace.
The 35-year-old family practitioner says she earned $120,000 last year on eBay, more than she did practicing medicine. Read the full story at CNN.
Yes, eBay is not as easy as it was a few years ago –and yes, fees are higher and their policies are more strict. But hundreds of thousands of small and large sellers are still making money on eBay today.
When it comes to learning how to make money online, eBay has several advantages for the small or new seller. First of all is a built-in audience. eBay gets the eyeballs to your listings. Although eBay has lost its first place in shopping traffic to Amazon, there are still millions of people who visit eBay every day and type what they are looking for into the search engine. If you know how to optimize your listings for eBay search, then you will get your products in front of buyers.
Making money selling on eBay.
The tricks are pretty simple:
Use good searchable keywords in your auction titles.
Use good photographs that show off your item
Write complete thorough descriptions that give the buyer all the information they need
Deliver good customer service to earn a great feedback rating and high Detailed Seller Rating stars
The other thing about eBay is the skills you will learn are translatable to selling in other venues including Amazon, other auction sites, fixed price stores and even your own website. In fact eBay is a great place to secure customers so you can market to them in other ways.
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If you want to learn how to make money on eBay, our flagship product, The Complete eBay Marketing System will give you the tools and skills you need to be successful. I have been selling on eBay for ten years and eBay is the source of a large part of my online income. Let me show you how to make money selling on eBay with The Complete eBay Marketing System. It comes with a No-Questions-Asked money back guarantee and ships the same business day you order.
Make Extra Money with The Top Fifty Affiliate Marketing Networks
Affiliate marketing is a great way for small online sellers to make extra money. You don’t even need a website. You can promote affiliate advertisers with a blog, from social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook or to your readers if you have a newsletter. Of course if you do have a website and would like to make some extra money then these networks can work for you too.
Almost all affiliate networks work the same way. First you sign up to create an account. Once you are in the program, you log in and look for advertisers. Most systems allow you to select advertisers by category, while some others are specialized. For example, MarketHealth.com specializes in health and beauty products.
One problem with most networks is that you have to join several of them to find the right products to advertise or to find products in your category. One answer to this is to take a look at Affiliate Scout. Affiliate Scout lists thousands of affiliate advertisers by category. This way you can find the networks with the products you want, before joining them.
Making extra money with Affiliate marketing is not a shotgun endeavor. You must specialize. Ideally you want to find advertisers who are related to the topic of your blog or website. The best advertising is that which is related to your content and focused on your readers. Affiliates offers for credit cards and mortgages tend to pay the highest commissions, but if you blog is about pet care and training; then those ads would be out of place, whereas ads for Petsmart would work very well.
If you would like to get some training on how to make money with affiliate marketing, check out http://www.affiliatetraining.com/x/affiliate-articles/. This is a site where you can get plenty of free articles and advice for earning extra money with affiliate marketing.
I have been a fan of XsitePro for some time. They offer a very easy and inexpensive way to create websites that can be used for selling products, generating affiliate income or earning money with Google AdSense.
They are coming out with a new product called The Complete Guide to Website Building. Don’t worry this is not some high-tech system that you need to know about programming and HTML. This is designed for people who know nothing more that how to type, point and click. If you can do that, you can build a website.
If you want to sit in on the free webinar tomorrow, click here to register. It is completely free and will give you a good overview including:
1. Who the course is aimed at helping
2. How you can benefit from the course
3. What’s included in the training
4. How the delivery platform works
5. Details of the support on offer to trainees
6. Pricing and guarantee information
And they are offering an exciting set of bonuses to everyone who attends…and these bonuses are not “free PDFs” or some other low-value thrown-in… they’re quality additional benefits for:
- The First 100 fast-acting sign-ups, and;
- The First 1000 trainees through the door
Oh, and did I mention they are also giving away TEN complete courses to ten lucky webinar attendees?
So if you have ever thought about taking the leap to building your own website, take a look at this short webinar. XsitePro has one of the best reputations in the industry and their stuff is really good.
