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Archive for the ‘Skip McGrath’ Category

Today’s post is a tounge-in-cheek guest post by Adam Bertrand.

Adam is a normal guy who sold 15 books one day in July of 2008 on Amazon instead of trying them at the yard sale.  He noticed that the books sold within the first 3 hours of listing them and that was the beginning of his super-successful venture into online book-selling.  He’s no book-selling superstar with 557 employees, 2 industrial warehouses and with 1,000,000 books listed, but he has achieved over 1,200 feedbacks with a 98% feedback rating on Amazon, 100% feedback rating, Powerseller and Top-Rated Seller status on eBay, is currently grossing over $10,000/month part time and is teaching others how to do the same much quicker than the 2 years it took him.

Adam has a blog at sellyourbooksonline.com where he discusses his proven strategies, powerful tips on where to find books, how to list books for maximum profit and much more.  For the more serious sellers, he also currently is offering an eBook called Used Books: Big Business which has been a huge hit with his readers.  If you’re interested to find out what Adam has to offer head on over to his blog or register and pop your head in at his message board at sellyourbooksonline.com/forum where you can get access to other sellers just like yourself.

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Here is Adam’s Post:

Do you know what an arms dealer is?  If not, it’s OK.  This is an eCommerce blog and I’d hope you weren’t involved in any unscrupulous activities other than possibly selling a Teacher’s Edition book on Amazon.  An arms dealer is an international figure that typically sells millions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition to war-torn countries, groups of terrorists, or basically anyone that may want to purchase a surface to air missile or 500.

In a bloody civil war, each side of the battle needs as many weapons and ammunition as possible.  A savvy arms dealer knows this.  He doesn’t care which side “wins”.  All the arms dealer cares about is making as much money as possible so he offers his merchandise to BOTH sides while the civil war is raging.  He’ll sell a rocket launcher to North Korea, watch them blow a helicopter out of the sky in South Korea and then turn right around and sell a missile to South Korea to launch at North Korea in retaliation.  It’s a brilliant business model but not one that would guarantee  you a long lifespan, good morals or earn you popularity with the laws in any country.

Now, why in the world am I talking about international terrorist activity on an eCommerce blog?  Because this kind of business model is perfect for us as sellers to not get involved with either side while coming out smelling like roses at the end!  Think of Amazon as North Korea and eBay as South Korea for a minute.  I know, Jeff Bezos couldn’t pass for Kim Jon Il in a dark alley but just go with me on this.  If North Korea and South Korea were trying to destroy each other why would you want to join either side?  Isn’t this what Amazon and eBay are doing?  Chances are you’re gonna get blown to bits either way you go.  If it were me, I’d become the arms dealer, become a neutral party and squeeze every ounce of profit I could out of both sides.

These two giant eCommerce platforms are always vying for top spot and I see sellers on the blogs and forums ranting at eBay about how they’re never going to go back because they’re being forced into buying a store or how they’re getting screwed in the search results.  They’re going to show eBay and sell on Amazon!  What about the Amazon seller that can’t brand his business how he’d like because he can’t advertise his own site to his customers or customize his store like he can on eBay?  He’ll show Amazon!  He’s going to eBay, open up a store, market himself to his heart’s content and show that HE’s in charge; not Amazon!

According to compete.com, Amazon is currently getting 68,437,136 unique page views every month while eBay is getting 68,615,422.  Let’s just call them dead even at this point.  That’s a total of 136 million something pairs of eyeballs searching for things to BUY!  Barring all the other variables, choosing either side essentially cuts your chances of making a sale in half!  That arms dealer gig doesn’t sound too bad now does it?

Just like an arms dealer needs a weapons manufacturer, possible blood diamond source and a killer (get it?) inventorying system, an online merchant needs the same.  Online sellers have at their disposal services and tools like Monsoon, Indaba, Channel Advisor, FillZ, Art of Books et al.  These are the tools that are used to play both sides while they are both duking it out with each other.  Do you have a rare collectible book not selling on Amazon?  Turn on eBay!  How about the latest on Oprah’s book club?  Turn on Amazon!  These services allow you to play both sides at the same time and tell that eBay buyer that finally comes along, “Sorry, but I sold that book 6 months ago for 20% more on Amazon”.

Strategies an Arms Dealer Would Envy

1. Research each marketplace for the types of buyers that hang out there.  From experience I know Amazon is not known for it’s collectible books.  You’ll find those guys at Abebooks or on eBay, but don’t give Amazon the cold shoulder just in case!  Since Amazon is free to list you might as well offer it there as well.

2. For large sellers, no matter how small the listing fee, it really adds up.  I pay a nickel for a listing but if you multiply that by the nearly 8,000 books I have that’s a recurring $400/month!  Find a service that will allow you to take less risk on eBay by, for example, not listing books with an Amazon sales rank of over 2,000,000.  The sales rank is a good indicator of market demand so if you have that metric at hand why not use it to your advantage and not take a risk on paying a listing fee on eBay and it never selling?

