The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is hosting a virtual summit on September 15th from 10am to 6pm (ET). Once inside the exhibit hall, attendees will be able to search for and chat with other small business owners, attend seminars and visit vendor booths. Register for free with the code “gbb366″ Registration Page Read more »
If executed correctly, one three-year plan can result in eBay profiting from an estimated $500 billion opportunity in a new market focus: off-price retailers, liquidators, wholesalers and outlets. But even after addressing the plan last week, analysts are still wondering if eBay can actually do it. At a meeting held March 11 with its investors in San Jose, Calif., president and CEO John Donahoe explained how the company hopes to execute many operational changes through 2011. As a result, eBay expects total revenues to reach $10 to $12 billion by 2011, up from last year’s $8.5 billion. But with that... Read more »
Postmaster General John Potter’s public plea for a shorter mail delivery week has called attention to how current correspondence has driven the United States Postal Service to debt, as well as how its downfall could later harm e-commerce. With more personal and business correspondence done over e-mail than snail mail these days, Potter testified before a Senate subcommittee Wednesday to explain the financial need for one less delivery day during the week – not necessarily Saturday, but another day in which mail volume is usually light, such as Tuesday. The Postal Service has maintained a six-day delivery week since 1983,... Read more »
Some of eBay’s most successful sellers specialize in surplus, overstocked or closeout merchandise. You can earn large profits if you buy carefully, but, it is important to buy only desirable merchandise. Surplus, or closeout merchandise, is merchandise sold at a large discount because it did not sell at full retail for some reason. Usually retail merchandise shows up at closeout dealers because it wouldn’t sell in a store. This could be for many reasons: Seasonal goods Store closing or bankruptcy Obsolete goods replaced by newer products Customer returns after the holidays (not warranty or defect returns) Another category of merchandise... Read more »
On March 3rd Ebay launched a few new features. One of these was Best Match. Has this addition helped or hurt their business? Let’s take a look and find out. Now when you log onto eBay and search for an item, instead of getting several thousand items that only match the words you type in, you get millions of items that all have the keywords you typed in – some not having anything to do with the item you are searching for. Best Match – Changes Made Along with the best match feature, they also made changes to their feedback... Read more »
If you have started your own online eBay business, you may have noticed that the constant circle of listing items, selling them, sending out invoices, receiving payments and relisting items for sale can take quite a bit of time out of your schedule. If you are listing items one at a time, going page by page through the eBay program, this slowdown in your business life is even worse. While you may love the profitability of eBay, you may also wish for an easier, and less time consuming, way to take care of your online inventory. Thankfully, there are many... Read more »
In the last article, 5 Ways to be a Successful eBay PowerSeller , I talked about the huge benefits that achieving PowerSeller status can bring to your business, as well as 5 ways you can make your eBay listings stand out and bring in more buyers. In this article, I’m going to tell you about 5 more ways to achieve that all important PowerSeller status – this time by focusing on customer service. Your customers are how you make sales, and no matter how pretty your pictures are, or how well written your titles and descriptions are – if your... Read more »
There are a number of ways to successfully advance as an eBay PowerSeller. As an 8 year Seller on eBay, with a 100% feedback rating of over 1000, I’ve come to recognize several things that work, and several others that don’t, when trying to build a successful business as a PowerSeller on eBay. What is an eBay PowerSeller? eBay is constantly monitoring the volume of sales of its members. Any seller that can achieve a consistent Sales volume (at least $1000 in gross sales, or 100 items sold per month) for three consecutive months, as well as maintaining a feedback... Read more »
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... Read more »
As an eBay retailer, getting traffic to your store and auctions is critical to your business’ success. The most successful eBay businesses use search engine optimization (SEO) tips and tricks to get their eBay store and auction listings to show up in the natural listings of search engines like Google and Yahoo. An increase in traffic to your store and listings gives more people the opportunity to purchase your items, thus increasing your sales and profits. The best SEO tips and tricks for eBay sellers Make a keyword-rich listing title – The title of your listing is the number-one way... Read more »