Ebay a bit slow.

EBay has dropped off a bit after week two of February. I’m not sure why but a look at my shop traffic stats is telling me that visitor numbers has dropped off. Is this just a blip? Is it due to the recession? Or is it down to eBay not pulling the customers in? It’s hard to say what the reason is but it’s a problem and I’m going to address it now.

I’m attacking the problem by putting up some auctions. This is usually a good way to pull people into your shop, so I’ going to put up a few over the next few days and monitor the results. There are a number of things to do to make your products more visible on the eBay. I intend to make some tutorials of them over the coming weeks.

To be successful on EBay you can’t afford to be static, there’s a lot of competition out there so you must be proactive in promoting your products. Items in the shops do not have the same visibility as items on auction. Ebay does this deliberately to push you towards auctions. Fair enough, it is an auction site after all.

You don’t however want your entire shop inventory on auction; they’d be no point in having a shop if you did this. The proven method for driving traffic to your shop and thereby increasing your sales is to strike the right balance between auction listings and shop inventory.

I’ve found a few items placed on auction can increase the traffic to your shop immensely. On your auction listing you inform buyers about the other products that are for sale in your shop, this funnels them from the auction into your ship where they might see something they like.

So the auction is not only a sale in its own right but it’s also bait to pull people into your shop. I have sold tens of items from my shop through running an auction. I always put my auctions on for ten days. I want maximum exposure time. I start them low to attract interest. Be warned though this can back fire. You may end up selling your auction item at a loss. If you have attracted people to your shop, and made sales though, the auction has been a succes

You need to think strategically. If I run an auction and it ends low meaning I have sold an item at a loss but I made ten sales from my shop through the auction. It’s been a success. The auction was simply an advertisement to my shop, which I have paid for. The same way you would pay for a classified in a newspaper, but far more effective.

The fallout from running a few auctions can last for weeks with buyers calling back to your shop for more purchases. If you also have a website, you direct them to it and if you have provided good service, you will get a returning customer. So it’s important to view auctions from a higher perspective than did you make an immediate profit from the sale.

Anyway, to get back to what I was saying, I’m going to be putting a few auctions up to attract buyers into my shop. I intend to stagger the auctions daily. Each will run for ten days giving me maximum exposure to my shop. I’m going to list a variety of items covering a broad range of my stock. I’ll keep you informed how it goes.

Until next time…

Developing A “can Do” Attitude

If you’re going to be successful in your business you need to develop a can do attitude. Without it you won’t even get going, you’ll become just another dreamer and talker. By can do attitude I’m not talking about a superficial positive cliché to everything, I’m not talking about a false cheerfulness when under pressure. It has to go deeper than that. It has to be ingrained in your DNA, a part of your core. You don’t have to go about constantly smiling, who does? Who could?

I’m talking about developing an attitude that you can deal with any obstacle that arises. You will not hide from it, not deny it, you will deal with it in a logical and determined way. You will decide on a course of action and overcome each obstacle that is in the way of your attempts to solve the problem. If you’ve spent most of your life as an employee you may have not been in a position to solve problems, you may not have had to deal with any problem solving issues.

Well if you’re going to build yourself an extra income you’re going to have to get used to solving all the problems that that journey will bring. It’s my opinion, my deeply held belief that anybody can be trained for anything. We are not born knowing how to do anything. We are products of our upbringing and culture.

If we were educated and brought up to be independent problem solving people that’s what we are. If we were on the other hand brought up to take orders and not think for ourselves, then we will exhibit those characteristics, always looking for someone else or the state to solve our problems.

We do not however have to remain trapped in the constraints of our cultural upbringing. We can break free and rebuild ourselves into what we want to become. We are not machines, we have the free will to grow, to step outside of the beliefs we have had hammered into us about ourselves and how we should behave.

Here’s some tips for developing and reinforcing a can do attitude.

• Watch out for self defeating mental chatter. As soon as you hear yourself thinking something can’t be done stop and ask why? If sales in your business are slow ask why. What can you do about it? Don’t say you can’t sell them. You can, you may just need a different approach. If there’s a little nagging voice in your head telling you you could never run a business. Stop it and change it to you can run a business. Once you get your business started and make your first sale, you have achieved a great victory to silencing that self sabotaging voice that’s been holding you back for years.
• Avoid negative people. Not always possible I know but you can at least shut them out. Don’t let their negativity drag you down into inertia. Don’t allow their “you can’t do anything about it” attitude contaminate you.
• Become a problem solver. Approach each problem in a logical and determined way. Who said life was supposed to be easy? It’s full of problems. The great news is that you have the greatest computer in the world between your ears. Start to use it. Brainstorm problems. Come up with solutions and form plans. No matter how bad the situation keep looking for options. There’s always something you can do. In a dark room it’s better to light one candle than to complain about the dark. Look at problems as challenges for you to deal with.
• Leave the comfort zone. Think outside the box and be prepared to try new ideas. Keep your mind open for new ideas. Look around for how others have solved similar problems. Take calculated risks.
• Stay positive and be bold. Any problem can be solved with the right mindset. If you’re thinking of starting up a business to build yourself another income. You will have to complete a multitude of tasks to het it up and running. These can seem overwhelming and may discourage you. They needn’t. Just break the tasks down into smaller tasks then work logically through them