3. Do not list very popular items on both sites at once.  Even though these services do an excellent job at removing a SKU from all the other sites when it sells out, none are instantaneous.  If you’ve got yourself a copy of the latest Harry Potter pick a side and stick to it.  You’ll know it will sell like crazy on any site so why take a chance on a dozen double sales, refunds and customer service headaches when you have a sure win anyway.  Don’t run out of grenades that South Korea wants when you’ve sold them all to North Korea! They might not like that too much.

4. Finally, take advantage of shipping differences in Amazon and eBay.  eBay offers higher search visibility to sellers that offer free shipping.  However, Amazon will always give you the $3.99 shipping credit for a book order.  What’s a seller to do?  Why not offer a price that is $3.99 higher on eBay, offer free shipping and reap the rewards of higher visibility all while having that same book listed on Amazon for $3.99 less but with the shipping credit?

I hope this tongue-in-cheek approach has taught you to never make snap decisions and to carefully strategize each one.   Also, to always be the guy ON the fence admiring both lush, green fields when your fellow sellers are jumping back and forth OVER the fence trying to always find something greener.  Sometimes it really does pay off to take a step back from the chaos, think outside the box and instead of making a million dollars selling to Side A, selling to BOTH sides, making a much larger profit and taking your ball and going home.

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There are two ways to make money with Social Marketing but most people only know about the first.  The first, or usual way, is to use sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote products or services or affiliate relationships for sale and earn an income from that process.  But the other way is to learn how to help others use Social Marketing.

About four months ago I introduced my readers to a program called Lets Get Social. About 25 of my readers purchased the training program and now I am starting to hear back from them.

Several of them have told me that they finished the training –some over a couple of days and others over a few weeks, and found it very easy to implement the program and start finding clients.  One lady said she got her first client before she had even finished her training and within a couple of weeks that client had sent her two more.  Since she works full time, those three clients are all she can handle, but she is now making a nice monthly income on top of her regular salary just from those three clients.

I would love to tell you how much money these folks are making, but new Federal FTC regulations require me to state the average income of everyone who bought the program if I state any figures at all.  Since I have no way of knowing the “average results” of everyone who bought the program then I have to say something like “The average income of everyone who purchased the program is a penny,” or just not give any numbers at all.  But I can say that all of the people who emailed me made back far more than the cost of the program and are very pleased with the results.

Like anything you do, you get back what you put into it.  And yes, I am sure that out of the 25 or so readers who bought the program, several of them took the training and then never did anything.  There is nothing automatic about this program.  You have to actually spend a few hours a week working on it (for a part-time income) or much more for a full-time income.  But it is not that difficult, you do not need any advanced technical or computer skills and there is no investment required beyond the cost of the training.

So if this interests you, take a look at the video that explains the program.

WARNING #1 – The video is a bit long and there is no stop/pause bar on the bottom, but the video will actually pause if you just click in the center of it. Even though it’s long you will learn a lot of great information about social media marketing and I strongly encourage you to watch the whole thing even if you decide its not for you.

WARNING #2 – The fellow who runs this program is a very aggressive marketer and once you decide to buy he offers a number of upsells.  This is not a sales method I am fond of or use, but the experts say they do work, so I can’t blame others for trying.  So weather you buy the upsells is up to you.  But I do want to stress that no matter what you think of the marketing, the program is excellent (I have it myself and my daughter-in-law is working with it now).

WARNING #3 – As I stated above, if you buy this training, it will take some work on your part.  The work is not difficult  but you do have to actually do it.

Despite many claims you hear from others there is no Autopilot Income –I have looked at hundreds of opportunities and have yet to find a way to make “unlimited streams of income on autopilot while you sleep.”

So if you would like to learn a new way to make money with Social Media that actually works, click here to watch the video.

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eBay’s new Duplicate Listing policy will go into effect on October 26^th. eBay says the purpose of the new policy is to prevent search results from being dominated by multiple duplicate listings of the same item from the same seller.  It’s about time!

Here is how the duplicate listing policy will work:

The item offered in a seller’s Fixed Price listing must be significantly different in buyer benefit and value from items offered in their other Fixed Price listings. In short, sellers may have one Fixed Price listing per identical item. Multiples of an item must be sold in a single multi-quantity Fixed Price listing.

Starting October 26, eBay will automatically end duplicate Fixed Price listings, keep the best performer, and credit Insertion Fees and listing upgrade fees for the ended listings.

Sellers who continue to create duplicate listings for identical items may be subject to a range of additional actions including listing cancellation, loss of fees, limits on account privileges, loss of seller status, and account suspension.

If you have any experience with eBay you know that when eBay does something like this it is done by automatic robots –and there will inevitably be listings cancelled that should not be. So you may want to take action before then to cancel your duplicates and add the quantity to your best performer before October 26 to ensure continuous selling.

eBay is developing a tool to help you quickly and easily identify your duplicate listings but its not here yet. So stay tuned to the eBay announcement board so you can get access to the tool when its released.

Newly listed Fixed Price listings will no longer receive an upfront allotment of impressions in Best Match search results. (Ok – that sucks)  eBay says the advantage for all sellers will be to list quantities of the same item in one low-cost, multi-quantity Fixed Price listing.  But getting an early boost in best match will go away –so I don’t see the “advantage.”

