Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business

The Online Seller's News, September 27, 2011, Volume 11, No. 19

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. Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business
2. Niche of The Month – Making Money on eBay Tearing Up Old Magazines
3. Holiday Giveaways – How You Can Win An Amazon Gift Card
4. eBay To Discount Fees to Encourage More Free Shipping for The Holidays
5. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

"Life is the sum of all your choices." ~ Albert Camus

Musings from eBay, Amazon, and beyond

This is a fairly short issue. We usually publish twice monthly except for December when we only publish once –Since I like to deliver 24 issues a year, we are publishing this extra issue this September.

Amazon started taking orders today on the Kindle Fire. The Fire will sell for $199 from Amazon.  But if you place your pre-orders now, you will be one of the first to get one and you can turn around and sell it on eBay for as much as $300 to $400. The Fire will be such a hot product –just like the iPad2.

I ended up with an extra iPad2  when it was selling for $499 but you couldn’t get one.  I sold mine on eBay for over $700.  I guarantee the same thing will happen with the Kindle Fire.  I placed an order for 5 units today. I will keep one each for my wife and I and sell the other three.  Check back with me in November and I am betting I can sell the other 3 for at least $400 each.

Click here to learn more about the Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

Chris Green of FBA Power has just released his new book, Retail Arbitrage.  Chris shows you how and what to buy from local retailers that you can flip quickly on Amazon. He personally taught me these methods a few months ago and I have been using them successfully since then. Here are two examples: I bought the dog beads for $29.00 and the coffee for $37.00.

Not only is this a great book, but Chris is giving my readers a special discounted price!  And believe me, you can make back the cost of the book with just one or two items. Chris didn't really write a high-pressure sales letter –instead he let's the table of contents speak for itself. Retail Arbitrage is an excellent book and a perfect companion for those of you who have bought the Proven Amazon Course.

Several of my readers took advantage of the discount offer to join FBA Finds – the service that gives you actual deals you can buy to flip on Amazon for quick profits. I just got a note from Jordan Malik, who runs the service, and he is temporarily closing the service to new members, as he is afraid of too many members ruining the deals. That is a good thing for existing members but not so much for new sellers. Retail Arbitrage does not include a deal service, but it does show you how to find them on your own quite easily.

While I was working on this issue of the newsletter, I got a call from Seller Outreach at eBay. They were making a courtesy call to let me know that I was in violation of the duplicate listing policy and that if I didn't remove them, then eBay would and give me a strike. The lady showed me how to check if I had any duplicate listings, by going to www.ebay.com/auctionduplicates. I did that while she was on the phone and it showed that I, in fact, did not have any duplicates. (She said I must have had some recently, which was why they called).

I have known about the duplicate listing policy in fixed price listings for quite some time and have written about it in my blog. However, I did not know about the duplicate policy for auctions. The seller outreach tech explained that if your duplicates have a 30% sell through rate then it's OK to list and in the past I had met that but recently had fallen below. She then gave me a link to a page www.eBay.com/duplicate so I could read the policy. However, when I went to that page it only showed the policy for fixed price listings –not auctions. Then I searched the seller help center with the term auction duplicates and got the following result:

As usual eBay comes out with a new policy but they make the actual policy very hard to find. I have no doubt that the policy is explained somewhere –if anyone happens to know where it is, please let me know. (I know I have several readers who work for eBay –maybe one of you can find that policy so I can better explain it to my readers).

In the meantime, anyone selling in the auction format should be very careful that you do not launch a duplicate listing until the existing listing ends.

Update:  I just heard from a reader named Terry . . .

Its pretty late to find items for Halloween and get them listed as any orders you place with a wholesaler will not get here in time to list and sell. However, I did notice some inexpensive Halloween items this weekend at both Big Lots and Costco. I scanned them with my FBA Scout app and many of them were listed on Amazon at much higher prices and some of them had pretty good sales ranks.

I just received some exciting news from Kabbage.com. As regular readers may remember, Kabbage is a company that helps fund online businesses. They have a new program called Social Klimbing™ that rewards businesses that use social media to attract, interact with and retain customers. Social Klimbing allows customers to connect their Kabbage accounts to Facebook fan pages and Twitter feeds. As customers increase followers, activities and chatter on Twitter and Facebook, they will automatically gain access to more funds. Interesting concept isn't it? To learn more go to Kabbage.com.

Lets get started with this month's articles:

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1. Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business

One of my closest business friends and colleagues is Jim Cockrum.  Jim and I have collaborated on numerous successful projects over the past ten years.  Although Jim has written a number of best selling eBooks, including, The Silent Sales Machine –one of the top selling eBooks ever, Jim has not until now had a book published in the bookstore market.