Data Shows eBay September Year over Year Traffic at 5-Year Low
An article by Ina Steiner in AuctionBytes this morning reported that eBay traffic for the months of August and September were at 5-year lows when compared to those same months going back to 2005, according to data provided by Nielsen, which also shows a slight but steady growth trend in Amazon.com traffic over the past 2 years. You can read the full article at AusctioBytes here.
Beware of Phone Phishing Scam Involving Suposedly Deaf People
There is a new phone phishing scam aimed at eBay sellers. I received one of these calls this morning. Here is how it works:
You receive a phone call and an operator on the line explains that she is on the line with a hearing impaired person who is typing her message and the operator will translate. So you say “OK” and the operator gives the person’s name and asks for yours. Then the operator says the person is overseas and wants to buy one of your products. She then started asking questions wanting my location and address and eBay ”name.”
I wasn’t sure what was going on and being very careful, when suddenly I heard a click and an another operator came on the line. She said she was from AT&T and that she was disconnecting the call because it was a fradulent call. I asked her what was going on and she explained that this was a phone phishing scam designed to get personal information and the calls were originating from overseas.
So, if you get a call like this, my best advice is to just say “No thank you,” and hang up.
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The Complete eBay Marketing System by Skip McGrath is a complete training program for eBay sellers and those wanting to start and run an eBay business. The course is contained in a five-pound printed training manual, shipped the same day your order is processed.
The holidays are fast approaching and this is the time of year when eBay sellers make the most money. For example, last year our sales for November thru January exceeded our sales for the prior 5 months. I just sent this out to my newsletter subscribers, but since some of my blog readerrs don’t subscribe I wanted to share it with you too. If you would like to subscribe to my FREE TWICE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER click here The eBay Seller’s News.
I wanted to give you three resources with this issue:
1. eBay Holiday Selling Tips:
The Thanksgiving selling season has already started. The Christmas selling starts the day after Halloween.
Free Shipping works best during the holiday season
People often buy more than one of the same item during the Christmas season. The best way to take advantage of this is with fixed price listings for multiple quantities. If you offer free shipping when someone buys more than one item this always works
This year people will be looking for bargains. eBay’s markdown manager is a great tool to find those buyers
People are shopping every day. Run shorter duration auctions and run them more often
2. Key Dates To Start Promotions
If you have any Thanksgiving related products or promotions you should be sending them out now and launching auctions next week.
Start your Christmas promotions the day after Halloween
The day after Thanksgiving is not only a big retail day it is also a big day on eBay. Make sure you have auctions ending on that day. Anytime from 8AM Pacific to 7PM Pacific is a good time. If you have identical products that sell well for Christmas, have an auction end once an hour starting at 8AM. This way your items will appear at the top of the search results on one of the biggest shopping days of the year. I did this for one of my products last year and 9 out of my 12 listings sold and over half of them went with the BIN price.
Start offering optional expedited on December 18th and keep it going right up to Christmas eve. Even if someone buys on Christmas eve with expedited shipping they will not get it in time, but people still do that as some of them are always a couple days late.
Run a post-Christmas sale with markdown manager starting December 28th and running through January 15th.
3. Holiday Toy Guide
Every year about this time, Jennie Hunt comes out with her Holiday Toy Guide. Even eBay sellers who don’t normally sell toys can make money in this category this time of year. Last year one of Jennie’s readers who had never sold toys before made over $4000 selling toys she bought retail from discount warehouses and outlets.
Jennie has just produced a great article about the toy market and what it will look like in this economy. Here is the article. After you read it, you can visit Holiday Toy Guide and get more free articles and read about Jennie’s service. When it comes to the toy market Jennie is the acknowledged expert on the eBay Toy Market.
How Is The Economy Going To Effect Toy Sales On eBay This Year? By Jennie Hunt
If you are an eBay seller, you probably can’t help but think about how the economy might affect the biggest selling season of the year… holiday toy sales.
First of all, I think it is important to note that nobody can predict how things are going to pan out this year (or any year for that matter)… no matter who says it or how they say it… until we are smack in the middle of the season, it is just a prediction.
Even so, it would be unwise if we ignored the status of the economy and didn’t take a closer look as to how this selling season COULD be affected. It is equally important to examine strategies we, as sellers, can put into place that will help ensure a profitable selling season regardless of how glum things may look today.