For sellers with more than one user ID, eBay will apply the one-listing rule per seller across all selling accounts—i.e., the seller can have one listing per item, not one listing per user ID.

The new policy does not apply to Auction-style listings.

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The eBay & Online Sellers News is the largest and oldest FREE Newsletter for eBay and Amazon Sellers and small online website sellers.

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This is a guest article by Nate Gilmore, VP of Marketing at Shipwire.  The holiday season is almost upon us and now is the time to start planning.

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Tips to Grow Your Business This Holiday Season

By Nate Gilmore

Enjoying the last few summer barbeques and getting the kids off to school are top priorities for September, but what many online sellers forget to consider is that the holiday season and accompanying e-tail rush is already upon us. In fact, 44 percent of consumers have already begun their holiday shopping, opting not to wait for the traditional after-Thanksgiving shopping mall “maul.” Given this new trend, you should take note of simple tips to not only help prepare for these early shoppers, but also to keep customers coming back for more.

1. Map out the season. Treat the holiday season like a six-month campaign. Map out upcoming hot dates like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Free Shipping Day and use them as an excuse to sprinkle in creative promotions.

2. Audit your e-commerce infrastructure. Before the end of September, ensure the best tools are in place for a big push. Examine your technology (especially your shopping cart and order inventory management) and processes to make sure you are ready to process orders through the holidays.

3. The early bird really does get the worm. Every year it seems the holiday shopping season starts earlier. It’s never too early to start the season by reaching out to your past customers and offering discounts for those who buy ahead. Repeat customers should be rewarded for their loyalty!

4. Gifts: Everyone loves them. Promotions are a great way to thank customers and ensure referrals. Consider offering free or reduced shipping, discount coupon codes, or special offers targeted to select audiences like past buyers or Twitter followers. Consider a free sample insert in every box you ship this holiday season.

5. Join the 21^st Century. Leverage social media to dial into your customers’ lives on Twitter and Facebook. By using Twitter, for example, you can monitor customer feedback and provide responses in real time.

6. Fine-tune your Web site. Before the holiday shopping onslaught, spend some time search-optimizing your best sellers with promotional free shipping offers and price testing. Knowing your traffic and conversion will provide insight into what works on your site and what doesn’t. And if you syndicate product listings through marketplaces, make sure your pricing is consistent.

7. Check your checkout, and automate returns. Customers expect a hassle-free shopping experience, which means that the checkout process had better be streamlined, and your return policy seamless and straightforward. Make sure your customers are not unpleasantly surprised by overpriced shipping costs or limited checkout payment options, or you may find a spike in abandoned carts. Use the after-checkout time as an opportunity to up-sell, cross-sell or offer coupons on next purchases. Also, use any product return experiences as an opportunity to grow your customer loyalty.

8. Your shipping options should scream “fast and free” to attract buyers. Shipping options are a strong conversion tool. Learn to use them without breaking the bank. Consider using a free shipping promotion or upgraded shipping with larger purchases, and house a few best sellers overseas to offer international buyers local shipping costs.

9. Insert some love; win repeat business. Be creative with your marketing package insert collateral in every shipment. Upon opening a package, your customers will be thrilled to receive both the products they ordered and a promotion such as discount codes for repeat customers and announcements on new features, products and services.

10.Put a bow on it. Start at the source and think about how product-packaging design can impact shipping. Think about size, weight and packaging; package for maximum shipability and label with care.

11.Bonus Tip:  Be prepared for impulse buys. A recent survey conducted by Shipwire on trends and shipping in e-commerce (2008-2009) shows that while merchants shipped 26 percent more product during the holidays, they sold a smaller amount to each buyer in more orders. This would seem to indicate that online impulse buys are on the rise, so e-tailers should be ready with enough product on hand and reliable, cost-effective shipping resources available. Make a good impression on customers who initially buy on a “whim.” They’ll be back for seconds.

For more information on preparing for the holiday season, check out: http://www.shipwire.com/holiday

About the Author: Nate Gilmore is VP of Marketing at Shipwire outsourced ecommerce order fulfillment service. Learn more tips for growing your business at the Shipwire blog.   Follow Nate at http://www.twitter.com/shipwire

You can find more eBay marketing tips in The Complete eBay Marketing System.

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Normall I would write some comments and reprise a press release, but I am swamped with work today and wanted to get this out to you. Bonanzle, one of the alternative eBay sites changed their name to Bonanza and bought a company called 1000-Markets which will dramatically expand their reach.

Here is the press release from the company.

SEATTLE, WA–(Marketwire – September 21, 2010) -  Bonanzle, the leader in community-driven social commerce, today announced that it has acquired 1000 Markets, one of the premier marketplaces for artisan merchandise.

Bonanzle also announced that it is changing its name to Bonanza and introducing a new design to make it even easier for shoppers to find “everything but the ordinary.”

The combined company will be found online at www.bonanza.com and will further position Bonanza as an exceptional social commerce experience, said Bill Harding, chief executive officer of Bonanza.

