The Seller Book

Writing the Book One Paragraph at A Time.

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International Shipping

October 14th, 2011 · Selling, Shipping

I sell a great number of products overseas. At least 45% to 50% of what I sell is shipped out of the United States. From the time I began selling worldwide shipping problems were at a minimum. In fact the only destination I had problems with were addresses in Munich, Germany. I had a rash where in one month three out of five shipments to separate Munich addresses never made it to their destinations.

It was very strange. I had visions of a rather large German customs agent with my packages in his desk drawer. His chocolate stained fingers sticky from the morsels I was shipping.

Deutsche Post

In the last 4 or 5 months I have had a steady increase in the number of packages that have been lost. It’s starting to become a problem with my bottom line.  Australia, which used to be rock solid is now becoming problematic. What used to take ten days to arrive is now taking three to four weeks. Some of my customers down under have told me that the Australian government has instructed customs to inspect every package coming into the country. This appears to be what has caused the slow deliveries.

But Australia is just one area. Most of Europe is now becoming an issue. I’m at a loss to explain it. If it was damaged packages or undeliverable mail I would be seeing some of those packages returning to me. But that isn’t happening. Unfortunately I have a feeling that part of it is theft. I have no way to prove it but with hard times in the country and at the post office I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that theft at the USPS is on the rise.

What's yours is mine!

In order to retain customers I have been sending second shipments to most of the people that didn’t receive their packages. Normally I insure the products Iship, especially international shipments. The lost packages however are the USPS priority mail flat rate envelopes.  The postal service will not insure this type of shipment. I’m beginning to understand why.

 Recently though the site I use for image hosting and listing templates has broadened their insurance coverage so that I can now insure these type of packages. The website is www.auctiva.com. I have used their insurance service in the past but at that time they only covered the US, UK and Germany and even then only on certain types of packages. Because of the added insurance I have had to increase my shipping costs to cover cost.

We’ll see how it plays out over the next six months. All I know is that I can’t cover the losses anymore with the accumulated slush fund I used from small shipping profits. That incidentally was a way for me to keep my shipping cost down. I would charge between fifty cents and a couple of dollars per package on top of all shipping and materials cost as a way to self insure. with only one out of every 40 or 50 packages having a problem it seemed to balance itself out. But now the losses have depleted that slush fund and insuring is the only way for me to stop bleeding red ink and get back in the black.

If  you have noticed any of the same issues please let me know about it. I would love to hear what you did to correct the situation. If you have any requests or comments don’t be afraid to speak up. I like hearing from you.

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Webstore.com part Duh!

October 9th, 2011 · ecrater, Selling, Webstore

I have had products listed on webstore.com for the last two months and so far zero sales. I’m not too impressed. During that same time period I have had two sales from ecrater.com. Ecrater has generated 6 sales over the last year. Now I realize that’s nothing in the grand scheme of things but consider that the items I listed on ecrater were the ones that weren’t selling on ebay or just weren’t worth placing on ebay because of the low listing price and the high ebay fees. So I will continue to keep items listed on webstore.com since it is a free site but if they ever try to assess fees I’m gone. The nice thing I have discovered in comparing ecrater and webstore is that ecrater seems to have a much better line to Google searches. whenever I search for products I have listed on ecrater they pop right up in the top of the list. That doesn’t happen with web store. So, for my money if I am looking for an alternative to ebay, ecrater is certainly the best free site I have tried so far.

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Webstore.com Early Returns

September 5th, 2011 · Ebay, Selling, Webstore

Last week I mentioned that I was trying out Webstore.com as an ebay alternative. This auction site has no fees and will list your auctions on Google if you have 10 or more qualified listings.

Well so far I have twenty items listed and no sales yet. I will continue to list more since it is free to auction. The listings show visits in the 20 ‘s and 30′s but I’m not entirely sure these are accurate. Some of my listings showed 10 to 15 visits within minutes of having placed the auction which seems a bit suspect.

I will be conducting random searches for my products and see what comes up. My ebay listings do well in the google searches. They do especially well when I have written about them on my store blog or when I mention the listing on facebook.

