goWholesale

Posts Tagged ‘ebay sellers’

eBay Fee Hike Followup

Monday, February 25th, 2008

At the beginning of the month I posted about the eBay fee hike…

Since then, smaller sellers in the eBay community have rallied together to boycott the hike as eBay attempts to court the bigger sellers. Sadly, the mini strike apparently had little to no effect and eBay remains firm in going through with the changes on Wednesday.

It looks like smaller sellers or anyone not happy with the fee hike should look closely at the pros and cons of doing business through eBay. There are eBay alternatives that facilitate auctioning such as Amazon.com or you could even consider beginning your own. Whatever you decide….good luck!

Tags: ebay, ebay alternatives, ebay fee hike, ebay sellers, feedback, online auctions, Rebecca Button
Posted in Blog | No Comments »

Taxes eBay Sellers Are Responsible For

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

There are three types of tax that you will be responsible for when you start your eBay business. They are 1) sales and use tax, 2) payroll tax and 3) income tax.

Sales and use tax
Just about every state, and many cities and other local authorities, imposes a sales tax on items sold. Each state has different rules, so it’s important to find out the rules in your state and city. As an eBay seller, you are responsible for collecting and remitting the proper sales tax to the state you live in. You are also responsible for preparing and submitting a report detailing the amount of your sales and the sales tax collected.

You may also be subject to use taxes. This is taxes on goods you purchased out of state that you did not pay sales taxes on. The use tax generally applies to items purchased out of state which would have been subject to sales tax if the purchase transaction had taken place in state. The use tax came about from the concern that purchasers could avoid paying a state’s sales tax by making their purchases outside the state.

Payroll tax
The second type of tax that you are responsible for as an eBay seller is payroll tax. If you hire employees to help you with your eBay business, you are required to withhold federal income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, and state income taxes. These taxes must be submitted to the proper tax authorities on a periodic basis (usually quarterly). In addition you must pay unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation on all employees.

If you operate your business as an S or C Corporation, you will need to setup payroll for yourself, and remit payroll taxes on your own salary. If you operate as a Sole Proprietorship, you pay self employment tax instead of payroll tax.

Income tax
The final type of tax you are responsible for as an eBay seller is the income tax. No matter how your business is structured, you will be required to pay income tax on the business’ net profit.

Sole Proprietors pay income tax on their personal income tax return (Form 1040). Your business profit is calculated using Schedule C - Profit or Loss From Business, and your profit from your eBay activity is added to your other income to determine your tax liability.

S Corporations file Form 1120S to report the business profit or loss. A Schedule K-1 is then prepared, which shows each shareholder’s share of the net profit or loss that needs to be declared on their personal tax return.

C Corporations file Form 1120 to both report the business net profit and to calculate the resulting income tax.

Depending on the state you do business in, you may also be subject to state income taxes on your eBay profits. The state level taxes are often referred to as franchise taxes.

Kristine A. McKinley, CPA, Certified Financial Planner(r), and founder of Beacon Financial Advisors, teaches individuals and families how to invest and plan for retirement, college, and other financial goals. Kristine offers financial and tax planning on an hourly, fee-only basis. For more eBay tax tips, visit her blog Tax Tips for eBay Sellers .

Tags: Accounting, CFP, CPA, ebay, ebay sellers, Finance, Finance and Accounting, Kristine McKinley, Tax Tips for eBay Sellers, taxes
Posted in News & Articles | No Comments »

5 Low (and No) Cost Marketing Tips for eBay Sellers

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

So you’re ready to start an eBay business, but you’re not sure of the best ways to get people to take notice while still saving money on marketing? This is an important step, as no one will be able to buy your products if they don’t know your company exists.

1. Become a master at niche marketing and use specialization to get ahead. This is the easiest way for a small business to get started. Find your niche and market to them directly. Know who you’re selling to and you will be able to create a marketing message that appeals to the right group of people. You’ll also have to deal with less competition if you do this.

2. Use audio in your auctions to increase sales. This may not seem like an effective marketing strategy, but it has been proven time and time again that including audio in your auctions is a relatively easy way to increase sales. When people hear an audio message, they are more willing to trust you. You have created a personal connection between the seller and buyer that almost always results in increased sales. There are lots of ways you can do this for a very small investment - you can either purchase a microphone and recording software, or use one of the many audio services out there that are designed specifically with eBay sellers in mind.

3. Take time to craft an excellent auction headline and item description. Basically, the headline is your main advertising ploy - it’s the first thing that people see and it has to be powerful enough to draw the customer in and compel them to click on your link. The item description continues the sales pitch once you’ve gained the customer’s interest. You have to brand your products and business in an effective manner if you want the customer to buy your product.

Use power words in your headline that make your product seem like the most exciting item in the world. Power words include rare, unique, powerful, new, unusual, stunning, or anything else that has the potential to grab a person’s interest. At the same time, it’s important not to lie about what you’re selling. Keep it truthful and you will enjoy success.

