If Amazon Doesn't Provide Sales Histories, How Will I Know What To Sell?

The Online Seller's News, Sep 21, 2011, Volume 11, No. 18

Tips, Tools, News and Resources for eBay, Amazon and independent Online Sellers – Published Twice Monthly (except in December)
by: Skip McGrath

In This Issue:

Musings from eBay, Amazon, and beyond

1. If Amazon Doesn't Provide Sales Histories, How Will I Know What To Sell?
2. What I am Selling on Amazon –and Why
3. Niche of The Month – Easy Bake Ovens
4. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

"The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won't work - if you won't." ~ Unknown

Musings from eBay, Amazon, and beyond

We usually publish twice monthly except for December when we publish only once. Since I like to deliver 24 issues a year, we are publishing an extra issue this September. So look for the next issue which will contain some special discounts and a really important article about Free Marketing on September 27^th.

eBay sellers have long complained about eBay’s 55-character limit on listing titles. As a seller I always struggle to get all the important keywords in my titles. eBay has now addressed this issue. The new limit for 80 characters in your listing title is now live on eBay.

You now have 25 EXTRA characters in your title to draw more buyers to your listings. This allows you to include more keywords and descriptors to get your listings in front of even more interested buyers. Read tips on how to best use all 80 characters, then revise your titles for maximum visibility. eBay has created a title tips page.

In the last issue I told you that Jim has decided to lower the cost of the proven Amazon course from $189 to only $89. I spoke to him this week and asked how long he plans to keep it there –and he told me he hasn’t decided. But I wouldn’t wait.

My son who is in the Navy living in San Diego and his wife are on a pretty tight budget as are most Navy families. In addition, San Diego has a very high cost of living. He and his wife Lissa (who is also my copy editor and co-author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to eBay) are using the course to make some extra money. I spoke with them a couple of days ago and you would not believe how excited they are by how easy this has been for them. You can see some examples of some of the things I have bought in article #3 below.

If you would like to learn how to sell on Amazon, Check out the Proven Amazon Course here. I worked with Jim to help create the course. I can say with no hesitation this is the most successful product I have ever sold in terms of positive customer feedback. Our clients absolutely love this course.

If you don’t want a whole course on selling on Amazon, one of our coaches, Suzanne Wells has just written a great e-book called Amazon FBA Secrets.

Last year I told my readers about Mobile Local Fusion. This is a training course that shows you how to take advantage of the fact that Google is giving away over 48 million pre-designed, pre-indexed and already SEO’ed websites –and how you can make money from that trend.

This is one of those things that isn’t for everyone, in fact only about ten of my readers bought into it, but I have received email from three of them that they are actually making good money with the program. One reader wrote me that she made a $500 sale just 5 days after starting the course. I don’t know how the other seven folks did –they didn’t email me; So they could be making money, or they could be doing nothing with the information. I have no way of knowing. If you want to see what Mobile Local Fusion is all about -- just watch this video.

That brings me to another topic – If you want to make money online you actually have to start your business whatever it is. I can not tell you how often I get an email from someone who bought one of my books two or three years ago and they send me an email saying they are finally ready to start selling on eBay and ask me if it’s still possible to do so today. Where have you been for the past two years?

Admittedly, eBay is a tougher selling environment today than is was back when I started, but there are still plenty of folks –many in our coaching program –who are selling successfully on eBay today. We are running a special offer this month. Fill out a coaching qualification form and receive a free 30-minute consultation.

I don’t know if you have ever heard of Wealthy Affiliate University. I recently found out about them from one of my readers who recommended I take a look at it –and I was very impressed by their program.

Their program is really aimed at beginners –so if you are already building websites and blogs, and know how to do this on your own, then you are overqualified for their program. But – they are giving away a free eBook called the Internet Wealth Guide. Now, of course, they are giving this away because they want to sell you their program –but the guide is not a blatant sales piece –it’s a really good primer on Internet Marketing and I strongly suggest you take advantage of it as there is stuff you can learn in there no matter what your particular internet operation is.

And, best of all, you don’t even have to give up your email address to get The Internet Wealth Guide. (By the way – since I didn’t know any background on the company, I did check them out and they have an excellent reputation online. There were no serious scam reports that I could find).

Lets get started with this month’s articles:

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1. If Amazon Doesn't Provide Sales Histories, How Will I Know What To Sell?

I get a lot of email from readers asking me how to research what items are selling on Amazon and how much they are selling for. I recently saw a blog post on this subject by Chris Green, owner of FBA Power, so I asked him to write an article on this topic for my readers. FBAPower is an Amazon listing service –sort of like Auctiva or Vendio for Amazon. They also have one of the best scouting tools on the market – FBA Scout. I use both of them in our Amazon business.

Now, here is Chris’s article:

If Amazon Doesn't Provide Sales Histories, How Will I Know What To Sell?

