How answering one little email promptly can set off a positive chain of events from which you will ultimately benefit

Each week I try and come up with a topic to cover in my newsletter that I think will benefit you – and some weeks it’s easier than others to decide on which direction I take! This week was actually a bit of a dilemma because I’m currently away in beautiful snowy Chamonix and so I wanted to keep it short (for obvious selfish reasons!) but interesting for you.

So, I was delighted when browsing the Daily Mail online I came across this brilliantly written article which I thought I would share with you today because not only is it a pleasant read but also it ties in with you and your online business as well.

The article in question was all about communication and the fact that these days telephone calls, emails and letters are often totally ignored – and why is this? It’s because we’re all too busy.

I agree totally with the author who questions that it seems beyond sense that in this day and age with our huge array of technical gadgets to make communicating quicker and easier – mobile phones, smart phones, iPads, Netbooks – that the ‘No Response’ phenomenon is actually worse than ever.

It’s surely a simple courtesy to respond to an email, telephone call or text message whether in business or pleasure? Or am I missing something here?

At my eBay Workshop which I hosted a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions I was asked was whether there comes a kind of cut off point where I won’t respond to questions or queries from my students anymore and I was horrified to think that the thought was there that one day I would just decide that person X or person Y had received enough of my attention, had reached their quota of questions and so wouldn’t get them answered anymore! Having seen someone reach a certain point, why would I suddenly not want to help them anymore and miss out on seeing them progress to new heights?

Those who know me will know that I always answer every email that lands in my inbox. I may be a little more lax about Twitter and Facebook questions, but that’s harder to keep track of, especially if a question is from someone who is following me but I’m not following them as it won’t immediately become apparent that there is a question. But email-wise, if it doesn’t get replied to it’s only because I haven’t received it and it’s flapping around in that big black hole that is cyberspace somewhere!

I think I am totally the opposite of those who are described within the Daily mail article!

Sometimes, frustratingly I am one of those people who cannot ignore communication – whoever it may be from and however busy I am – which can be a good thing but also a bad thing!

I’m one of those people that writes a ‘thank you’ letter then feels that I should thank the person who thanked me for sending the thank you letter in the first place! I’m one of those people who isn’t sure when a text conversation should officially come to an end – can you just abruptly leave a text conversation hanging? I don’t like that – it’s not finished – it hasn’t reached its natural conclusion!

Now I’m aware that this is probably coming across as a bit OCD! I prefer to think of it as OCC though – Obsessive Compulsive Courtesy. Courtesy costs nothing and it doesn’t take long to acknowledge an email or text or make a quick return phone call. I appreciate that you are busy – we all are – but most of us aren’t receiving so many thousands of emails and phone calls in a day that we can’t respond within a couple of days surely?

I’m not saying that you should respond the minute an email lands in your inbox – like Dr Anthony Seldon. He’s the headmaster of the prestigious Wellington College in Berkshire, and is known to reply to an email within five minutes of it arriving! I think sometimes I come a close second to Dr Seldon!

And I know that sometimes it is really tempting to hit the delete button and move on. But then the guilt – oh the guilt! My finger is hovering and I start thinking, what if that had been me that sent that email and the recipient had deleted it. I’d be sat waiting for my answer – an answer that would never come.

And how would I feel? Disappointed? Let down? Upset? Probably.

Would I get over it?

Of course I would!

But it’s all about striking a balance. It’s about managing expectations too. And this applies to your eBay or any other online business – see I told you my ramblings would be beneficial to you in the end!

Good, prompt customer service costs nothing

You want to achieve satisfied customers, good positive feedback comments, testimonials, recommendations and repeat custom and you will if you make sure your service is up to scratch. We are all busy but with a little bit of time management, you can ensure you have time each day to answer your emails, respond to any eBay questions and so on so that no-one is disappointed. And this can quite easily lead to more sales too – if you answer that eBay message that’s waiting promptly that potential buyer is more likely to become a definite buyer because you’ve firstly shown good service by being prompt and secondly you have hopefully given the correct answer so that they go on to buy your item. Following that they will leave good positive feedback and they may even tell their friends! It’s a chain reaction that starts from one simple action – answering one small email!

Seriously that’s all it takes and that’s what courtesy is. Why don’t you try it this week. I guarantee it will make you feel good (all pure and efficient!) and you’ll have no disappointed potential customers.

And if you would like to read the original article, here it is

As always I wish you the very best of success,

Amanda

Become an expert and get your business off to a flying start

Well the school holidays are here once again, although it only seems like 5 minutes since the Christmas break and I am now getting concerned that time is flying by far too quickly! With so much to do, I’m off for just a quick bit of R and R next week with my family before I get stuck back in and so I wanted to give you something to think about whilst I’m away – especially if you haven’t taken action yet and got going with your online business.

The main reason you may not have started yet or are in a bit of a quandary as to what to do next is likely to be exactly the same reason as many other people too! It’s called ‘not knowing where to start’…

I know this because at least 3 or 4 times a week, I get asked: ‘Please tell me what to sell on eBay to make money’? and in just a few months a short article I wrote on the subject has received over 3180 views online!

I also know because I’ve been there myself. So, having been in this ‘what can I sell?’ position a few years ago, I am vitally aware that many people who attempt to start their own eBay business do struggle with this hurdle and I know that it is so frustrating when you simply haven’t a clue what to sell. But what I always tell people is that there is absolutely no point in running at it in a haphazard way, zigzagging through the hundreds of different categories and sub-categories on eBay with absolutely no true purpose, trying to work out what people might want to buy, when in fact many of us are already sat on what could turn out to be a very profitable eBay business. And to discover this, you need to take a look at yourself.

