My New Year’s Business Resolutions

The Online Seller's News, January 2011, Volume 11, No. 1

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

In This Issue:

Musings from eBay and beyond

1. My New Year’s Business Resolutions
2. Wholesale Sourcing at The ASD/AMD Wholesale Trade Show
3. Will $5.00 Gas be Good for eBay/Amazon Sellers?
4. Niche of The Month – Jewelry Making Supplies
5. Vendor Review – Stamps.com
6. eBay Wholesale Sources for January 2011

"Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve.  Middle age is when you're forced to." ~ Bill Vaughn

Musings for January 2011

First of all let me wish all of my readers a happy, prosperous and safe New Year. And let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who purchased my books and who come back month after month to read this newsletter.

January is the month when eBay announces the new policies that will take effect in March/April. So check the eBay announcements tab every few days to see what eBay has in store for sellers this year.

Linda Griffin of Grass Roots Marketing on Blog Talk Radio interviewed me about niche marketing. Here is the link to listen in:

http://www.skipmcgrath.com/downloads/Grass-Roots-Marketing.shtml

I learned as much from her in the interview as she did from me.

Our personal coaching program trained over 30 eBay sellers last year –most of whom are now running successful eBay businesses. This year we are expanding our program to add one more coach who is also an eBay PowerSeller and we are including Amazon training.

If you are interested in personal coaching and would like a free evaluation, Call 1-800-578-3449, or fill out this contact form to see if you qualify. We only take a small number of students at any one time. All of our eBay coaches are active eBay and Amazon sellers and our Internet coaches all currently run successful online businesses.

Speaking of Amazon, my good friend, Steve Lindhorst, author of Selling on The River has a great eBook called Amazon – The Quick and Dirty Guide.

This great little book makes a good companion to my book, How To Make Money Selling Used Books on eBay, Amazon and the Internet. In his e-book, Steve lays out his recipe that shows step by step how he went from $0 to $2000 per month selling used books part-time on Amazon. Some of the things he includes are:

• Where and how to find LOTS of profitable books, CDs, and DVDs consistently

• How to find thrift stores wherever you go

• How to choose what to buy and what to leave on the shelf

• How to use Amazon's Sales Rank to determine the likelihood of a sale

• How to handle products with no barcodes or ISBNs

• How to improve your chances of a sale

• Why you should charge a little more than your competition - and still beat them to the sale

• How to clean and repair books, CDs, and DVDs to pull higher prices

There’s a lot more. Steve calls it "quick and dirty" because he didn't spend a bunch of time on a website or fancy graphics. It's pretty much just "meaty" stuff that can help you make money in a short time. This is all new stuff. There is little if any overlap between Steve’s first Amazon book, Selling on The River or my book, How To Make Money Selling Used Books on eBay, Amazon and the Internet.

Here is the link to read about Amazon – The Quick and Dirty Guide.

I accidently got into a little auction arbitrage earlier this week. I was reading a book by Stephen Hunter where he mentioned an older book –an action spy novel, called Death of A Thin Skinned Animal by Patrick Alexander. So I went to Amazon to see if I could find a copy and found this:

Death of A Thin Skinned Animal by Patrick Alexander

Darn - $44.55. I wanted to read a copy but I wasn’t going to pay that. So just for the heck of it I went over to eBay and checked there hoping to find a beat up reading copy for $5 or $10. To my surprise I actually found one on eBay:

Wow - $1.49. When I clicked on the listing I discovered the book was a hardcover in very good condition (better than the one on Amazon) so I bought it instantly. Then I decided to look at this seller’s other books. I had an Amazon window opened up next to the eBay window and as I went through his books I checked the price on Amazon. I ended up buying 4 books totaling $25.60. The total value on Amazon of all four books was $146 to $164 depending on which seller I compared them to.

So I will read the novel by Patrick Alexander before I sell it and will just sell the others, as they don’t have any interest to me.

