THE EASY ebay EMPIRE
Stage 1: Picking Your Niche
Pick anything you want. You can start by picking products you are most passionate about. I find that sometimes the products you are passionate about aren't the biggest profits makers because those choices are usually based on yourself rather than what the market wants. However, as you have only started this journey in your business and you have yet to build experience, I still highly recommend you do this just to get a grasp of how to implement this method and your passion should enable to you power through your motivation to see your business through.
Time and time again I see far too many people begin a new venture and far too quickly they give up because they don't see immediate results, especially when they begin with a product or subject matter they know nothing about. At least way you are doing you business in your passion. You can always diversify into other products later once you have seen results in your initial product.
eBay has millions upon millions of product choices so any product you can think of it's extremely likely that eBay will have it. If you cannot think of any products, a quick eBay search can give you tons of ideas for products.
We also have a list of the best selling products on eBay that have proven to be easy to sell and should give you a tremendous head start if you are unsure what to sell and want to save yourself hours of guesswork in selecting products.
Stage 2: Creating Your Accounts
You should create at least two eBay accounts: a buying and selling one. You may also need to create two corresponding email accounts accordingly. Give those accounts whatever name you like. For the purposes of this guide, I'm going to call mine "buyer-1" and "seller-1".
You can have the same PayPal account for both eBay/email accounts.
Stage 3: Picking Your Products And Vendors
When picking products/vendors and searching them through the listings you have to be aware of several things in order to choose the best ones to sell:
- Products must have a high "watch", "sold" and "available" count, e.g. "49 watching", "112 sold" and "more than 57 available";
- Vendors must have favorable ratings. They must have above 90% positive feedback and ideally have "Top Rated Seller" awards. Take the feedback number into account; 94% positive feedback over 9,648 feedbacks is clearly better then 100% feedback over 89 feedbacks;
- Vendors should provide free shipping in the country you wish to sell your products;
- Make sure vendors allow at least 14 days money back guarantee, even better if the eBay money back guarantee is displayed (these should be available across the board anyway but make sure whether they are displayed as this better protects you);
- The Price 1. Choose either low priced products that have sold extremely well or products that have sold a few but are highly-priced. It clearly makes no sense to select low priced products that barely sell!
- Select the product with the lowest price in relation to the factors above in order to increase your profit margin but don't select solely based on its low price.
The idea is to choose products that are already proven to be great sellers so that they are easy for you to sell as well and from vendors who have plenty of those products in stock. And if the vendor is very reputable then it means they will provide a great service but also minimize risk on your behalf.
To get a better idea of how reputable and and the vendor operates, read some of their feedbacks/reviews bearing in mind the factors listed above. Be aware that even the best top rated sellers will get some negative reviews if they have made high enough amount of sales, this is inevitable and is no indication that they are a bad merchant. Even top companies like Apple and Microsoft don't get 100% feedback. Quite frankly, I'd be more suspicious if an eBay vendor has 100% positive feedback over feedbacks in the 1,000's!
For each product, I would create a list of eBay vendors that sell that product to contact later.
Stage 4: Listing Products
Once you have picked your products, it's time to list them onto your seller account. I would start off by copy/pasting all the exact details from the vendor's product page into your own. Then I would strongly recommend you tweak a few basic description details to make yours slightly unique. Sometimes I'm not satisfied with how the vendor laid out their own description so I would Google the product to find reviews/descriptions from other sources, including from the manufacturer themselves and add their descriptions to my page with some minor tweaks.
Bare in that when starting out you can only list 5 products in total, however once you have made sales, eBay will increase your limit - so choose the products you list wisely!
When selecting a price to sell the product, a good rule of thumb would be between 10-25% mark up. So if the vendor sells the product at $40 you can list it at between $44-$50. You can of course adjust the % accordingly to your products once you have gained enough experience in the business.
Now I've anticipated your next question - Why would customers buy from me if they can buy from other vendors at a cheaper price?
If you haven't already realized it by now - eBay is huge! In fact millions of visitors visit and the site and millions of products are being sold every hour!
What we are doing is picking products that are proven sellers which means that people are actively looking for them AND actually buying them! So even if you are not the only person listing the product, with millions of visitors searching daily and coming across those listings, there is a good chance some will click on your page. And if a particular product priced at $40 has made over 1,000 and you list that product yourself at $44, even if you only get 5% of those sales, you still made $2,200 in sales! Better still, even if you only get 1% of those sales, you've still made $440!
