In Part 1 I introduced the concept of using non branded products as opposed to the brand names that we are familiar with. The next part of the process is to find a niche area in which to trade in, it is in the niche areas where we will be making our money. We don’t want to be competing in the very HOT markets (at least not yet).

Here are just two random examples:

Men’s Shavers: I have just completed a search and found 17 pages of listings with 811 items for sale, 486 of these are for non branded items.

Slimming Belt: 8 pages of listings ALL of these are non branded. Now maybe 8 pages of listings is too many but the use of the auction format will ensure that your item gets exposure on the first page for about a day or so.

 Ok Rob, where do we get hold of this Non Branded Stock?

 The first port of call should be your local wholesaler; this has the advantage that you can examine the goods before purchase. Most cities have there own wholesale districts so it is worth spending some time to visit a number of warehouses.

 The real bargains and therefore the real profits are to be made from importing from the Far East and particularly China. I have imported goods from China for many years without any problems, the price you will pay will depend on currency fluctuations as most Chinese companies trade in the US $.

 Remember as always “Caveat Emptor” or “Buyer Beware”, do not repeat do not send any money using wire transfer services you have been warned. Use a credit card or PayPal for the transaction as this will provide you with some measure of protection in case of problems. To cover all the basics will take several thousand words and I don’t have the space or the time to write them.

So here is the deal! You can get me complete guide to sourcing non branded product on a series of 3 videos for FREE. So here is your DOWNLOAD LINK.

DOWNLOAD YOUR VIDEOS HERE

Check back soon for Part 3…. Rob

The reason that most people use eBay is that they are looking for a bargain. That really MUST have item which is for sale for a few dollars less than it is in the high street or through mail order suppliers. It could really be any product, such as an i-phone, i-pod, GHD hair straighteners or maybe Mac brushes, we all like a bargain.

As a result of this thinking many sellers attempt to “cash” in on popular items with a high volume of sales per week, BIG mistake! Selling branded goods for most eBayers is not the way to make big profits.

Here’s why, with branded goods there is always stiff competition. There will be major Powersellers who will be moving lots of these products on a weekly basis. High volume Powersellers will have a major advantage over any newcomer into the market. They will be able to buy in large quantities and so obtain cost savings due to economy of scale AND the fact that they will obtain massive Powerseller discounts.

Following the herd is not the way forward, your profit margins will be razor thin and you will not get the exposure on the site you would wish, most of the big Powersellers will be using fixed price listings which will have high exposure in the search results. Therefore they will sell more; therefore their listing will be promoted higher and higher. This is the massive anomaly in the eBay system; some sellers never get their fixed price listing seen.

 You can resort to using the auction system in which case you listing will eventually find its way on the first page of eBay search results. However you may be unable to compete on price remember economies of scale and discounts? Game over? I think not.

The way to make profits is to offer Private Label and Non Branded Products for sale. Amongst the many branded items there will be a huge number of non branded products. These sell at much lower prices that the equivalent branded item, but they are very much cheaper to buy in than the branded item.

Ok Rob that sounds great but what are non branded products?

To give an example of hair straighteners there are lots of well known brand names such as GHD, Nicky Clarke, BaByliss etc which command a very high price on eBay and Amazon etc. But there are literally thousands of manufacturers who produce similar products except that they do not have a “brand name”. Obviously these are our non branded products, they will never command the high prices that branded items will sell for on eBay or Amazon but they are very cheap to buy, therefore your selling price will be lower and you can still make a very healthy profit, far more than selling “branded” items.

See you soon……….Rob

Here is Part 2 of The 10 Most Common Mistakes by eBayers

1. Poor description: The length of your description will vary depending on the item you are selling. Look for similar items that have sold using the eBay completed listings function and adapt the description for successful for successful listings.
2. Expecting items to sell the first time: This is again part of the eBay mythos, put it up, it will sell. If you use the advanced search facility for your item you may well be shocked at how many similar items you are listing fail to sell. This could be down to a number of factors, such as the as the starting price, the time it was listed, the type of listing used and the category it was listed in. You may have to list it several times before it sells. Always use the relist facility on eBay.
3. Choosing the best time to list: This is a bit nebulous as it depends on what it is that is selling. If you are selling into a big market with lots of sellers, then listing several times a day with the auction ending at different times is probably the correct strategy. If you are working in much smaller niche areas (which I recommend) then having you listing finishing at 8-9 in the evening may well be the key to success. Choosing the best time to list is crucial to you auction success but it can only be gained by experience.
4. Research: If you want to make a business from eBay then the most important thing is to research what you intend to sell, this may seem obvious but its great to have a fantastic idea of what it is you want to sell and then go about trying to sell it. The three most important tasks are RESEARCH, RESEARCH and RESEACH. It is only through research that we can find out what is truly selling. From that we can work out if our idea is worth a punt, so research your ideas first, second and third.
5. Obtain your stock at the right price: If you wish to make a business of your eBaying then you will need to obtain stock on a consistent basis at the right price to make a profit. You need to sell the same stock at the right price in order to make a profit. Local wholesalers are a good start for finding stock to make a start, they are very good for sourcing non branded stock. You can also find stock that is similar to branded stock, your buy in should be quite modest but your margins should be excellent.
6. Lack of persistence: This is the biggest killer bar none. How often have your heard “I tried it once but it didn’t work”. It took me nearly a year for my business to kick in; it was 8 months before I gained Powerseller status and make real profits. Only 5% of eBayers obtain Powerseller status. The ones that have persistence will find the rewards.

