Building your Niche on eBay
July 12, 2007
To build or niche or not? That’s a tough question to answer since there is a large mix of successful generalists and niche sellers on eBay. It’s something we have been struggling with since the start. Really, our struggle has been what niche to get into. We have had very successful sales on all the items we have listed, but they have all been in different categories. Since we are buying mostly from liquidations, it makes repeat sourcing difficult.
eBay trading assistants typically do not specialize as they are selling what their customers bring in.(To a certain extent). They’re successful in many cases because they choose what items are worthwhile to sell and typically only list items they know will sell above a certain price. If your ambition is to become a trading assistant, having a niche may not be as important, especially if you have a brick and mortar storefront.
On the other hand, having a niche is extremely helpful for those without a storefront. Picking a niche can be difficult. Sometimes the areas and subjects that you are very passionate about are extremely competitive. Don’t get me wrong, you can succeed in those areas, it will just take a lot of hard work.
You’ll have an advantage if you are a subject matter expert since you’ll know what your customers are looking for. Additionally, having a niche makes it easier to cross-sell and upsell your customers on other related items. It also helps in getting repeat customers.
So, what tools do you use t find your niche? There are plenty of eBooks available to help you identify your niche. I’ve reviewed a handful of them and none seemed to really have any earth shattering ideas. Start with a pencil and paper and begin jotting down ideas and topics you enjoy. Then drill down deeper into each of those topics.
Research your niche with keywords. You’ll need to find how much competition is out there in your niche. You can use search engine results to determine your competition and there are lots of free tools available to assist with this as well. Check out SEOBook tools for a great list. Later you can begin driving traffic to your site based on those keywords. SEOBook is a great resource and can be purchased here.
I recently came across a software package that offers to help analyze what buyers are looking for on eBay’s WantItNow! section. The software is called Auction Inspector and can be purchased here.
Over the next few days I’m going to review the software and post my comments on the blog. At first glance it looks like a good product with potential. I haven’t seen anything else on the market that claims to analyze the WantItNow section of eBay.
If you have seen anything else, or have used this software, please post your comments.
How to become an eBay Powerseller in 90 Days or less
July 9, 2007
The first post in our blog was June 29th. In that post I mentioned hoping to have our eBay PowerSeller status with the next few days. Well, we WOULD HAVE had it by the first of July, however, the invitation process is automated.
Let me explain a bit more. To qualify as the minimum level PowerSeller(bronze) you need to have a 99.8% feedback rating or higher, at least 100 feedback from unique users and a 3-month average sales of $1000. Silver requires a $3000 three month average. eBay doesn’t provide the details in their help file on how/when the invite process works, but I was told by a PowerSeller rep, that an automated process runs between the 2nd and 3rd week of each month. If you qualify, you’ll get an invite.
I emailed them directly and they were kind enough to review my account ahead of that process and offered our earned status the next day.
Now, how can you become an eBay PowerSeller in under 90 days? There are plenty of eBooks online that you can purchase to show you how to do that. However, it really isn’t worth paying for that information. I’ll give it you for free.
First and foremost, you need to have the feedback rating and at least 100 unique feedbacks. Buyers/Sellers who have been on eBay a while may not have an issue with that. If you do, and you want to ramp up your feedback by ways other than selling you can try the following:
- Buy items on eBay that you use everyday or will need to replenish overtime. Ie Toothpaste, soap, cleaning supplies etc. You may find yourself a bargain online as well.
- Buy some eBooks(good ones) and some of the inexpensive ones. There are plenty of very good eBooks that are not get rich quick schemes. I’ve purchase a few great recipe eBooks that have had some really good information.
The next big step to becoming a PowerSeller is sales. You need to meet that minimum requirement average for three months. Some people can hit this just by selling 1 item, others it takes a lot of work. It all depends on what your selling and your commitment.
It seems my recurring them lately has been eBooks. Resist the urge for the get rich quick schemes, buying eBooks with resell rights. Chances are, you aren’t the only person selling them. Obviously since you bought it from someone. Not too mention, you probably won’t hit your mark selling that type of product.
Look into Drop Shipping. That will provide you a great source of product with no money out of your pocket. I mention below a good resource for liquidators and surplus, the same resource has some information on drop shipping as well.
The alternative is looking into liquidations and wholesale. Beware, this isn’t something you should go into if your are not serious. It requires a real commitment, some investment of both time and money and risk.
This is how we got started and how we were able to accomplish our PowerSeller status. We actually MORE THAN MET our sales goal before we met our feedback rating.
I also can’t say enough about the Ultimate Surplus & Wholesale Guide. This little gem really helped us understand the process. The other great resource for us was this liquidation web site. In fact, this is were we ended up getting our first set of products to sell. Like I mentioned before, you need to go into this having done your research.