Most of us have a hobby or an interest of some sort outside of the usual work, kids, life in general scenario, something that we do to relax or to de-stress or to make us feel good about ourselves, so you must take a look at what you enjoy doing. After all, doesn’t it make sense that if you enjoy doing it then there is the possibility that there are many others out there who will enjoy doing it too.

What’s even better is if you happen to have a hobby or an interest that you are really good at! The advantage being that if you are, or you can become, an expert on your chosen subject and then convert that into becoming an expert on a product or niche that ties in with your hobby or interest, you will ultimately do better with your business. This is because buyers like to purchase from people or places that are knowledgeable about the goods they are selling and this is especially important when you are selling online. In this scenario you will never get the chance to convince someone to buy face to face so it’s important that your product descriptions are detailed and informative. Remember, the back button is all too accessible to online buyers. One click and they are gone forever!

When you talk about something you love, you become animated and you talk louder and with depth and the same applies when you are writing about something that you love or are knowledgeable about, in this case, your eBay listing description. For a start your enthusiasm will come through in your descriptions and you will be giving your potential customers something they can identify with – you - someone who has the same interests as them. This will hold their attention and you will immediately gain respect, trust, undoubtedly more sales and ultimately more profit!

So, as a starting point to making money using eBay, the idea is that you build a business around your own hobbies and interests which is easier than you might think!

By way of example and to show you that what you might think is not very interesting to anyone else, actually is, I did some random searches on eBay using ‘hobby and interests’ type keywords in various categories. The results will encourage you and give you some starting points if you are struggling with what to sell on eBay or feel that the skill or knowledge that you have really isn’t interesting enough to anyone else. I think you’ll be surprised by what I uncovered!

Are you creative and arty? Do you enjoy card-making or cake making for example?

Card making and cake making are two very popular hobbies and if either of these are pastimes that you already do, why not contact a wholesaler of card-making materials or cake making implements and put together a ‘how to’ style instruction package. You could include the actual materials required to make a particular set of cards for example. Or you could put together a ‘Party Cakes’ instruction kit, CD or DVD. Or how about selling wedding cake accessories?

eBay showed 945 examples of ‘kit’ types of product when I searched for Card Making Kit and 349 results for Wedding Cake Toppers Bride and Groom. These are good sized sub-niches to go into – not too big so that the competition overwhelms you and not so small that there is obviously no demand, but you do need to watch the prices and your profits in both of these areas.

Are you interested in classic cars or revamping old vehicles?

A quick search on eBay revealed that a ‘How To Paint Your Car’ DVD (weird, but rather wonderful!) is selling steadily. What’s more you can create an information product like a DVD or e-book on CD very easily and cheaply yourself. Try advertising a ‘Spray Painting Your….’ course with different cars or types of products listed each time – for example How To Spray Paint Your…. MG, Classic Ford, Classic Jaguar so you catch the whole market by making sure your keywords reach the widest audience. I have no doubt that spray painting your MG is no different to spray painting your Mercedes or your Ford – so it’s likely to be exactly the same information on each DVD – but this way you can sell to multiple markets!

Is looking gorgeous and groomed important to you?

A close friend of mine is obsessed with her nails! She has every of colour nail varnish available, along with gel nails, acrylic nails, UV lamps, manicure sets – you name it, she’s got it! But whilst I might laugh at her obsession, she is most definitely not alone in her enjoyment. This is a perfect example of an interest that is likely to apply to others. Getting false nails applied at the salon isn’t cheap and there’s a lot of up-keep involved too. Combine this with money being tight, and people start looking for ways to avoid having to pay a fortune but still have great looking talons. So what do they do…they look for at home DIY kits. Nail Art is big business right now! I found a listing for an Acrylic Nails Starter Kit with 3 or 4 units sold off the listing each day, all at a Buy It Now price of £24.99 – wouldn’t you like to be doing that!

Mum (or dad) knows best…

And here’s an idea if you are a new mum or dad and know everything there is to know about the needs of new parents. The types of products you can sell within this niche are endless. If you’ve got small children or you’ve just had a baby, take a look around you – what do you see? What could you not do without? Then check the market on eBay. Here’s another real eBay example: I searched for Bandana Bibs and almost immediately found a seller who has sold a whopping 10,458 packs of these funky bibs so far, all at £8.75 per pack. Babies go through bibs like lightening so it stands to reason that they are in demand.

And that’s just a small selection that I found by spending about 20 minutes searching eBay. Remember that all these subjects I’ve mentioned here also have other related products that will do well on eBay. You need to have a really good think because even though you may feel that you haven’t got a hobby that’s suitable, then you will undoubtedly have an interest as I have shown above – owning a pet that you love is an interest, going for long walks is an interest, DIY is an interest. It doesn’t have to be a full blown hobby, just something that you enjoy and know something about.

Then, using eBay’s advanced search facility, simply look at completed listings for categories and sub-categories within your niche of interest and check out what’s sold well over a recent period of time and the prices achieved from the listings. This will give you a clear idea of which products you should be looking at selling.

So, I hope you can see how easy it is to find inspiration and turn your interests in to a really successful eBay business. It just requires a little thought to get you started and once you have found your niche you can simply keep researching the saleability of products and add to your inventory as you go.

Build up your stock slowly, adding relevant new products when you see fit and in no time you could have 10 or 20 products on the go all within the same profitable niche. Think of the cross-selling and up-selling opportunities that this will give you!

As always, I wish you the very best of success!