And that's just one product! Imagine how may sales you can make if you listed multiple proven winner sellers when eBay continues to increase your sales limit each month!
I've had experiments where I've listed the most commonplace products that are sold by 100's of vendors and I still generated sales!
In all honesty, it doesn't concern me if I am selling a product that more established eBay vendors are selling because I know that I will provide the best customer service and all I need is to make the first sale. The first sale is always the hardest (even though it's not that hard anyway!), after that things get much easier if you know how to follow up on it - I'll show you how in Stage 6: Building Relationships To Drive More Sales.
Stage 5: Taking Orders And Delivery
When you receive an order from you seller, purchase that item from one of your vendors on your buying account with a request that they send that item to the purchaser's address and without an invoice. If you have to, request that they email you the invoice or send a copy to your own address.
Stage 6: Building Relationships To Drive More Sales
- Once you have ordered the item, send the purchaser a message from your seller account thanking them for their purchase;
- Give it a few days or when you receive feedback/message from your customer, then message the vendor from your buying account to thank them for their good service.
You want to be establishing relationships with both your customers and suppliers. Familiarity and great customer service puts you ahead of the pack in the customers' eyes. If you can provide great customer service and follow ups, you will gain repeat customers and some of those customers might refer their friends and family to your products rather other vendors' because you have created that trust and bond with them. Customers will value trust over many things including price so don't be surprised if customers buy your products even though they are 20% more expensive.
Samsung, Sony and HTC have phones with functions/capabilities that are similar if not better than Apple's iPhone but iPhone is the best selling smartphone in the world even though it's perhaps the most expensive - why? Apple knows how to speak to and nurture their customers. Customers trust Apple so they trust the products they sell.
Same for vendors. Vendors require positive feedback in order to grow. A customer that makes a purchase AND leaves good feedback is 10x more valuable than a customer that simply makes a purchase. If you show value to your vendors and nurture that relationship over time, they may be able to provide you with privileges that other people might not have including:
- Lowering the cost of your purchases so that you can further increase your profit margins;
- Provide you with products that are not available to anyone else;
- Provide regular constant positive feedback to help you increase your reputation in everyone's eyes including eBay that will increase your rankings and sales further
Building relationships with your customers and vendors will take time but I would personally put it on top of your list as one of the most important things you do for long term success in your business.
Fortunately we have streamlined this process with a few golden rules and "done for you" templates that will save you hours of guesswork and creating individual messages.
Stage 7: Things To Remember
This strategy is completely safe with eBay however do not simply copy/paste the same content from other vendors' pages. Remember to tweak the content and perhaps include additional content as uniqueness makes your pages stand out. Tweaking each page shouldn't need to take long.
There are no setup costs in this strategy however bare in mind that beyond paying for the product when you order from the vendor, you will get charged a small fee from PayPal and eBay for their services. The fees are already small and insignificant to begin but once you grow your business and are able to sell more products at higher prices, those fees will mean even less and do very little to your margins!
Final Word
You have now gone through the initial steps in launching a successful eBay!
As a beginner, this will take you some time initially in getting used to how eBay works and how to implement this strategy. But once you have made your first selections, listings and first sale, you can make the next one quicker and quicker until you can do it with your eyes closed!
Your two objectives in your eBay business should be to first establish a winning formula for generating sales and streamlining that formula for increasing sales.
I have already shown you how to launch and establish a formula for generating sales. Now I want to show you:
- How to increase your business and product portfolio even further by providing you a list of the best and most profitable selling products on eBay; and
- How to streamline the relationship-building process with your customers in order to gain their loyal following faster, make them keep coming back and buying your products over and over again, and have them refer their family and friends to you!
By implementing these strategies, I have increased my sales by 500% and more over time!
The best part is - I have done most of the hard work for you so you can save yourself a lot of the guesswork!
Now That You Have Established Your eBay Empire, Are You Ready To Build MULTIPLE Income Streams?
The most successful entrepreneurs establish multiple income streams in order to build wealth and financial freedom.
I'd like to share with you one of MY GOLDEN RULES as well as other smart passive income generating strategies created by our friends to help ensure that you achieve your financial freedom!