Jim's newest book, Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off, is a great kick off to his first effort.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and even with all of my experience, I learned several new techniques I can use to grow my business. 

Whether you are beginner or advanced seller you will find a treasure trove of free and/or very low cost marketing techniques to help build any online business from eBay and Amazon to website selling or affiliate marketing. There is something here for everyone.

When it comes to Internet marketing, Jim is a true master --and he holds nothing back in his book. Not only will you learn real moneymaking techniques that you can actually put to work --here is the real bonus:

Jim is donating 100% of the royalties from his book to a Hope Village, a ministry that teaches inner city residents how to start businesses including ways to make money online.  Imagine a 22-year-old single mother living in the projects learning how to start an eBay business, or how to make things to sell on Etsy? 

It's popular to criticize people on welfare as lazy or careless –it's something else to do something to help them work their way out.  Pastor Kevin Ramsby's Hoppe Village ministry is the Internet version of "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."  100% of the profits from the book will go to Hope Village.

Jim's book is available at your local bookstore and on Amazon.

I strongly recommend and endorse this book and hope every single one of my readers will take advantage of it.  This is the perfect win-win.  You learn how to make money and you help a disadvantaged inner city person rise out of their poverty.

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2. Niche of The Month – Making Money on eBay Tearing Up Old Magazines

I first wrote about this niche about three years ago. It's something I learned years ago when we were in the antique business –but it works well on eBay today. I used to go to small country auctions to source antiques and collectibles for our shop. I would often see boxes of old books and old magazines –many of them quite old, selling at auction for as little as ten or fifteen dollars. When I looked at the magazines, many of them had old colored prints –some of them by famous artists such as Currier & Ives. Not so many of the books had prints but the ones that did were really profitable.

I soon learned not to buy boxes of books as so few of them contained prints. Instead I would actually attend book auctions, go to book fairs, flea markets and estate sales. (You don't often find really old books at garage sales but I have found a few).

One of my finds at a flea market in Connecticut was an oversized book that contained large maps of every county in New York State. The book was printed in the late 1800s and the maps were really beautiful. We kept the map of the county we lived in and I still have it framed hanging in my den today. The rest of them we matted and sold for prices ranging from $40 to $250 (The maps for the counties that contained New York City and nearby counties went for the biggest money).

One of the most prolific print publishers was Currier & Ives. Today their prints can sell for hundreds of dollars and they are fairly plentiful and easy to find as they appeared in dozens of old magazines. Here are a couple of typical Currier & Ives prints:

When you find a print first make sure its in good condition with no tears or stains. There will be some aging and that is OK, just as long as there is no damage. You don't have to frame the prints, but you may want to matte them –although that means you cannot ship them in a shipping tube, which is the easiest way to do that. But in my experience I find I get more money if the print is matted.

If you would like some really detailed instructions in this niche, Stu Turnbull has just updated his best-selling eBook, Prints Make Profit. This is a complete primer to this very profitable and fun niche. Stu's book is all about taking prints from old books, but his techniques work for old magazines as well. And best of all he is reducing the price for my readers.

And while you are at it, those old magazines also contain old advertisements. These don't sell for as much as prints but you can get in the $10 to $20 range for many old ads. Here are a couple examples:

Did I mention that this niche is also fun? If you enjoy art and old things this niche provides the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of seeing lots of bidders on your auctions.

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3. Holiday Giveaways – How You Can Win An Amazon Gift Card

It's time to get geared up for holiday selling, and what better way to get in the holiday mood than the chance to win some Amazon gift cards! Online Selling Coach is hosting a fantastic giveaway. We hope you will join and take advantage of our training, but for this contest you don't even have to be a member to participate or win.

In anticipation of the busy holiday season, and to celebrate our sixth month online, we are giving away $450 in Amazon gift cards! One lucky winner will receive a $250 gift card, and four (4) winners will receive $50 gift cards.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on the blog post at Online Selling Coach. (The blog reply window is at the very bottom of the page. Don't forget to leave a contact email in your comment so we can email you if you are the winner).

For extra entries and a better chance of winning, do any of the following:

Post a link to this giveaway on:

• Your own blog

• A group or forum

• Twitter

• Your Facebook page

• A Facebook group's wall

• Bulk email your friends in your email address book

Be sure to leave a comment for each entry you make, telling us how you spread the word. We will place an extra entry in your name for each time you do so. For example, if you first post on the OSC Blog, then in twitter and a forum and on Facebook, that would give you 4 entries –4 chances to win.