Amanda

Two more time saver tips for you

Try out these two new services and see if they can benefit your online business

Well, what a fantastic week I’ve had and what absolutely lovely people I’ve met. I think I am still on a high after hosting my first ever eBay workshop last weekend! Yes – it was the first one ever – so you can imagine that I was feeling just a little nervous beforehand. I’m delighted to tell you that it all went really well and the feedback I’ve had so far has been absolutely great so I’m feeling delighted and will now definitely consider doing more workshops throughout this year – I’ll keep you informed of developments!

Anyway, following on from my ‘Fast Post’ tip from my 13^th January newsletter - which you can read here if you missed it, and whilst chatting with eBay workshop attendee Gordon on Sunday, I learned something new too!

Yes, I don’t know whether it’s because I live out in the sticks, but when Gordon mentioned ‘Post & Go’ as a method of posting your eBay parcels, I'd never heard of it. Now, I don’t mind admitting that and neither had quite a few other people heard of it either, so I’ve done some investigating and can bring you up to speed about it today. It wasn’t easy finding this information either as Royal Mail seem to be quite shy about publicizing this service!

What is Post & Go?

Well as the name implies, ‘Post & Go’ is a self-service system where you can literally ‘post and go’! If you spot a big red monster of a machine in your local Post Office looking extremely menacing in the corner then the chances are that it’s a Post & Go machine! Here you can weigh letters and parcels all by yourself and print the necessary stamps. It caters for 1^st and 2^nd class, international and signed for postage – basically everything that you would normally queue up and do at the Post Office counter - and when you’re done you simply pay by cash or card via the machine.

The thing is that the Post Office has not actually been advertising these self-service machines anywhere – not even on their own website as far as I can see – which is probably one of the reasons that I (and many others) had not heard of this service! That coupled with the fact that I then realised on investigation that the nearest Post & Go machine to where I live is about an hour and a quarter away so not really time efficient for me!

Anyway, you might be in luck and find one near you as there are quite a few Post & Go’s dotted around the country - apparently there are over 220 terminals in 146 Post Office branches - but the majority of them do seem to be in and around London and the bigger cities. If you want to check out whether there’s one near you, just go here and click on the link to get the most recent list from 2011.

Now, having never used a Post & Go machine myself I’m afraid I can’t comment on how efficient or easy to use these machines are but I can definitely see the possible potential for you to use them to speed up the whole posting process for your eBay business if you don’t want to print your own postage at home or queue up in the Post Office.

So, if you are reading this and you are a regular Post & Go-er then please let me know how well (or not) it works for you! Especially if you are posting a large number of parcels each time you use it…

A new service from UK Mail

Now still on the subject of postage, this week I also want to tell you about a service that has been set up by UK Mail. You’ve probably seen their vans around – white with a blue and red logo. Well, they are the largest independent parcel service in the UK and they have set up a new arm to their business called ipostparcels. You can visit their website at http://www.ipostparcels.com  What they wanted to provide was a user-friendly service which allowed customers to easily organise next day deliveries and collections at an affordable price -  and this is the best bit - they did exactly that and have got a specific ipost eBay service. How brilliant is that!

Here you can actually sync your eBay account to ipostparcels so that when you sell an item you can immediately and automatically fill in the ‘quote and book’ form on their website with your sold item details – this in turn gives you immediate access to next day delivery. You can link to eBay here and don’t worry, eBay won’t release your account or password details so it’s perfectly safe. ipostparcels also offers discounts for multiple consignments and so is ideal for you as an eBay seller!

So here’s how it works:

You simply name where you would like your parcels collected from (home/work/etc) and where you would like them delivered to and ipostparcels will collect and deliver within a fast next day service! This way you can guarantee a quick delivery which means your customers will be really happy! With all orders you have the option to select delivery before 9am, 10.30am or Noon. You can also request pre and post delivery advice notifications by email or SMS text. The pre advice delivery is sent to your customer informing them that their delivery is on its way and when to expect it and if the delivery day is not convenient then your customer even has the option to rearrange it via SMS if you have included their mobile phone number at the time of booking.

This is absolutely fantastic customer service and can really help with positive feedback on your eBay account. Plus a proof of delivery is available with all bookings where a signature has been requested, so again this can help with any potential missing parcel disputes.

I think this is a great innovation that offers a viable alternative to queuing at the Post Office and is definitely one to look into as an eBay seller – especially if you need a fast delivery service but at a low cost.

Look out Royal Mail!

As always I wish you the very best of success

Amanda

Four little letters that can make your heat beat faster

I’ve been really busy this week preparing for my first ever eBay Workshop which is taking place this very weekend so it’s been a bit full on in the O’Brien household over the last few days! I’m excited and a little nervous but I think everything is finally ready and I’m really looking forward to having a really enjoyable and extremely beneficial day and meeting those who have booked a place!

So, in between my preparation I’ve received lots of emails this week as usual. It’s quite strange how sometimes I get asked the same questions over and over during the same day or the same week - and this week has been a little bit like that! I think it’s because it’s ‘Tax Return’ time and this particular subject has been on people’s minds, so I thought I’d use today’s newsletter to give you a few tips on the subject. I also want to tell you about an interesting new feature which is available on eBay – unfortunately it won’t help your sales but it’s an interesting bit of information that is quite nice to see – more on that in a moment.

First though, four little letters that can make your heart beat a little bit faster:

HMRC

I often get asked what is required tax-wise when you set up a business and you’ll be pleased to know that it is actually fairly straight-forward. It’s little surprise that with so many businesses now trading on eBay that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have published a proper guide for e-traders like us, so all the information required is online and very easily accessible. What is a little more confusing for some is whether you should register as a self-employed trader or not.