This often amounts to classical errors and misconceptions. eBay with its cleaver advertising and it’s high media profile has lead too many people to believe (incorrectly) that all you have to do is to list an item on eBay to make money from it. Well I don’t want to burst any bubbles but this is simply not true, it does not work like that.

 

To give an example a shop opened very close to me over a year ago, part of the eBay partner network; it was approved by eBay, and proudly displayed the eBay logo as the partners had gained sanction from eBay and had done the training and gained the accreditation required.

 

I dropped in to the shop incognito to suss out the competition so to speak. The way it works is this; the company list your item for you and take a percentage of the selling price. As a customer you agree not to sell the item in the interim. Does it work as a business model? Again it depends on what is being sold. If it is an auction, unless you have set a reserve price the item may well sell at the starting price no matter how low this may be.

 

The simple formula put it on eBay, sell it make, money, does not work unless you have a desirable item. I am sorry to report that the business did not succeed it closed within 3 months, due to the low quality of items presented for resale and the ability to sell the item on eBay yourself. This should be a warning about buying into the eBay mythos. So what are the 10 classic errors about eBay selling and how can we avoid them. Well they are:

 

1. Making money instantly: Not everything will sell remember that. Now that’s ok when you are selling your own possessions to make a few dollars here and there. We are often just recouping money we have already spent and would otherwise be money that would have remained dormant. My own eBay business took 8 month before it showed a clear profit. So do not expect instant results from each product you try to sell.
2. Thinking any old rubbish will sell: Think of the example earlier, or this example. I visited an open market recently; one of the stalls was selling old fashioned second hand watches at $40-$50. As I looked at them the seller told me that they sold on eBay at $75-$100 each. Now why was he selling these at the market?
3. Poor titles: The point of the title is to grab the attention of a prospective buyer. Have a look at on eBay in any category, how many of the titles fail to do this? Answer lots, use keywords in your title, look at the other seller’s titles who are selling the same or similar items to yourself. Use the same keywords, but do not, repeat do not copy the title. Rewrite the title of a particularly successful listing.
4. Poor picture: Your pictures are the second big opportunity to sell your item (some would say the first). So make the picture as good as it can be. Digital cameras are very affordable these days and most cell phone have an excellent camera as standard so getting a good picture should not be a problem. There are a number of free image manipulation packages to crop your photo and improve its presentation. Make sure that the item is in focus and that the lighting is good, the whole purpose of the picture is to show off the item for sale to its best advantage. Would you buy an item from a listing in which you could not see the item clearly?

More next time.

Rob

I doubt that the name Wilfrido Pareto will be familiar but you will know the Pareto Principle under another name, the 80/20 rule. The 19^th century economist Wilfrido Pareto was the first to point out that the worlds wealth was split along 80/20 lines, with 80% of the wealth being in the hands of 20% of the world population and vice versa. It is surprising how that principle applies in life, have you noticed that in any given task 80% of the task is accomplished in 20% of the time?

 

So how does this relate to your eBay or Amazon activities, well you will find that 20% of your product range will produce 80% of the sales. This is why it is so important to be on the lookout for new products all the time. As soon as you have found a hot selling product you will have the market place to yourself for a few weeks (months if you are lucky). So it is important to really hammer the sale of a new product before others catch on to it and the market gets saturated by competitors. This also means weeding out the products that produce a very poor return. You never know, you may prove Wilfrido wrong.

 

See you soon

 

Rob

One of the changes thrust upon us by eBay on September 24^th 2008 was the introduction of the “Best Fit Policy”. This is little understood even by eBay itself.  The policy was brought in to “reward” sellers who give great service and who offer incredible value for money. It was NOT brought in, repeat NOT brought in to attract high street traders or major retailers like Amazon has managed to attract, and therefore generate more income for eBay.

 

You will notice that some listings appear very high up in the search results, despite the fact that they may have 20 or more days to go until the end of the listing. This indicates several things.

 

• The seller has used the correct keywords to fit the category
• They are selling a lot of products from the listing; this moves the sellers listing even higher in the search results. Relisting a successful item also helps push the listing higher in the results.
• They are maintaining excellent customer satisfaction and do not charge excessive postage costs.

 

I sell some products in a very hot and competitive market. I always did well with this product but not as well as the top sellers in the category. I had always sold on BINS (buy it now). BINS then ended in chronological order. Some of my other products were sold with a featured listing; this meant that they eventually appeared on the top of the search results making their way onto the top page as the listing progressed. The featured listing costs approx £10 so that you need to sell a lot of products off one listing to make it economical.

