Secret #1 — Find a "real" wholesale and dropship 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 a 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 at the
first two garage sales, but at the 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, so he went home.
He took
his digital camera and 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.
Seven to ten days later his item got
sold for $75! John was excited. He packed the item, labeled
it with the buyer's address, and then drove to the
nearest post office. Oh no—a long line. After 15 minutes
of waiting, he could finally mail 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
on Saturday around lunch time. He is still in his pajamas,
and he makes himself a nice cup of coffee and gets on the
Internet. He logs in to his dropship account and browses
through some hot selling products. "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 dropship company to his computer.
"Oh, wait"—David has just discovered that this dropship
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
launches his auction—a Dutch auction, since the dropship
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 David does is the following: He waits
until he gets the payment from his 6 customers in his
Paypal account and then sends the addresses of the customers, together with 6 x $550 (wholesale price) to his dropship company via
Paypal. He has made pure profit of 6 x $280 = $1,680 in
about 25 minutes of work—total. That's why David is a smarter
eBay seller than John. I think the idea is clear. Dropshipping can be the answer to your problem of what to sell on
eBay, and it can save 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 about 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, professional potential buyers stay
longer on your site and it's more likely that they will
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 ten days
after they have purchased the product, and ask them how it's
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 to offend anyone, but if the
products are related, and you ask how it 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 astounded 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 the 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 dropship company
as to which countries they are shipping to and how much postage
they charge to send the item overseas. If you have sorted 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 stand out from the
crowd? Good question, isn't it? In my seven years of being an
active Power Seller, I have tried and tested a lot. First,
have the photo in the gallery; it costs just a bit more to
list, but these additional cents are well spent. 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 many 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.
©2005, Jason James, Auction Resource Network
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Jason James is a 13-year Internet marketing veteran and an
eBay Power Seller of four 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://tinyurl.com/5tmoz8
