How & Where To Find Hot Selling eBay Products

The Online Seller's News, March 25 2010, Volume 10, No. 5

Tips, Tools, News and Resources for eBay, Amazon and independent Online Sellers
by: Skip McGrath

In This Issue:

Musings from eBay and beyond

1. How & Where To Find Hot Selling eBay Products
2. New eBay Fees and Policies Go Into Effect This Week
3. What is eBay Doing With All Its Cash?
4. New Wholesale Sources for March 25th, 2010

"Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure." ~ Earl Nightingale

Musings from eBay and beyond

In the last issue I told you about my visit to the ASD/AMD wholesale trade show in Las Vegas.  I listed over 40 new sources that I found in the show in my last issue and we have a few more in this issue.  Several readers wrote asking me what I found to sell.

One of the products I found at the ASD/AMD Trade show was a small self-defense tactical flashlight. I made a deal to purchase 100 of them at a price of $7.00 each.  I am selling them on eBay with a starting bid of $19.00 and a Buy-it-now price of $39.00. I have already sold several at the Buy-it-now price and a few more at auction getting prices between $19 and $23.55. Here is a screenshot of the listing:

That is why I like trade shows. You can find great products that you can make a better-than-normal markup. Competitive lights like this sell for between $50 and $150 on eBay, so I have no trouble getting this price.

This week eBay expanded the ability to list multiple variations of a product including color and size in one listing to even more categories.

eBay added many subcategories within six more categories: Baby, Crafts, Health & Beauty, Jewelry & Watches, Pet Supplies, and Sporting Goods. They also included more subcategories of Home & Garden.

Multi-variation listings can save you time and money because you don't have to have different listings for different sizes and colors and styles:

• Save on listing and photo fees
• List more in less time
• Manage inventory attributes, such as sizes and colors, right from your listings
• Price each variation separately—you can list different prices for similar items using one listing

eBay has a handy category look-up tool to see where you can use multi-variation listings to save on time and fees.

In these tough times I get a lot of email from sellers who are broke and in debt and looking for ways to finance their eBay business. One way is Prosper, but that is getting harder and if you are already in debt, the last thing you want is more high-interest debt.  There are debt settlement companies. You hear them advertised on the radio all the time. But frankly several of them are scams and with most of them, although they reduce your debt they charge high up-front fees, give no guarantees and can ruin your credit rating for up to 7 years.

I have been researching this for a while and finally found one service that works and that I trust. An attorney who is a former deputy attorney general of the State of California runs it. Their system uses Debt Resolution rather than negotiated Debt Settlement. It took me a while to understand the difference –but difference is huge. Debt Reduction protects your credit rating and immediately lowers your unsecured debt by 60%.

I took the trouble to personally speak with several people who have used the service. All of them said it was pretty painless and they were treated very nicely. All of them said the system was reliable. Only one of them said he had a debt that they couldn't reduce, but the firm reduced all of his other debt by 60% so he was still happy and came out well ahead.

I hope you are not in this situation, but if you are, you can watch a short free video that demonstrates how the process works and download a free eBook that gives all the details. They also offer a free consultation before you agree to anything. Their system has been featured on several TV Shows and written about in major publications. Here is the link to learn more.

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1. How & Where To Find Hot Selling eBay Products

Everyone wants to find a hot-selling product, but the problem is that most hot-selling products are so competitive that you can't make any money. Last week I was introduced to John B. He is a 5-year eBay PowerSeller who knows how and where to find incredible deals on products that he can mark up 100%, 200% and more.

I am always a little skeptical when I hear things like that so I checked John out ahead of time and he is the real deal. I not only looked at his offer, I went to eBay and looked at his listings and his sales…

…and his system works.

He not only has some little-known wholesale sources, he shows you how to find hot selling products at places like Wal-Mart and even on Amazon. Here is an example:

Right now action figures from the movie Avatar are quite hot and people will pay well over retail to get them. Here is an Avatar figure selling on Amazon for $11.99 with 2-day free shipping if you use Amazon Prime.

