New Products, Services and Tools for Online Sellers

The Online Seller's News, June 23, 2011, Volume 11, No. 12

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. New Products, Services and Tools for Online Sellers
2. Finding Exclusive Products to Sell on eBay and Amazon
3. Niche of The Month – Gourmet Foods, Sauces, Spices and Rubs
4. Financing Inventory for eBay and Amazon Sellers
5. Strategies for Coping with The Summer Slowdown on eBay
6. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." ~ Herman Cain

Musings from eBay, Amazon, and beyond

I spent last week in San Diego at the IRCE 2011 – Internet Retailers Conference and Exhibition. This particular conference is aimed at large Internet retailers –not really our market. Therefore about 80% of the exhibitors didn’t really relate to my readers who tend to be small to medium sized eBay, Amazon and website sellers.

However, not all my time was wasted. I did find a number of exhibitors who do actually work with us truly small sellers and will cover them in the first article below.

In addition to the exhibitors there were several seminars and presentations put on by various companies. Both eBay and Amazon gave a presentation designed to attract new sellers to their platform. eBay’s presentation was lightly attended, but the Amazon presentation was turning people away. Attendees filled up all the seats; all the standing room and even the aisles were full of people sitting on the floor.

My latest book, Make Money Buying and Selling Gold is now available on ClickBank. If you are a ClickBank Affiliate, just use this hoplink to buy or promote the book:

http://XXXX.mcgrrrrr.hop.clickbank.net

Be sure and replace the XXXX’s with your ClickBank affiliate ID. If you are not a ClickBank affiliate, click here to learn how the ClickBank program works and how to join.

One question I always get is: “Can I join the affiliate program and then buy the book and earn a commission on my own sale?” The answer is yes! Get a ClickBank ID, replace the XXXX in the link above with your ID, and you will earn a 40% commission on your sale. Then send out the link to your friends on Facebook or post it on your blog and you will earn 40% on each sale you make.

Selling to buyers in Russia is fraught with all sorts of problems and fraud, but one US company has solved that problem. They list your eBay and Amazon listings on their Russian website, Bay Russia. When buyers purchase, The Bay Russia LLC in the USA buys the goods from sellers on eBay and Amazon and then resells that inventory to the ultimate end user in Russia. So if you would like to open your sales up the to Russian market, contact Aaron Block aaronnblock@gmail.com for how to get started.

It’s not ready yet, but look for a Chat service here soon. My Webmaster is working on setting it up this week. I bought my service from a company I met at IRCE – Live Person. I bought the Live Person Pro system after trying it out at the show. It offers basic chat and intelligence features for businesses with low site traffic and limited agent resources.

Includes:

• Click-to-chat buttons
• Basic rules for proactive invitations
• Skill based group creation
• Campaign viewer
• Google Analytics integration for reporting
• Ability to add channels: voice, email, knowledgebase
• 24/7 online support

Since our business consists of just Karen and myself, one thing I worry about is the possibility of constant interruption while I am working. But, I am hopeful it will cut down on email and phone calls and lead to some sales that I might not otherwise get. So, once Live person is up and you try and chat with me and don’t get an answer, I am probably on a coffee break, so just try back later.

In my book, How To Make Money Blogging From Home, we recommend Bluehost as the best resource for hosting your blog. I have hosted all of my websites with GoDaddy for several years but have been slowly moving all of them to BlueHost as I have not been happy with Go Daddy’s support and outages. Unfortunately Bluehost just changed their policy where they now require a yearly upfront payment to host a site –rather than monthly payments.

This is still a good deal as you can host a site for a full year for $80, which works out to under $7 a month. There are of course other hosting companies, but Bluehost has the best tools and support for WordPress users, which is still the best solution out there for doing a blog that can earn income. I really like their reliability. So if you want to set up any kind of hosted site; blog or website give Bluehost a try.

