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Two reasons why Avril's on her high horse
publication date: Nov 17, 2007
Ebay Confidential eZine
14th November 2007 *** - Editorial - Things That Matter and Things That Don't - The Ins and Outs of Drop Shipping - Use Domain Names Auctions to Sell Your Domain *** Hi, You'll no doubt have heard of Squidoo, a membership site that can be used to share knowledge and experience and even to promote your goods and services to other people all over the world. Because so many people have used Squidoo to great effect to promote products they are selling on eBay, Squidoo has recently developed another site specifically for eBay sellers; called 'SquidBids'. The site is free to use, immensely well organised, and is seen by many American eBay PowerSellers as an easy means of drawing potential customers to your eBay listings, especially shop listings. SquidBids is a great way to showcase your products, especially permanent listings in shops or permanent Buy It Now offers. This letter I received yesterday will tell you all about SquidBids and how it might grow your eBay business: ----------------------- 'Hi Avril, Building a career on eBay is tough enough. Standing out from the crowd and getting found by the right people is even tougher. But Squidoo.com changes all that. Quick background: Squidoo, founded 2 years ago by Seth Godin, and has 100,000+ users that create over 1,000 new lenses each day. We make it easy for everyday people to set up single pages, for free, talking about and pointing to things they like, featuring content from Amazon, Orbitz, eBay, CafePress, YouTube, Flickr and more. No surprise, one of the popular and most talked about types of pages on Squidoo is an eBay shop lens. So, our new SquidBids project is a special way to showcase eBay shops, auctions, and most importantly, sellers. With most other directories, sellers just get a small sliver of space to promote a link to their store. This leaves buyers lost. "Sure, the products look great but can I really trust them?" But SquidBids is about building trust and letting buyers know their sellers as real people. What do other buyers have to say about them? Where they happy? Would they buy again? What else does this seller offer? Here's an opportunity for you to strengthen your reputation as an eBay expert and provide your customers with an added benefit tool. What you get: An awesome new tool to promote to your users that everyone can use to generate mega traffic. What your users get: They get discovered more, and have more successful auctions. Which makes you look smart for telling them about it. What we get: New, dedicated, savvy eBay sellers creating thousands of new lenses to promote their wares. All for free. Interesting, yes? Shoot me a note if you want to hear more, or check it out for yourself at http://www.squidbids.com Kimberly' ----------------- Sounds very good to me... worth trying out! Now onto other matters... *** Got a digital camera, an Internet connection and an eye for a profit? Then you'll LOVE this... *** "SNAP! How cats, rubbish and ice cream could pour over £600 a week into your bank account!" Click on the link below and see how a total "oops-I-cut- his-head-off" amateur snapper can make a sizable side- income - by sending 'boring' pictures to secret industry websites: http://tinyurl.com/yo29mv *** Things That Matter and Things That Don't *** It doesn't take much to upset me, I think you know that already, but once the upset cools down I'm left wondering why people work so hard to cause hurt to their fellow man, why can't people be nice to one another and, in the end, do the minor insults and destructive criticisms we all receive from time to time really matter one iota? Yes, Avril's on her high horse again, but with very good reason. Actually two very good reasons. Reason #1 Look at this eMail I got today: 'Still waiting for this. If I don't get it fast I'm reporting you!' That's it, nothing more, just: 'Still waiting for this. If I don't get it fast I'm reporting you!' Waiting for what? And to whom will I be reported? This person could be waiting for a reply to an email, waiting for his product, waiting for a refund, waiting for lots of different things. But he is threatening to report me to someone! Who can that someone be? I began to flap, panic, I checked my mail for unanswered questions, checked all my email boxes in case someone had requested a refund that I had overlooked, I even checked my eBay accounts for negative or neutral feedback, just in case it was PayPal or eBay who would hear about me next! An hour later I'd found nothing to clarify the problem, by which time I was really in a panic, then I had another idea. I sent the enquirer an email, saying: 'What are you waiting for? I have fulfilled all orders, issued all refunds, answered all emails. Can you be more specific please and help me sort out the problem as soon as possible?' Two minutes later came the reply: 'Feedback, it's feedback I'm waiting for, I paid you this morning and I haven't had feedback yet'. Oh dear, an hour wasted and all this idiot wanted was another Brownie point on his score card. I don't actually leave feedback first, I wait until feedback has been left for me, but