“We think this is an amazing triple play. First, we’re adding the tremendous stores and shoppers of 1000 Markets to our family. Second, we’re bringing a dynamic new design to the site that makes it even easier to list and buy the kind of delightful and unique merchandise both companies have always been known for. And third, we’re branding it with a household word that not only speaks to the bounty of opportunities to be found, but is also easier to remember and spell.”
Bonanza is an online marketplace focused on unique items that is reflective of the real world shopping experience at a street fair. Working from virtual booths, merchants sell a wide variety of products ranging from old coins and antiques to handbags and candles. Its most popular categories are women’s shoes and handbags, home and garden, jewelry, and collectibles. Numerous features, such as chat, custom coupons, and limited time sales, are baked into each merchant storefront.

1000 Markets complements Bonanza’s existing stores with its specialty in handcrafted artisan goods, ranging from jewelry and art to home and garden items. Its outstanding sellers and inventory have garnered praise from luminaries such as Oprah, Real Simple, and Good Morning America.

Founded in 2008, Bonanza has quickly become one of the most popular social commerce sites on the Internet. At present, Bonanza has more than two million monthly visitors, 300,000 registered users and more than 3.4 million items for sale across its array of storefronts. Sales on Bonanza have increased by 150 percent over the past year, Harding said.

“This is an excellent match for our merchants and our growing audience of buyers,” Harding said. “Both companies emphasize fun and easy shopping for unique products, and the merchants at 1000 Markets are known for the quality of their work and passionate commitment to customer service — traits that we admire and support.”

“We are delighted to join forces with Bonanza, one of the leaders in the field. This will bring our distinctive and passionate merchants the power of Bonanza’s infrastructure and traffic,” said Matthew Trifiro, chief executive officer of 1000 Markets. “We believe that this combination will create one of the strongest players in social commerce.”

“Bonanza epitomizes the concept of social commerce. There are a few companies out there doing interesting things in the space, but social commerce should really be more than just putting Facebook and Twitter buttons on your product pages,” Harding said.

Both Bonanza and 1000 Markets are based in Seattle. Harding said that 1000 Markets’ inventory of about 100,000 items will be blended into Bonanza’s inventory over the next month. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Earlier this year, Bonanza raised $1 million in funding from a group of prominent investors, including Ignition Partners, Voyager Capital, Founder’s Co-op and Curious Office Partners, all of Seattle, and Matrix Partners of Silicon Valley. The investment round also included prominent angel investors such as BuddyTV founder Andy Liu, Wetpaint founder Ben Elowitz and Ontela co-founder Dan Shapiro.

1000 Markets raised $500,000 in funding last year from a similarly prominent group, including Founder’s Fund and True Ventures.

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If you are going to run a profitable and professional eBay, Amazon or web site business, you will need to package and ship your goods professionally. No one likes to receive their “eBay treasure” in an old shoe box stuffed with your last week’s newspaper. This does not mean that you have to always use “new” supplies. Recycled boxes and packaging materials are fine as long as they are in good condition.

There are three costs involved in eBay shipping:

• Shipping supplies
• Shipper charges
• Your time

Let’s look at each one.

Shipping supplies

Shipping supplies consist of boxes, newsprint or tissue, styrofoam peanuts, bubble pak and tape.

Why pay top dollar for shipping supplies when you can get them for free? Here is a source of free shipping supplies, boxes and packing materials. Visit your local gift shop or kitchen store. These merchants receive shipments on a daily basis of usually fragile items that require large amounts of bubble pak, styrofoam peanuts and sturdy boxes.

Gift shops are deluged with shipping and packaging materials. Local laws require them to recycle the materials rather than just throwing them away. This can be expensive. Believe me — they are happy to give these supplies away.

Other stores that receive large amounts of shipping and packaging materials include drug stores, electronics stores (such as Radio Shack) and small neighborhood hardware stores.  Once you find a couple of stores who will work with you, just make a regular practice to stop in and pick up the supplies.

If you ship USPS Priority Mail, he U.S. Postal Service website offers free shipping supplies delivered (also free) direct to your home or office. Many eBay sellers use Priority Mail for shipping items under three pounds. The USPS will send you free boxes, envelopes, tape and labels direct to your home by priority mail. You can print out labels and select Deliverly Confirmation at the web site for free.  You can even order free boxes pre-printed with the eBay logo. Just go to this link:  http://ebaysupplies.usps.com/

Shipping Charges

If you ship via the US Postal Service, consider using the services of a company like Stamps.com.  This will definitely save you time, allow you to create labels where the customer cannot see the shipping charge and you will get a small discount on your postage.  They are now running a special for my readers where you can get $100 worth of free postage and other goodies.  Just use www.stamps.com/skipmcgrath to see the offer.

As a occasional seller there isn’t much you can do about lowering shipping charges. If, however, you are a high volume eBay seller, you can negotiate rates with UPS, Fedex or Fedex Ground (my favorite). First open an account online. Then call the shipper and ask what their quantity figures are to get a discount.Even if you only ship 20 to 30 items a month you can get a nice discount.  Once you ship over 100 items a month, the discounts get pretty serious.

