OnlineSellingCoach Launches Today

The Online Seller's News, April 6, 2011, Volume 11, No. 7

Tips, Tools, News and Resources for eBay, Amazon and independent Online Sellers ~ Published Twice Monthly since 1999
by: Skip McGrath

In This Issue:

Musings from eBay and beyond

1. OnlineSellingCoach Launches Today
2. How to Create Amazon Products out Of Thin Air
3. What Is a QR Code and How Can It Help Me Make Money?
4. Is Webstore.com A New Destination for eBay Sellers?
5. New Tools to Integrate Social Networking with Your eBay Sales
6. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to success." ~ Dale Carnegie

Musings from eBay and beyond

Those of you who purchased my book on creating and selling information products may be interested in the section on creating and selling public domain information. I came across a website with thousands of titles in the public domain that you can copy and download. It's not just books, the website includes photos, videos and recordings too. The site is called The Internet Archive.

I have another free eBook for my readers this week. Pete Bruckshaw has written a great little introduction to eBay Arbitrage called Arbitrage Confidential. He is giving away this great little book for free to introduce you to his master service product Auction Arbitrage Secrets. Like I did with Steve Poke's book last month, I negotiated a $10 discount on his program. Click here to get Arbitrage Confidential for free.

eSnipe is an excellent eBay sniping service. They help you win more eBay auctions at lower prices by placing a last second bid just above the previous bid and not leaving time for the other bidder to come back. This link gives my readers an extended free trial: http://esnipe.com/skipmcgrath. This is a good tool for sellers engaging in eBay arbitrage as many of the best buys happen during the night while you are asleep.

Stamps.com is renewing their offer to my readers for another month. If you use this link - www.stamps.com/skipmcgrath, you get a $50 digital postal scale, $45 in free postage and $5 worth of supplies - total $100 worth of goodies just for trying them out. I like Stamps.com as it integrates seamlessly with both eBay and Amazon. Here is some of what they offer:

• Get postage discounts on Priority Mail & Express Mail.
• Import orders from eBay®, Amazon.com® and more.
• Save up to 10% on package insurance.
• Hide the postage amount on your shipping labels.
• Ship worldwide with USPS First Class International

I have had a long-term relationship with Shipsurance, the place where eBay sellers can buy deeply discounted shipping insurance. But Shipsurance only covers US sellers. There is a new company called InsuredBay that offers a similar service to overseas eBay sellers in other countries. So if you are one of my readers and live in the UK, Australia or other countries, check out InsuredBay.

Attention eBay UK sellers - I have recently uploaded the 2011 version of the Complete eBay Marketing System for the UK. If you live elsewhere in Europe, this book will also work better for you than our US version, as eBay UK is closer to the operating requirements of other European eBay sites than the US.

If you live in Europe and you are interested in selling on Amazon, The Proven Amazon Course also works in most European countries. And the US version of the Proven Amazon Course is here.

Lets get started with this month's articles:

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1. OnlineSellingCoach Launches Today

For the past several years I have wanted to launch my own membership site but could never seem to get it done. So I decided to partner up with some other folks I work with and respect and we finally got the job done.

I joined forces with Suzanne Wells, one of our coaching program coaches and the author of The Stay-at-Home Mom's Guide to Successful eBay Selling. My other partner is Nathan Bailey who runs our coaching program. Nathan brings 12 years in Business consulting plus 15+ years web site development, deployment & marketing experience to our team.

In addition to our full time staff I have reached out to dozens of other experts who will contribute material, advice, content and time to our members.

Take a look at some of our membership benefits:

• Weekly and Monthly training on new and emerging niche markets; including products you can start selling immediately.
• Access to a member's only blog and forum where you can post questions that will be answered by us, and our other experts, and where members can exchange ideas and techniques.
• Access to our archives for our member's only training, webinars, audio, video, and other premium content.
• Dozens of high-quality Free eBooks and courses on eBay, Amazon, Product Sourcing, Blogging, Social Media, and Internet Marketing.
• Forty percent (40%) discount on any or all of my training manuals
• A 1-Year Prepaid Membership includes a Free 30 minute, One-on-One over the phone coaching consultation.
• Free access to my wholesale resources site where I list hundreds of niche wholesale sources and access to several wholesale-only search engines.
• Exclusive Membership Access to our Live Webinar Trainings.
• Massive discounts on tools, technology, software for running researching, and automating an online business.
• Pay as you go affordable monthly membership fee.
• Constant updates delivered to you via our members only newsletter
• 100% Satisfaction; including a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. We stand 100% behind the value, quality of our training, and service.
• Learn from real eBay PowerSellers, Amazon Sellers, and Online Marketers.
  (People who actually do what they teach :))

OnlineSellingCoach.com is not limited to eBay. We are going to teach the full range of internet marketing skills including: eBay, eBay Stores, Amazon, Overstock, Etsy, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, Creating and selling information products, public domain products, setting up websites and mobile marketing.

