|
Aviation & Flight InformationIt pays to be lazy on eBay
by:
Dave Bromley
I have a friend who has a pretty nice business commerce a variety of items on eBay and different online auctions. His system is simple, he goes to ectoparasite markets, physical auctions, thrift shops and close outs and buys stock to sell on eBay.
Sometime he does actually well and sells thing
for $100 that only cost him $10. Of course he does not always do such spectacular profit margins as that but generally he does pretty well. In fact these days, like many a thousands of different folk he does his main living from commerce through eBay.
In fact there is only one problem, he is defrayal more time and working harder than he did in his former “regular” job. He is up early to get the better bargains at the ectoparasite market, then once
he gets them house he has to research and write up the item description and take a photograph. Doing this for a couple hundred products every week doesn’t leave my pal more spare time. Once
I met him at a party the different week he was actually looking tired and depressed.
“OK I am my own boss but it is like being on a treadmill, if I finish the money stops. I think I power be better deed a regular job again”.
The outcome was that I united
to take a look at his business to see if there was thing
that I could suggest that would-be help him.
When I started to look at his operation two things affected me at once. He was not aiming at any specific market. He was simply going out and purchase
some was accessible so in one week he power buy several books, children’s games, several DVDs and office machinery. This power be fine if you are treating eBay as a hobby but not if it is your business.
Whenever you see simply about any form of online commerce the words “niche market” wish quickly appear. There is a nice reason for this, if as a small dealer you want to succeed you must target specific niches. It does sense to find an easily targeted niche because they wish be far more profitable in the long term than trying to sell to the world.
The second mistake my friend was fashioning was that all his sales were one off and seldom
did a consumer
do more than one sale. This was not because of any bad products or service simply the fact that being purchase
a fishing rod all but for certain would-be not be interested in a foot spa or some else my pal was offering the following week.
These days more and more folk are realising that eBay should not be your single know-how
of commerce but part of a fully integrated marketing plan. EBay offers you one of the cheapest and easiest route to build up a extremely
targeted opt in mailing list and as everyone wish tell you the money is in the list. But really few folk take advantage of this.
For example your niche market power be books on the subject of aviation. Each time being buys a book from you on eBay you cognize that they are the type of person
who wish spend money on their interest. So if you offer them similar items they are likely to purchase those as well. If you can get them to sign up for an opt in list you wish have a potential consumer
who power buy many a items form you in the future.
These days as a one-person business I believe that it is not enough simply sell on eBay
but have a complimentary web site as well. You can promote your web site to your eBay customers in several ways. 1st of all mention it and create a link on your Just simply about Me Page. (What you don’t have an Just simply about Me Page! As John Mackinroe would-be say, “You can’t be serious”). As well once
you e-mail eminent bidders to tell them you have sent
their item tell them simply about your web site. And of course add a link in the Name block at the bottom of all your e-mails.
Another way to get your eBay customers to opt in to your e-mail list is to offer them a free report on a relevant subject. Providing it contains useful facts it does not need to be any longer than this article and you can deliver it by e-mail. What could be easier.
Your web site does not have to be complicated; a cost list of several of your products, and maybe several special offers and possibly links to affiliate sites that are of interest to your niche market. You can even as bolster the content for your web site by including several drop ship items related to your niche.
I explained this all to my friend and told him that I was actually lazy because knowing my market I was able to buy items in bulk This meant I spent far less time listing items as by mistreatment Turbo Lister they could be relisted in a matter of seconds.
My lazy way is simple have simply about 20 products permently listed on eBay as either Buy It Now or regular auction. Build up my opt in e-mail list, and have a web site with information and offers for my niche market. Once a month I send out an e-mail to my list with several special offer and that is it. That was substantially
less activity than my friend and the return was far greater.
After the recent cost rises many a sellers quit eBay, whether for good
or temporarily only time wish tell. But as long as you bank strictly
on the auction site you are really more at their mercy. At least by taking the chance to build up your opt in list and developing your web site, should thing
happen in the futurity you wish have thing
to fall back on and not be all dependent
on eBay.
Now I am pleased to say that he has seen the light, his web site is already up and at last he has put up an Just simply about Me page. And the actually nice news is that he already looks at lot less stressed than he used to.
Just simply about the Author
The author specialities in all aspects of of
Online auctions especially eBay UK
is the publisher of the UK Auctionline Newsletter
and 6 part mini course which can be found at
http://www.ukauctionline.co.uk.
| |