If you work for a company that uses UPS or Fedex, many companies have programs whereby employees can piggyback on their company’s discounts. You open up an account with your own credit card, but your shipping rate is tied to your employer’s rate. Ask you employer to ask his/her shipping company sales rep if they offer such a program. It is good for you and the employer because it can raise his/her quantity to help get lower rates.

Your Time

Time is valuable. Time you spend wrapping packages could be better spent launching auctions, searching for new products, answering emails and so on. The best way to save time is to have a permanent area for shipping. Invest in tape guns, paper rolls and so on. If you have to clear off the dining room table every time you want to wrap a package, this is a waste of time.

We used to use our teenagers to help with the business. It is a much better use of my time to pay my son a few bucks and hour to wrap packages. Besides anything you pay them is a business expenses for tax purposes.  Now that our kids are grown and gone, we hire a neighbor’s boy to come in for an hour a day to do this.

Above I mentioned Stamps.com.  If you use the post office to ship goods, they are a huge timesaver.

It goes without saying (then why do I say it?) that you should package your merchandise carefully to avoid damage. Why do I say this if it’s so obvious? Just last week I received a package from a power seller containing a flow blue plate I had purchased from his eBay Store. The plate was loose in the box. He had wrapped it with bubble pak, but hadn’t taped the bubble pak together. During shipping it had worked loose in the box. Fortunately, it wasn’t broken. Even people who know better often take short cuts that can result in an unhappy buyer and in some cases, negative feedback.

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You can find more information about eBay shipping in my flagship training manual, The Complete eBay Marketing System.

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author of Ten Little Known Highly Profitable eBay Niche Businesses Anyone Can Do

This is a pretty long blog post, but its a very important subject and I hope my readers can learn a lot from it. The things I talk about here are aimed mostly at eBay sellers, but this information can help you if you sell on Amazon or your own website.

In the early days of eBay, the site was predominately used to sell vintage item, used goods and collectibles including sports cards, comics, toys and beanie babies. As eBay expanded more expensive collectibles and antiques began to be sold. Within a very short time consumer goods started showing up. At first most of these were used or overstock items and ASOTV items. During the first three years almost every eBay seller was essentially working in a narrow product area or a niche.

So, what denotes an eBay niche market?

A category is not a niche. For example, if you sell all kinds of toys, you are a toy vendor. If, however, you only sell Baby Toys, then that is a niche. It used to be if you sold only digital cameras that would be considered a niche, but today the digital camera market on eBay is so large that you would have to sell only one brand of cameras, such as Nikon, or a type of camera such as underwater cameras, to be considered a niche in the camera market.

Benefits of Niche Marketing

There are two primary benefits of niche marketing:

• Ease of Sourcing
• Ease of Selling

Both of those lead to higher profit margins.

Let’s look at sourcing first. The more time you spend in a market or product category you will learn all the sources of supply for that market. The more you know about a product the better you will be able to buy it. When I was in the antique business, I used to sell a broad line of 18 th and 19 th century American antiques. However, within that, I used to specialize in the niche of early American woodworking tools. After a couple of years I developed an expertise and a “feel” for the products. I could recognize makers, spot reproductions and I knew what tools were in high demand from collectors that would command high prices. Once I developed the expertise, my profits shot though the roof.

Remember our adage on pricing: You make money when you buy not when you sell. Well I became a very savvy buyer –well able to spot bargains. Also, as word spread that I specialized in old woodworking tools, people with things to sell started seeking me out. At one point I was the largest old tool dealer in our state and I routinely bought tools that I could sell at markups of 200% to 300%.

When you decide to specialize in a niche of any kind the first thing you want to do is become expert in that area. Learn and read everything you can about it. Study the history of the product. Get to know the companies that manufacturer the product and their distributors. The more you know the better you will be able to buy.

The other benefit of niche marketing is ease of selling. The very fact that you are selling in a narrow market segment means you will have less competition and therefore you can command higher margins. The other factor is that people prefer to buy from someone who is knowledgeable. John Dew at Just Trains is one of the largest and most well-known sellers of antique trains on eBay. People seek him out for his knowledge and his integrity. Everyone knows that when Dew describes a train in one of his auctions, the description is accurate, he doesn’t sell fakes or reproductions and he will stand behind everything he sells.

I get lots of questions from eBay buyers. If you are selling something and you get a question, as an expert or a specialist you will be able to answer the question with authority and detail that will give the bidder instant confidence and more than likely result in a bid.

The other selling advantage of niche marketing is the ability to accurately describe products in your auction descriptions. The added knowledge you have from being a specialist allows you to add more data and “insider” information that someone else can not. A potential bidder looking at your auction will have more confidence and perhaps bid more liberally than otherwise.

