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Copyright 2005 Auction Resource Network Secret #1: Find a
‘real' wholesale and drop ship company Do you know what
one of the biggest problem is to be successful on eBay?
‘What should I sell"? I can tell you, I get many emails
per day from eBay sellers, asking me what they can sell. Let me
explain this more in detail. Let's take John and David for
example. Both are sellers and try to make money on eBay. Let's
start with John. He mainly gets his items from garage sales. So,
every Saturday morning he gets up very early, hops into his car
and drives around the neighbourhood to check out the garage
sales. So he went last Saturday. John did not buy anything on
the first two garage sales, but on his third garage sale, he
found a little treasure. An old book from 1897 - for a bargain
price of $10. Bingo! John was proud! ‘I can sell this for
huge profit', he thought and he went home. He took his digital
camera and he made a high quality digital photo. It took quite
some time but finally he was happy with the result. Then he had
to upload this picture to his computer and he spent some time
writing the sales copy. Late Saturday afternoon finally he was
finished and launched this book onto eBay. 7-10 days later his
item got sold for $75!! John is excited. He packs the item,
labels it with the buyers address and then he drives to the
nearest post office. Oh no, what a long line. After 15 min of
waiting he could finally post this item to his customer! Wow, a
lot of work for $65 profit? Don't you think? Let's look at
David. He usually gets up very late - usually at Saturday around
lunchtime. He is still in his pyjamas and he makes himself a
nice cup of coffee and gets onto the Internet. He logs into his
drop ship account and browses through some hot selling product.
‘Yes, I can sell that" - A nice laptop for a bargain price
of $550 (wholesale price). But David does not have to pay
upfront for this item, so he just downloads the professional
digital photos offered by his drop ship company to his computer.
"Oh wait"; David has just discovered that this drop ship company
has also a ‘ready-to-use' auction sales letter available.
That's really cool ...and David copies and pastes the source
code of this letter into his eBay listing and he launches his
auction. A Dutch auction, since the drop ship company announced
that they have more than one of this laptop currently available.
Great, David could sell 6 laptops. He hits the submit button for
this Dutch auction of 6 laptops and enjoys his coffee (which is
still hot by the way). After 7-10 days David has sold all 6
laptops for $830 each. All what David does is the following: He
waits until he gets the payment from his 6 customers in his
paypal account, sends the address of the customers together with
6 x $550 (wholesale price) to his drop sip company via paypal.
He has made pure profit of 6 x $280 = $1,680 in about 25 min of
work - total. That's why David is a smarter eBay seller than
John. I think the idea is clear ...drop shipping can be the
answer to your problem what to sell on eBay and it can saves you
a lot of time too. No packing, posting etc. Secret #2: Have a
professional auction listing A professional eBay auction site is
like your business card. If you are serious selling on eBay you
should show your potential customers that you are a professional
seller and that you are selling high quality products. Please,
don't just upload a photo and type the text in the description
box. Do your homework and learn some HTML. Look around there are
many professional tutorials and ebooks around helping you in
that matter. It's definitely worth it. And you'll be surprised,
because if your auction listing looks nice and professional
potential buyers stay longer on your site and usually it's more
likely that they place a bid. Secret #3: The money is in the
follow up "Yes, I've heard this before", you may say. But, this
is a very important aspect of your successful eBay career:
Follow up with your customers. Send them an email ~10 days after
they have purchased the product and ask them how they are going
with the product and if everything is all right. Invite them to
have a look at your other auctions. (You have to be careful
though not offending anyone, but if the products are related and
you ask how they went with the product, that's fine). I never
got complaints by doing that and your customers are happy to get
some "insider tips". You'll be amazed how many customers will
buy from you again, since they value you as a seller. Keep in
mind that it is easier to keep an existing customer, instead of
getting a new customer. You could also send them a thank you
gift in form of a downloadable digital information product.
That's easy for you and they get some valuable information.
You'll see that your existing customers will be very thankful
and they feel good that they have bought from you and will do
again in the future. Secret #4: Sell internationally This aspect
is often neglected by many eBay sellers: Sell internationally!
First, check with your drop ship company in which countries they
are shipping and how much postage they charge to send the item
overseas. If you have sort out these details, you can go ahead
and list your item internationally. You'll be surprised how many
more items you are selling when the potential buyers see: Ship
worldwide. Don't miss this opportunity or you are leaving big
bucks on the table. Secret #5: Be creative - Be different How do
you think your listing will be stand out from the crowd? Good
question isn't it. In my 4 years of being an active Power
Seller, I have tried and tested a lot. First have the photo in
the gallery; it just costs a bit more to list but these
additional cents are well spend. A recent study has shown that
people almost ignore listing without a picture in the gallery.
So that's mandatory! The next step is your title. Do you know
that only the title is spidered by eBay when potential customers
are searching for specific products? So, you have to make sure
that your title includes as much keywords as possible. But be
careful here, eBay does not like "keyword stuffing". So, be
creative and come up with 2-3 different titles for the same
item. Try them all and you'll see what works best.
About the author:
Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay
Power Seller of 4 years. His website "The Auction Resource
Network" reveals his inside secrets and sources that help him
pocket over $10,000 a month on eBay. Get your FREE 14 Day "eBay
Secrets" eCourse here: http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com
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