By Chris Green

If you have been selling on eBay, then you probably already know that a great place to help you decide what to sell on eBay (and how to price it) is to view the Completed Listing. You can search for the item that you want to sell and you can see recently listed items that are either identical or similar. You can see if they sold, when they sold, and how much they sold for.

Advanced eBay sellers may be using a service called Terapeak. Terapeak offers additional Completed Listing data from eBay that is not available directly from eBay anymore. This is a subscription based service and the information that they provide can help you make better decisions about what to sell as well as help you decide how to price your eBay listings.

On Amazon, there are no sales histories. This is a policy from Amazon's legal department so don't expect this to change anytime soon. So if you can't see what has sold, when it sold, or for how much it sold, how do you make good decisions when deciding what to sell on Amazon as well as how to price your items?

Fair question, but let's back up a bit

There are no guarantees when it comes to online sales. Just because an item sold last month for $300 on eBay and last week for $350 on eBay doesn't mean that it will sell this week for $300 or $350. Depending on the item, it may never sell again at any price. What you are deducing from eBay Completed Listings data and Terapeak information is the likelihood that an item will sell again, how quickly it will sell, and how much it will sell for.

If an item has many completed listings on eBay and they are all fairly recent and all around the same price point, then it will be more likely that it will still sell in the near future at or near that same price. If an item only has one sale in the past two months as well as several Completed Listings on eBay with no winning bidder or buyer, then it will be less likely that the item will sell again quickly or at a price equal to the last successful eBay listing.

You are playing a guessing game on eBay. You are making educated choices by using all of the available data at your disposal, but you still have no guarantees.

It's the same way on Amazon. On Amazon, you have different data with which to make the same decisions as to which item to list for sale as well as what to set for your price.

An Amazon listing will have a Sales Rank and competition. It may not seem like much, but you can extract a lot of information from what you see.

First, let's start with Sales Rank. Without going into extensive detail on Sales Rank, understand that Sales Rank is an indication of a recent sale and nothing more. If an item has sold recently, it will have a better Sales Rank than an item that has not sold recently at all. The better the Sales Rank, the item will have a higher quantity of recent sales. When you can tell that the Sales Rank reflects a recent sale, then your next step is to decide how to price. … Click here to read the rest of the article.

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2. What I am Selling on Amazon –and Why

If you are one of my long-term readers or if you have bought my books then you know I am a major fan of niche marketing. If you are going to run an eBay business it is almost impossible today to compete in the area of hot consumer products. You are up against mega-sellers who can buy merchandise in huge quantities and get wholesale prices you can only dream about. And these mega-merchants’ strategy is to sell high volumes at low prices. That is very hard to compete with.

I am by no means ready to abandon eBay –we still make good money there, but we are also making even more money on Amazon. And on Amazon –I don’t really care what I sell. My strategy is if I can buy it at a low enough price where I can make money –I will buy it and let Amazon sell it for me. I could be selling chef’s knives today and Buzz Lightyear toys tomorrow.

Take a look at what I am selling on Amazon here. Look at the variety of products. We currently have about 90 separate items on Amazon and I am sitting on another dozen or so things that I still need to ship.

I am selling everything from hot sauce and olive oil, to DeWalt tools from a Pasta Machine to chef knives and solar lights. You see on Amazon, I don’t need to focus on a niche –I just need to focus on finding products that will sell –and sell at a price where I can make money.

We find products at Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot, and online. Just this week I purchased some toys from Disney.com and ToysRus.com. I also found some deals on Woot. Take a look at this one:

I bought six of these on Woot for $54.95. As you can see the Amazon FBA price is $124.16. After fees and shipping to Amazon I will make $44.37 on each one of these.

(Note – Woot used to allow you to buy only 1 item, but has changed that to now allowing you to buy 3 items. My wife also has an account so we can buy 6 items at a time).

Last week they had a different model TomTom selling for only $29, but I missed that one and it was sold out by the time I checked the computer in the morning.

Since a lot of sellers do the same thing, the price of these could fall pretty rapidly. When that happens, I just hold tight. Usually I am one of the only or very few in FBA and folks will pay higher prices for items that are shipped directly by Amazon. And with the holidays coming, these prices will go back up rapidly. The quickest way to lose money on Amazon is to get in a price war where every seller is in a race to the bottom.

In the last issue I told you about FBA Finds. This is a service that finds products selling both online and from chain stores and alerts you to buy them. Here are a couple of typical listing (These are a few weeks old so its probably too late to jump on them).