Well, this can easily be sorted out if you simply remember this: if you buy goods to resell – even in small amounts, if you make items to sell, if you buy and sell goods for other people and earn a commission or you provide a service for a payment, then you are trading as a business and this means that you must register with HMRC. You should do this during your first three months of trading, so there is a little leeway, but you must definitely tell them that you are a self-employed trader.

You’ll also need to sort out your National Insurance Contributions and be aware of the information you need to keep records of each month for tax purposes.

HMRC are very aware that a huge amount of eBay businesses operate and they already carry out spot checks so it’s important that you take this seriously and keep things legal and up to date. Remember, eBay is totally transparent – it is not difficult to find out what, when and how much of something you are selling. So, my advice is to do it by the book!

So, there are some simple rules that you must follow:

• Register with HMRC within 3 months of starting to trade. You can find out how to do that here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/register.htm
•  
• Arrange to pay your National Insurance contributions. You can find out how to do that here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/register-selfemp.htm
•  
• If you expect your annual turnover to exceed the threshold for VAT (currently approximately £73,000), you must register for VAT. You can find out how to do that here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/start/index.htm
•  
• Your profit from your business will be treated as personal income, so you will have to complete a self-assessment tax return. But don’t worry: if your turnover is below £15,000 per year, you only need to complete a few lines on the self- assessment form: your total income, your total allowable expenses, and your profit. You can find out more information on this here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/need-tax-return.htm
•   
• As a self-employed sole trader you won’t need to register with Companies House so don’t worry about that!

So, to keep things simple, you must also make sure that you keep records of all your transactions (incoming and outgoing) – that’s stock purchases, equipment such as computers, cameras, printers etc, packaging materials and postage costs and of course any other money spent. Plus keep a track of money coming in too! This is simple – just keep every single receipt and jot everything down so that you know what’s what.

It is unlikely that you will need an accountant during the early stages – you should be able to manage your accounts on your own for the first few months and I can recommend a brilliant website that is extremely eBay and PayPal friendly to help you with this. It’s called Outright and can be found here: http://www.outright.com - definitely worth a look.

Also, because tax implications will vary from business to business, I strongly advise that you go to http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm and have a read through some of the guides available on the site as this will help you with your own situation. For starters, go to http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/startingup/ and scroll to the bottom of the page, then click on SE1 – Thinking of working for yourself? beneath the Further Information heading.

Ok, so that’s the financial stuff out of the way. Now on to a bit of light relief for a Friday!  There are a couple of new features over on eBay.com that haven’t migrated to the UK site yet. They are both situated on the Seller Dashboard but you can’t access them unless you log into the .com site. That’s easy enough though, just go to http://www.ebay.com and log in with your usual ID and password.

Now, neither of these new features will actually improve your sales or get more traffic to your listings, however the information is quite interesting to look at which is why I thought I’d mention it today.

See your lifetimes work so far…

The first new feature is called ‘Lifetime Transactions’ and it’s pretty much what it says on the tin. You can view your total lifetime sales for your eBay account! These appear as the number of sales and also in monetary value which is quite fascinating. Plus you can also see the date of your very first eBay sale on that ID – so you can have a little reminisce whilst you are at it!

The other new feature concerns ‘actions that eBay have taken to protect your account’ that’s a bit of a mouthful but you’ll see it shortened to ‘Seller Protection Actions’ on your Dashboard. What this actually is, is the number of feedbacks eBay have removed for you – none in my case, the number of opened buyer protection cases that eBay have removed or don’t count any more on your account – again none in my case, and the number of times an unpaid item credit has been applied to your account – that’s 6 in my case, which I thought seemed very low as I am certain I have had more buyers who haven’t paid than that! Anyway, at the moment I don’t know if the UK site will be adding these features to your Dashboard or not, but of course you can still access them easily enough by logging into the .com site!

Finally, because I’ve been super-busy this week I thought I’d finish up with a nice bit of trivia. If you hop over to the brilliant What Biz Opp website you’ll find this particularly weird, but very interesting article by Mark Hempshell which I read earlier today: http://www.whatbizopp.com/mark-ebay/2281-make-more-money-using-weird-ebay-listings

I totally agree with Mark that this is in fact an ingenious way to generate interest in your eBay listings and definitely worth giving a try when you’ve got a bit of free time on your hands! Obviously it’s a bit time consuming to be constantly running wacky auctions but once in a while, why not give it a go!

I’ll be back with more news as usual next Friday and I’ll also let you know how my first ever eBay Workshop went!

As always I wish you the best of success,

Amanda

Here’s a simple way to increase your eBay traffic and sales without sourcing a new product…

A little while ago I discovered a really great product that I had thoroughly researched and knew would sell well on eBay UK. I sourced and listed 100 of this particular item on eBay and set my shipping terms to dispatch worldwide as I always do. This was a 10 day listing and within 3 days I had sold the lot – yes all 100 items!

But I’m not just blowing my own trumpet, there’s a reason for telling you this because the amazing thing was, that about 80% of my buyers of this product were from France and I started getting a lot of feedback in French telling me how amazing my product was!

It became pretty obvious to me from the feedback comments and the amount of French sales, that French people probably couldn’t buy this product in their own country (it wasn’t illegal by the way – it was just a kitchen gadget!). So, I ordered more stock and listed it specifically on the French eBay site – http://www.ebay.fr/  

What’s more I made sure that this time my description was written completely in French!