Over the last week I’ve pulled some products from my business that weren’t selling very well. I had to replace them with other products which I believe may sell better. The thought of dropping products and finding others to replace them was quiet daunting. It meant me getting out of my comfort zone and searching for other products. I just broke it down into small chunks.

1. Pull all poor selling products from EBay. They are costing money to keep on EBay. Draining your profits. (I leave them on my website because it doesn’t cost me anything to leave them there.)

2. Find new products to replace them with.

3. Contact supplier

4. Buy products

5. Write out listings and take photos.

6. List them on EBay

7. Monitor

Mission accomplished within two weeks.

• Don’t take anything personally. In your day to day business dealings take nothing personally. If you have a dissatisfied customer, deal with the problem calmly and logically. No matter how unreasonable it seems just deal with it, solve the problem then decide whether you want to deal with that customer again.

A can do attitude is the ability to overcome problems. To set goals and do everything you can to achieve them no matter what the obstacles are. To move forwards towards your dreams with a white hot intensity. Determined to achieve them. It’s an attitude that is essential to success and it’s an attitude that you can develop. With each success you have, however small it’s an attitude that will soon be reinforced in your character.

Doers and Talkers

I was talking to a friend the other day. He was asking me how my business was going. I told him how things were going. He then told me of the plans he had to start selling on eBay and then get a website built to open a full e-commerce site. I’d heard the story before. He first told me it two years ago. He was going to put some money aside and buy some stock before starting in business on eBay. He’ll still be telling me these plans in another year. And plans are all they will ever be because he lacks the motivation and confidence to act.

He’s not unusual. He falls into the category of people who dream but never take any action to make the dream a reality. They talk a good game but never actually commit to playing one. They’re always waiting to find the perfect product, or waiting until the time is right before they begin.

Well they’ll be waiting forever. There’s no perfect product and the time is never right. Deep down they know this. This is just an excuse to prevent them from taking action and committing themselves to a course of action. They are afraid. Afraid of what might happen, afraid to step into the arena and test themselves.

The people who succeed are action takers. They don’t wait for the perfect moment because they realise that it will never come. They know they’ll never find the perfect product at the perfect price. So they act with what they have.

They step into the arena armed with the knowledge they posses and see what happens. When they start to get real live feedback from the market, they adjust their plan. They realign themselves, regroup and move forward again. Constantly monitoring the feedback coming in from the market place.

If something fails they don’t drop their head pack up and complain to everyone who will listen that you can’t make any money on eBay or online. They analyse their results, take logical decisions under pressure and try another angle.

When I started my business on eBay, I bought products, which were very slow sellers. A hard core of my products sold frequently every week others hardly ever rang up a sale. I just adjusted my strategy. When the slow sellers had gone, I stopped selling them. I don’t want to tie money up for months in a product that’s hard to move when I could invest it in something that sells every week and give me a return on my investment fast so I could reinvest and build up wealth.

So I looked around for other products to replace the slow selling ones. You have to show courage and take some risks. You don’t know what products will sell. You can do some market research on eBay to see what’s selling but there’s no getting away from it, you will have to take a risk and invest some capital in a product that might not sell.

This is the fun of running a business. Where you are competing and making decisions that will affect your future growth. I’ve recently invested some capital in another product range. I don’t know if it will sell well, or even if it will sell at all. I’ve done some research and committed myself to a course of action that I will pursue with white-hot determination. I want to grow my business so I have to move on. I have to leave my comfort zone and move forward. I’m prepared to do this.

You can narrow the risk by just buying a few different products in the same line, putting them up for sale and seeing what happens. The point is you have to act. My friend will never take that final step. Things will never be right. They will always be “too many at it”. What he means is, he’d like to do it but he doesn’t have the courage to take the action required.

It’s not just about price

Competing on price on EBay is a sure way to disaster. Sellers who employ this strategy will find themselves at best working for nothing and at worse losing money. The eBay market place is full of different types of sellers who are all employing different strategies to achieve their goals. There is, for example the big players. These are guys who own large businesses and will use eBay to dump stock on. They may not be bothered about making a profit they just want rid of their stock so they’ll sell it at a low price.