The giveaway will run through October 31^st and winners will be announced on Wednesday November 2^nd. Good luck! Remember just post at www.OnlineSellingCoach.com - and scroll to the bottom of the page to post.

If you have any questions about Online Selling Coach you can also post them there and we will try and answer all who do.

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4. eBay To Discount Fees to Encourage More Free Shipping for The Holidays

Get 20% off your Final Value Fees for free expedited shipping with 1-day handling! This holiday season, eBay will give sellers a special reward for providing the services that keep buyers on eBay for all their holiday shopping—right up to the very last day.

Starting on Thanksgiving Day and running through December 25^th, most sellers will get 20% off of their Final Value Fees when they offer a free expedited shipping service with 1-day handling. If you're an eBay Top-rated seller, that's an extra 20% off on top of the discount you already get! However, the Final Value Fee promotion does not apply to sellers with a Below Standard rating.

eBay will also give priority placement in Best Match to those sellers who offer premium services.

Best Match, is eBay's default sort order It already factors in shipping costs to provide better placement to Fixed Price listings with free shipping. This season, qualified sellers will get even better placement in Best Match algorithm for Fixed Price listings that offer any one of the holiday services eBay encourages you to use.

• Free shipping

• Expedited shipping service with 1-day handling

• A 14-day or longer return policy. You get an incremental boost for each of the three services you offer so for maximum advantage, offer all three.

If you sell on Amazon and use Amazon's FBA service, you can really take advantage of this. Here's how: Amazon gives you their really low shipping rates. One of the items I am selling on Amazon for the holidays is Copper River Smoked Salmon.

My cost on this product is $17.00, so I have plenty of margin to work with. If I were to ship this item from my location across the country it would cost about $12 with UPS or $10 via Priority Mail. But since Amazon passes their low shipping rates on to me, they will ship it 2^nd-day air for about the same amount, as I would pay for normal UPS shipping.

So when I list this on eBay (after the new promotion kicks in) I will list it with 2-day FREE Shipping. That will get me much better placement in Best Match assuring greater sales. And the lure of free 2-day air shipping will attract a lot of buyers. Add in the extra 20% fee savings and this is very profitable.

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5. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

Pets and babies are two categories that people still spend money on even in a slow economy. So lets look at pet supplies first:

Diaz Rock & Pet Supply Inc. Diaz Rock and Pet Supply Wholesale distributors web site.

American Pet Pro provides wholesale pet grooming supplies and equipment to the pet care professional. These professional grooming supplies can be great sellers to non-pros too.

Pet Gifts International is a wholesale distributor and supplier of fashionable pet carriers, breed specific gifts, doggie handbags, handbags, luggage and other wonderful pet gifts. They also offer a dropshipping program.

Project FasTags are the makers of FasTags brand ID tags for pets: dogs, cats, and horses, as well as kids' backpacks and sports bags.

Pishon International - Pet Products, Pet Bags, Pet Carriers, Pet Strollers, Pet Clothes Wholesale

Sporty K9, Ltd sells officially licensed Collegiate, MLB, NBA apparel and gifts for Dogs.

Now lets look at some baby and toddler stuff:

Wholesale Baby Blanks 210 gsm infant blank baby clothes will give you the upper edge on your competition. They use a soft combed cotton that is unparalleled in the industry.

LITTLE FOREST sells Natural Phthalate Free Baby Products - Baby Shampoo, Baby Lotion, Diaper Rash Cream, Baby Bug Block, Baby Sun block and Baby Sunscreen by Little Forest Natural Baby Products.

Corn Bag Critter Co. sells a "natural" alternative for children and adults of all ages to help soothe earaches, toothaches, backaches, cramps, growing pains and more. Corn Bag Critters can also be used as a "bed buddy" to help warm up those cold nights. Made in the USA!

Bonne Baby Care - Manufacturers of baby care products including baby pacifiers, feeding bottles, nipples, sippers and so on.

My Precious Kid sells child safety products and baby gear They also sell safety products for Adults, Children, Elderly, Medically Fragile, and Special needs children. CHILD SAFETY PRODUCTS such as ID Bracelets and other wearable ID Products.

Blauen, Fine Linens For over 20 years, Blauen, Fine Linens for the Baby, has custom designed and hand tailored exquisite linens for infants and toddlers.

That's it for now. See you in early October with our holiday selling issue.

Skip McGrath
The Online Seller's News

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

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