It always amazes me how many eBay sellers don’t bother trying to expand their sales by using this very simple method of listing on other eBay sites. It’s really not difficult and will increase your traffic and sales many times over. In fact, this is probably one of the most effective ways to build traffic and sales as I proved with my kitchen gadget.

Your eBay ID is universal which means that you can visit any eBay site in the world, log in and list your items for sale exactly as you would on eBay UK.

So to list an item on a  Buy It Now listing you’ll need to go directly to the site that you want to list on and compose your listing description as you would normally on the UK site. This is the perfect way to get your products seen in other countries if you know there is a demand for that product.

Okay, so I said that listing on other eBay sites is easy, but there are a few things that you must get right in order to get the most out of it.

There is a downside to multiple site listings in that you will have to pay for each extra listing you add, so you need to ensure that you get things right and give yourself the best chance of making sales from your extra listings.

It is important to remember that you must already have a hot product on your hands before you start to expand your listings to other eBay sites because the chances are that if it’s not selling well over here, sales won’t improve massively over there unless you are absolutely certain that your product is more in demand in certain countries compared to others!

So, once you are doing really well with a particular product on eBay UK it is time to look further afield and only then start listing on the other eBay sites. What you want to do is duplicate the amount of your current eBay UK sales so that you are literally doubling your profits, then when you add your listings to a third site, you are tripling your profits and so on.

Now, you’ll remember that earlier I said that I had listed my item in French! Well, because I did this I pulled in even more sales than the first time around simply because my listing was written in my buyers’ own language and on their own site. It was in French and in France!

Although lots of buyers from around the world do look on eBay UK, some won’t because they can’t speak English and don’t understand the descriptions or they just prefer to buy from their own country’s site. So, in listing on the French eBay site in this way I had targeted the exact people that wanted my product. They wanted, they bought!

So, how did I manage to translate my listing in to French? I am not fluent in French - or any other language for that matter – my French skills consist of the basics and I can just about get by on holiday. The same goes for my German (although I can actually ask the way to the Railway Station in German, so that’s a bit more impressive!).

So, how will you translate your listings?

Well, if you know someone who is fluent then you could call upon their skills or you might even have the skill yourself. But if not there are several translation service options that will do the job for you such as http://www.freetranslation.com which as the name suggests will translate your text for free – but beware, it’s a very rough translation and may not always make complete sense!

You can also try http://www.elance.com and advertise for a translator who you will pay to do the translation for you. Prices will vary if you use this method.

But what I really want to tell you about today is a new translation service offered through the eBay.com App Centre. It’s a one hour translation service for your eBay listings and unsurprisingly it’s called ‘One Hour Translation.’

Once you visit the site, you’ll see you have the option to translate your listing either by human or by machine.

Costs are minimal for the human version (which is likely to be much more accurate!) or you can get a free translation here:
 
https://www.onehourtranslation.com/free-translation/

And you can get an instant price quote for the paid version here:

https://www.onehourtranslation.com/bulk/custom/

This strategy is definitely worth testing out with one or two of your best selling products so that you can see just how well it will work for you, because remember that even if viewers in those other countries don’t buy the product you have listed there, they will almost certainly take a look at your eBay shop or view your other listings and may purchase one of your other products, so this is a great way to increase traffic AND overall sales at the same time.

Imagine if you had 10 products and each of those was listed on 4 different eBay sites – what an impact on your traffic and sales that would make!

As always I wish you the best of success

Amanda

Here’s an easy way to save time every day and benefit your online business too

Yes it’s the dreaded Friday the 13th today! Are you superstitious? I am just a little bit when it comes to ladders, black cats, broken mirrors and solitary magpies – anything other than that I choose to ignore, although I think you would be hard pushed to get me on a plane on Friday 13th! 

Some people are actually so terrified of Friday 13th and the fear that something awful will happen to them that they physically can’t bring themselves to leave their homes – they won’t even get out of bed - although even that could be dangerous – after all there’s always the chance of a terrifying sheet tangling incident!

Seriously, I shouldn’t laugh because the fear of Friday 13th is a genuine fear for some people – it’s even got a name – paraskevidekatriaphobic – I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce that but please have a go if you wish.
I really hope that you are not frightened of Friday 13th though, because today I want to talk to you about posting the items you sell online – this of course invariably requires a trip to the Post Office, which means leaving the house – even on Friday 13th!

Now, the reason I want to talk about postage today is because one question I get asked a lot relates to the physical posting of the items that you sell online – whether via eBay, Amazon or from your own website - and that question is this:

“If I have lots of orders to dispatch, do I have to take them to the Post Office and queue up? Surely this takes ages? Isn’t it all very time consuming, not to mention annoying for the other people behind me in the Post Office queue?”

I know the question sounds simple – maybe even trivial - but it is a genuine concern for lots of people, and rightly so. Why start a business and then waste half your morning in a queue when you could be doing much more beneficial things?

Firstly, I just want to say that, despite me giving you this tip today, you should always remember that you have as much right as anyone else to use the Post Office counter service – it doesn’t matter whether you have 1 parcel or 100 parcels – the service is there for everybody to use so please don’t worry about annoying other people. It’s not worth taking the trouble to even think about and if other people want to get in a huff then that’s their lookout not yours!

I’ve spent many a time in the past, holding the queue up, listening to the tuts and sighs coming from behind me. Personally, I let it all go over my head and that’s what you should do too.

Secondly you can actually completely avoid this whole silly scenario anyway!

How? By using online postage and more specifically by using Royal Mail’s Fast Drop service. Fast Drop is a relatively new service available when you sign up to Royal Mail’s Online Postage system that will help save you time at the Post Office when you turn up with all your orders!