Billboards is a super cool tool that allows eBay sellers to create unique headers and footers that can be applied to all of your eBay listings automatically.  No HTML or code or other stuff to learn. Just pick from one of the pre-made templates, customize it with your information  and bang you're done! This is a great way to brand your eBay business, promote special offers, drive signups to your newsletter, and most importantly a great tool to cross-sell and upsell additional products. It's for all sellers whether you have an eBay store or not. When you visit this link you can learn more about Billboards and you can download a free guide by eBay Hall of Famer Dana Crawford that teaches you how to stand out on eBay.

Just watched an interesting --and long (60 min) video about how the web is totally changing. I know thats a long time to watch a video, but you can watch it a little at a time, just click in the center of the video and it will pause. Having said that, if you sell online, you really should watch the video. Yes - its about selling you a program, but even if you don't buy this is some really interesting and eye-opening stuff.

Click here to watch the video.

Lets get started with this month’s articles:

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1. New Products, Services and Tools for Online Sellers

Here are a few of the tools, products and services I found at the IRCE conference:

Refund Retriever is a service that tracks your shipping with UPS and FedEx to make sure you get everything you pay for. Each year the 2 largest logistics companies - UPS and FedEx - moved $2 Billion worth of shipments. It's estimated that 5% of these shipments - worth $100,000,000 - were delivered late.

Refund Retriever tracks your packages and gets you refunds for late packages, unshipped packages, address correction refunds, duplicate charge refunds, misweight refunds and surcharge refunds. There is no upfront fee –they take a percentage of the refunds they get –usually 50%. But if you mention my name, Skip McGrath, when you sign up, they will work with my readers for only 40%.

My books, How to Make Money Blogging from Home and How To Make a Living Working From Home show you how to make money with affiliate marketing. One of the challenges is finding good companies –especially name brands to represent. AvantLink is a top end affiliate marketing network, where you can sign up to represent companies with famous brand names such as Patagonia, Sketchers and Head Room. Many of their merchants pay as much as 30% for referral sales.

Save on shipping. FedEx has a program called Smart Post where your packages move across the country in the FedEx system and then are handed over to the post office for local delivery. The advantages are speed and cost savings. You can ship to PO Boxes, APO addresses and even get packages delivered on Saturday with no extra charge. Smart Post rates are up to 30% less than standard FedEx ground rates.

EcopyWriters.com is a company that creates content for websites, blogs, sales letters, press releases and newsletters. They have experts in SEO who can create content that search engines can find to help you get better search engine placement for your site.

Are you tired of competing with Buy.com? Don’t fight them –join them. Buy.com is now recruiting sellers to list items on Buy.com like you do on eBay or Amazon. Their fee structure is similar to Amazon. No fee to list. When you sell an item Buy.com charges you 99-cents plus a commission. Buy.com is also partnered with Japan’s largest online mall Rakuten. When something sells, you ship to Los Angeles and Buy.com’s freight forwarder takes it from there.

I have written about Payvment before. This is a free service that allows you to set up a shop selling products right on your Facebook page.

Border Jump is a company that helps you sell overseas. Safely take orders from overseas customers. Border Jump accepts the payment, verifies it and sends you the money. You ship to a US address and Border Jump takes over from there handling shipping, customs, documentation and shipment to the final destination.

AIRmove is a bubble pak machine. This was one of the neatest things I saw at the show. You load the Airmove with film, push a button and it creates the exact amount of bubble pak you need. The machine sells for a one-time charge of $999 and rolls of film are just over $110 for 800 feet. That may sound like a lot of money, but shipping bubble pak is expensive and it takes up so much room. This is one of those situations where you have to spend some money up front to save some on the back end. The product is so new that is not on the Storopack website yet, but you can get information by emailing Karen.Oberer@storopack.com.

There were over 500 exhibitors at the show. As I said above, most of them just didn’t relate to my readers, but there were several more that did and I will cover more of them in the next issue.

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2. Finding Exclusive Products to Sell on eBay and Amazon

Whenever I am researching a niche or looking for new products, my absolute priority is to find a niche product where I can negotiate an exclusive with the supplier. By “exclusive,” I have the sole rights to sell the product on eBay and Amazon. When you have an exclusive you get to set the price and you don’t have to worry about other sellers undercutting you and driving prices down to the point where no one makes a profit.