this was a one-in-a-million and very difficult customer, so I left feedback for him right away. If he leaves a negative, so be it! Moral of the story: don't panic as I just did, just ask the other person to be more explicit! It's fast, simple, and it works every time. Reason #2 Yesterday a subscriber emailed and told me she thought her language and writing skills were poor and prevented her writing quality titles and descriptions for products she had listed on eBay. She was upset, she said, because another eBay member had corrected her on several grammatical and language mistakes in her listings. I checked and found nothing much wrong at all with her listings, and I told her so right away. For most potential bidders it really doesn't matter that you get the odd comma in the wrong place, or you use 'there' when you really meant 'their', or you use : instead of ;! It really doesn't matter at all, in moderation. But there will always be people keen to pick you up on even the tiniest mistake, people you must learn to live with, otherwise you'll spend time worrying about things that don't really matter - to most people at least! Which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time I worked in a magistrates court, when a policeman went into the witness box and showed the court how he had reconstructed an entire ladder, used in a house burglary, from literally hundreds of tiny bits of wood and nails found in the accused's garden? He was a young man, very proud of his efforts, the entire court looked on in amazement as the ladder was carried in. Then the senior magistrate said: 'Well done, that is one of the best displays of police work it has ever been my pleasure to witness. By the way, do you know you are dangling your participles?' No, the young policeman did not know he was dangling his participles, nor did it matter much, because he eventually became one of the top policemen in the entire Durham Constabulary, while the magistrate became the laughing stock in the local newspaper! Oops, I digressed, I meant to say, it doesn't really matter much if you are not the world's best copywriter, it doesn't matter that one person in a million is hell bent on spoiling your day. Just be sure to spellcheck your listings, use the grammatical tool on most computers to reveal common misuses of comma's - sorry I meant commas, to spot incorrect use of punctuation marks, and you really can't go far wrong! ----------- The Ins and Outs of Drop Shipping by Allison Whitehead One of the downsides of selling on eBay is having to find room for all the stock, especially if you work from home as many eBayers do. The bigger your business gets, the more room you have to find, and the more chance there is that the stock will start leaking out of your working space and finding its way into your bedroom, kitchen, dining room, lounge ... You get the point. But as always there is a solution, and it comes in the form of drop shipping. So what exactly does drop shipping entail? Well for a start you don't have to hold any stock, which not only means you don't get overrun with whatever it is you are selling, it also means you don't have to buy any stock up front. This presents an ideal situation for people who want to start selling seriously on eBay but don't have the funds to be able to buy any significant amount of stock - especially given that most wholesalers have minimum spend amounts, some of which can be quite high, particularly for those just starting out. One of the other advantages is that if you list any specific item on the site and it simply doesn't sell, you won't be left with armfuls of the stuff that you can't get rid of. Drop shipping takes away the hassle of having to try and liquidate any left over stock you get from time to time. It also opens the doors to areas you wouldn't otherwise be able to operate in - imagine trying to hold stock for the bestselling lines of garden furniture for example. So how does it work? Basically you hook up with a company that does drop shipping (more on this in a moment) and you list their items on eBay. When something sells you take payment as usual and pass the order on to your supplier - together with the price they charge you to buy it. So if you sell a DVD for £9.99 on eBay but the supplier sells it for £4.99, you pass the £4.99 on to the supplier together with your customer's details. They then fulfil the order, which is often sent out in plain packaging so it looks as if it's come direct from you. From reading that little description above, I'm sure you can see the other main benefit drop shipping has in its favour. No trips to the post office are involved - not for you anyway. You simply log into your account with your supplier and place the order on behalf of your customer. If you take payment via PayPal from your customer, you can simply pay your supplier using the same method - leaving a nice profit per item in your PayPal account for you to withdraw as and when you like. So all's well and good - you can spend all day at your computer if you desire, listing items, taking payments and sending orders off as and when they come in. But how exactly do you find these drop shipping companies in the first place? There are several ways, but perhaps the best