What We Can Rely On
That children always come first.
Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles… no matter what… will find a way to make their child’s holiday one to remember. Even if it means cutting the budget elsewhere, they will find a way to buy toys and gifts for the children in their lives.
Even in a slow economy, the holidays still bring out good cheer.
The holidays are known for being a time for hope and generosity. Although you wouldn’t always recognize this when customers fight over the last (latest and greatest) Elmo on the shelves… the motive is still to bring cheer to the loved ones in their lives during the holidays.
Most people don’t know how to budget.
Consumer debt in our country is through the roof… we don’t really understand how to control spending… and, although I can’t encourage getting into more debt, I think it is safe to assume that people will spend what they feel like they have to spend to make the people in their lives happy this year. This means people are going to be buying the hottest toys for the children in their lives… even if it means going into debt.
Okay, so we know people are still going to buy. In fact, Deloitte Research and Retail Forward are predicting sales to be flat this holiday season compared to a year ago when it dropped significantly. At the same time, the International Council of Shopping Centers has predicted a 1% increase in sales compared to last year’s sales.
The only thing we really know is that analysts are all over the board. No one really knows what will happen… But, we can assume that, although they may be forced to cut back from previous years (you do have to have food on the table), we are a society that is known for getting deeper and deeper into debt. But what if people do cut corners and aren’t interested in (or able to) buying the hot toys that are released for this holiday season?
They are still going to buy toys!
I’m confident that even if parents can’t afford to, they will find a way to buy toys for their children. And, if they can’t afford to get the newest toys for this year… they will buy used. Did you know that used toys sell well all year long – and they do quite well during the holiday season too? I can’t help but wonder if new toy sales slump a bit this year… only to find that used toy sales go through the roof!
We’ll have to wait and see to find out – but, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
One of the best strategies toy sellers can implement this holiday season is to offer both used and new toys to their customers.
Even though new toys traditionally skyrocket during the holidays… and that means sellers can buy them at full retail prices only to see them double or triple on eBay… there can be a much higher profit margin when selling used toys. You can pick up gently used toys at yard sales, consignment shops, estate sales and thrift stores for pennies on the dollar and turn them around for 100-200% profit on eBay!
But, it all comes down to knowing what sells…
The Holiday Toy Guide is created to help you make the most from your toy selling efforts on eBay… to help you know what is selling (and what isn’t!)… and in an unpredictable economy – this is MUST HAVE information.
The original reesponse to our eBay Niche Workshop was excellent but we still ended up with a few open slots. So we opened it up again this week and we are almost full. Here is the link to read about the workshop opportunity: http://budurl.com/ebayniche
We will be closing it on Sunday Evening, so this is your last chance to get in to a wonderfully easy and profitable niche. We show you how and where to source products for $10 to $20 that can be sold for between $50 and $90 and even more. And the sources are local and plentiful –right in your neighborhood.
I hope you will take advantage of this. http://budurl.com/ebayniche and yes – it comes with a money back guarantee if it doesn’t work for you.
Let eBay and other sellers know how you feel and how you are coping with the changes. AuctionBytes is conducting a survey of readers to see how eBay’s Fall Release of changes is impacting sellers.
The survey focuses on eBay’s changes to search and new Top Rated Seller program.
There are 22 questions and takes about 5 minutes. Take the survey here now.
The answer to that question depends on the kind of drop shipper you are looking at. I like to place drop shippers in four categories:
Total scams
Large general product dropshippers
Specialized drop shippers
Small and medium-sized manufacturers that drop ship.
Let’s take a look at each one.
1. Total Scams – there are a few companies out there that claim to have thousands of famous name brand products that in fact ship mostly fakes from China. I once bought a dozed Polo dress shirts from one of these companies. I didn’t know I was buying from China, but that’s where the package came from when it arrived. Actually the fakes were pretty good quality, but they were fakes so I couldn’t sell them on eBay. I ended up selling them on Craigslist and telling people they were knockoffs. I didn’t make any money, but I got my money back that way.