Finding The Right Niche

Finding your niche is a matter of research and brainstorming. You may already have a hobby, interest or life and work experience in an area that would make a good sales niche on eBay. This is where you should start. Work is always more fun –and usually more profitable if you are doing something you like. If, for example, you enjoy computers, this is a great area to start your search for a niche. So many people, and even large companies, sell computers on eBay. You would need a large amount of capital to compete in this area. But, the computer field has many sub-categories and there are many niches within these sub-categories. Printers are a large sub-category, but portable printers could constitute a niche. It takes a lot less capital to buy and build an inventory of small printers than it does of complete computer systems. You could buy printers in lots of 100 for what 20 complete computers would cost.

Another area might be all the little accessories such as network hubs, cables and connectors, computer speaker systems and so on.

Perhaps you like travel –specifically you like to travel off the beaten path. Selling in the broad travel category could be daunting, but maybe you could work with a local travel agent and package adventure tours or specialty tours that you could sell on eBay.

Movie DVDs are a very large category crowded with hundreds of sellers. Yet there are several players within the Movie DVD category that have found niches such as old movies, How-To DVDs (I.E. Learn to play golf or Trick Billiard shots, etc.), educational DVDs, Documentaries, and so on.

The same thing goes for Music CDs. Entering the broad music category could be difficult and take a large amount of capital to compete, but one could carve out a nice niche in pre 1960s jazz or early folk music or alternative rock.

Almost any broad category on eBay has sub-categories, some of which are small enough to qualify as a niche, and others in which you can find a niche. The key is that the niche you find be active enough to generate large sales and not be crowded by hundreds of other sellers.

If you find a niche that is already dominated by one large seller, don’t let that stop you if you think you have the ability to compete. A little competition is good for everyone, you, your competitor and the customer. Anyone can do something better. By studying your competitor’s auctions and policies, perhaps you can find a way to compete that doesn’t require one of you to fail for the other to succeed.

Sometimes an unusual need can lead to a niche.  Our granddaughter who visits us often has very sensitive skin.  I was looking for a laundry detergent that would work better for her than the Tide we were using.  While searching on the web I learned about Chinese soapberries.  This is a type of nut from a tree that has sudsing qualities and is used in the third world as a cheap and effective detergent.  I found an importer and besides using them we now sell them on eBay. As others learn of them I will probably have some competition soon, but right now I am the only seller.

Once again, start your search in areas that interest you. When you have found several areas that interest you, then you need to start your research. First use the eBay keywords report to see if people are searching the terms or keywords for the items you want to sell. Next use the eBay search engine and a Research tool to determine the viability of the market. I would also use Hammertap offers a great tool and my readers can get a discount if you use the link www.hammertap.com/skipmcgrath.

You may find a very profitable niche, but it is just not deep enough to sustain a large eBay business. It’s no good to totally own a niche if your monthly gross merchandise sales (GMS) are only $2000. You want to look for a niche(s) that will support a minimum of $5,000 a month in GMS. $10,000 to $25,000 is even better. Or you can do what we do. We do not have one large niche, but we work in several small niches that add up to over $10,000 a month.

Sometimes you can combine related niches. Going back to the computer example, you could sell printers and keyboards. If you go into the automotive area you could sell both performance exhaust systems and air-intake systems. These are two different products from different ends of the vehicle, but performance enthusiasts often buy these two components to improve the horsepower of their cars.

When you find a potential niche(s), ask yourself these questions before deciding to focus on it or before ordering inventory to sell:

• Is this niche large enough in terms of potential GMS to run a sustainable business?
• Do you have or can you obtain the knowledge and expertise to work this niche?
• Does the product area interest you?
• Is the competitive situation in this niche manageable?
• Do you have a reliable and cost-effective source of supply for the goods to supply your niche market?
• Are the margins available to your for these products large enough to run a sustainable business
• Can the niche be expanded or are there complimentary products you can cross-sell and up-sell?

Remember you do not have to totally “own” your niche to be successful, but you will need to be one of the handful of major players to have consistent, predictable and long-term success.

To learn more about this topic take a look at  Ten Little Known Highly Profitable eBay Niche Businesses Anyone Can Do.

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Here is an image from an email my wife received from PayPal this morning:

eBay is already worried about the coming holiday season and I expect they will be offering more promotions like this in the coming weeks.  Wall Street is fast losing patience with eBay and continue to shift their investments into Amazon and other online shopping sites.  If eBay has a poor holiday season while their competitors do better, it may mark the beginning of the end for CEO John Donohoe.

Promotions like this are fine but what eBay really needs to do is return to media advertising.  Under Meg Whitman eBay used to spend upwards of $50 million a year in Television advertising.  although eBay is sitting on over $1 Billion in cash they seem to have lost faith in the power of the tube.

The heart of eBay’s problem is that they have just spent two years repositioning themselves in the marketplace but they have neglected to tell their customers.  Walk into any coffee shop and ask a total stranger what eBay is and they will still tell you its an online garage sale or an online auction.  But in reality over 60% of eBay’s sales are fixed price new merchandise and this figure will soon top 70%.  The problem is that most folks don’t know this.   It’s as if eBay had a baby and forgot to hand out cigars.

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I have been selling on Amazon for about two  years now with mixed results. But recently, a friend of mine, Steve Lindhorst, who has been successful both on Amazon and eBay wrote a book called Selling on The River that he has recently updated.