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WWE Smackdown Alarm Clock Radio (Eligible for STORE PICKUP only - Order online and PICK UP in stores (and pay $0 s/h!). Your local store's availability MAY VARY).
ToysRus.com Price:$24.98 + s/h + tax (where applicable)
Amazon.com Price:$75.93
Estimated Potential ROI*:125-150%
Amazon.com Sales Rank:79,974

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Fisher-Price My First Pal - Elmo***
ToysRus.com Price:$4.74 + tax (where applicable) (Sold IN STORES Only. Your local store's availability MAY VARY. NOT available for ordering online)
Amazon.com Price:$22.99
Estimated Potential ROI*:250%
Amazon.com Sales Rank:70,913

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Most of the items in FBA Finds are toys, but not all. Jordan Malik, the founder and operator, also finds other types of products such as this one:

Targus AMP18US 2.4 GHz Wireless Presentation Remote (This is from one of those 'one deal a day' sites, so this deal could disappear any minute!)
Dealsclick.com Price:$4.99 + $4.99 s/h + tax (where applicable)
Amazon.com Price:$19.97 + $4.99 s/h (Currently, NO FBA sellers are offering this item. YOU Could be the FIRST, and thus set an even HIGHER Selling Price!)
Estimated Potential ROI*:125-150%
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 12 (That's not a typo!)

One word of warning, the accuracy rate on FBA Finds is very good –but not perfect. That’s not their fault. Things can change rapidly with other sellers as many of them have automatic re-pricing programs. So before jumping in always actually click on the Amazon link and check the price to make sure it hasn’t dropped.

However, prices can also go up. Had you bought this Targus Presentation Remote at $4.99 when it was selling on Amazon for $19.97 and decided to hold on to it for a while you would have made even more money. I just checked before writing this article and look what I found:

It is now selling for $27.49. That’s a return on investment (ROI) of 274% before Amazon fees, or about 219% after fees. And it’s still selling well. The sales rank of this product is #11 in the Electronics category.

If you want to join FBA Finds, Jordan has been running a sale for the past month that ends in a few days on September 3oth. The price is now $27 a month (no contract – you can quit at any time) but will be going up to $39 on October 1^st.

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3. Niche of The Month – Easy Bake Ovens

This one may be a stretch and it does take a leap of faith. The Easy Bake Ovens have been a favorite kid’s toy for over 40 years. The current versions of the Easy Bake ovens use a light bulb as the heat source. If you don’t know it by now, 100-watt light bulbs will become illegal to sell in the US after January 1, 2012. (We went to Target a few months ago and bought 50 boxes of 100-Watt lights to hoard for our personal use –but that is another story).

And each year for the next 5 years lower and lower wattage bulbs will also be eliminated until 5 years from now only very specialized incandescent bulbs such as small appliance bulbs will be the only ones that are legal.

So this year, Hasbro, the folks who make the Easy Bake Oven, came out with a new model that uses the same amount of energy –but does not use a light bulb as the heat source. Look at the listings below from Amazon.com

The one on top for $26.97 is the current model that has now been discontinued, but there are still plenty of them in the stores. Notice that the new model is almost double the price at $49.96.

As they are sent to liquidators I suspect the price will drop drastically –they could go down to the $19 price range or even lower. So over the next few weeks you may want to snap up the old ones and sit on them until we get into Christmas buying. There are a lot of environmentally conscious parents who will buy the new model thinking (incorrectly) that it uses less energy, but there will be just as many parents who want the older and lower cost model. And as time goes on I think there will be so much desire for the old model that price on those could actually exceed the new one. I know that sounds crazy –but I have seen crazier things that that happen in the toy category. I looked on eBay and there are a few dozen sellers selling these at between $22 and $29. The sell through rate doesn’t look that great but that will change once we get past Halloween and the Christmas buying season kicks in.

If you are really brave and you have a few hundred dollars laying around, you could be really adventurous and buy a dozen of the current model and store them for a couple of years when I bet they will become a hot collectible and people will be paying $50 or more for them.

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4. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

Mount Me makes stands and mounts for Kindles, Nooks, iPads and gaming consoles. The website is retail, but click the link in the upper right hand corner to register as a reseller.

Advanced Detox Solutions is the manufacturer of a body detox product delivered to over 1,000,000 customers. Us the Contact Us link to request wholesale reseller information.

If you live in the Atlantic City area, there is a huge wholesale trade show, The CK 2011 Wholesale Expo is held at the Trump Hotel from October 11-13^th.

One of our advertisers, Topper Liquidators, has a large selection of new merchandise that would fit perfectly into the holiday selling season.

Jerco Global is a liquidator of auto parts, toys, jewelry and consumer electronics

Midwest Wholesale carries a large line of Christmas decorative items.

North Pines Wholesale sells 1st quality and irregular t-shirts, tall tees, socks, women's activewear, underwear, and belts. They also dropship.

American Linens is a family business based in New Jersey that has been operating for over 35 years. They carry a full line of household linens.

Solid Apollo is a company that manufactures, distributes and sells high-end LED Lighting and LED lighting Control Systems.

Merrits is a supplier of antiques to the decorator and antique dealer trade.

Iconeum is a wholesaler of Religious Products. they offer a broad range of religious products, religious giftware and services at wholesale prices.

That's it for now – Look for our special issue next week.

Skip McGrath
The Online Seller's News

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

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