You simply print your postage online then literally drop off your items at the dedicated Fast Drop counters within the Post office which saves you a whole heap of time!

There are loads of these Fast Drop branches around and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at just how many there are – especially bearing in mind that I live out in the sticks!

When I entered my post code, I discovered that there are no less than 10 Fast Drop branches within a 5 mile radius of my house, so I’m spoilt for choice! Try putting your postcode in and seeing how many there are near you…

How does it work?

It’s simple! First you need to register for Royal Mail’s Online Postage.

It’s completely free to register – all you’ll pay is the price of the stamp as you would at the Post Office.

You weigh your parcels at home, make sure you select the ‘Fast Drop’ option and add your customers email address if you want them to receive email notification about their parcel (always handy), then print your postage and stick it on your parcels!

When you print your postage you’ll see a unique Fast Drop barcode has been printed on your mail item along with the delivery address – you simply attach the address information and barcode to your item then print off the handover form that lists all the items you are posting.

Then take your items and the form to your nearest Fast Drop Post Office. Hand everything over and your items will be scanned. You and the person you are sending the item to (if you’ve added their email address) will then receive an email confirming posting by 9am the next day.

How breathtakingly simple is that?

You must remember:

The Fast Drop post by date is always the end of the next working day after you’ve bought and printed your postage so you must make sure that you post everything within 24 hours.

Also, Fast Drop branches have latest drop off times – you’ll need to check these at your local branch as times may vary.

You can use the Fast Drop service for 1st and 2nd class parcels that weigh over 100g but there are restrictions and you can’t use the service for the following:

• 1st Class and 2nd Class letters, large letters and packets under 100g
  
  
• Royal Mail services with enhanced compensation or consequential loss
  
  
• All Parcelforce Worldwide services (except Parcelforce 48 single parcels)
  
  
• Special Delivery Guaranteed Before 9am
  
  
• Airsure parcels.

So generally you’ll find that this service covers your needs and as long as you are spending more than £2.99 on postage each time, you can either set up a pre-pay account or pay with your debit or credit card. Simple! 

This service won’t cost you any extra – it will simply save you time so it’s worth registering and giving it a try.

As always I wish you the best of success,

Best Wishes,
Amanda

So, here we are already nearly a whole week in to 2012 and so I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and successful year ahead!

I hope you’ve recovered by now from New Year’s Eve and are raring to go. My girls’ will be going back to school on Monday and so normal service will resume and I will once again have time to think (until the next school holidays arrive!)

Now, as I mentioned in last weeks eletter, New Year’s Day is always very significant to me because it’s the very day, 7 years ago now, that I decided to make some changes in my life. If I hadn’t made the decision to go for it and start my own eBay business, I wouldn’t be sat here writing this to you now. What I would probably be doing would be still working for someone else, seeing even less of my family and generally plodding from one day to the next in a state of limbo.

But because I took action and made that decision, the last 7 years have been an awakening for me. I have made mistakes along the way of course, but have absolutely no regrets, which is why I urge you to push on with your dreams of a comfortable, flexible lifestyle and make 2012 the year that you embrace change just like I did. Because…I am so glad I did.

So what’s in store in 2012?

Well as far as I’m concerned, eBay will definitely remain the very best and importantly, the easiest place for you to start your own business. Where else can you start a business with very little capital, with low overheads, minimal risk and literally thousands upon thousands of ready made visitors from all over the world? eBay is a ready made starting block from which you can expand your business later on.

And actually that’s an important point here. Expansion. eBay is certainly a venue where you will make fantastic profits but you should also sell your products through other online venues as well, such as Amazon and most importantly, you should think about setting up and promoting your own stand alone niche websites. Why? Well, because multiple income streams equal multiple profits and that’s what we’re all aiming for here!

So talking of expansion, let me kick off the new year with a little piece of information I’d like to share with you regarding the Amazon site. They have recently introduced a new feature that will ultimately help you get your products further out there, get them noticed and get new people looking at them and spreading the word.

How? Well, because now you can share your Amazon product listings with your Facebook friends and also your Twitter followers with just a couple of easy clicks.

I am a great believer in the power of ‘Social Networking’ sites when it comes to product promotion and this is the perfect ‘easy way’ to utilise these sites and get your products seen by more and more people thus creating more sales and of course - more profits!

So here’s how it works. Now, when you create a listing using the ‘Sell Yours Here’ button on an Amazon product detail page, or you create or update a listing using the Manage Inventory tool in your seller account, a pair of Facebook and Twitter icons will appear on your ‘Listing Success’ page in a brand new "Tell your friends about this listing" section.

This is the section you should pay attention to and then it’s really simple. To share your listing on Facebook, simply click the Facebook icon. A pop-up window will appear asking you to log in to your Facebook account. So go ahead and do that. Once you have logged in, a description of your listing will appear. If you would like to, you can add a note to your post then when you're ready, click the ‘Share Link’ button, and the post will appear on your Facebook wall! Hey presto, all your friends will be able to see your products giving you an instant opportunity for your items to be spread through word of mouth via your friends!

It’s a very similar process for Twitter. To share your Amazon listings simply click the Twitter icon. A popup window will appear asking you to sign in to your Twitter account. When you sign in, you’ll see a pre-prepared tweet about your listing - don’t worry, you can edit this if you want to. Finally, you click the ‘Tweet’ button to publish your tweet to Twitter as you would normally.

Remember that each ‘tweet’ is like a mini blog post and will not only appear to all your followers immediately, but will also get picked up by Google and appear in Google searches – what an opportunity to reach loads of new buyers!