You also have the big players who use eBay to attract customers to their websites. They will sell products below the market value knowing that once they hook a buyer they will then up sell other products to make a profit.

You also have people selling personal items that they no longer want, or unwanted gifts so they will sell these for a low price and of course you will have people selling products illegally, copies etc. For a new seller to enter this market place and try to compete on price is business suicide.

I write from experience as well as thorough reviews and experiments. In my early days of trading, I did try to compete on price and I paid the price for that folly. I run an online arts store www.artscraftsandhobbies.co.uk and I have my own eBay store Arts, crafts & Hobbies. A part of my inventory consists of painting instruction DVDs. When I first started trading, I started on eBay and I priced the DVDs low at £10.00 each. Now art instruction DVDs are quiet expensive, they retail for between £18.00 up to £60.00. I had a supplier who provided me them at a good price.

As I said, I originally priced them at £10.00, which didn’t leave me much of a margin but I was naïve,and as you know we all have to pay to learn. After engaging in quiet a lot of studying and experimenting, I saw that price increases didn’t affect my sales at all. So, I took the decision to raise my prices substantially. For example, I increased the price of my DVDs from £10.00 to £14.99.

Now this is a substantial increase but in reality, it’s around what I should have charged originally. My reasoning was simple I would have to take a huge hit on sales to actually lose revenue, I worked out it would have to be something around a 35% drop. If sales did drop by that amount then I would be still earning the same income level from less work. Sounded like a good deal to me.

Now here’s the strange thing. My sales in the first month of the price increase went up. I sold more DVDs that month than any previous month since I had started trading. And they have remained steady. I also sell plenty of products in my store that other sellers sell cheaper.

I do not try to compete on price. When I add a new product to my store I don’t even look at what others may be selling it for, I’m not interested. I price the product using my own system, which takes into account eBay and PayPal fees and gives me my profit margin. I’m not doing this to make eBay rich or to give things away. I’m doing this to build up an income for me and my family. I want rewarding for the work I put into my business otherwise it’s pointless.

So if you’re thinking about entering the eBay marketplace don’t get fixated on the prices others are charging for their products. Take your cost price and add eBay and PayPal fees then add your profit margin and that’s your selling price. Be professional and focused. People don’t just buy on price and you probably don’t want to do business with those who do. Other factors come into play like how well you have listed your item, feedback and trust. Experiment a little and see what happens.

Keep Trading

Paul

Bad weekend on ebay

I’ve had a bit of a disaster on eBay this weekend. It started on Thursday. EBay is instigating another change for sellers. They are updating the look of EBay stores. This is an update that will come into effect in March, whether you like it or not. I went into my control panel and saw eBay had given me the option of previewing the new store. I didn’t have to accept it yet but I could look at it and if I liked it, I could keep it running.

So, with nothing to lose (so I thought) I clicked the preview button. Everything looked great. I really liked the new look, it’s crisp, clear and attractive so I decided to keep it, why not? So, I applied the change and carried on doing what I was doing.

By Sunday afternoon, I was getting a bit worried that my weekend sales had dropped off drastically from eBay. This was unusual; my sales have been consistently climbing, even on a bad day I sell a certain amount on eBay. To be honest I was enjoying the break but this lack of activity was starting to drag my daily sales average down. A situation I could not allow to go on for long if I am to achieve my yearly/monthly/weekly/daily income goals.

So I moved into investigation mode. The first question I asked myself was “what’s happening?” I moved into my eBay control panel and opened my traffic reports. A brief examination showed me that my traffic was way down. A more thorough examination revealed that my traffic had plummeted since last Thursday.

Now what happened last Thursday? Yes, that’s right I changed my eBay store over to the new look store. I had done nothing else. The drop in traffic and correspondingly sales occurred from the time I swopped over so I concluded this must have had something to do with it.

Further investigation led me to the eBay forums and confirmation of my theory. Other members were complaining about the same thing. They had switched over and lost traffic and sales. A few were quiet irate about it and who can blame them. I did a Google search and found more people complaining about the same thing.

Going back to my control panel, I returned to my original shop front. Within hours, my sales had kicked off again. EBay had introduced the new shop fronts without checking what other effects they would have. Fortunately, there will be no compulsory introduction until March, by which time I hope eBay has sorted the problem out. If not there may be another exodus of sellers who are still smarting from price increases and other anti seller legislation. Eventually the people running eBay might wake up to the fact that they won’t be a monopoly for long if they don’t stop making life difficult for sellers.

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