2. The large general dropshippers are the companies you see advertised in Google Ads all the time. They claim to have virtual warehouses stuffed with millions of products. In fact they are nothing more than middlemen, who buy at wholesale from the real distributor, mark up the product and sell it to you. The problem is that others are selling the same things on eBay for less than you are buying it for.
3. Specialized Drop Shippers are a little better. These are distributors who buy from manufacturers and specialize in one type of product. For example, Safety Technology sells all types of safety and self-defense products such as stun guns, and pepper spray.
4. Small and medium-sized manufacturers that drop ship are your very best source because you are dealing directly with the manufacturer. There are thousands of these companies out there. Yes it is a bit of work to find them, but when you do this can be a very profitable relationship.
My long time readers know that one of the best companies I recommend for wholesale sourcing is World Wide Brands (WWB). For several years now they have provided real wholesale sourcing information. Unlike other companies that simply sell wholesale lists, WWB actually has a staff of people who research the sources and contact the companies listed to make sure they are real wholesalers and that they will work with eBay sellers. They list about 7000 companies that will drop ship –many of them small manufacturers.
Worldwide Brands has long been known as a highly trusted authority on Wholesale Product Sourcing for online entrepreneurs. They have a revolutionary new tool that combines their extensive Drop Ship, Light Bulk, Volume Wholesale, Liquidation and Import Wholesaler contact information with instant analyses of how well each product searched will SELL online.
The integrated research tool helps you select profitable products by showing you how well a product will sell online and how large the competition is.
Their service also includes over 20 hours of training videos and webinars related to wholesale sourcing and selling online. Click here to learn more about World Wide Brands. You can even get some free sources from them as a demo if you click on the Free Trial Link
The eBay niche workshop I promoted a couple of weeks ago was a huge success. We limited the workshop to a low number so we would not saturate the niche. Originally the full number sold out, but we had a few people who backed out at the last minute, so we can still take a few more clients.
If you visit the page and the PayPal Button at the bottom of the page is gone, then I am sorry but we were sold out. Here is the link to the original blog post where you can learn about the workshop.
It has only been 5 days since the workshop and we have already had several people make their first sales. And the special forum we set up to go with the workshop is full of positive comments about this very unique and profitable niche that literally anyone can get into for about $20. You can turn every $20 investment into $70 or more with a 3-day or 5-day listing on eBay. And best of all the product has a sell through rate over 85%.
A year ago that would have been a silly question –but today it’s not. In fact, I probably get a least a dozen emails a week from readers who tell me they are desperate to make some money quickly. With over ten million unemployed and growing it’s no wonder this is happening.
The saddest emails I get are from people who fell for some type of scam or silly program that promises the moon and delivers almost nothing. Some of them are so bad they break my heart. Some of these folks need to make money so badly they suspend their normal good judgement. Here are some of the programs you see advertised that you want to avoid at all cost:
Paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for a pre-made website loaded with dropship products you can sell instantly
Paying over $1000 for a blogging program that came with a complete blog all set up and ready to go and blog posts sent to you every day that guarantee you will get readers.
Joining dropship warehouse programs where you can access “virtual” warehoused with millions of famous name products you can sell overnight on eBay.
Paying a ton of money for a collection of eBooks that come with resale rights
These same programs or variations of them have been around since the beginning of the internet. They may morph and change a bit but they all boil down to one thing. These people are trying to convince you that if you buy their product, you can just push a button and money will start rolling in. If only it were true we would all be rich.
Making extra money online
The saddest thing about these programs is that they keep people from doing the things that really do work. You can make money selling products from a website, but not with pre-made cookie cutter websites loaded with products that are priced higher than others are selling them for.
You can also make money blogging, but you have to create a real blog that people want to read. Once you have readers you can make money from advertising and affiliate programs.
You can make money with dropshipping, but you have to find and work with actual manufacturers and distributors. There are thousands of them out there, but you have to do the research to find them.
You can make money on eBay –I have been doing it for ten years. But you have to do the work to find your own niche products to sell. Today in this economic environment some of the most profitable sellers are selling used goods and selling on consignment for others.
And you can even make money with eBooks –but you have to write your own and market it.