Don’t worry if you haven’t got a Facebook or Twitter account yet – they are both simple to set up. Just visit http://www.twitter.com and http://www.facebook.com to register.

Slowly, slowly catchy monkey!

So, by building up your eBay inventory, expanding your sales reach via other channels such as Amazon and as I’ve explained above, by using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook your online sales get the chance to steadily increase

But of course I’m not suggesting you go full steam ahead and try and do everything at once. I realise that you might feel overwhelmed with the list of things you need to do to forge ahead and make a real success of your business and as I write this I totally understand that you might be wondering exactly how you can do all these things and finally achieve your goals, but as I have always promised, I am here to help you on your journey throughout 2012 and beyond so that you’ll find things easier to manage.

I want to ensure that you know exactly how to get the best out of your online business because as I have often said, I genuinely want you to succeed.

Remember, I have been in the very position you might be in right now so I know what it’s like – the frustrations, the excitement, the mistakes and the sheer joy when you get something absolutely right and the orders come flying in.

I am constantly researching new strategies, techniques and suppliers – and as you’ll know by now, I don’t keep useful information to myself for too long!

During 2012 I will carry on telling it like it is and helping you with your online venture and I’ll also continue to show you how to expand your business and make even more profit using other venues and ventures too. There are exciting times ahead and I sincerely hope that you will be by my side this year so that you can be part of everything that’s to come…

As always, I wish you the best of success,

Amanda

Why New Years Day is always significant for me

I hope you have had an absolutely fantastic Christmas!

Once again it’s almost the start of a brand new year (it seems to come round so quickly!) and I for one am really looking forward to 2012 and I do hope you are too. I’ll keep this short because we’re all right in the middle of the festivities and I’m sure you are relaxing and having a chilled out time, but I just wanted to remind you that the arrival of a New Year is like a brand new page.

A time to start as you mean to go on, to think positive and to really go for what you want.

New Years Day is always particularly significant for me and my family because it was the very day that 7 years ago I ‘took action’ and turned my life around. It’s the anniversary of my ‘light-bulb’ moment when I decided that working for myself by utilising eBay was the way forward for me.

On January 1^st 2005 I decided that instead of continually looking for opportunity after opportunity, I would grab the one before me with both hands, even though I knew nothing about working for myself and would be starting from absolute scratch. I was determined to make it work so that I could be financially independent and spend more time with my family.

It hasn’t been easy and every step has been a learning curve for me – it still is, as eBay evolves and becomes even bigger and better. But I honestly don’t regret a single moment of my journey so far and now 7 years on I am delighted that I’ve been able to help you to do the same and become as successful as I have with your own online business!

New Year as you know is traditionally the time for New Year resolutions, fresh starts and a time to take action with plans that you might have been thinking about for some time, and as usual I’ll certainly be making a few of my own! So, if you haven’t started selling online yet, why not make 2012 the year that you go for it? Or if you have already set up your eBay business or other online venture, make 2012 the year that you give it your all and really make an effort to increase your traffic and sales.

Whatever you are doing right now, please take a moment to think about what you want. If you really want to make a change, the important thing is that you must make a decision and then take action. Don’t just think about it, actually do it. I don’t mean quitting your job or anything drastic like that – simply put something in place so that you are not in the same situation in a years time!

If you don’t do something to make the change, the change can’t happen! Get your mindset right, think positive, don’t be frightened and you will find that you will achieve all that you want to achieve and you will get the things that you deserve.

Remember, only you can do this.

So please, I am willing you to get motivated for 2012 because once you have done this you’ll start thinking in a whole new positive light! If you are truly serious about starting a successful business and working for yourself or expanding the business you already have, all you have to do is believe that you can do it – and of course you’ll have my help every step of the way.

I’ll be here as always, giving you the benefit of my own experience of online selling so that you will realise your dreams.

A very Happy New Year to you and your family!

As always I wish you the very best of success, see you in 2012,

Amanda

Merry Christmas!

As is quite normal in our house, the festive excitement has been building since early autumn and now there’s just two more sleeps to go until Santa makes his long-awaited entrance!

I’ve even purchased a bottle of Sherry and some Mince Pies especially for the occasion (even though I’m not keen on either of these things) and so we are all ready…nearly!

I’ll be having a nice break over Christmas with my family, recharging my batteries and looking forward to feeling refreshed, positive and ready to go in January. I have so many exciting things planned for 2012 that I hope you’ll join me in and I can’t wait - I hope that’s exactly how you are feeling too.

I trust your online sales have gone well throughout 2011 and especially so in the run up to Christmas and I really hope that I have given you motivation and new ideas through my weekly newsletters this year.

I have absolutely loved helping you on your road to online success this year and there’s still loads more where that came from! You can expect more helpful selling strategies and information from me in 2012 so please keep your success stories, feedback and suggestions coming in so that I can continue to provide you with exactly what you need and would like to know more about – I love hearing from you!

I know I’ve said this before, but I truly want you to succeed because it makes me happy to know that I can help you using my own experience. Remember, you are learning from someone who has actually sold online for almost 7 years and so you can really benefit from my knowledge.

Anyway, I’m keeping this short today because I know you probably have last minute preparations to make just like me, so all that remains is for me to wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas!

Enjoy yourself and as always I wish you the very best of success,

Amanda

Why you should choose the unbranded products route this Christmas…

Every day I always try and make time to have a quick browse of the Daily Mail online just so I can escape my ‘eBay Bubble’ and to catch up on what’s going on in the world. So earlier this week I was browsing online and chanced across an interesting article that was all about counterfeit products and the fact that record numbers have been seized on their way into the UK this year. One of the biggest hauls was found at Southampton docks and that was 45,000 pairs of fake UGG boots, the largest such seizure in Europe with a street value of several million pounds!