Now why would you like to buy this on Amazon? Well here is a listing for the same product that sold on eBay just a few days ago:

This is not unusual. John finds dozens of products like this every month. Some of the items he found could be bought for between $10 - $15 and sold for as high as $81 on eBay with many selling in the $40's. And its not just toys: John finds other types of products as well.

John recently decided to share his knowledge with a new video series. He calls his service Deals4Resale. It is a video series where he shows you how and where he buys his products and how much he sells them for. And it's more than just a few videos to watch. He also publishes a newsletter and a hotlist with the latest deals. Literally you will get specific instructions from John that shows where you can buy products instantly to turn around and sell on eBay and Amazon at huge profits.

If you are like me, between the crummy economy, greater competition and eBay fees, your margins are getting smaller. I used to make 40% to 50% profit margins on eBay and Amazon. Today I am lucky to clear 20% to 25%.

The answer is to find product sources where you can buy hot products that are in high demand that sell for greater markups. And John is a master at that. I checked his current hot deals out and they are true and they work.

OK – You won't make enough money doing this to quit your job –but when I looked at this I could see the potential to make an extra $500 to $1000 per month by following John's methods. And there is nothing high-tech to learn. This stuff is really simple.

Visit Deals4Resale today and read what John has to say. Like everyone I recommend, he offers a no-questions-asked money back guarantee if you are not satisfied.

UPDATE:  February 1, 2012 - Deals for Resale is now a free membership site.

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2. New eBay Fees and Policies Go Into Effect This Week

The new fees and policies eBay announced in January go into effect on March 31^st. I have been wondering why eBay picked the 31^st. Most companies put new policies into effect on the first day of a month. The only thing I can think of is eBay didn't want to start things off on April Fool's Day.

This is one of the most significant changes eBay has announced in the past few years. Basically eBay is dividing sellers into two categories:

• Standard sellers
• eBay Store Subscribers

All sellers who decide not to open an eBay store will be standard sellers and they will have their own fee schedule. Sellers who now have or opt to open an eBay store will have a separate fee schedule.

What it all boils down to is the number of listings you launch each month. If you are a small seller who lists fewer than 50 or so listings per month, then you will be better off (pay less total fees and costs) by not opening an eBay store. Higher volume sellers will save money by paying the monthly subscription fees. The number of 50 listings is just an approximation. It also depends on the type and value of the items you sell. eBay has created a simple fee illustrator calculator where you enter your information and it tells you if, and which level of store would be good for you based on your particular circumstances. Here is a link to the fee illustrator. eBay has also created a Sellers Checklist that you should go through very carefully to make sure you are taking advantage of all of the changes and not violating any policies.

The other big change relates to Seller Standards. Make sure you are in compliance with the Selling Practices policy and the new Seller Standards to ensure uninterrupted selling. These requirements are already in effect for eBay Top-rated sellers and will be required for all sellers in April 2010.

The last item relates to the use of the PowerSeller icons and mention of PowerSeller status or Top-rated seller status. All references to these must be removed from your listing descriptions, listing templates, About Me pages, and Store pages, but you have until September 1^st to accomplish that. However, these rules are already in effect for Top-rated sellers.

Once all of this goes into effect fees will, of course, be higher. That's no surprise. There is nothing to like about that, but fees always go up and they are still slightly cheaper than Amazon. If you are a very small seller, you could move your business to ePier or Bonanzle or one of the other smaller selling sites, but if you really want to make a serious income, eBay and Amazon are still the place to be, as none of those other sites have the traffic to support a business.

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3. What is eBay Doing With All Its Cash?

Despite struggling and losing market share to Amazon, eBay is still a very profitable company and is sitting on a mountain of cash. The last time I looked at their financials it was over $1 Billion. Their recent sale of Skype will raise even more cash. So what do you do with an extra billion dollars lying around?