The “‘River”‘ is the slang used by posters on eBay message boards who are not allowed to mention competitor Amazon. Steve’s book really helped me increase both my sales and profit on Amazon. After reading the book it only took me a couple of hours to tweak my Amazon listings and the results were pretty immediate. My sales almost doubled over the month following the changes.

I get a lot of questions asking me what are the differences between selling –and making money, on eBay versus selling on Amazon. So I was chatting with Steve and suggested he write a post for my readers.

About The Author:

Steve Lindhorst is the author of “‘Selling on ‘the River’ – The eBay Seller’s Guide to Amazon.com.”

Steve is a former eBay employee and National eBay University instructor and a featured speaker at eBay’s largest annual event “‘eBay Live!”‘ He is a successful online retailer and consultant to businesses and auto dealers around the U.S..

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Selling on eBay and Amazon –12 Points of Comparison

By: Steve Lindhorst Many eBay sellers have wondered if it’s really worth selling on Amazon. Some feel there are too many rules and it wouldn’t be worth the effort. I’ve chosen a dozen points of comparison that may help sellers make a decision. 1. Fees 2. Format (Auction vs. Fixed-price) 3. Community 4. Stability 5. Feedback 6. Branding 7. Photos 8. Taxes 9. Average Sale Price 10. Payment Methods 11. Return Policy 12. Shipping

1. eBay & Amazon Fees

The cost of selling is just about the same. On eBay you pay to list every item regardless of success. You have to consider unsold items, time spent relisting items, and time spent dealing with unpaid items on eBay as a cost. Amazon has no upfront fees, but a higher commission. Advantage: Tie

2. Format (Auction vs. Fixed-price)

Auctions are the best way to get market value for collectibles. eBay is better if you are selling unique items and want the best prices. Most businesses sell “‘practicals,”‘ commodity or everyday items. The market value is easy to determine for these items and buyers prefer and immediate purchase. While Amazon is the fixed-price king, eBay is moving in that direction by downplaying auctions and encouraging fixed-price listings. The advantage is in the buyers. The Amazon buyer is more affluent, and pays a higher average price for products. Advantage: Auctions: eBay Advantage: Fixed-price: Amazon

3. Community

eBay sellers are very involved with eBay buyers. The transactions are very interactive. Amazon buyers and sellers rarely interact. The Amazon buyer tends to expect high customer service and they don’t expect to have to ask if an item has shipped. Because of the higher interaction with customers, eBay sellers have to spend more time per transaction. Amazon transactions take less time. Advantage: Amazon

4. Stability

Online retailers rely on the stability of their chosen platforms to operate smoothly. Changes cost time. Sellers have developed systems that allow them to list, sell, and deliver items. When rules change, or things don’t work, the systems break down and profit is lost.

Amazon has had very few major changes in the past year. Even though there are some restrictions, they generally stay the same, and are enforced consistently. When changes have been made, they tend to stick and sellers can adjust.

eBay has had major changes over the past year, including Feedback, fees, digitally delivered items, search results, Detailed Seller Ratings, eBay’s affiliate program, and more are to be expected. Sellers have been greatly affected in real and perceived ways. Some changes have been rolled out, only to be reversed causing even more consternation among sellers. Advantage: Amazon

5. Feedback

Both eBay and Amazon have a feedback system allowing buyers and sellers to record their impression of a transaction. Both sites allow buyers to leave negative comments for sellers. Both sites allow sellers to leave only positive comments for buyers. The eBay culture has given much more weight to feedback than their Amazon counterpart.

Amazon buyers can see the seller’s feedback score, but tend to overlook it more readily than eBay buyers. Amazon’s A-z Guarantee may have a bearing on this by making the buyer feel more protected when purchasing an item. Amazon does not “‘disadvantage”‘ sellers, as eBay does, by moving them down in the results when shoppers perform a search. eBay does this by considering the seller’s feedback score and making them less visible to shoppers, rather than letting buyers make the choice themselves. Advantage (especially for sellers): Amazon

6. Branding

Amazon restricts sellers from reaching out to buyers and marketing to them. Traditionally, this has been an advantage to eBay since eBay allowed sellers to link to a site off eBay from the seller’s About Me page. Recent changes at eBay have virtually eliminated the ability to use eBay as a lead generating tool for off-eBay business. eBay has all but forbidden any outside links from any eBay pages including custom store pages, and About Me pages. This has effectively neutralized eBay as a “‘branding”‘ tool. Advantage: Tie

7. Photos

eBay sellers have always struggled with photos. How to take good photos, how to get the photos to show up on eBay, how many photos. Each item, no matter if it’s exactly the same as another, gets its own photo on eBay.

Amazon is different. An individual product gets one photo, and one description page, and all sellers use the same page. Generally, the first photo posted on a given product, is the photo everyone will use. Some sellers don’t like the idea of other sellers using their photo. But if “‘one photo fits all”‘ for a particular product, it’s pretty likely that product is a commodity product. Not many photos are needed.