That’s really bad news for the sellers who purchased these goods with the thought that they could make a packet from unsuspecting buyers - because the importers of these goods will find that their orders are destroyed and there will certainly be no compensation – that’s money down the drain. It’s good news for buyers though because they won’t be scammed out of their hard earned cash – and in the current economic climate we all know that every hard-earned penny counts.

So with only 9 days to go, if you are in a frenzy and buying last minute Christmas presents online this year, bear in mind that the top 12 recently seized fake seized goods were:

Jo Malone scented candles

Hello Kitty jewellery box, lamp and headphones set

Beats by Dr Dre headphones

Pandora charm bracelet

GHD Precious Limited Edition Gift Set

Links of London friendship bracelet.

Mont Blanc fountain pen and rollerball pen

Little Life dinosaur animal daysack

Walt Disney complete DVD set

Cath Kidston Day bag

Bobbi Brown make-up brush set

‘Ugg’ boots

It’s a very interesting read and you can see the article in full here

Now I’ve talked about counterfeit goods before in my eletters and so you’ll know that it’s an absolute big no-no to attempt to sell these fake goods online – it’s illegal for a start and very dishonest and sooner or later you will get caught so it’s just not worth it – unfortunately though it does go on and typically on eBay and even Amazon – and sometimes the fakes are really hard to spot…

I was browsing eBay very recently and I happened to be looking at designer dresses (I won’t mention any names) for the party season. Several nice ones caught my eye – one which was in the official designer outlet on eBay plus a couple more being listed by other sellers. The one I liked the best was listed by a seller who had a feedback score of over 300 and a 99.8% feedback record. The pictures were good, the dress looked perfect close up, the seller was selling due to weight loss – no alarm bells ringing, it all looked fine to me. So, hey presto, the dress went into my ‘Watch List’ and I sat back to bide my time until I could put in a super-snipe bid as the auction was ending.

I don’t know why, but I did have a little niggle going on though and over the next few days I revisited the listing several times and couldn’t quite decide whether I really did want to bid for the dress or not. Something was stopping me. So I decided to investigate further starting with the feedback score of 99.8%. Where had the 0.2% gone and for what reason? So I crawled back through three pages of feedback before I found it…the negative comment!

‘Fake’ it screamed, accompanied by a big red dot.

And from there it didn’t take me long to notice that the seller had actually sold 9 of these designer dresses over the past few days. Looking closer I saw that the same reason for the sale had been used on each occasion – weight loss – nothing extraordinary about that in normal circumstances…. but the hilarious thing about it and the thing that had me shaking my head in disbelief was that each of those 9 dresses was a different size – ranging from a size 8 to a 14. Now either this seller has got a serious yo-yo weight problem going on or there was something fishy here!

I plumped for the latter explanation!

So you see, even seasoned eBayer’s like myself can almost get taken in!

It’s not all bad news though! Everything you’ve just read above is easily avoided if on the buying side you always check the seller’s feedback thoroughly and on the selling side if you follow my strategy of selling unbranded goods online rather than trying to get into designer markets.

The key is to sell ‘similar but better’

There are far more advantages to selling unbranded products (which I will explain in just a moment) than there are if you go down the ‘branded’ route. Of course if you really want to sell ‘branded or designer’ then please do feel free, but make sure you’ve sourced the real thing! I always concentrate on un-branded products for eBay selling and my home study courses deal mostly with un-branded products with a little bit of branded thrown in!

If you really want to make a proper income using eBay then you need to find some hot products that you can source easily and at the best price and list correctly that will then give you an income almost on auto-pilot with no hassle and this is where selling un-branded products comes in to it’s own. ‘Unbranded’ products are generic items that you can source and sell that come with no brand name or at the most just a number, so your un-branded product might have packaging that says: Digital Photo Frame HS-2087 - just what it is and then a kind of product reference number.

So, what’s so great about that? Well, to start with, all manner of un-branded products can be sourced from almost anywhere in the world at extremely competitive prices. I’m talking about MP3 Players to Digital Cameras, Beauty Products to Car Accessories, Baby Clothes to Pet Products. Anything goes and you should be considering China and the USA particularly as suppliers of these items. Unlike when you are sourcing branded or designer goods from China, you will find that you will get excellent prices, quality products and obviously you have not got the worry about counterfeit goods.

The great thing about un-branded products is that buyers cannot easily compare like for like and this is a huge advantage for you as it means you remain competitive at all times with whatever product you are selling. Contrary to popular belief, not all eBay buyers are looking on the site for designer or branded bargains. Yes, of course many people do visit eBay to specifically search for that must have SuperDry jacket or the latest Apple iPod or whatever, but many more just want to find the item they want at a good price and that’s where un-branded products do well.

You will also discover that there are no listing restrictions on un-branded products either. You can list as many un-branded items as you like in as many different niches as you like, another immediate advantage for you!

So just to summarise; if you choose the unbranded products route:

• You will have a wider product choice
• You will find better wholesale pricing
• You will encounter a larger number of suppliers
• You will have less competition on eBay
• You will not encounter any selling restrictions
• You will not have to deal with VERO restrictions
• You will always know that you have the genuine article

Like I have said, I have absolutely nothing against selling branded or designer goods on eBay and if you choose to do so that is your decision, but un-branded is my main chosen route and it continues to consistently bring in the profits and so that is why I believe that it is a sure-fire way to success.

As always I wish you the very best of success,

Amanda