Why would a manufacturer or supplier grant you an exclusive? Most small manufacturers of niche products are very protective of their retail accounts. Retailers who carry these products will often stop ordering from suppliers whose products are selling on eBay and Amazon for less than in their retail shops. This is especially true of boutique products, decorator items and gourmet food products.

In the next article I talk about selling gourmet foods on eBay and Amazon. This is a niche that I have worked on over the years. I am always on the lookout for new products in this niche where I can find an exclusive. Here is a link to a couple of my listings on Amazon where I sell these products.

Organic, Vegetarian Gourmet Sesame Ginger Marinade

Louisiana Gourmet Hot pepper Sauce

(Note – these are selling fast so if you don’t see them that means they are out of stock, but I have more on order). These are just a couple of products I am selling from a small manufacturer who is located in a town near me. He has over 30 products but I am starting with his best selling items to test the market. In this case I found the company by searching for small local manufacturers. However, I usually find small companies that will give me an exclusive by visiting trade shows. Here in Seattle we have the Seattle Gift & Merchandise show twice yearly –January and August. .

When I see a product at a trade show, I approach the exhibitor and ask if they currently sell their product on eBay or Amazon. A lot of times they will tell you they don’t want to do that. When you here this the first thing you should do is agree with them. Then explain why suppliers like them don’t want to sell on eBay is because of two issues. One there are too may unprofessional sellers and they will not represent their product correctly. The other reason is that they start cutting prices and undercut their traditional retail clients. By agreeing with them you get them on your side. Now make your pitch. Tell them that if they would agree to give you an exclusive, you will agree to hold to their minimum advertised prices (called MAP in the trade) and you will send them your description copy for them to approve so they know their product is being correctly represented.

Even with this a lot of suppliers will still say no, but that is OK. I guarantee if you try this on 4 or 5 companies, you will find at least one who will say yes. Do a few deals like this and you will have a real goldmine – you will get top dollar for your goods and no competition.

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3. Niche of The Month – Gourmet Foods, Sauces, Spices and Rubs

Since I was writing about gourmet foods in the article above, I thought I would talk about this as a niche. I have sold gourmet foods, sauces, spices and rubs for several years. Usually I do it around the holidays, but with my new line I am going to be selling these year around.

Here are a few listings from eBay as examples:

I sell my sauces and rubs on both eBay and Amazon, but my sales on Amazon are much better. This is strange because there is less competition on eBay in terms of fewer listings. I suspect the reason may be that buyers just don’t think of eBay as a place to buy gourmet foods –and eBay complicates the issue further as they do not have a category for foods. For example, one of the products we sell are gourmet sea salts, but the closest category is salt & Pepper mills (which we also sell).

Here are some of the things I am selling on Amazon:

Click on the image to see the listing on Amazon.

The best place to find these products are at wholesale trade shows, kitchen shows and your local merchandise mart. If you happen to be in a gourmet store and find a product you would like to sell, look on the bottle or package for the name of the manufacturer (there will usually be a website). Then simply contact the manufacturer and ask them for the name of the nearest distributor or rep in your area. Once you contact the manufacturer, if the product is not currently being sold on eBay or Amazon, then write them offering to represent them exclusively as we pointed out above.

One thing you need to be careful about when selling Gourmet food is expiration dates and freshness. Don’t try and sell anything fresh, which requires refrigeration, or has a short (less than one year) shelf life. Some of the best products to sell include salts, peppers, spices, rubs and bottled sauces because they all have long expiration dates.

If you get into this niche one of the best things you can do is start a newsletter to build a mailing list. Once you have even a few hundred names, you can start marketing to them directly. If you don’t have a website, just set up a Facebook page and install Payvment to list your products right on your Facebook page. The gourmet food crowd can be very loyal if you give away a lot of free information such as recipes and cooking tips and they respond well to discounts and coupon offers.