Well one thing eBay is not doing is advertising. I really don't understand that. eBay has been struggling and their once dominant proud brand has been tarnished by lackluster performance and continuing seller complaints. It would make sense from both a branding standpoint and a business standpoint to spend a few million out of that billion on a really nice TV campaign like eBay used to do –not like the pathetic campaign they ran a few months ago.

The other thing they could do is pay a dividend. Not many high-growth companies pay dividends, but I am not sure eBay still qualifies as a high-growth company. They are pretty mature and except for PayPal, growth has been pretty stogy the last few years as reflected in their stock price. Starbucks is in a similar situation to eBay, lots of cash, slowing growth and they recently announced they would pay their first dividend, so this could put some pressure on eBay to do the same.

And of course, eBay could use the money for acquisitions which given the mindset of someone like CEO john Donohoe who comes from the venture workout world is what will probably happen. So many of eBay's past acquisitions didn't work out that well, but they do seem to be getting a little better at it. Kijiji was a much smarter acquisition than Skype, which never fit in –but Kijiji, which is a success overseas, is still struggling here in the US over the dominant Craigslist which eBay partly owns, but is locked in a lawsuit with the founders.

eBay seems to see their future expansion overseas more than in the US.  That is not so good for us sellers, but is probably a smart move for eBay as countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Korea and the Philippines will be seeing higher growth rates than the US for the foreseeable future.

At least the eBay board of directors recognized Donohoe's performance as struggling. They cut his pay last year by over 50% to only $10.1 million. Maybe they could use the 10 million they saved on his compensation and spend it on TV Advertising?  Works for me!

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4. New Wholesale Sources for March 25th, 2010

I may have overloaded you with wholesale sources in the early March edition of this newsletter, so don't worry, there won't be as many this time. But here are a few more from my trip to the ASD/AMD wholesale trade show in Las Vegas.

Deer Park Distributors sells a wide range of retro electronic equipment such as jukeboxes, record players with built-in CD recorders, retro radios and more.  They are looking for experienced eBay sellers for their drop ship program.

Mojo Future Tech will help you get your mojo working with their line of high-performance holographic wristbands.  I was pretty skeptical, then they did a balance test which I failed. Then I put on a wristband and we repeated the  test, which I passed this time.  Nevertheless it's a bit "new agey" for an old dog like me, but they claim the Mojo wrist bands will let you have more energy, lose weight, relieve pain, and get a good nights sleep?

There were a lot of perfume companies at the show, but most of them were selling cheap drugstore brand or knockoff perfumes. But then I found R.A. Fragrances & Perfumes, Inc.  They had a large booth and some of the most popular brand names available. Perfumes are a great item to sell online because the markup is so high you have no trouble making margins. The website is retail, so you have to email them at rafragrances@gmail.com and ask for wholesale information.

There was one other perfume company that looked good and carried most of the top brands.  The company is called Perfume Network, Inc. NO website but email them at perfumenet@aol.com and ask for a wholesale price list.

For men's fragrances, try Victory International. They also carry women's perfumes and colognes, but they had the best stock of brand name men's fragrances I saw at the show

There were tons of handbag suppliers at the show, but one of the best –with really beautiful unique bags was Melrose Creations, Inc.  Now I don't know much about handbags, but I watched the reactions and overheard the comments of several women and they were raving over the designs and the quality. Use the contact info on the website and they will send you a full color catalog with wholesale pricing.

The Raymond Trading Company manufacturers a full line of metal cases and briefcases like those used by photographers, pilots, cases for guns, samples and so on.  I used to have an expensive case like these for my photo gear and I was really impressed with the quality of these.

Beautique wholesales nail care products including colored and metallic nail tips.

INDIAN VILLAGE, INC. had a large line of real Native American  (made in USA) jewelry and Indian decorative items like Kachina dolls, sand paintings and pottery.

That's it for this month.  Spring is here – see you in April

Skip McGrath
The eBay Seller's News

P.S. If you missed the last issue, click here to read it.

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