All in all I guess it’s like owning a home or a brick and mortar store. Constant upkeep, due diligence,  new emerging social networking,  search engine optimization and internet innovations is what will get you the traffic and sales that you need.

If you have had any experience with webstore.com or any other auction site I invite you to share it here. I am in constant search for the best place to make a sale.

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The Bottom Line online

August 27th, 2011 · Amazon, Ebay, Selling, Webstore

 

Selling is selling. Whether you sell on line, by mail,  on the street or in a brick and mortar store the principles are much the same. One of the cornerstones to making a profit is to buy low, sell high and keep costs low. I am able to control the buy low and mostly can control the sell high. But keeping costs low is always a challenge.

There are a number of ways to sell on line. The quickest and probably one of the safest mediums is ebay. Ebay started as a site where pez dispensers were traded. Over the last 12 years it has grown to a multi billion dollar retail giant. But in the last few years it has seen its market share slip. With new competitors coming on line and older ones like Amazon diving into categories outside of their original niche there is a lot of pressure on ebay to cut costs and increase revenue.

Unfortunately one of the avenues the ebay executives decided to go down was to increase operating costs for the sellers by way of increased fees. They also broadened what you pay fees on. Now shipping costs are included in the total price to buyer. So if your item sells for $10 and it costs $10 to ship the buyers total cost is $20 and in most instances you pay a fee of $2.20. This is a generalization but it holds true for most of the small sellers.

To the casual observer this  has the appearance that ebay is trying to squeeze out the small timers and really be a venue for the medium to large businesses.  They do offer ways to keep some of these costs down. If you maintain a certain level of sales per month and have high DSR scores you are able to get discounts on the fees you pay. Also, if you offer domestic priority or expedited shipping on your products then if you happen to sell an item to someone in Botswana or Thailand or anywhere outside the U.S. you only pay a fee on the domestic shipping cost and not on the international cost. In other words if you domestic priority is $12 and international priority is $43.50 you pay a fee on the $12 cost instead of the $43.50

In light of these new costs and fees I am always looking for better more cost effective ways to sell. One site I came across recently that seems to be gaining some traction is webstore.com. There are no fees associated with your store, listings, sales, etc.., They seem to gain revenue through the advertisements they have on the site. I have listed twenty items in my store at webstore.com and will see how it goes. The attraction of course is no fees. That means at least 10 to 15 percent more in my pocket and a lower price to my customers. If you have at least 10 listings webstore automatically lists you in the Google merchant database.

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Ebay Fees

August 14th, 2011 · Ebay, Selling

Ebay has put a new fee structure into place that has caused more harm to the small seller like me than any other policy in the last ten years.

I’m in a hard spot. I’m not a big seller. I’m trying to be but ebay keeps putting obstacles in the little guys’ way. What they did  this summer really put me in a bind. They used to collect fees on the final value sale price of a product and not the shipping price. Now they take a fee on the total final value sale price including shipping. This puts people like me out of business.

Much of what I sell is in the $10 to $20 price range. Shipping for these items domestically is in the $8 to $10 dollar range. I am now paying a 11% fee on $20 plus the 4.25% fee through PayPal. Since my cost on a $10 item is in the $2 to $5 price range you can see how big of a bite this takes out.But this part I can deal with.

It’s the overseas shipping where I am getting killed. Some of these items cost $30 to $35 dollars to ship oversea. Now I’m losing money. I have made adjustments to my pricing here recently and my sales have slowed considerably.  I now have to rethink my strategy and product lines. For the life of me I don’t understand the execs at ebay. I would be very curious to see if this has helped or hurt their bottom line by the end of the year.

Here is a discussion on ebay regarding the new fee structure.

Here is the ebay announcement concerning the fee structure.

After reading through the announcement again regarding the new fees I went ahead and established free domestic shipping on items I sell mostly overseas. It’s an experiment to see if this will increase my bottom line. I will let you know what I find out.

Here is also a link for the ebay fee calculator.