That is one way to do Auction Arbitrage, but that is a slow method. It took me about a ½ hour to compare and select books. A few months ago I told you about a program from Pete Bruckshaw called The Auction Arbitrage Secret. This is a very good –and inexpensive, program that will show you all the tips, tricks and methods to make money using Auction Arbitrage. I asked Pete if he would do a discount for my readers but he had already reduced the price to everyone so he wouldn’t do that, but he did agree to add two new bonus items that are pretty cool.

OK – you won’t get rich doing auction arbitrage, but you can make some pretty good money fairly quickly and without a ton of effort. This is a great way to make some quick cash to pay off those Christmas bills. So if that interests you, take a look at The Auction Arbitrage Secret. This is one of those programs that get my 5-Star recommendation for value and performance. And if it doesn’t work out for you, Pete is a good guy and stands behind his 60-day money back guarantee.

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1. My New Year’s Business Resolutions

Well it’s that time of year again. The holidays are over and with it the holiday selling season is still going but slowing down and sales will be back to normal by the middle of this month.

Here are the steps I take every year at this time to renew and rejuvenate my business:

1. Clean out excess or non-performing inventory. Inventory sitting in closets is like money under a mattress. It doesn’t earn any dividends and it loses purchasing power every day. For reasons I just don’t understand people get attached to their inventory. To me a vegetable peeler or a cowboy belt buckle –or any piece of inventory is an inanimate object. Unless something is a collectible that I not only sell but also collect myself, I have no attachment to it. If it’s not selling, it’s just sitting there wasting storage space and tying up capital. (I just put some great, but slow moving products up for sale in my eBay store at 25% off. You can click here to score some nice bargains).

   So go through your stuff. Put it up on eBay, Craigslist or Amazon at a steep discount (even if you lose money on it) and get rid of it. Then take the money you get from blowing it out and put it into something that is selling at a profit.

2. Review, revise and update eBay and Amazon listings, web pages and any online selling material. Just before Christmas I went through my eBay listings and changed them to 3-day listings so I would get more sales and it worked. So now I am going back and changing them and removing the words “Great Christmas Gift.” Some of my product listings are two years old and as I am reviewing them I am finding other errors and things that are out of date.

   I am doing the same things with my websites. I was looking at an article I wrote about digital photo tips on my EZ Cube Website and saw references to companies that are no longer in business.

   So my plan is to set aside one-hour per day for the rest of this month just going through listings and websites and bringing everything up to date.

3. Expand into multi-channel selling. If eBay sellers learned anything over the past three years of eBay’s incredibly inept repositioning of their business model, it’s that you don’t want to have all your eggs in one basket. eBay is finally starting to get things sorted out –but this has been mostly to the detriment of small sellers like you and me. Yes, eBay is still a good venue to sell on, and I hope to still be selling there for years to come –but there are other places to sell that are just as profitable.

   I started selling on Amazon about three years ago and continue to expand my business there. The advent and incredible success of Amazon’s FBA has been huge for sellers. In addition to eBay and Amazon we now have three websites and I also sell on Facebook via Yardsellr. (I have also tried a few other sites like eCrater and others but those have been mostly a waste of time).

   I still believe eBay is the best place for new online sellers to start. It does have the traffic and the lowest startup risks and costs, but once you master eBay you want to start looking for other venues like Amazon, Etsy and Yardsellr where small sellers are actually welcome and appreciated.

4. Look for new ways to make money online. The online business world is continually changing. If you become complacent it will simply pass you by. A good example is Facebook. I was very late to Facebook –but now I am seeing good revenue from it. Had I paid more attention earlier I could have been doing that all along.

   There is a risk of becoming unfocused, so don’t be abandoning any business that is working, but stay on the lookout for new products to sell, look at things like social networking, affiliate marketing, blogging and even offline businesses that might make sense.

So those are the things I spend my time on in January and February and they always seem to pay dividends. If you are looking at one of my auctions or web pages and see some out of date material, check back in a few days. At an hour a day it takes me a while to get around to everything.

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2. Wholesale Sourcing at The ASD/AMD Wholesale Trade Show

I will be attending, and speaking at, the annual ASD/AMD Wholesale Trade show in Las Vegas from Feb 28^th – March 2^nd. I am speaking on March 1^st at 10:00 AM on the topic of taking your retail business online to eBay, Amazon and other selling venues.