4. Implement keywords into your headline and in your description. Most people buying products on eBay begin with a search engine, so all the rules of online marketing apply. Choose accurate and appropriate keywords for your title and description, and you will get more hits on your page. Use all 55 characters in the headline, including information such as brand, color, size, and model number.

5. Consider advertising in search engines to drive customers to your eBay shop. Although this can cost you some money, if you research unique keywords you may be able to land customers that your competition has ignored at a relatively low cost. Plus, if you have a store outside of eBay as well, you can use your eBay marketing to funnel sales to your online store.

Ultimately, marketing your eBay business doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Many of the best marketing techniques are completely free, or only require a small investment of money. With common sense and some research on your side, you will be enjoying eBay success in no time.

Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, ebay, ebay sellers, Marketing, Marketing Your Business, online auctions, tips
Posted in News & Articles | No Comments »

Finding the Most Profitable eBay Products

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Make More When You Cut Out the Middle Man!

There’s plenty of drop-shippers for eBay sellers out there; but they charge a subscription fee and/or increase the cost of the products to make money. How do you cut out the middle man to pay the least amount possible for profitable products to sell on eBay?

If you’re willing to do a little leg work, you can dramatically increase the profits you make. You’ll learn which two sources of in-demand products even many Power Sellers don’t think of. Read on and you’ll learn how.

Go Right to the Source

For the lowest prices on products to sell on eBay, it’s often best to go right to the source, the product manufacturer itself. So where will you find how to contact the maker of products?

As obvious as it might sound, visit a local retailer which sells the product you’re interested in. Take a pencil and paper. On the side of the product packaging, you’ll often see an address for the manufacturer or distribution center. Inquire by phone or mail.

If you don’t know who sells your product locally, where else can you find the manufacturer?

Head to the library. Tell the librarian you want to look up products by manufacturer. You’ll find two or three sets of reference books that’ll give you all the help you need.

You can also do a quick search on Google.com to find this information. Any company of any size is going to have a Web site. Look for an "About Us" or similar link on their home page. They’re very happy to sell more products. They’ll be happy to help you.

There’s one downside. Working directly with the manufacturer or distributor, sometimes you have to buy more than one or two at a time. Also, make sure who pays postage. Take that expense into account when determining how profitable working directly with the manufacturer will be for you. But it’s probably still a lot cheaper than getting the item from a drop-shipper.

The Product Source Close to You

Most every retail store shares a common problem. They have some items which don’t sell. I’ll bet you’ve set foot in a retail store and found an incredible price on a clearance item. Why did they cut the price so much? It didn’t sell.

Often retailers will actually sell items on clearance at a loss. In other words, they sell it for less than they paid themselves.
What’s more, many stores simply don’t want to clear these items out. For example, when a shoe store sells you a pair of Nike’s at deep discount, what does that do to their profit? Sure, they reduced their inventory, but at what price?

Retail Economy 101

Most likely, buying the inexpensive pair of Nike’s meant you DIDN’T buy a more expensive pair. If you came in to buy shoes, you probably expected to pay full price. Let’s say the retail store marks their inventory up 150%. A $125 pair of Nike shoes cost them $50. They make $75 profit.

Let’s say the retail store decides to unload the shoes at a loss. They sell you the shoes for $40 and take a $10 loss (since they paid $50 for them).

If they hadn’t offered the deep discount, you may have bought the $150 pair of shoes next to the discounted ones. They would have made $75 if you hadn’t bought the discounted pair. Did they win?

In this example, the store would have been better off pouring gasoline over and burning the pair of shoes you bought, rather than offering them at discount. Why?

If they had thrown out the pair of shoes that wouldn’t sell, they lost the $50 they paid for the shoes. However, they would have sold you the $150 shoes for $75 in profit. They still would have made $25 by throwing out the shoes.

By selling the shoes at discount, they recovered $40 of the $50 they paid for the shoes. But in doing so, they walked away from $75 in profit!

Give Retailers a Third Option

So what’s a retailer to do? Find another way to sell off their inventory that doesn’t sell. That’s where you come in.

You offer to sell the shoes for them on eBay. The store owner sets them aside and you list them on eBay. Agree to buy the shoes from them IF they sell on eBay for the same $40 they would have closed them out for.

You both win. You can likely sell the shoes for $100 on eBay. That’s still $25 cheaper than retail. And you’ve probably been stunned to see many items sell for more than retail on eBay. I sure have.

If you sell the shoes for $100 on eBay, you make $60 on them. The store owner unloads inventory they don’t want, but they don’t risk a customer buying the cheaper pair instead of a more expensive pair.

But if the shoes don’t sell, you’re not out a dime because you only pay for the inventory IF the shoes sell on eBay. You don’t risk buying inventory that doesn’t sell.

It doesn’t matter whether a store sells toys or electronics. Within a mile or two of your home, you’ll likely find dozens or even hundreds of retailers with excess inventory. When you help them clear out their inventory you provide a service profitable to you and the retailer. You both win.