Your buyers will also help raise your feedback rating. This should go without saying, but customer service is critical to being successful. You can achieve the sales level and have terrible customer service and never become a PowerSeller. In fact, you’ll lose repeat customers and any new customers. Always put yourself in the customers position. Quickly answering emails, proper packing, fair shipping costs, good turn around times all contribute to your success.
Good luck and let us know how you progress.
More Books and eBooks Review
July 7, 2007
I’ll admit I’m a little obsessed with all of the books and eBooks available. It’s probably because I’m now neck deep in eBay, but I don’t remember seeing as many books and ebooks available.
Since my last eBook post I’ve had the chance to review a few more. If you’re serious about getting started or ramping up your eBay knowledge you have to do research and do a bit of reading. I’ve added a Book section on the right side of the blog. I strongly recommend these books as they have great information and are written by proven eBay sellers and experts.
Now, on to the eBook reviews:
“Buy and Sell Antiques and Collectibles“: By far my least favorite subject. I dislike everything about antiques. For some reason they creep me out. However, while at eBayLive! last month a large majority of the individuals I met were selling antiques and collectibles. I wanted to know what all the buzz was about and see whether these techniques would apply to items in other areas. This eBook was written fairly well and does provide some good info.
“Build a Niche Store“: While this isn’t really an eBook or Book, their website has some very good information about supplementing your income by taking advantage of the eBay affiliate program. I personally bought the software and had it up in running in a matter of minutes. (I’ll go over affiliate programs in another post.) The support forums and owners of the software were extremely helpful. If you have some patience and are a little technical, i.e. have your own website and hosting provider, this software should be something that you look into. It is especially helpful when you have pinpointed your niche.
“The Silent Sales Machine “: Another news letter I get each day is from The Silent Sales Machine. Plenty of great tips and good things to help jump start your eBay business. This eBook and website servers as a spring board into making the right decisions and doing the right things from the start.
“Ultimate Surplus & Wholesale Guide“: This is by far THE BEST eBook and source I’ve read to date related to eBay. There are hundred of people selling wholesale guides and “secret sources” to potential eBay sellers. Many of those guides point you to websites that you can find in a search engine, are here-today-gone-tomorrow companies or worse yet, middlemen pretending to be wholesalers. This eBook is packed with great information about sourcing from surplus and wholesale companies. Real companies. There is some repeat information you may have already seen on other sites, but by far, the has the most complete list I have seen today. A word of caution. If you are not serious about selling, don’t purchase this book. To deal with all of these sources you must be setup as a business and have a sale tax id/reseller certificate. Real wholesalers and suppliers require this.
I hope you find these references to be as helpful as I did. I continuously go back to many of them to review. In addition, each provides a website and news letter that is continually updated with good information.
Getting traffic to your eBay store and auctions
July 6, 2007
If you’re more than a casual eBay seller you should seriously consider starting an eBay store. I suggest starting a store even before you build a stand alone website. Here’s why:
The Internet has become the leading resource for shoppers to research products. Almost all shoppers start with a search engine query and begin scouring the Internet for product reviews, descriptions and the best deals around. Unlike eBay store listings, eBay auctions are not typically picked up by the search engines because of their short lifespan .
An eBay store inventory item can be listed for up to 30 days or good ’til cancelled (meaning it stays in your store until someone buys it). These items are indexed by the major search engines. If your store listing titles are optimized with the best keywords, you will see store traffic increase just from search engine traffic alone.
Some numbers show that eBay has over 215 million customers. Opening an eBay store gives you access to that audience without having to worry about driving traffic to your personal site. Don’t get me wrong, a personal site is important (as I’ll mention later), but every serious seller should take advantage of what eBay has to offer.
Unlike auctions, eBay stores give your customers instant gratification. Instead of them having to wait for the auction to end(unless you are using Buy It Now), they can purchase the item immediately from your store and guarantee they will get the item.
For as little as $15.95 a month you can get your own eBay store, a mini website to publish special information about your store, marketing tools and much more. Compare that to starting your own website.
Starting your own website requires a domain name, hosting fees, building the website, driving traffic to your website, managing your products, updating your website etc. All things important to have later on, but not immediately.
eBay stores allow you to list several items, for as little as a few pennies. Keep in mind that your Final Value Fees will be slightly more, but now your items gain more exposure.
If you haven’t heard of Googlebase and have a store you need to. Googlebase is Google’s engine for researching items for sale. They have even built a Store Connector application that will allow eBay users to upload all of their store items into Googlebase and get them indexed in the search engine. Another great way to drive traffic to your store. More traffic to your store means more traffic to your auctions which means more money for you!!!!
I’ll go into setting up your store the correct way in another article, but be sure to take your time and research all of the features and offerings the stores have to offer.
If you already have a website you can take advantage of the the traffic you do have and additionally get a 75% price break on Final Value Fees on your items. Any traffic you drive from sites outside of eBay to your store may qualify you to get 75% off those Final Value Fees!! That’s a great deal.
So, what are you waiting for, open an eBay store today!!