The ASD/AMD is one of the largest wholesale trade shows in the world with over 2000 exhibitors. If you plan to attend, be sure and register online as the lines to register on site are really long.

This will be my third years of attending the ASD/AMD Wholesale Trade Show in Las Vegas. The ASD/AMD is one of the largest wholesale trade shows in the world. It is held from February 27^th to March 2^nd. The show features over 2500 wholesale exhibitors who want to meet you and consists of several venues:

• Value and Variety - Encompassing the Upper & Lower Levels of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Value & Variety is the place to go for apparel, convenience items, household and outdoor goods, consumer electronics, military & personal security merchandise and SO much more.

• Gift & Toy - The Lower Level of the Sands Expo Center houses ASD Gift & Toy and has everything a gift and/or toy retailer needs.

• Jewelry & Watches - Adjacent to Style & Beauty on the Sands Expo Center Upper Level, ASD Jewelry caters to the buyer who is looking for quality in fashion and/or fine jewelry to sell at a pricepoint where you can make a profit.

• Style & Beauty - Located in the Upper Level of the Sands Expo Center, Style & Beauty features the latest in affordable fashion accessories, health and beauty aids, Spa Merchandise and travel accessories.

You will want to register online before attending so you don’t have to stand in long lines.

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3. Will $5.00 Gas be Good for eBay/Amazon Sellers?

Don’t think gas will get to $5.00 again? Well consider this: A few years ago when oil traded at $140 bb and gas got pretty close to $5, the driver was massive speculation by oil traders at places like Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers (the same folks who brought us the financial crisis a few months later). Back then oil production was high and inventories were solid. But today is different.

U.S. Oil inventories are far lower today than they were back in 2008 when oil hit $140 a barrel. And Mexico, who is our second largest supplier of oil, has seen its production and exports fall almost 46% over the past year. Some experts predict that Mexico will actually be an oil importer by 2015.

The U.S. still uses more oil than any other country, but China is growing its oil consumption at the rate of 25% a year. And other countries like Brazil, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines are growing fast and consuming more oil as well. In 2010, 30% more cars were sold in China than were sold in the US. At this rate China will pass the U.S. in oil consumption in about three years.

Last week oil broke through its technical resistance line of $90 a barrel. Both fundamental and technical traders are predicting $105 oil by the first quarter and $150 by the end of this year. Longer-term forecasts are for $200 oil within 2 to 3 years based on increased demand and lack of supply.

So what does this mean to online sellers?

The last time gas got near $5.00 (It actually hit $5 a gallon in some places) traditional brick and mortar retail sales crashed as consumers found their wallets pinched and the cost to drive to the mall was just too much. eBay was still foundering around trying to figure out how they could be more like Amazon so they didn’t get much benefit from the increase in online sales that occurred at the time, but Amazon did.

There is no question that a gasoline price spike will hurt overall retail sales, but online sales will be hurt less and could even benefit. So I actually think this could be a bad year for our wallets –especially those of you who commute. But it should be a good year for online sales –including eBay as they are finally starting to get some traction in the marketplace.

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4. Niche of The Month – Jewelry Making Supplies

This is a very interesting niche because the profit margins are quite high if you source the product right. I was spending some time on AliExpress – that is Alibaba’s site where you can buy products from China and Asia in small quantities and get PayPal buyer protection.

I can’t remember how I ended up in jewelry and bead making tools, I was looking for hardware items and just came across it.

But when I saw some sets of jewelry making pliers at really cheap prices it got me to thinking so I looked over on eBay and Amazon. I found pliers I could buy for $6 a set going for over $30 a set on eBay. Now that is a nice margin.

Take a look at this:

You can buy these pliers for $4.02 in quantities of 20 (or $3.43 in qty 60) with free shipping from Hong Kong. These types of pliers go for between $10 and $70 on eBay. The higher priced ones are typically very high quality German brands but there is plenty of room to sell this plier in the $12 to $15 range – or you can buy several different pliers and create sets that can sell for over $100.