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4. Financing Inventory for eBay and Amazon Sellers

I told my readers about Kabbage a couple of months ago. This is a service that provides cash advances to eBay sellers based on their selling volume. The reason I am writing about it again so soon, is that they now offer this service to Amazon sellers.

The way it works is you first create an account with Kabbage. Then you will be directed to give Kabbage access to sales information in your eBay and Amazon account. Once they have this access (which only takes a few minutes) they will access your sales volume and authorize a cash advance amount based on your total sales. You can access the money immediately via a deposit to your PayPal account.

They charge interest and set up a payment schedule that comes out of your PayPal account automatically. For example, here is the payment schedule for a $3000 advance.

According to this you would pay a total of $3,420 (14%) over a six months period. Of course you can pay the balance off early. That may seem like a high interest rate, but try walking into your friendly local banker and say: “I would like to borrow $3000 for my eBay business.” Let me know how long it takes for the banker to stop laughing.

The purpose of a cash advance is to finance inventory. You should never borrow money to fund something speculative. So only use this for inventory that is absolutely proven to sell at a profit. And, don’t risk it on any type of fad product that could go passé shortly after you acquire the inventory. Fads tend to come on quickly and end just as quickly. Believe me, I know a lot of folks who got stuck with thousands of dollars worth of overpriced Tickle Me Elmo dolls and Furby Toys.

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5. Strategies for Coping with The Summer Slowdown on eBay

We are coming into the traditional summer slowdown on eBay. The months of June, July and August are typically eBay’s poorest performing period --and this year could be worse.

Official unemployment is now at 9.1%, but “real” unemployment is actually much higher. Inflation is also higher than the government reports. This is because the government games the system so they can look good. (I am not making a political statement because both parties have done this for over 20 years).

Unemployment figures do not count people who have used up their unemployment benefits and/or given up looking for work. And, the official inflation number does not count food and energy prices which have all been rising. The government made these changes several years ago, but one outfit called Shadow Stats still reports the real numbers. These aren’t made up numbers, Shadow Stats simply reports the official government numbers the way they used to do it before 1990.

If you go to Shadow Stats today you will see that the real unemployment number is over 20% when you calculate it the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics did before 1994. And if you look at inflation, you will see that calculating inflation the way the government did before 1990 is now over 11%.

Most of you may be too young to remember the Misery Index that was started back in the late 1970s. You get the Misery Index by adding inflation + unemployment. If you use the official government numbers you get:

9.1% unemployment + 3.6% consumer price index = 12.7% misery index

But if you use the “real” inflation and unemployment numbers you get:

22.3% unemployment + 11.2% consumer price index = 33.5% misery index

That far exceeds the record of 22% going all the way back to June 1980.

I am not trying to depress you –but it’s important to know the truth and be prepared for it. The good news is that even with 22.3% unemployment, that means that 77.7% of the people are still working. We are a big country and 77% of our population is a lot of people. So although business is slow, there is still business and sellers are still making a profit.

So what to do?

The first thing you should do is clear out any and all non-performing inventory. If something is not selling at all, or selling slowly, or selling at too low a price to make money –then get rid of it, even if it means taking a loss. There is nothing worse than capital that is tied up in non-performing inventory. It is much smarter to take a small loss and get that money working for you rather than gathering dust in your closet or garage.

Next go through your listings on eBay and Amazon and weed out the duds. Which ones are getting hits and not getting sales? Those are the ones you need to re-write or update your photos or adjust your pricing. Which ones are not getting hits? Those are the ones that need a new title.

Once you do that next make a priority listing of items that sell the best. Lets say you sell ten different items. List them in order of the best selling and just keep the top seven and stop listing the rest as auctions. Anything that is not selling with at least a 40% sell through rate should be moved to your eBay store where you can park it for much lower listing fees. And if it doesn’t sell there after a month or so, its non-performing inventory and you should lower the price to move it out.