 

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It’s all about doing.

August 12th, 2011 · Selling

It’s all about doing.

You can lose discipline and let events of life bog you down. But then you’re toast. I have been adrift these many months because of personal and family issues. I lost focus and then became afraid to come back. But the moment  I took that first step back I haven’t stopped. There’s a line in Excalibur that Arthur utters after taking a sip from the Holy Grail; “I never knew how empty my soul was until it was filled.”  to paraphrase;  I never knew how adrift I was until I stepped back on the path.

Don’t be distracted. Don’t stray from your goal. Keep focus and just do. Fight for yourself. Fight for your goal. Do not let mediocrity rule the day.  Even if you have nothing to sell, practice writing copy or taking pictures. Look at how others advertise and list. Do it the same time every day so it becomes habit. I forgot this.  But I won’t let it happen again.

If this happened to you let me know how you snapped out of it. If you were successful. I’d love to hear from you.

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A New Year! Get Back to Your Future!

January 10th, 2011 · Ebay, ecrater, Selling

Whew! made it through 2010. Christmas was good to me this year. I made a lot of sales. Chocolate went through the roof. Had the expected sales to the over seas markets but I had a surprising number of domestic chocolate sales also. I try to pick certain flavors that are available only during the holidays and make sure I have a  good stock on hand. Because it seems like my distributors have these holiday flavors for only a few weeks and then *poof* they’re gone. As it turns out I never stock up enough on those flavors. I got burned one year by buying too much holiday product and was eating it (literally) at the end of the year. So now I am  overly cautious and  don’t buy enough.

This year will be a better year. I’m going to start planning ahead and open up my days for garage and estate sales. I will also start checking out storage unit auctions. For many years I’ve wanted to attend these auctions but never do. Now with the popularity of Storage Wars My interest is again rekindled.

Well, I’m done resting. It’s time to pick up the pace and start listing. I have a number of items to photograph and post. Easter is just around the corner. If you’re not ready for Valentines you need to be by the end of this week or you will lose 50%  of  your  sales. It isn’t a big time for me but I do see a bump. Especially with chocolate and Disney products.

I hope your Christmas was wonderful and that New Years was a happy celebration. But now it’s time to get back to work and plan for the future, your future and the increased sales that will get you there.

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Love What Sells or Sell What you Love?

November 19th, 2010 · Amazon, Ebay, Procurement, Selling

When you first start selling it’s usually because you have a need to get rid of some things and would like to make a few extra dollars in the process.  As I mentioned in an earlier post my selling began when I had a need to get rid of some clothes the kids had outgrown and discovered there was a market for used clothing on e-bay.  So okay you found some stuff, did some research and listed it on ebay, Amazon, Shopzilla, etc..,. There’s always something around the house that you can get rid of and quite frankly garage sales are more of a pain in the neck then they are worth.  So the stuff you listed sold.  Now what? Selling was work but it was also fun seeing the money come in. Now that you ran out of stuff around the house to sell what do you do?

Sell What You Love?

You here it all the time. “Do what you love” “Be what you love” “Sell what you love”. Whereas the first two nuggets of wisdom I would agree with I’m not so sure about the third. What you may love is quite often not what sells. Take my cousin for instance. She loves  knitted plant pot holders. She has them in different colors, shapes and sizes hanging all over her house. Every time I go by her house she shows me the newest one she made or bought. Now I’m sure there is someone else out there that loves these as much as she does. But the odds of finding a large market for sustainable sales is pretty remote.

Love What Sells

I have discovered it is a more successful route to love what sells. Over the years I have tried many different products. Many I new nothing about until I saw there was a market for them. Over time I’ve discovered what types of Disney products sell and those that don’t. Candy that is particularly needed in certain parts of the world. I have even become well versed in pottery and china in so far as what has a good chance for a sale and what will linger in your store for years. So my best advice to you is to research E-bay, ecrater, Amazon, etc.., to see what the sales trends are. There are products that are tried and true and sell year ’round and others that sell only at holiday time or during certain seasons.