Membership will cost an affordable $14.95 month, however, I am offering a special Charter Member Deal for $9.95 month to the first 200 members. Charter members will be locked in at that price forever, no matter what the regular price is.

To celebrate the launch of OnlineSellingCoach.com and to give a special award to our charter members, I will draw one name from the first 200 Charter Members to win a beautiful firepit. These are the firepits we sell on eBay. You can see the different models and the winner can select which design they want from our website at www.firepit-grills.com.

You can also save money with an annual pre-paid membership (and get a free 30-minute coaching consultation). The Annual Charter Member price is $97 -a savings of $22.40. And remember, you can always renew at that price.

Once the first 200 charter memberships are gone, the pre-paid rate for a regular member will be $149 -a savings of over $30.

There is no contract -you can quit at any time. (If you buy a prepaid membership and drop out before one year is up, we will refund the pro-rated amount).

So please drop by and visit us at OnlineSellingCoach.com. I hope to see you online soon if you like what you see.

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2. How to Create Amazon Products out Of Thin Air

Selling products on Amazon requires one to have a product that already exists on Amazon from some other seller or to have a product with a unique UPC (universal product code). This second method can be highly profitable because you don't have any competition for a specific product.

I was looking at some garden solar lights last week. One of my wholesale suppliers sells a great light in sets of two lights per box. There are several companies listing these on Amazon and they do pretty well. But I know that people usually buy more than two lights -someone might want ten lights, someone else twelve and so on. So all you have to do is go to one of the online firms that sell UPC codes and create a product of 8 lights or 10 lights and buy a unique UPC code for that item. When you list the item, calculate the price your competitor is charging if someone bought 4 sets of lights (or 5 or whatever) and set your price a few dollars cheaper. When someone does a search, your set of lights will come up along with your competitor's listing but you will attract the attention of the folks who need the number of lights you are selling.

Creating different products by quantity is obvious, but you can also combine related products that customers buy together. When I searched for pepper mills one of the results was the Oxo Good Grips Pepper Grinder. Look at the listing:

If you look at the bottom of the listing it shows you two other items that a frequently bought together. Amazon has already done the research to show you how to combine a product. Just create a new product Oxo Good Grips Salt & Pepper Grinders with Tellicherry pepper (You could even add a pack of sea salt to make it even more complete).

Here is a listing for a set of chef knives I sell on Amazon. In this case I went to the manufacturer and asked them to create a UPC code, which they did.

You could go one step further and create an item that included a knife block and Guy's book shown as one of the items frequently bought together.

So just use your imagination and check the Amazon suggestions for ideas of products you can create out of thin air.

There are several services that sell UPC codes. I use one called Bar Codes Talk. They sell an individual code for $9.95 and you can buy them cheaper in quantity. If you want to find other companies to compare prices, just Google the term, buy upc code.

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3. What Is a QR Code and How Can It Help Me Make Money?

Have you ever seen a package or a product that has a funny looking square box with lots of little squares inside it? That is called a QR Code.

I try to write all my own articles, but sometimes someone else does it better, sooner or faster. I was doing some research on QR codes for an article, when I received an issue of AuctionBytes where Ina Steiner had a guest article by Jason Archambault, which explains what QR codes are and how to use them to promote your business.

So, rather than re-invent the wheel (and to save me a few hours of research and writing), here is the article What Every Seller Needs to Know about QR Codes, from last week's edition of AuctionBytes.

BTW, if you sell online you really should be subscribing to AuctionBytes. It's free and they are the premier news source for online marketers. After you read the article, just look for the Subscribe link near the top left corner of the page.

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4. Is Webstore.com A New Destination for eBay Sellers?

Webstore.com likes to call themselves "The Robin Hood of online marketplaces," and there may be some truth to that.