So why don’t they just sell their items on eBay themselves? For one, they don’t have the time. More importantly, they don’t have the tools and know-how to do it profitably. With a tool like HammerTap auction research tool you know what works. With a minute or two per item, you’ll know:

How likely is the product to sell? (Auction Success Rate)

How much is it likely to sell for? (Average Selling Price)

Which listing features make it more likely to sell for more on eBay? (bold, gallery picture, highlight, etc.)

Simply put, you’ll know how to sell the item on eBay and make money on it. The retailer won’t.

Selling the Idea to Vendors

Visit local retailers which carry products you’d like to sell on eBay. Ask the business owner if the store ever has inventory that doesn’t sell without discounting it. Ask if discounting products means customers may buy the product at discount, rather than buying a similar product at full price.

Now comes the close. Ask, "If I could show you a way to reduce inventory and never risk sacrificing a full-price sale, would this appeal to you?" Here’s a sales tip. Never say "would you be interested?"

People are conditioned to say no to that phrase, because it implies that they are committing to something. But asking if something appeals to them is very easy to say yes to.

Tags: E-Commerce and E-Business, ebay, ebay sellers, HammerTap, Product Sourcing, profitable products, source, steve nye
Posted in News & Articles | No Comments »

Make Money on eBay - Product Sourcing Criteria

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

Locating products is a prerequisite for those who want to make money on eBay. It is also where the real fun begins. At times locating products can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. That is especially true when trying to add "hot" products to your offerings. It is possible to locate almost anything, but for the "hottest" products, the price that will be required will mean little or no profit.

Start by examining your main suppliers. Look at a set of criteria similar to this:

• Products Must be in Your Core Sales Areas

• Product Quality is as Represented

• Customer Service Must be Outstanding

• Reasonable Prices

• Prompt Delivery

• Products must be in our core sales areas - for a supplier to be on your list, they should handle products that are within your core sales areas. To make money on eBay, every supplier must be able to support your core business area, with other "great deals" as a bonus. Purchase and then pass those "great deals" onto your customers.

• Product quality is as represented - this is really about trust. You must be able to trust your suppliers. When they say that a particular product is a certain way that is exactly what you expect to see when the product arrives. When they recommend a product that you are unfamiliar with, you need to be able to count on that recommendation to be true. If you cannot trust your suppliers, eliminate them from your list.

• Customer service must be outstanding - you should expect nothing less than outstanding customer service from your suppliers. This includes prompt replies to questions, quick turnaround on purchases, and notification of "hot deals" when they become available from the supplier.

• Reasonable prices - most eBay businesses are on a very tight profit margin. You need to count on your suppliers to provide the lowest possible pricing on their products. If there are ways to reduce prices, you need to know. The less you spend on products, the better the pricing for your customers! Everyone wins with this approach.

• Prompt delivery - you should look for two things in delivery. The first is pricing. As fuel prices increase, freight becomes a bigger and bigger part of the overall cost of merchandise. Look to your suppliers to do everything possible to keep freight costs down.

(We have also started working with another businesses to coordinate shipments, for example. By combining our freight, we can typically obtain lower freight costs.) The other piece of the freight equation is speed of delivery. Once you’ve paid for the merchandise, it is money that you need to turn around to invest in new merchandise as soon as possible. You cannot make money on eBay if you pay for freight and then have products just sitting in someone’s warehouse. To that end, expect your suppliers to ship immediately upon receipt of payment. Be sure to track your incoming shipments to ensure delays are minimized.

The list actually looks much like the list that eBay buyers use when they decide whether to bid on products, and then whether to give positive feedback or not.

In addition to your good old standby suppliers, develop a back-up list of second-tier suppliers. These suppliers are either recommended by someone you trust, or that you have found at tradeshows, in newsletters, or through some other means. Possibly you have completed only one or two transactions, but some issue kept them from making your main supplier list. Look to these second-tier suppliers for products when your main suppliers cannot help with a specific product that will make money on eBay.
As a part of the process, ask each supplier that cannot furnish a desired product to recommend another source. While this rarely meets with success, there will be times when you hit a homerun using this approach.
If your main suppliers and second-tier suppliers are unable to provide a product, conduct an internet search. When you reach this point, know that you are going to be investing a lot of time not only looking for the right supplier, but also in investigation of prospects.

Before we ever deal with a new supplier make sure that the supplier can provide the desired product. Work to determine a price. If all is looking positive, ask for references before you buy. Only after checking references should you move forward with a purchase.

Always be very conservative with your first purchase from a new supplier. There are just too many unscrupulous sellers who provide inferior products, poor service, or have other issues. You will not make money on eBay with these problems.

Don’t forget that many who make money on eBay manufacture their own products. This is another great way to do something that you really enjoy for a profit!

To Your eBay Success!

(C) 2007 Bob Hamilton All Rights Reserved Helping people get started on eBay Visit http://www.onlineauctionsmadesimple.net for a Free Dropship Report!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Tags: bob hamilton, ebay, ebay sellers, ezinearticles.com, onlineauctionsmadesimple.net, Product Sourcing, source
Posted in News & Articles | No Comments »