 

So what happened to my listings after 24/9/08? All of the above simple ways of listings changed, now the top sellers were doing very much better than me. This was due to higher visibility of my competitors listings, my listings never got on to the first page even with featured listings. I was recently researching a market which had 8 pages of listings in the category. At the bottom of page 8 was a listing for a product that was an excellent category fit, its title was good, the photo was also good and the description excellent. No sales and only 3 views!!

 

So how do you get your listing seen? The only way to guarantee visibility is the auction format. This will ensure your item gets on the first page; you can also offer it with a BIN option (at the usual small additional cost). Don’t use any of the other “small cost” additional items such bold, coloured band, subtitle etc. This will cost!!

 

Other advice, as always look at small niche areas for less competition, you can introduce a new product into the niche using the auction format to ensure it is seen. Then follow up with a BIN when you have made some sales.

 

Rob

Hi All, just a few points that came to mind when writing my e-Book, I was browsing the Masterclass forum and read the posts on time management. I though I would share some of the things that I found useful as my eBay business grew and how I have managed to save myself time.

 

As my business grew I found that it was taking me an almost inordinate amount of time just to manage my listings. So I started to use some of eBay’s free tools, this has helped me to automate a large part of my business.

 

If you are selling the same item over and over again, then the tool you need is Turbolister2. Turbolister2 allows you to import your active listings as well as your completed listings from eBay. You can delete duplicates or use the powerful design editor to change the listing and create a new variation on the existing listing. Its great advantage is that you can upload all you listings with a few mouse clicks and it will even work out your costs for you. You can download this for FREE by clicking HERE

 

Another great time saver is Selling Manager. Selling manager is a simply awesome sale management tool. Selling Manager replaces all you’re my eBay links with Selling Manager links, this takes several hours but it is all done for you so there are no worries. At first the interface will look overwhelming but you will soon get used to it. One of the great timesavers is that you can leave bulk feedback with just a few mouse clicks. This is also FREE upgrade now by clicking HERE.

 

A more advanced version with more features is called Selling Manager Pro, this is a subscription service at appox £5 per month. It has lots of additional features such as the ability to generate detailed selling reports and free listing scheduling. However unless you are dealing in very high volume Selling Manager will be good enough for most peoples needs.

 

Rob

Having a good eye catching image is the first step in getting prospective buyers to look at your eBay listing. In this case a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

 

Make sure you have a good clear picture or pictures, many people have digital camera these days so getting a good picture should not be a problem. Even phones with built in camera produce a very good quality digital print. Take the time to get the picture just right, this could by the difference between selling the item and not selling it. No need for mega high resolution photos a good 640×480 pixel image is good enough.

 

Lots of digital cameras come with bundle image manipulation software that allows you do manipulate and enhance digital images. You will find this very useful to crop and edit your listing pictures. You won’t need anything sophisticated such as Photoshop or similar. I have for many years used Paint Shop Pro which was given away as a cover disk, but there are many free packages such as Serif, Irfan view etc. Try out a few and see what suits you best.

 

Good lighting is essential as a poor picture will not attract prospective buyers to open them. A low cost photo booth can be a useful investment if you are photographing a large number of items. These are quite cheap and can even be bought in my local supermarket; you then have your portable studio. Use what you have to advantage; I sell in the natural health and beauty market and use a tree stump located in my garden as a surface to place my items for photography. The back drop of the trees also re-enforces the natural message.

 

Clothing items can be simply photographed flat or on a hanger or if you have access to a mannequin all the better. Jewellery items can be photographed flat on a piece of fabric or on a bust if you have one of these. But don’t go to the expense of buying expensive props when you are starting just use what you have available.

 

Rob

As a follow up to my posts on wholesale products. There is a little known route that can be taken, used by the most savvy traders on eBay. This route allows you to obtain products for sale cheaply, they are completely unique to yourself and no one else will be selling exactly the same product(s).

 

It is called private label products and this is how it works; how often have you seen a supermarket own label product that is virtually identical to a brand label? All the time. Food producers often produce a generic product that can be rebranded using a supermarkets own name. Or if minor changes are required for a new recipe or to make the product cheaper as in “value products” or “smart price” then a minimum batch order is required to make the product viable to resell.

 

There are wealth of suppliers/manufactures that will allow you to rebrand their own generic products using your own name and labelling. This makes the product unique to you. This is particularly so in the health and beauty markets. Your product is uniquely yours you have no direct competition as such as no one is selling exactly the same product as you. You can compete with the big sellers selling branded products.

 

Here’s how to do it. Use Google or similar search engine to look for private label manufacturers. Often for a small fee they will rebrand there standard labelling to produce your own unique brand. One of the companies I know charges a flat fee of just £20 to do this per product. You simply state “own labels” when re-ordering the product. Photograph the product, write a good description and this product is yours.

 

Before the £-$ exchange rate took a crash, I bought in non labelled products from the US and simply added my own labels to the product. I had these labels printed at my local printer very cheaply. The product is uniquely mine and exactly the same as every other seller using the same manufacturer. I have also managed to source similar product in the UK to those I was importing just a few months ago. Why not try the search yourself? You may be surprised at what you turn up.

 

See you soon

Rob