As an Amazon seller, I absolutely love the fact that I can list 20 items without shooting a single photo. It saves a ton of time. Amazon buyers will buy an item without a photo. They know that the image they see is generally just representative anyway. Advantage: Amazon

8. Taxes

Marketplace sellers are responsible for the sales tax on any items sold on Amazon.com, and if necessary, they generally add this cost into the price of their items. This is a pain for Amazon sellers who are running a business.

eBay provides a mechanism in the Sell-Your-Item form to collect the taxes in addition to the sale price. This way the taxes don’t eat into the seller’s profits. It seems Amazon could add a tool like this to their process quite easily for their Marketplace sellers and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the future. But until that happens, I’d say… Advantage: eBay

9. Average Selling Price

Amazon buyers have been shown to be more affluent, and more willing to spend more on similar items. eBay buyers tend to look for bargains, and are willing to wait through a seven-day auction to save a buck. As a seller, I’ll pick the buyer that is willing to spend more. I have actually used eBay to source products at rock-bottom prices, that sold for good profit on Amazon. Amazon buyers often don’t even look on eBay, and they ultimately pay more.

Advantage: Amazon

10. Payment Methods

Amazon sellers must use Amazon Payments to accept payment. That’s it. Amazon collects the payment, and deposits it into your bank account twice per month (more often if you choose). They collect and deposit the funds with no fees added.

eBay sellers can accept PayPal or take credit cards and eBay seems poised to require PayPal payments on all transactions. If that happens, it will significantly affect many sellers. If you sell an item for $500, you may now accept non-PayPal payments and keep most of your money. If PayPal is required, you will fork over 2.9% + $.35 ($14.85) in PayPal fees. Amazon sellers do not have to send invoices, payment reminders, or track unpaid items.

If Amazon cannot collect the payment, you don’t have a sale, and your item is still listed on their site. eBay’s system is simply more work, more time, and ultimately costs more to manage as a seller. Advantage: Amazon

11. Return Policy

Some eBay sellers fear Amazon because of their obligatory return policy, called the A-z Guarantee. This guarantee allows the buyer to receive a full refund if the item is “‘materially different”‘ from that described, for up to 90 days. Amazon will usually side with the buyer. Sounds pretty tough.

The eBay seller is free to fight it out with buyers with a dispute resolution. This could ultimately result in negative feedback for the seller. They are not required to offer a refund. If eBay forces sellers to use PayPal for payments though, your funds could be held or you may even receive a charge-back against your account. It’s basically the same difference, but the eBay / PayPal route is a lot messier and time consuming.

If you have a buyer that is determined to get a refund, they’ll generally figure a way to get it. Simply based on the time consuming mess the dispute resolution process is, I’m saying… Advantage: Amazon

12. Shipping

eBay sellers have long looked at shipping charges as a small revenue stream. They bump up shipping prices and skim a little for themselves to cover shipping supplies, labels, and pixie dust. (Okay, I added the pixie dust.) The fact is, many sellers have turned this legitimate charge into a way to avoid eBay fees. eBay has now begun penalizing sellers who charge above average shipping amounts by lowering their visibility in the default search results. They are even giving breaks to sellers who offer free shipping, in effect hurting those sellers who cannot afford it.

Amazon gives sellers a “‘shipping credit”‘, based on an item’s category. This does not always cover the full shipping amount, but usually does. The amount is fixed by Amazon. You cannot ask for more from the customer, and even if the shipping credit does not cover your shipping costs, you must ship the item. Since the shipping credit is fixed, it can be figured in when setting your price.

Which is better? I like to have control over my shipping. But if a seller is careful, it’s pretty easy to figure in the shipping credit on Amazon and not lose money. Even if there is a loss, it’s minimal. I have found items I wanted on eBay, only to leave because of the outrageous shipping charges. ($1.99 item + $10.99 shipping for a cell phone cover.) I go straight to Amazon, because I know shipping is standard and I won’t feel ripped off. How many other buyers do the same? I’ll take those buyers… Advantage: Amazon

Summary

There is no question eBay is best for some items, while Amazon is best for others. But the overlap is incredibly large. The vast majority of items that sell on Amazon will also sell on eBay, and visa versa. The important thing to remember is the shoppers are different. While you and I may shop on several sites, many Amazon shoppers are very loyal to Amazon and won’t even visit eBay.

Some eBayers feel it would be a sin to shop on Amazon. By selling on both sites, you are potentially getting millions of additional eyeballs on your products. If you are avoiding Amazon because you think there are too many rules – take a look at eBay’s User Agreement. eBay is moving closer to Amazon’s model, in many ways. Like it or not, this is the wave of the future. Will you be ahead of the game, or will you be playing catch-up?

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The Complete eBay Marketing System by Skip McGrath is a bound and printed training course that shows new sellers how to start, build and run a profitable eBay business.

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No real post today. Its Labor day and this is all the work I am going to do today. But I wanted to share something with you.

Here is a video of the youngest eBay seller I have ever met and how she wants to solve all the world’s problems.  ENJOY !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsQX1ynUB6U

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