So don’t jump at some opportunity to spend thousands of dollars on a get-rich-quick program. The only person who get rick quick is the person selling it to you. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to spend an affordable sum of money to learn how to take advantage of real opportunities to make money selling online –but just remember: All of those real opportunities will take some work on your part.
Here are some real resources you can trust. Yes they all require a small investment but they offer no-bull ways of making real money –if you are willing to work at it. And all of them offer an honest money-back guarantee if you are not happy:
Jim Cockrum is one of the most trusted Internet gurus. All of his materials are affordable and he stands behind everything he sells with a money back guarantee. Probably his best program with over 3500 satisfied members is The Silent Team
The Internet Marketing Center is over 15 years old. They are the largest and oldest Internet marketing training firm in the country. I used their material over ten years ago to learn Internet marketing. Their two best products are the Internet Training Course and their Be Biz Website setup and hosting program.
If you want to learn about affiliate marketing, The Affiliate Classroom offers the best program on the net.
If you want to learn how to make money blogging, my latest book How To Make Money Blogging From Home is probably the best and lowest cost way to start. If you want to invest a little more money, The Blog Mastermind Course is the way to go. It’s not cheap but they have an excellent reputation and deliver great value for the money.
If you want to learn how to sell on Amazon, Steve Lindhorst’s book Selling on The River is the best on the topic.
If you are interested in learning how to make money with surplus and liquidation products, Chad Maslek’s Program The Surplus Mega Profits Guide is affordable and excellent.
Lastly if you want to really learn about dropshipping and learn how to find real dropshippers, check out WorldWide Brands. They are the only wholesale information company I recommend.
So if you are desperate to make some extra money give some of these resources a try and avoid some of the many scams and downright crooks out there who are prey on people in unfortunate situations.
Chris Malta, the founder of WorldWide Brands, is now offering a package of his three great eBooks about eBay Wholesale Sourcing and starting an internet business.
The three books in the package include:
Starting Your Internet Business Right
Understanding The Internet for Home Business
How To Find Real Products to Sell online
Just click on the banner below to download your free copies. Nothing required – you will go right to the download page.
Chris really knows what he is talking about and I strongly endorse WorldWide Brands services to my readers.
The four winners, one in each of the four categories, voted on by the eBay community are:
US Veterans & Service Member: Thomas Costello is a member of the United States Marine Corps and sells computer equipment and parts on eBay. He plans to use his $25,000 award to open an eBay store and buy materials to provide better visuals for his products.
First-Time Seller: Tori Nichel is a women’s contemporary clothing designer in New York who is hoping to go global. She plans to open an eBay retail boutique with her $25,000 award.
Part-Time Seller: Ryan Pugh sells a variety of products she truly believes in and that she thinks help people “live clean,” such as nutrition supplements, healthy chocolates and resistance bands. With her $25,000, Ryan plans to further diversify and grow her company on eBay by adding new products.
Full-Time Seller: Janell Anderson-Ehrke runs a nonprofit organization called GROW Nebraska, which helps 300+ rural businesses reach customers through an eBay store. With her $25,000 award, she plans to provide better training and education for these businesses to help improve their presence on eBay.
I was chatting with Colleen at WorldWide Brands yesterday and she told me about an unusual offer I wanted to alert my readers to. Here is a chance to go behind the scenes at WorldWide Brands and sample their services for free.
If you don’t know about WorldWide Brands they are the oldest and largest Wholesale Sourcing Information Company. Although they are best known for connecting eBay, Amazon and small website sellers with real wholesale sources, they also do much more. When you join WWB, you also get access to dozens of hours of training videos, excellent webinars and a product sourcing research tool. So for a limited time, my readers can get access to these excellent series of tools for free.
I probably get more questions about drop shipping than any other topic. Usually those questions relate to working with the large dropshipping warehouses that advertise all over the web. If you have been following me for a while then you know I am not a fan of those services. The best way to dropship successfully is to work directly with small manufacturers and direct distributors who will drop ship for your customers. And, WorldWide Brands is one of the best places to find those sources.
This link will not give you access to all of the sources –you will have to sign up for the service for that –but I think you will be so impressed with the free training they offer that you will not hesitate to sign up for their service. WorldWide Brands is the only company of this type that I endorse and recommend for my readers.