Where will I get it?

To start with the first place I would look is on ebay. When I first started selling I thought I would try selling watches. There were all kinds of bulk sales for watches, timepieces, watch parts, etc..,. I didn’t know a thing about watches but some of the prices were pretty cheap. When I received my first bulk order I started to learn about watches. What was good what wasn’t. What to look for, what to sell for parts, what to sell as a usable watch. They sold albeit slowly. I learned how to list them and what motivated people to buy them.  I ended up making a profit on the watches it just took awhile for me to realize the money.  After ebay this is what I do. I hit the thrift stores once every week or so. I have come to discover which thrift and charity stores have better stock and better prices. I have made some real profit from the items I picked up from here. You do have to be selective. There are only certain items that sell well. I tend to stick to the china and pottery. I also cruise through the books and video section. You can find some rare books this way that could end up paying for everything.

Garage sales are great too. Because of my work schedule I don’t take near enough time to do this as I should. This is where real gold mines can be found. There are many power sellers that spend 90% of there procurement time just hitting garage sales. It is amazing what people throw out. Estate sales, tax auctions, storage unit auctions, these are all excellent places to find product. Again, preparation and research is the key. Look for what sells, leave what doesn’t. You might think it’s cute but after 18 months languishing on your shelf you will come to loathe it.

One other place that people don’t consider is T.J.Maxx and stores like it. I love T.J. Maxx. I go in once every one or two weeks and go through the clearance section. Their prices are already cut because the major stores have unloaded their over stock to them. So the clearance items can be reduced by as much as 90% from original price. I have made a lot of money off of the the products I pick up from here. Usually 3 to 4 times what I paid.

Success on the horizon

Success is out there waiting for you and me. It takes a desire to be successful and a positive mental attitude that envisions that success. Be open to new ideas, look closer at what people are buying and why they need it. It is great to love what you do (I certainly love selling) but love what sells. You will be rewarded with profits you may not have seen if you sold only what you loved.

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I’m a Seller. Now What?

November 12th, 2010 · Selling

A Seller

If you have reached my blog then you are already selling or interested in selling. If you haven’t really sold on Ebay or Amazon or any of the other sites then you need to pick one to cut your teeth on. Ebay and Amazon are the easiest to get set up with and the most user friendly. I would suggest starting on E-bay but it really depends on your comfort level. I won’t walk you through the sign up process. Both sites do an excellent job of hand holding and getting you ready to go. Once you do get set up and before you sell anything I strongly suggest that you buy. It doesn’t matter what the items are that you buy just that you make a few purchases. I would advise as little money as possible. But if you see something more expensive and it’s what you want then get it!  If you’re planning to sell why buy first? Because you need to rack up some feedback to show you have a track record. If you have shopped on Ebay in the past I’m sure you have noticed the feedback number by each seller’s name. This is how you can tell if a seller is reputable or a flake. Over the years buyers have been burned by sellers who come on Ebay sell a few items then change ID’s because they kept the money and never shipped the product (remember those deadbeats in the previous post?). I rarely if ever look at a seller that has less than 10 feedback.

What am I going to sell?

While you are getting your feedback squared away you can also spend time on Ebay seeing what people are buying. If there are certain categories that you are interested in then start looking through them. One of the best ways I have found is to search “completed listings”. Here is an example; Categories>Collectibles>Disneyana>Contemporary. Once you reach this page you will see tens of thousands of items. You then want to go into “Advanced Search” and look about 4 or 5 lines down from the top. You will see a check box titled “Completed Listings”. Mark the check box, hit search and you should see pages of completed listings in that sub category. Red numbers didn’t sell, green numbers did. You only want to look at the green ‘sold’ listings. This gives you a true idea of what people are interested in.

What Next?

In my next post we will start talking about what to sell and where to look for it. Some of it you already know but some suggestions may surprise you. In the meantime get signed up on Ebay if you aren’t already and begin getting some feedback numbers. It takes a little time but it will hasten your online selling success. Please feel free to comment or ask questions. I am always available.

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