If you dropship then you want to perform the same exercise. If something isn’t selling then you are wasting listing fees. I sell 10 different models of firepits. Six of them sell very well, so those are the only ones I list in the auction format but I have all ten in my eBay Store.

Lastly is starting a search for new products and new niches. Even is a crummy economy there is something that is selling well. Use all of your effort and your research tools to identify those products and attempt to source them.

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6. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

Complete Medical Supplies, Inc. is a wholesale dropshipper of medical supplies. Everything they sell is non-prescription. One of their hot products is the Up-Lift Power Seat to help elderly people rise out of a chair or sofa.

You cost is $102.95 each and these sell on eBay for around $230. They go for less on Amazon ($140 to $165) but still high enough to make money.

Complete Medical carries a full line of mobility products such as canes, scooters, walkers and rolling walkers. Complete Medical carries over 12,000 products in stock and this is a great area for eBay and Amazon sellers –and they dropship!

If you are one of the eBay sellers who sell diabetic test strips, they also carry these wholesale. One word of caution, they do carry a few products such as CPAP machines and spirometers that require either a prescription or that can only be sold by a licensed medical provider, so you will want to avoid those items, but there are still thousands of things from this company that you can sell.

Kole Imports is one of the oldest and largest wholesale sources in the country. Kole carries thousands of products, but the problem is their products are the dollar store variety. It just doesn’t make sense to sell items for a buck or two, as you have to sell thousands of items to make any money. I was speaking with the rep from Kole and he told me that I was completely wrong. He said that people would often purchase cheap items in huge quantities. For example, one seller sells those cheap copper-scouring pads in lots of 100. Another sells sets of cosmetic brushes in lots of 50. Another eBay seller sells packs of 50 dust filter masks. The trick of course is figuring out what items will sell in large quantities and picking just those. But this is pretty easy to do as eBay has a wholesale large lots sub-category in almost every category. So just research those with completed listings to see what is selling.

Kerusso is a wholesale distributor of Christian products such as t-shirts, books, jewelry and accessories.

Ultimass sells a complete line of the popular RC toys including cars, boats and helicopters.

Joissu is a leading importer and distributor of a wide range of wholesale Toys, wholesale novelties, gifts and general merchandise.

Little boys still like to play with toy guns. The Parris Manufacturing Company sells a complete line of toy guns including the old standby western cap guns that are so hard to find these days.

European Army Surplus sells military surplus items from several European countries including trendy clothing items. They also sell non-surplus outdoor items.

PDI International carries a range of LED light products such as flashlights, camping lanterns, headlights and other LED products. Contact them through the web site for pricing.

Another similar company but with higher end products is Coast Cutlery. They sell knives and LED light products.

I have mentioned Garden Sunlight before. They sell a wide range of solar lights. The season for solar garden lights is almost over, but some of their best-selling products are solar panels used by boaters and RV owners to trickle charge their batteries. And Garden Sunlight drop ships for eBay and Amazon sellers. They also sell the large solar panels that people use for solar system to power a home.

Surplus Giant Inc. is an international distributor of branded closeout products. They offer surplus, and wholesale deals on computers, laptops, iPod, luggage & travel, camera, and electronics accessories. They carry leading manufacturers such as Targus, Kensington, Logitech, Microsoft, Belkin, Lowepro, Samsonite, Wenger (Swiss Army) and others.

Ajoka Micro Surveillance Solutions sells professional Security cameras, spy gadgets, hidden camera systems and micro DVRs. They say they drop ship from their factory in China but I am not sure I would trust that. Most of these products are fairly inexpensive so I think it would be better to just order them in small quantities.

Gamla Enterprises is a wholesale distributors of Digital Cameras, TV’s, Media Players, Photographic and Electronic Equipment. They carry Digital Cameras, APS Cameras, 35mm equipment, Lenses, Binoculars, Flashes, Tripods, Cases and a whole lot more.

That’s it for now. See you after the 4^th of July. Happy Independence Day to all of my readers.

Skip McGrath
The Online Seller's News

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

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