is to do a search on Google. In order to narrow down the results enter the particular niche you would like to sell products in and add the word dropshipper after it. So you might look for 'outdoor furniture dropshipper' or 'DVD dropshipper', for example. Be wary of any sites that charge you for taking part in their drop shipping service; some are genuine but many are not. Don't get caught out. There are plenty of excellent sites around in all kinds of niche markets that don't charge for using their service - all you do in general is sign up and away you go. It's always a good idea to do a little background research on any company you are thinking of using; surf the plethora of eBay forums online and ask some questions to see if anyone has had any experience of any drop shippers you are planning on using. Incidentally, not every single company that drop ships advertises the fact. So if you come across a wholesaler you like the look of, it's worth emailing them to see if they will accommodate you in this way. Not all of them will, but for the price of an email it's worth asking. Many sellers think of drop shipping as an 'all or nothing' venture, but in truth it doesn't have to be done in this way. It can be an excellent way to expand your current eBay business if you are selling and dispatching items yourself. Let's look at some examples. Let's suppose you have just opened your first eBay shop and it's still looking a bit empty even after you've listed all your current stock. Joining forces with a drop shipper would be the ideal way to bulk out your shop in double quick time, without any upfront cost to you or your business, except for the extra listing fees of course. Alternatively you may find that there are certain stock lines you want to introduce into your business, but you aren't sure how well they will sell. Again, linking up with a drop shipper takes a lot of the risk out of adding in these new lines; you can always buy them in wholesale later on if you wish to. So you can see it's perfectly possible to run a drop shipping business alongside a more conventional eBay business, in order to expand your range of goods and reap in extra profits along the way. If you already have an established business and you send out newsletters to your current customer base, it is even easier to introduce a new line of products to them, which will help to keep your range fresh and interesting. So don't discount the possibility of drop shipping some or all of your stock - it could give your business the lift it's looking for. --------------- Use Domain Names Auctions to Sell Your Domain by Nellie Graham ---------------- If you wish to sell your existing domain name and sell it quickly, you might achieve more success if you place it in auction. Auction selling domain names offer certain advantages especially if you look to sell domain names quicker than other methods. Aside from being the quickest option known, it can also be benefiting in the following ways: * A domain name auction can be an attractive option because it can readily bring together a group of interested buyers. From a broker's perspective, it can be very difficult in trying to target those buyers who might be interested on buying particular domain name. * An auction would require a seller to be listed with a domain name broker. On the part of the domain name buyer, this would be a benefit since that it would give some sense of legitimacy to such kind of market. With the presence of brokers, buyers might feel more secure that they will not be shortchanged in the deals that they may be making in the process. * An auction would be the ideal venue for valued information about certain domain names in order to determine their worth. Sellers would enjoy the help of the brokers in order to set a fair market value for their domain name property. Buyers may also be able to obtain information on domain names that will be able to help them determine their bidding price for each domain name. In some ways, an auction will provide a fair market for both the sellers and the buyers. * An auction can also put some order to a gathering of domain name buyers and sellers. It can be good venue for both experienced as well as inexperienced buyers who might not know how to offer the fair value for a certain domain name. Auctions usually starts low with buyers bidding to what they think would be the value fitting for each domain name for sale. This will help buyers avoid the embarrassment of offering too high or too low for a good domain name. * Auctions can help eliminate too much haggling, or at least keep them in check. This puts more efficiency into the whole process and provides buyers with an abundance of domain names to bargain with, at times even more than they can handle. So should you plan to have your domain name put up for sale, maybe you should give auctions a second look. Not only would it provide sellers with the convenience in looking for interested buyers, it can also provide the buyers with a safe venue to look for interesting bargains and deals. Auctions offer you the quickest way to find the best value for your domain names in so short a time. You can read more about this topic: |
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