The Webstore platform is much like eBay in the early days -except it's free! Buyers and sellers can come together and trade just about anything without membership fees, bidding fees, or selling fees. Low fees allow sellers to sell for lower prices and this attracts bargain hunters. The way Webstore works with no fees, is that they place advertising on the site and earn all of their revenue from that. There is some downside to this for sellers in that a potential buyer may be looking for something you sell and be distracted by an ad or even click away to see what it's offering.

I might add that eBay also puts ads on the site which, considering how much we sellers pay in fees, strikes me as reprehensible. eBay sellers are paying to show their products and eBay is making money taking buyers off the platform. At least Webstore is honest. You know going in that the ads are there and it's the ad revenue that keeps the platform free -so it is truly more of a win-win, whereas eBay is "we win-you lose."

To stay real, Webstore has only a tiny fraction of the traffic and sales that eBay gets, but they have managed to attract a loyal following. Webstore offers a free store that you can customize (to a small degree), auctions, about me pages, templates, and many of the features that eBay offers. They also have an eBay-like feedback system without the stupid stars and both buyer and seller can leave feedback.

I am always hesitant to recommend other auction sites because so many of them have not panned out over the years, but Webstore users seem to love the site and I am always getting email from my readers who have sold on Webstore and are happy with it. Every year AuctionBytes does their Seller's Choice Awards and this year Webstore.com came in a close second behind Artfire with an overall rating of 8.1 and they were ranked 1^st in Profitability and Ease of Use.

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5. New Tools to Integrate Social Networking with Your eBay Sales

Sellebrity announced a new utility to help sellers advertise listings for free on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The new utility is currently available entirely free at the Sellebrity website.

This new social tool optimizes itself using analytics, and it also engages buyers at a personal level before they get to eBay.

"People kept saying they did not get the Social Networking thing, so we made a tool for them," a spokesperson for Sellebrity said. Social Streamer was created to help every seller, regardless of who they are or what they sell."

Twitter user "KidsSquared," who is a full-time eBay seller, says that when she began using Social Streamer, she experienced a noticeable increase in traffic and sales. "Three months ago, social networking terrified me, but now I'm making good money from it, just by being myself, and with very little work on my part," she says.

Social Streamer works by monitoring how listings change over their lifetime due to social factors, such as bids, watch counts, links and bookmarks to the listing, and questions asked. The utility collects and analyzes this information, and in certain key situations, will use it to attract the buyer on a special landing page.

As an example, a rare item can be promoted initially as a great deal because it has no bids. Later, the listing can be promoted using the social factors mentioned above. And finally, right before the auction ends, it can be promoted as a last-chance offer.

Social Streamer also has features for advanced users, such as the ability to create search patterns to report on what people say about them and their products.

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6. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

Western clothing and accessories are really selling well for some reason, so I thought I would include a few sources for those and then give some more niche and general sources.

Red Barn Ranch is a wholesaler of western clothing and accessories for cowgirls.

Western Express is a wholesale distributor of western clothing, accessories, cowboy boots, belts, buckles and more.

The Dust Factory is a wholesale distributor of vintage western wear and accessories. These products do very well on eBay.

Ok - enough Western - let's look at some other stuff.

6th Gear is a wholesale distributor of Motorcycle Apparel and Accessories, for Street bikers, Cruise bikers and for Touring bikers.

Power Line Wholesale wholesales car audio & electronics and musical instruments to dealers and re-sellers only.

Kerusso is a leading producer of Christian T-shirts and innovative Christian gift products.

MCS Depot is Wholesale Dropshipper for name brand quality power tools. Visit us (them) today.

Rafael Wholesale Tools is a family-owned and operated company that has been in business for over 20 years as direct importers and distributors. They will dropship some of their heavier items.

The Fashion Diva Palace specializes in cosmetics/skin care products wholesale! Brand name products include MAC, Estee Lauder, MD skincare, Lancome, Clinique, Strivectin, Clarins, Urban Decay, Freeze 24-7, Bobbi Brown and more.

Tom Loofah Co. is a manufacturer and exporter in Egyptian natural products, such as Loofah. Loofahs are natural plants grown in Egypt.

Well-point is a manufacturer of all types of scissors, clippers and other beauty instruments.

The RE Greenspan Company is a manufacturer and importer of fine quality battery operated toys, especially toy animals. Also Halloween & Christmas animated novelties. Items with action, sound & lights.

Firehawk Technology prides themselves on finding unique products. They tend to specialize in unique tools and hobby items.

That's it for now. See you in a couple of 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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