There are several vendors on Ali Express selling these tools.

In all honesty I know nothing about making jewelry --or the tools involved. There are probably a few of my readers who do know this niche, and are laughing out loud as they read this. For all I know I could be way off base and full of BS because I haven’t really researched this. But if I wanted to get into this niche I would spend several hours researching including going out and talking to folks who make jewelry. That is how you find a niche. And, that is my reason for writing this. I just want to show you that you can find niches in lots of places and sometimes you find them by accident. You could spend a few hours on a site like Ali Express and find tons of niches. That is really the point of this article.

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5. Vendor Review – Stamps.com

Postal Rates went up again this month. Don’t forget to adjust your shipping costs to reflect the new carrier rates for USPS and UPS, effective January 4, 2010.

Stamps.com has agreed to extend their offer for my readers into the New Year. They won’t commit to how long this will last as it depends on how many people sign up, but if you use this link you can get $100 worth of FREE STUFF including a free digital postage scale and $40 worth or postage.

Here are some of the features and benefits of Stamps.com:

USPS Shipping Services

• All mail classes including Priority, Express, First-Class™ and Media Mail

• International shipping (including First-Class) with customs forms included

• Package insurance up to $2,500

• Free USPS supplies including Flat Rate Boxes

Core Shipping Features

• Hidden Postage® (This is one of my favorites)

• Email notifications

• Automatic address correction

• Return shipping labels for easy customer returns

Shipping Reports and Package Tracking

• Look up shipments 24/7 from any computer

• Track shipping expenses

• USPS acceptance SCAN forms

• Easy-to-use reporting dashboard

Valuable USPS Shipping Rate Discounts

• Up to 21% off USPS retail rates for Express Mail® and Priority Mail®

• Up to 8% off international rates for Express Mail and Priority Mail

• Up to 40% discount on package insurance*

• Free Delivery Confirmation™ with Priority Mail

E-commerce Integration

• Retrieve order data directly from eBay®, Amazon.com® and more

• Shopping Cart Support including Magento® and Zen Cart™

• Multi-Carrier Shipping Software including TrueShip and Auctane

• Print postage directly from QuickBooks®

Karen does all our shipping and she loves Stamps.com. It saves time and money and I love it since we can do our postage online and take the packages to the post office back door, drop them off and drive away. No more standing in line.

If we get out boxes done by Noon, our mail person will pick them up at our front door and we don’t even have to go to the post office.

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6. eBay Wholesale Sources for January 2011

CDM Wholesale is a large wholesaler of home décor items and home and garden items.

Victoria Heart sells the line of Bella Taylor handbags –natural handbags for a casual look. They also sell a great line of bedding with the country look.

A Primitive Glow sells a really unique line of hand poured candles –really different and made in America.

Colonial Tin Works sells a very nice line of glass and tin candleholders – really neat looking products that I haven’t seen anyone else selling online.

Topper Liquidators has some new merchandise including lines of name brand cosmetics and some great sterling silver jewelry. Click here to see the jewelry and use the code STERLING15 to get an additional 15% discount.

The Pocket Smart String is one of the coolest products I have seen this year. This measuring calculator will amaze you with its innovative easy to use and accurate digital measuring tape string.

Tool Logic is a really excellent supplier of high-end pocket tools and knives. They make and sell compact, high quality, multi-function tool kits, including wholesale survival knives with unique and unusual gifts for men –Think Father’s Day coming up soon.

D & W Distributors, Inc. was founded in 1988, and has become the nation's largest distributor for Milwaukee and DeWALT power tools. They stock Black & Decker, Makita, Skil/Bosch, Delta, and Porter Cable.

Warrier USA sells a complete line of cell phone accessories, cases, chargers and other cell phone and PDA accessories.

VIA Trading is a wholesale auction site where you bid on pallet loads of goods. They have some great new stuff now and they always get a ton of great stuff in right after Christmas, so bookmark them and check every week.

That’s if for now. See you in two weeks

Skip McGrath
The Online Seller's News

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

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